Peeled Skinny

So did you watch Superbowl #44?  What did you eat while watching?  Peeled Skinny used the opportunity to eat Pizza (BAD Pizza, whose brand shall remain unnamed to protect the innocent) and drink beer, and, thankfully, NOT eat eggs.  Why not?  Because were I to have eaten eggs during the Superbowl, a certain very expensive commercial would have made me seriously ralph.

In the commercial, we see a chicken whispering to another chicken spreading some news, and the listening chicken shrieking in horror.  The news gets passed around, with chicken after chicken shrieking, till it even gets up to the president (a WHITE chicken president, I might add), who too shrieks.  Then we learn the news: Denny's is giving free grand-slam breakfasts on Tuesday the 9th, and they'll be needing LOTS of eggs!

How do you say "yuck" in chicken-speak?

Living in New York, I don't have to rely on Denny's (we have diners everywhere), but I certainly bare no ill-will to them.  When traveling I often eat there, and in general see Denny's as a success- they've found their way into many people's lives in a good way, and if they clog the occasional artery, they never pretend that their food will do otherwise.

And this commercial certainly has a joke to it, backed by production values that sell the message.  How ironic, though, that the clip's "message" (about chickens' unborn chicks being eaten en-mass by free-loading restaurant-goers) debuted the same year that the people in charge of the Super Bowl ads see fit to air a pro-life commercial.  Did the Denny's people collude at all with the "Focus-on-the-Family" people?  We suspect not.

The idea of the commercial, though, perversely mirrors the horror that we should all be feeling at our food industry.  How many eggs does it take for Denny's to pull this promotion off?  Well, apparently a nearly genocidal amount, enough that the President thinks about reaching for "the button".  The chicken horror should be shared, the commercial says, because we all know what it's like to have our children gobbled up with lines out the door.  For FREE, no less.  Or, if we don't know what that's like, we CAN at least LAUGH about it....

For Denny's to have used such imagery in a SUPER BOWL commercial is beyond post-modern.  It's a commercial analyzing people's horrified reaction at industrialized food, being analyzed by the industrialized food purveyors, who then turn it into a joke accentuating the horror, and magnifying it to a campy and WAY over-the-top degree.  It's Andy Warhol meets Albert Camus meets Ridley Scott, by way of the after-after-partiers at a Tea-Party convention.  It's pure genius, and purely sick.

I only wish I'd thought of it first.  Maybe Peeled Snacks could do a commercial like it, only instead of chickens we'd have Mango trees screaming in horror.  Hmmm.... maybe not.  Hope you enjoyed the Saints' victory as much as I did,

Ian K, Peeled Skinny and with a miserable post-Super Bowl tummy

Posted by iankusc at 03:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

So this past week Peeled Snacks snuck over to San Francisco for this year's Winter Fancy Food Show.  We passed on the show last year, so we felt a little odd going this year, as if we were going to the sequel of a movie that we'd missed.  But go we did, and were pleased with the reception that we had, especially since we recently launched in....

Yup, Peeled Snacks is now available coast to coast (and in Canada) at a little coffee shop that you might have heard of named Starbucks.  This has been in the works for some time, but we've kept it under wraps because, a: you never know, b: we could hardly believe it, and c: to not do so would be distasteful.  But now the cat is out of the bag (the "grounds are out of the filter"?), and we were pleased to share the information at the Fancy Food Show.

The Fancy Food Show in San Francisco isn't nearly as large as either the New York Fancy Food Show or March's Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, but that cuter size makes for a more intimate, less stressful show.  We got to meet plenty of buyers, make impressions with OODLES of consumers, and (most fun) meet up with buddy companies and compare notes.  I tasted some great new products, like our buddies' at Sahale's new biscotti, and Vosges newest, frightfully delicious ice cream variety (Red Fire?  Oh BURN me, baby, BURN me!)...

But frankly, the show boasted no amazing trend that I just HAVE to report.  There wasn't all the honey from the 2009 New York show, nor the SUPER FRUITS of the year before, and while, sure, there was plenty of new tea companies, there still wasn't anyone that was going to take down Ineeka for the tastiest brews around.  I don't understand why they bother.

The only trend to speak of is that there were many more vendors looking to sell their wares.  I suppose that's just a factor of the "economy" and all, but I did see plenty of vendors marketing themselves with "Green" and "Socially Responsible".  If the words on the business cards represent reality, then THAT'S a trend to brag about.  Maybe something good will come from this recession after all.

One last note about Starbucks: they've been great to work with, but their version of "Green" and "Socially Responsible" is at such a high standard that it puts even Peeled Snacks' standards to shame (no easy feat, that).  They're inspired us to ramp up even further our efforts to buy from sustainable sources and practice business that we can all be proud of. 

It turns out that all the press about their efforts isn't just bull- they MEAN it, and they just might be helping to make a better world because of it.  Sometimes I get cynical about the marketing of such efforts, but I'm pleased to find Starbucks practicing MORE than they preach.  That's a trend the don't brag about as much as they could.  And Peeled Skinny thinks that's pretty cool.

Keep Peeling,

Ian, Peeled Skinny, from back on the East Coast, PHEW!!!

