By Kevin Finch on September 1, 2009
I couldn’t live on bread alone. Throw in a wheel of cheese now and then and… maybe. Make that cheese a triple cream and include a few bottles of wine and we are close to a party even if the nutritionists might have a cow but refuse to allow it to participate.
Yesterday I discovered I have a new favorite triple cream from New York: Yancy’s Fancy Bergenost. I’d like to pretend I picked up my wedge at the factory in Corfu, but I didn’t. They were sampling a number of flavored cheeses at Costco this past week.
Everyone else seem to be hovering around the smoked gouda and jalapeño and hot wasabi horseradish. That was fine with me. It left the other end of the table with its natural Bergenost wide open.
If you like futsy flavors in your cheese, good for you, but don’t send me samples at Christmas and expect an effusive thank you. Send me instead a wedge or two of Bergenost and the story will be quite different.
Posted in culture | Tagged Bergenost, cheese, Corfu NY, Costco, flavored cheese, triple cream, Yancy's Fancy |
By Kevin Finch on August 31, 2009
The last time I was driving through Vancouver WA I went out of my way to find a Burgerville location. I was hungry (not all that surprising), but I specifically sought out Burgerville because of all I’d heard about how the company cares… for its customers, for the environment, and for its employees. For a number of years the company has purchased premium ingredients and they try to celebrate local foods.
After a visit I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fast food chain with a more obvious commitment to minimizing their environmental impact. Clearly this makes for great marketing in the current cultural climate that celebrates all things green, but I believe Burgerville decided they cared before it was a marketing home-run.
Then today I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal praising Burgerville for not only offering health care to their employees, but for paying 90% of the premiums for any employee working 20 hours or more a week. This doubled the cost to the company of their health insurance in 2005, but the company feels the end result has been great for employees and also positive for their bottom line.
The Wall Street Journal article notes that fewer than half of restaurant chains report that they provide any kind of health insurance and those that do typically pay less than half of the premium costs and limit enrollment to only employees working more than 30 hours a week. Given this, Burgerville’s choice is that much more striking.
The impact has been equally striking. Typically, very few restaurant employees enroll in company health plans even if they are offered. This is due to the prohibitive cost of the plans even when the company kicks in half the money. Burgerville before the change typified this generalization. Only 3% of their hourly workers were enrolled in the company plan. Contrast this to now. Today 98% of the hourly workers and 97% of the salaried employees have opted into the plan.
Equally striking is the apparent direct link to employee retention. In 2005, Burgerville’s employee turnover was 128%. In 2006, after the company chose to cover 90% of the premiums, the turnover rate plummeted to 54%.
Overall sales and average ticket prices both increased at the same time. While it might be simplistic to suggest that this was only due to the gutsy move in health care, it seems reasonable to suggest that this move contributed to both increases.
This probably means there will be plenty of Walla Walla onion rings waiting for me next time I’m in the Portland/Vancouver area along with a burger made from beef that is 100% antibiotic and hormone free.
Posted in culture, dining, travel | Tagged burgers, Burgerville, Burgerville USA, employee retention, employee turnover, fast food, fast food industry, heath insurance, local food, onion rings, Portland OR, sustainable food, Vancouver WA, Wall Street Journal article, Walla Walla onions |
By Kevin Finch on August 25, 2009
Kalispell MT: Some of my favorite English authors met regularly in an Oxford pub. It seems that the western equivalent of such a meeting would take place in an old saloon. And instead of asking for a pint, you should order a pitcher of beer and the barkeep would slide it across the bar full enough that a bit sloshes out.
In my western recreation of literary community, the mugs should be so cold that a little of the foam around the edge of your first glass turns to ice.
Since it is a saloon, it should be dark. Any picture would turn out grainy and washed out, and ideally there would be sawdust on the floor and years of names carved into your table in the corner.
The author in question this past weekend was Leif Peterson rather than Lewis or Tolkien or Williams, and you’ll find both his short stories (Normal Like Us) and his first published novel (Catherine Wheels) compelling and full of memorable characters that will stick with you long after you’ve met them on the page. Leif writes the kind of people who you want to meet and talk with, people who would invariably have something worthwhile to say. Not all of them would make great friends, but almost every one would be a good bet for conversation at a party and a few are guaranteed to make the night unforgettable.
The beer, by the way, was Beltian White from Harvest Moon in Belt MT. And the bar? Any of you who know Montana can probably guess.
