So we just wrapped up our 4th Summer Fancy Food Show, and for better or worse we come out with many new deals in the works.  Definitely it's for better because new deals for good food really help everybody.  You might call it for worse because, darnit, why didn't we have those deals going BEFORE the show!?!?!?!?

So every year I look for trends of what's growing in food, what's fading, etc.  2005 had too much frickin coffee, 2006 was the year of Jerky (most of which is gone now), and 2007 was a Hummus-a-thon.  Every year there's plenty of dips and hot sauces, and the world will never seem to run out of Tea companies (SHEESH!) and Chocolatiers.  But 2008 is, in my humble opinion, the year of the MIX!!!

Out of no-where, this year's Fancy Food Show boasted about 12 or 15 companies all selling mixes, mostly for cookies (with a glut of "Gluten-Free" promises).  Being the foodie that I am, I like the idea of people being involved in their food creation, but then again, if the whole world dried its own fruit, I'd be out of a job.  Having tasted pre-baked Gluten Free cookies, I see the sense in this trend- Gluten Free stuff just tastes BAD!

One of Peeled Snacks' best friends, codenamed ND, pointed out the moisture problem of taking Gluten out of baking (Gluten holds in a LOT of goo-iness).  So these mixes help the Gluten-challenged amongst us make cookies to their liking that, hopefully, taste better than card-board.  But ND also pointed out that most of the Gluten-challenged likely already know how to make their own food, so how much of a market is there really out there? 

Another, perhaps more encouraging trend is the tendency of companies to donate a portion of their proceeds to this charity or that one.  Part of me wants to say that Peeled Snacks should jump on that bandwagon, but the other part of me says, "woah, we give enough to the causes we like, and we try not to make too big a deal about it."  Inevitably, I want it to be the FOOD that sells our stuff.

Allow me to bang the drum once more- there are TOO MANY FRICKIN TEA COMPANIES right now.  Tea surely makes a large enough profit margin to warrant some competition, but if any Tom/Dick/Harry thinks that he and his packaging designer can compete in a world with Ineeka in is, Tom/Dick/Harry has surely been smoking too much SOMETHING.... 

Greetings from Brooklyn,

Peeled Skinny 

Posted by iankusc at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you ever buy dried fruit?  I assume that you've eaten Peeled Snacks, but Peeled Snacks are different.  They're, you know, BETTER.  But have you ever had just plain old Dried Fruit?  The kind that they sell at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or your local bus depot?  The kind with raisins and cranberries and apicots, and maybe some M&Ms thrown in for good measure?  Then you've eaten OIL!

I don't get this- most dried fruit, especially the generic varieties (Whole Foods' 360 and Trader Joes brands being chief perpetrators) gets sold to you coated in oil- canola oil or safflower oil, some kind of vegetable oil.  When you buy a candy bar, okay, you expect to get some oil in it.  When you buy a Greek salad, okay, there's be some olive oil in there.  But dried fruit?  Oil? Huh?

I don't get it- who ever expected food manufacturers to coat raw ingredients in oil?  This is NOT based on demand- your average dried fruit purchaser does no chew on a prune and think to him or herself, "you know what this needs?  More COTTONseed oil!".  No, they just don't think of it at all, because if they did, they'd have to think to themself, "oh gross, oil, where's an appropriate place to vomit?"

I can give you some "industry" reasons for the oil- it lengthens the product's shelf-life, it makes it easier to pack in a plastic bag, it gives it a shiny sheen, and the penultimate reason, that homosapiens think fat tastes GOOD.  But 2 seconds of thought about this "fat fruit" thing and, whoosh, all advantages fly out the window like so much regurgitated apricot....

I should mention that Peeled Snacks doesn't add oil to its fruit, but that's not a shameless plug.  It's just common sense- you don't add ketchup to breakfast cereal because it makes it easier to eat, and you don't add salt to tea because it makes it boil faster.  You don't add oil to fruit because, well.....

....because that's really disgusting....

Yours, disgusted,

Peeled Skinny 

Posted by iankusc at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday a series of Wizard-of-Oz-worthy wind and rain storms moved through Manhattan, and I just happened to get stuck in one as I was looking far, ahem, a place to relieve myself.  As the first rain-soaked gusts began pelting me, I ducked into the place of business nearest to me that might offer a: shelter, and b: a urinal.  That establishment was none other than the golden arches themselves, McDonalds....

Well, I wasn't the only soggy cat to creep through those doorways just then, nor was I the only one there seeking, uh, relief.  So I waited out the worst of the storm with other drenched passersby and took in all that was a mid-town McDonalds for a good 15 minutes or so.  And you know what?  I'm alive to tell the tale!

