Yesterday, I got an email from Amazon, letting me know that my Prime card* would now get me 5% back at Whole Foods. What strikes me as interesting about the marriage of Amazon and Whole Foods is how Amazon is using Whole Foods as a unique beachhead in its rapid assault on other retail incumbents. … Continue reading Organic Foods. Prime Benefits.
I go through the punches, 4, 9, GROC, TOT — it’s more complicated than you think, and after you do it often enough, it begins to make a lttle song, that you hear words to, in my case “Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)”-the splat being the drawer flying out. — A&P, John … Continue reading Where Do We (Amazon) Go From Here?
The other day, I left the house and went on an invigorating ten-mile run. I log my runs pretty religiously – usually on MapMyRun, though that day I happened to use Strava – and have kept a close watch on my mileage since I started seriously running in 2013. And so I know with certainty that … Continue reading 4,000 Miles
Fast Company ran an article yesterday on how the gourmet food magazine Bon Appetit shot its entire March issue on iPhones. The magazine’s creative director, Alex Grossman, observed: I’m not going to say we were making fun of ourselves as we did it, but so rarely, in making a magazine, does it mimic real life. I’m … Continue reading Good Enough
The real reason that ignited my recent passion for Sous Vide was seeing Chef John’s recipe for duck breast right as I was wondering what to do with the Grow and Behold duck breast in my freezer. Not only did he make it look easy without any expensive equipment, but the finished product looks so amazing that you just have to check out the video yourself. I’ll wait..
Continue reading “Sous Vide Cooking: Duck Breast with Raspberry Sauce”
While we haven’t spoken about sous-vide cooking on this blog before, it has been on my mind for years. If you’ve never heard of it, Sous Vide is a method of cooking sealed food in a temperature controlled water bath, letting it slowly rise up to its desired serving temperature. It is one of the main weapons of the precision cooking movement where instead of asking if you want that steak medium rare or medium, they might ask if you’d like it at 125 or 130 degrees. Furthermore this method allows for cooking that is much more even, such that the food is not only perfectly cooked in the center and well done on the edges but consistent throughout. The last and most important feature of sous vide is that it completely removes the stress/guessing involved in cooking food to desired temperatures.
Check out this super simple recipe for corned beef that will impress your friends! Chef John over at Foodwishes has really done a great job with this recipe. It has that same corned beef that you love, but with a built in side dish! Warning: Gratuitous picture after the break…
The Wall Street Journal has a quick rundown of Starbucks’s newish effort to expand its offerings to include wine and tasting plates, in a subtly-named initiative called “Starbucks Evenings.” I’m not sure whether or not this effort will pan out, but I suspect that it will see modest success. In my entirely informal polling, many coffee drinkers … Continue reading From Beans to Beaujolais
Having just traveled to the stellar A. Smith Bowman Bourbon Distillery in Fresericksburg, VA, I found it pretty serendipitous that I was shown the below ad by Knob Creek. It’s fascinating to see Airbnb used as a sort of platform for an experience, rather than merely a hotel replacement. Sure, the tent near the brewery … Continue reading Distilling Experiences
Starbucks has made it its business to partner with lots of tech companies – Uber, Spotify, The New York Times – and the most recent addition to that list is Lyft, the popular ride-sharing service. I think this partnership – along with Starbucks’s other deals – represents a new kind of dominance for the brand. In the 1990s … Continue reading Another Coffee for the Road
Silicon Spatula 