Posted in culture, drinks | Tagged author, beer, Belgian ale, Belt MT, Beltian White, Catherine Wheels, great fiction, Harvest Moon Brewing Company, Inklings, Leif Peterson, Normal Like Us, novel, Oxford, short stories |
By Kevin Finch on August 21, 2009
St. Regis Travel Center Edition: Western Montana travel kitsch seems to lean heavily on huckleberries and outhouses for the local items, but a number of more generic items also caught my eye in the food-related kitsch category. Weigh in with which of the items you think should take top honors.
Entry #1: “Chili Makins” that claim to not to contribute to global warm or ozone depletion.
Entry #2: Silicone bakeware with a conscience. “Let them eat cake” takes on new meaning.
Entry #3: Ice cube nostagia for the early video game addict.
Entry #4: Possibly the strangest of the items in the expansive local huckleberry line-up.
Entry #5: For the butter challenged who appreciate single season, single action gadgets, comes the Butter Boy. I believe it runs on ethanol.
Entry #6: When just a state-branded shot glass won’t do, go for the one with the miniature bear camped inside.
Entry #7: The Celene Dion soundtrack is optional.
And our final St. Regis Travel Center entry, #8: The moose-chugger bottle holder.
Your votes please.
Posted in culture, drinks, kitsch, travel | Tagged Butter Boy, coffee, Gin & Titonic, huckleberries, Ice Invaders, Montana, outhouse, Peace of Cake, St Regis, travel kitsch, western Montana |
By Kevin Finch on August 19, 2009
I’m not a rabid reality show fan. In fact, most of the reality show phenomenon makes me groan and remember why I like books. More thought. No need to BLEEP every third word. Characters I actually like.
That said, I have watched a fair amount of Top Chef. For one we actual got Bravo with our minimum cable package until the world went HD. Two, I am somewhat obsessed with food. Hell’s Kitchen strikes me as idiotic… an excuse for the notoriously short-tempered Gordon Ramsey to scream and humiliate aspiring chefs. But Top Chef takes a somewhat less brutal approach and can be entertaining to watch.
This season of Top Chef, which aired its first episode tonight, is filmed in Las Vegas and features two Seattle chefs, Ashley Merriman and Robin Leventhal. Score two for the Northwest. Yet the way I heard about the new season line-up was in a email from Kevin Gillespie, the executive chef at the Woodfire Grill in Atlanta.
I met Kevin during his brief stint here in Spokane. He came to town to take the helm at Luna only to have that position not work out… quite definitively. Then while deciding on his next big move (back to Atlanta) he logged some kitchen time at Bin 98 Twenty up on north Nevada.
We met at Quillisascut Farm in February of 2008 during a weekend when local chefs gathered to talk about developing a sustainable local food system.
He and his wife later helped out on a restaurant review locally before they moved back home to Atlanta. I hadn’t heard from him until about a month ago when he sent me a note about his upcoming Top Chef appearance.
So tonight we headed over to friends who still get Bravo to watch episode one. It will air again next Wednesday night so I’ll not give a blow by blow, but let me say this much: Gillespie gets some significant air time and puts it to good use.
Posted in culture, dining | Tagged Ashley Merriman, Atlanta, Bin 98 Twenty, Bravo, Gordon Ramsey, Hell's Kitchen, Kevin Gillespie, Las Vegas, Luna, Quillisascut, Quillisascut Farm, reality TV, Robin Leventhal, Seattle chefs, Top Chef, Top Chef Las Vegas, Top Chef Season Six, Woodfire Grill, Woodfire Grill Atlanta |
By Kevin Finch on August 10, 2009
I’m not quite sure what has happened this year: free tickets to Mariner’s games three times in four months. Tonight it the tickets were even Suite tickets.
This meant FREE food and drinks throughout the game.
But I also had a mission. After my recent Ivardog encounter I felt it imperative that I try the iconic sushi of the stadium: the Ichiroll.
$9 behind home plate buys you eight pieces of what is essentially is a spicy tuna roll with matchstick cucumber thrown in for good measure. I’ve definitely had worse sushi, but that faint praise. Our sixth inning sample was better than most supermarket rolls, but only barely. It was dominated by an extra wasabi kick that took the spicy level up to the point that it was hard to taste the fish. The rice was also gummy.
I love the IDEA of the Ichiroll as well as the name, but the execution significant room for improvement. So far the Ivardog is clear front-runner in the Safeco Field concessions smack-down. Yet I did get a tip via Facebook that the Kidd Valley hamburger from a stand out behind left field needs to be tried before an overall winner is selected. I guess this means another visit to the ballpark.
Posted in culture, dining | Tagged baseball food, Ichiroll, Ivardog, Kidd Valley, Mariners, Northwest restaurants, Safeco Field, Seattle restaurants, Seattle WA, spicy tuna roll |
By Kevin Finch on August 1, 2009
I have a backlog of blog posts going back into May that include experiences in New England and New York as well as in some of my favorite spots in the Northwest: Oregon’s Williamette Valley, Portland, and Seattle. Yet moving to the front of the line last night was my first taste of frog.