In fact, some things about the experience were distinctly surprising.  For instance, this Mickey D's has in it a baby grand (it's at 56th and 8th avenue for the unbelievers amongst you), and a guy was playing chopin on it rather nimbly.  Likewise, contrary to my expectations, not everyone in the joint was overflowing with billowing corpulence.  Some customers, but not all.

The place was hardly clean, but it was busy enough to warrant some forgiveness in the anal arena. Midtown that far north of Times Square isn't particularly kid-filled, and this store had no "Playland", or anything of the sort.  It did however boast its more than fair share of teenagers, some swapping fries, some canoodling in the corners, some narfling down lard they'll spend their 20s shedding.

I didn't inspect the menu beyond a passing glance at the dollar menu.  In spite of any inferred value in that menu, all it offered was cookies, pie, and 4 McNuggets!  Far be it for me to actually EAT a McNugget, but if I did, I sincerely doubt that 4 of them would satiate me.  But now we're in a twisted cycle here:  "The food in this restaurant is TERRIBLE, and the portions are SO SMALL!!!"

In all honesty, I went in expecting dystopia and just found a subdued dispenser of convenience.  There's really no argument to make against McDonalds- Ray Kroc found a loophole back in the day and exploited it to high heaven (or low hell, if you actually eat there).  It's a financial system that in the short term makes for INSANE profits.  In the long term, who knows?  Ever seen "Idiocracy"?

I didn't eat the food, so I can't comment on that aspect of the business.  I assume it's dreck, but I have a place in my heart for their french fries, so consider me a proud hypocrit.  One thing's for sure though- nice music in the background, comfort food for cheap, and a shelter from the storm raging outside in no way makes up for....

...the most disgusting bathroom I've ever seen in the first world....

Posted by iankusc at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Do me a favor- got to www.google.com and search for "Snack".  Then look and see which link comes up in the upper left hand corner of the page.  For those that don't fret about Google tags, the link in the upper left corner of most Google pages represents the COMPANY that has PAID the most MONEY to be associated with whatever words for which you just searched.  Paying most for "Snacks"?...

... McDonalds ...

They seem to be marketing some new "snack wrap".  If you really want to find out what's in it, I encourage you to go to McDonalds, buy one, eat it, find a place to sit, and then re-think all the decisions that you've ever made in your life.  I feel compelled to ask the reasonable question of, what separates a "snack" wrap from any other kind of wrap?  Is it smaller?  Is it more, or perhaps less nutritious?  Do they not serve it during the lunchtime rush?  What makes a snack?

Well, for good-old McDonalds, what makes a snack is the marketing department.  If they believe that a new product will sell best between meals, then they give it a name like "snack" and add it to their dollar menu.  I suppose then the better question is, what do YOU, or I, or, you know, the REST of society consider a snack to be?

McDonalds has enough cultural and culinary clout to certainly redefine what makes for a snack.  I must confess to being susceptible to their marketing machine- I have, in fact, recently eaten one of their "cheeseburgers" (quotations required) for a midnight "snack", and I can say that I enjoyed it insofar as a person can enjoy a quick bite followed some hours later by a stomach ache and projectile flatulence.  But, sigh, I did pay for it, and I ate it.

Google may not be a major location for finding snacks, but it may well be THE place right new for driving new commerce in general.  One way or another, the OLD ways are threatened- think of the tumult in the recording industry since Napster, or the film industry since DVDs, or the auto industry since Honda, or the grocery/retail industry since Super-WalMarts.  The old playing fields are being demolished to make way for new fields, and new conversations are taking place about the games.

Do we want McDonalds to be a referee?  That's what their little add at the top of the Google page means- they are a major voice in a strange conversation, thanks not to the quality or value of their product, but thanks instead to the might of their bank accounts.  This IS America, and nothing that they're doing is illegal, or even necessarily immoral... it just sucks.

So what does make a snack?  Fruit and nuts?  Well, not for everyone.  But I doubt what McDonalds considers a snack would suffice as a definition for anyone still maintaining a few tough shreds of dignity.  Let's not let them dominate the conversation.

Poem For the Day:

I McMowed my Wal-Lawn this StarbucksMorn,

The Petsmart-Swallows darted amongst the Home Depot Oaks,

And my Brought-to-you-by-CSI terrier brought me in my CNN

As the Haliburton-Officers McTicketed McTeens for MTV-loitering.

It seems these Yahoo.com-days that EVERYTHING (tm) is owned

By something- not someone, but someTHING,

And a THING, at that, which I will never meet.

I wonder who bought the trademark to ME-

Surely someone has found a way to comodify me,

Just as my Estee' Lauder wife was recently bought out

from her former capitolizers, NASCAR.

I hope I'm owned by Toys'R'Us, or at least Southwest Airlines.

WHAT!?!  I seem to have lost two fingers

And sprouted a  pointy tail.

I guess from now on you can call me Disney-E...

EN 

Posted by iankusc at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)