MarketStEl

Remember "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom," where the host would find some exotic animal and attach a tracking device to it so he could follow its movements undisturbed and capture them for us on camera? A team of Wharton School researchers have just done that with Homo supermarketicus. Using GPS devices, they followed shoppers' paths around supermarkets and found some surprising things about how we shop. For starters, whether you enter on the left or the right side of the store makes a difference in how much time and money you spend in the store. If you've wondered why the milk has suddenly moved closer to the checkouts at your local store, or why the Whole Foods Market on South Street in Philly is so much more pleasant to shop in than most supermarkets, follow the link below to an article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer business section: "Big Brother, Aisle 5" (May require registration)

No, it is not. But it's not that simple in the other direction either. Advertising exists in part to stimulate demand for something. In other words, to alter behavior--to get someone to do something they otherwise might not have even thought of. In so doing, ads shape the marketplace as much as they respond to it. However: Whenever I say to someone, "Why don't we go to Lula for dinner tonight?" or "You should check out the sale on strip steaks at Esposito's," I'm doing the exact same thing. Bottom line? Corporations are people too. (Legally speaking, that's true.) Actually, taxing something is a good way to alter behavior, just as its opposite, subsidizing something, is. The European Union stockpiles mountains of butter and cheese (among other things) because its member states have generous subsidy programs for farmers. Cigarette consumption would probably be higher than it is now if the federal tax on cigarettes weren't so high. I even advocate that we turn drug use from a criminal-justice problem into a public-health one by making most currently illegal drugs legal, but then taxing them to high heaven and heavily regulating where and in what manner they may be used, as we now do with cigarettes. Yes, education is the most effective tool in the long run if lasting change is what you want. But some of those other measures also produce results. On the larger issue of childhood obesity: Whatever happened to "go out and play"? I hear talk about weird customs such as "play dates" and stories about kids being ferried hither and yon to all sorts of organized activties. Perhaps we need to bring unstructured, happenstance, random activity back from the dead. It might make our kids a little less fearful once they're big enough to flee the nest too. The rest of what I might have to say on the topic right now is probably better suited for PLANetizen.

Pray your local airport has upgraded its food concessions within the past year or so. Some larger airports (for instance, most of those managed by BAA plc--the former British Airports Authority, now a for-profit concern managing airports in several countries worldwide, including the United States--and those in Philadelphia and Los Angeles [the latter IIRC]) now boast mini-shopping malls within their security confines. Some of these malls include purveyors of fine foods along with the usual food-court suspects and chain casual eateries. You might even be able to pick up a better-than-normal sandwich or snack to go from one of these. (Should your travels take you to PHL, the purveyor in question is Caviar Assouline, found in the shopping concourse between Terminals B and C, almost directly opposite the food court.)

Walked past the site yesterday (Sunday 12/11) and saw a Michael Salove Company "Lease Space" sign on the enclosure wall. So have you actually pulled the plug, Paul?

Iovine's had a modest number of customers when I stopped by today around 12:30 p.m. The Down Home Diner looked pretty busy. Didn't see Bobby Iovine or Paul or anyone else, so didn't get a feel for whether the trend was up, down or neutral.

Lessee...besides dust, there's: --The salt and pepper mills (they don't like the sometimes-damp kitchen counter) --A package of napkins --A wooden salad bowl --Two aluminum foil pans --The coffee filters --Bottles of aspirin (don't ask how these ended up here) --A box of toothpicks --A box of straws --Three boxes of sickeningly sweet cereal (the roomie likes this stuff) --My file card box full of recipes I've clipped out of various and sundry places --A metal box full of recipes I've clipped out of various and sundry places --A wooden box that originally held Gethsemani Trappist cheese, but now holds recipes I've clipped out of various and sundry places --A metal tin that once held cookies, but now does not hold recipes I've clipped out of various and sundry places; I imagine I'll figure out something to put in it someday --A cheeseboard with plastic cover --A glass ice bucket that we can't store on the liquor cart because it's full of other junk

We ask the schools to do so much that we once expected the parents to do, it's a wonder the kids can learn anything at all. However, since kids spend so much of their formative years in that environment, we probably have few alternatives. A bunch of people at Penn are addressing this issue in a hands-on fashion: Urban Nutrition Initiative They've done some pretty impressive stuff in the West Philadelphia public schools. (A recent Newsweek article mentioned the program approvingly in the context of restoring a healthy balance to overstressed lives. I wrote several articles about UNI projects for the Penn Current and know the program's director.) One of the things the students who started UNI found was that neighborhood stores in poorer communities--where supermarkets are often scarce--offer fewer healthy foods than those in more affluent communities. One of the responses they came up with was an afternoon produce stand in a middle school in the Angora section of the city. The stand both exposes students at the school--and by extension, their families--to a wider selection of fresh produce and teaches them valuable business skills. Other UNI programs sponsor community fitness evenings, neighborhood farmers' markets, school gardens and even an herb garden that sells its produce to area restaurants.