Snails are old hat. Ate them. Like them.
But frog legs are in a culinary corner all their own and far from ubiquitous on menus in the Northwest… or anywhere else I’ve been in the last few years including China. I associate them almost exclusively with high French cuisine, but they appeared unexpectedly in among the appetizers at Syringa in Coeur d’Alene last night.
Not that Viljo Basso is your typical chef/owner of a Japanese restaurant. His name alone is hardly what you’d expect for the proprietor of an Asian establishment, and the truth is that his culinary training is both in classical French and Japanese cooking. This might explain another appetizer on Syringa’s menu: beef tongue. Like the frog legs, tongue is not normally a headliner for a Japanese restaurant… at least in this country. Neither are frog legs, but there they were just above the potstickers, poké, and tempura.
Some combination of curiosity and bravado spurred me to order them. Our server, Sara, said “They taste like chicken.”
Not so much. The texture of the meat is certainly reminiscent of stringy chicken, but the flavor of those we tried last night is almost all fish. Blythe Thimsen, my editor at Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living, announced that “they taste like cod” and declined the offer of a second leg. I don’t blame her; the curious texture/flavor disconnect is a bit disconcerting.
I worked my way through three, partly just to prove I could, but don’t feel the need to order them again anytime soon. Much of this is mental: in addition to the texture/flavor issue there is also the visual effect.
Frog legs look like chicken legs stretched out on some medieval torture device, and they somehow give the impression of being more like the parts of an animal that they are and less like something we recognize as food. This reaction would most likely go away if frog legs were served more often, but they’re not. And, as such, they will probably remain little more than a Francophile favorite for quite some time to come.
Posted in culture, dining | Tagged beef tongue, Blythe Thimsen, chicken wings, Coeur d'Alene, escargot, food challenges, Francophile, frog, frog legs, Inland Northwest, Inland Northwest restaurants, restaurant, shrimp tempura, Spokane Coeur d'Alene Living, Syringa, Viljo Basso |
By Kevin Finch on July 29, 2009
I met Boka’s Executive Chef Angie Roberts this weekend in Oregon and after a taste of her amped up breakfast hash, I was very interested to find my way into her restaurant in Seattle soon afterwards. Last night on the back end of a Mariner’s game (we left BEFORE Ichiro’s game winning hit at the bottom of the 9th) we stopped by Boka’s sleek space in Hotel 1000 for appetizers and dessert.
But first the space…
Near the center of the room is a stand of glass bamboo. Equally striking are the walls in the back reaches of the dining room: they gradually change color throughout the evening. Our server said these transformations are programmed along certain themes such as “sunset colors” but confessed that she didn’t know what the current for the night might be. Whatever it was, it included a cool blue and a blood red along with white and purple. Maybe the theme for the night was Patriotic Eggplant.
I seriously doubt I would ever be inspired to decorate my home to look like a cocktail lounge lifted out of the Jetsons, but it Boka’s version is a great spot to spend a few hours. Good food certainly helps, and Boka throws in the food righteousness factor with a menu that is upwards of 75% organic and as local as possible. Expect individual farm names on most of the dishes on the menu.
We opted for an heirloom tomato salad with fruit grown on Billy Alsott’s farm and a small plate of of goat cheese gnocchi served with smoked tomatoes (excellent), porcini mushrooms (meaty), toasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan cheese. I was enjoying myself and quite full before Sous Chef Andrew Pritchard appeared with the most memorable dish of the night: a selection from the brand new dessert menu.
It is listed under a somewhat confusing name,”easy like sunday mornin’, but don’t let a little menu camouflage get in your way. Megan start to eat while I talked with Pritchard, and I should have known that something was amiss when she didn’t stop. Just seconds before Pritchard arrived at the table, she had said with conviction that she couldn’t eat another bite.
Easy like Sunday morning’ is technically a sundae, but unlike any I’ve encounter in recent memory. Put together a remarkable graham cracker ice cream with a huge pillow of house-made marshmallow skewered on a stick of sugar cane and suspended over the bowl with a tiny pitcher of hot fudge sauce on the side. I may not be able to eat another s’more again with thinking of Boka and beginning to weep silently. Okay… that might be a bit melodramatic, but it truly was a treat… so much so that I completely forgot to pull out the camera until we’d almost destroyed it entirely.