Posted by iankusc at 12:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Peeled Snacks' international headquarters is located in a rather nice neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York called Park Slope.  Park Slope looks like Sesame Street, has the cuisine of Manhattan, and has the politics of San Francisco.  Park Slope has great live music, a fantastic food coop, and two very credible Farmer's Markets.  It also now has chicken that you can spy on.

 Park Slope's grocery stores have the usual range of food available, from whatever slop Chef Boy-R-D is slinging to a growing smattering of organic produce.  Bit by bit, Organic Meat has been sneaking in, but Organic meat is tricky- just because it's organic doesn't mean that the animal was humanely raised, or fed an appropriate diet (as in the case of organic beef, which can be fed organic corn, which cows are NOT supposed to eat).

But our local grocery stores are now offering Murray's family farmed chicken, a delightfully affordable meat option that promises a bunch of things for which Peeled Snacks is always looking- no hormones; family farmed; free ranged.  And now Murray's is offering a BONUS: all their packs have a code by which you can use the internet to learn about your chicken!  How accountable is THAT?!?!

Unfortunately, it's not quite as accountable as I might like- I used Murray's website to track my latest chicken dinner and learned not specifically about the chicken but rather the chicken's farm of origin, and really only a map telling me where the farm is.  But at least it's a start.  At least it's a first step for a company that has the power to feed a lot of people to show some genuine accountability and concern for the quality of what they sell.

As a trend, this step by Murray's represents a great opportunity for food manufacturers to turn accountability into marketing.  If a company is proud about what they're selling, they can use packaging and the internet to brag about their goods, and help inform their consumers who'll likely come back for more.  Such steps can also make lower quality competitors look like chumps.

Hopefully Peeled Snacks can soon follow Murray's example- we know all the farms where we get our yummy ingredients, and we have a LOT to brag about.  We'll work on being able to show off to you what you're eating.  That'll be fun.

Coming soon: Peeled Snacks' best kept secret REVEALED!

Peeled Skinny sincerely hopes that you're having a great start to your decade.  Happy Snacking,

Ian K, Peeled Skinny

Posted by iankusc at 10:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Peeled Snacks offers a clearly vegetarian (and Vegan) snack, but we're not a vegetarian company.  Obviously, everybody here eats their veggies, and many of us (myself included) have been off-and-on Vegetarians (I, currently, am OFF).  But we all also respect what Meat can do to the diet, and since seeing "Food Inc." this summer, we've all become much more aware of how our meat is sourced.  So there's no disrespect for "Vegesauruses" around here, nor for "Carnisauruses" either.

Let's assume as axiomatic that there's room for improvement in the meat industry (if you doubt, just see "Food inc.").  But allow me to make the argument that there's room for improvement in the world of vegetarian cuisine.  Tofu, sorry, just ain't that good unless VERY well prepared, and seitan, as much as I love it, turns out to be pretty terrible for you.  Try flavoring vegetables to meet all tastes and usually you'll fail, and, though I love them, most folk out there HATE beans.

But there IS good Vegetarian food out there, if you're willing to look (or, more often, cook it yourself), though a dilemma for Vegetarians is how difficult such things are to find.  Yesterday evening, though, I stumbled across an attempt at creating some good, CONVENIENT vegetarian food, and the results were, to my taste, mostly satisfying.  I stumbled across "Maoz".

For full disclosure's sake: while I was a "mostly vegesaurus" I luckily traveled through the Middle East and found a place to consistently get affordable Veggie vittles: bus stations.  Inevitably at a bus stop in, say Jordan, you'll find a falafel stand, and I'll put the quality of the grimiest Jordanian bus stop Falafel stand up against any American restaurant option any day.  I am clearly not alone.

Maoz seems to ape that Middle Eastern fast-food experience, and it does so with at least a cleaner presence than your average Jordanian bus stop.  All that Maoz really sells is falafel in a pita, with a "fixins bar" full of a menagerie of salads, plus fries for a little extra.  The "fixins" were all fresh and tasty (taboula? good.  Chick peas? good.  Beets?  YUM!  Sun dried tomatoes? uh....), and with fries the meal came out to more than I could eat.

It also (unfortunately) came out to more than I would usually want to spend: a vegetarian quasi-"happy meal" ran me $9.25, and this place was 3 doors down from a McDonalds where that much money might have fed a family of 4.  But Maoz isn't likely to give me a heart attack any time soon.  And I suspect that my falafel was fresh, fresh, fresh.  It's been a long time since I ate at McDonald's (since July 29th, 2006, in fact), but I'm pretty sure what I ate then wasn't NEARLY as fresh as my Maoz meal.

So here's a good, fresh, well located fast-food Vegetarian option to consider.  I've had better falafel, but not in the States, and I've certainly paid less for a meal, but not too much.  At Peeled Snacks we're always looking for new trends, and this over-fed, under-nourished country could certainly use a fast-vegetarian-food fad to shake things up.  Anybody know of any other contenders?  Where do YOU go for Vegetarian Vittles?

Hungry tummies want to know,

Peeled Skinny

Posted by iankusc at 04:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)