More Presentations / Food Cost

Before we started more student presentations, we rocked out an In the News Segment. Maria, she of the blackened spices presentation yesterday, led with an article from Newsday about the Larkfield Manor in East Northport. More than half of 100 guests at a Sweet 16 party became ill the day after the party. They also ate food at the kid's house, but then the next day more people became ill from a bar mitzvah held there. Before the 2nd round of sickness, the owner's response was: "Well, I eat here every day and I never get sick." His arrogance is adding up to a business killer.

George Martin Steakhouses are opening up a number of locations along the Long Island Rail Road. This led to a discussion of the history of the diner, originally a series of decommissioned railroad dining cars that were set up to continue serving at railway stations. When a train would pull up, people could run out, get a quick meal to take away, and get back on the train. Voila: the first fast-food restaurant. From this twist in history, diners continued to be built in the long, narrow 'railroad style' after the supply of old dining cars dried up.

The Times dining section on Wednesday was all about the economy. Two big articles are about cheaper, alternate cuts of meat . The first: The Beef Checkoff Council spent a million and a half dollars to figure out the "Denver Steak," a distant cousin of the NY Strip. Bruni didn't do a proper review but line-listed a bunch of upscale restaurants playing with their menus to accommodate tighter wallets. Next, in Chicago, an Alderman is objecting to a crime-themed hot dog stand, "Felony Franks", which is to be run solely by ex-cons. With historically high crime rates on the West Side, the publicity-seeking politician thinks "The Home of the Misdemeanor Wiener" is inappropriate. All publicity is good publicity for all involved.

Finally, there was in article about the worst restaurant food for kids. Fact is that 50% of all American kids are either overweight or obese (and 15% are at risk for becoming obese). A few figures to keep in mind: A small adult woman needs about 2,000 calories per day; an Au Bon Pain's "kid's"grilled cheese sandwich is 670 calories and Baskin Ronbin's kid-size M&M shake is 980 calories. Thank you to the Bloomberg administration for forcing chains and big operations to post calorie counts clearly in NYC! Just the other day, I was desiring an Icee at a movie theater. A medium was only fifty cents less than a large, but the medium was 475 calories and the large was almost 900 calories, so regardless of the price silliness, I went for the smaller one. I look forward to having the information to teach my child how to eat around a menu smartly and healthfully.

We quickly moved into more student presentations, with U.K. Sara giving an amusing talk on basil, which concluded with references to Basil Faulty and Basil Brush, a rather rude puppet character from an English kid's TV show. Valle Powerpointed an overview of goat meat, Zach had an attractive PPT on sugar (but he simply read all the text on the screen, rather than actually presenting his material in an original way).



We moved on to food costing, but not before Richard brought up a picture I sent him from my cell phone: A posting in the front door of Rice to Riches on Spring Street, which is looking for staff -- despite the rather blunt assessment of how horrible the work is!

We worked on some sample recipe cards, including a butcher test card (which accounts for different cuts of a large piece), and the market value of the different pieces....as well as the useless trim (i.e., what is lost in the cutting and/or discounted). It's pretty straightforward once you get over the measurement conversion (pounds to ounces! liters to cups!).