Posted in culture, dining, travel | Tagged Andrew Pritchard, Angie Roberts, Boka, gnocchi, graham cracker ice cream, Hotel 1000, Ichiro, Jetsons, Mariners, marshmallow, Northwest restaurants, organic, s'more, Seattle restaurants, Seattle WA, sundae |
By Kevin Finch on July 28, 2009
Seattle WA: Walking up First Avenue tonight I noticed an apparently unplanned billboard combination that suggests something quite unintended, but entertaining.
Maybe we need to add a warning: don’t drink and text.
Posted in culture, drinks | Tagged AT&T, billboards, Bud Light, drinkability, irony |
By Kevin Finch on July 23, 2009
Thursday: Today in the kitchen at the International Pinot Noir Celebration is both a ramp up to a weekend of fine dining and a reunion as the kitchen crew alumni arrive with their knife kits and chef whites. Preparation begins for meals throughout the weekend and the first headliner chefs arrive to work. Chef Mark Hosack hands out kitchen assignments as people arrive:
Snap these beans.
Zest these limes.
Shuck this corn.
Pit these olives.
Do whatever Chef Priest asks.
Press these tortillas.
Cook that octopus.
Bias cut this celery for a potato salad.
Other chefs filter in: those with their names in the weekend’s program next to the course at one of the lunches or dinners that they will prepare… often with our help. More prep tasks are handed out.
My intimate companions for the day were yellow beans, limes (and my Microplane), olives, four types of beans for a salad, and Mexican chocolate for Molly’s Mole.
The theme for the staff dinner tonight is Mexican and Molly Priest is in charge, and her instructions to me as I incorporate the chocolate at the end is definitive: “Don’t waste a drop. That stuff is gold.”
I take just a nip once the chocolate is melted it. It doesn’t look like gold, but I agree. It is.
This is only my second year, but in addition to plenty of work, the kitchen is also full of welcome smiles. I suspect it is the smiles as much as anything that keeps the crew coming back: smiles, some great Pinot, and time working alongside some of the most creative culinary figures in the Northwest.
[caption id="attachment_584" align="alignnone" width="550" caption="Melissa has a great smile..."]
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Posted in culture, travel | Tagged celery, International Pinot Noir Celebration, IPNC, kitchen crew, Mark Hosack, Melissa Williams, Mexican food, mole, Molly Priest |
By Kevin Finch on July 22, 2009
Last year a friend who calls herself a “chef and food wrangler” invited me to spend four days working in the campus kitchen for Linfield College alongside some of the best chefs from around the Northwest. “We don’t pay you, but we give you room and board. The wine is not bad, and you’ll get to meet some amazing chefs.”
I went. The event is called the International Pinot Noir Festival and for the better part of the week each summer the IPNC folks take over the college in the heart of Oregon’s Williamette Valley. The wine is excellent and the food is as well.
Today I’m headed back for more 10 hour days in a hot kitchen for no pay and I’m looking forward to it. My friend describes it as “summer camp for chefs” and most of the other volunteers in the kitchen (who actually are chefs in their own right) agree. They keep coming back because it is fun.
Last year I kept a running record in pictures of the bottle bin in the back. I might do so again. Over the course of the long weekend it goes from empty to overflowing.
Posted in culture, dining, play, travel, wine | Tagged Ann Nisbet, International Pinot Noir Celebration, IPNC, McMinnville OR, Northwest chefs, Oregon wine, pinot noir, Williamette Valley, wine |
By Kevin Finch on July 14, 2009
Last Friday the urge for a maple bar from the Donut Parade overwhelmed any more measured reflection on how to start the day right with fruits and fiber. It would be a morning for some of the best carbs and sugar on the continent.
I gathered up the three kids in the house at the moment (my daughter, one of my twin sons, and his friend that we affectionately refer to as ‘not my son’) and headed from Hamilton and Illinois just north of Gonzaga to order a dozen maple bars and donuts and four glasses of milk. The milk is critical for true donut delight.
Yet another part of the Donut Parade perfection is the place. It is frozen in time (circa 1950) and every hard-to-reach corner is covered by a quarter century of fine fryer grease that should preserve it for all eternity. Our turquiose vinyl booth has a tear in the seat mended with duct tape. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Friday’s visit also reminded me of how much I love the old diner counter and line of chrome stools facing the kitchen. Invariably, the line is occupied by neighborhood regulars nursing a cup of coffee, reading the paper, and discussing the sad state of the world over a plate of the sacred maple bars.
I’m sure the faces at the counter change depending on when you come during the morning, but the stools are almost always filled and all their occupants appear to have been here before.
Posted in culture, dining | Tagged diner counter, donut, Donut Parade, donuts, Gonzaga, Gonzaga University, maple bar, maple bars, milk and donuts, Spokane, Spokane restaurants, Spokane WA, stool |