I guess my taste buds must be permanently singed by the much spicier fare I used to eat. Or maybe the jerk chicken I've eaten so far has gone easy on the Scotch bonnet/habanero. Check out the tune on their home page. It's a very catchy promo for Golden Krust that sounds almost as much Latino crossed with hip-hop as it does Jamaican.

I was up in Olney this morning for a job interview at La Salle when I spied a no-longer-White Castle serving up something completely different. The now-colorful former burger joint at Broad and Olney is now one of three Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill locations in the city. Yep, you read that right--a chain of Caribbean fast-food joints! The parent company is based in the Bronx and the leading maker of Jamaican meat patties (turnovers) in the United States. My first experience with their fare was at the Penn Relays several years ago; the Relays are one of the main highlights on Jamaica's sports calendar, as many of the country's best young track and field athletes participate, and up until recently, it was only at the Relays that you could find lots of decent Caribbean fare. I guess the West Indian presence is now large enough in the Northeast for enterprising islanders to launch chains to meet their demands. I promise I will return to sample their full meals--like any good fast-food restaurant, they offer several "combo meal" choices that come with rice, veggies and a Pepsi. All the Jamaican staples are represented: jerk chicken, curried goat, curried chicken, fish escoviche, oxtails and more. But I was in the mood for a snack, and the company's reputation originated with its patties, so I ordered three: spicy beef, jerk chicken and Chee-Zee beef (their newest addition). I'd recommend either of the beef patties as a tasty alternative to hamburgers. They feature spiced ground beef enclosed in a flaky pastry crust. The Chee-Zee version adds melted Cheddar cheese to the mix. The jerk chicken patty didn't taste much like chicken or jerk seasoning to me; the consistency of the meat seemed more like ground chicken, and the meat was a little more highly spiced than I associate with jerk seasoning, which IMO is flavorful but not that hot. The Golden Krust Web site identifies their chicken patties as curried chicken, which may account for the cognitive dissonance. The setup was pretty efficient: the sides were all in steam table trays and the cooked patties kept warm in a display oven. (The store is equipped with protective armor against lawsuits--two large signs warning customers that "Freshly cooked patties are EXTREMELY HOT and may cause SEVERE BURNS -- Allow patties to cool off before eating.".) I thought I saw grilled jerk chicken breasts in another tray, which suggests to me that their system relies on precooking most of the food in advance. The one woman serving customers (the only person behind the counter) was pleasant enough. It might have been nice if there were someone there to assist her with the assembly of the orders, as the line moved a little slower than I'm used to at a fast-food joint. Then again, this is slow food served fast-food style. And it's a welcome change of pace from the usual burgers and chicken. Edited to add: If this sounds like a golden business opportunity, the company's signing up franchisees. They currently operate in eight states, all on the East Coast; the bulk of the locations are in New York City.

I find that a Virgin Mary works just as well as the Bloody variety with a Sunday brunch. Or for a Canadian twist, use tomato-clam juice instead and make it a Virgin Caesar.

Jersey tomatoes--the big, misshapen, delicious ripe ones. Lancaster County farmers. DiBruno Brothers. The Reading Terminal Market and 9th Street. That I can get a little exercise in by walking to the South Philly Acme. The convenience store up the street from where I live. Having found this congenial bunch of food lovers.

Yeah, that's us, I guess. (thus confirming stereotype)

Actually, I live in Moberly, MO near Columbia where the University of Missouri and 3 other colleges are giving it the nick name "College Town USA." ← Ah. 'Twas the word "interstate" that threw me--I've been through Columbia many times. It's the biggest city in the middle of the state and, like most Midwestern college towns, a pretty cool place. I suspect the coffee's better there too.

I'd hazard a guess and say that you live somewhere near Effingham, Ill., Emily, but I don't recall there being a big college there. I may be wrong, though--I never got off I-70 passing through. In any case: Your point about chains and small towns is well taken--though I've had good solid food at locally owned independent restaurants in towns that are probably no larger--and maybe even smaller--than the one you live in. A lunch I had of chicken fried steak at a restaurant in New Boston, Texas, for instance, sticks in my memory to this day. What the chains often bring to smaller communities is more variety than they might otherwise have. A city as big as Kansas City, where I grew up, has enough ethnic variety to support homegrown Mexican, Chinese, Mediterranean/Middle Eastern and even Eastern European restaurants, but where are you going to find these outside the large cities? A Chipotle Grill might well be a welcome change of pace. However: I do not remember eating much seafood growing up--local supermarkets had fish, not seafood, counters--except on those occasions when Mom took us to a Red Lobster out in the eastern 'burbs. (This was before the advent of the Bristol Bar & Grill and its ilk--this place being a Houlihan's descendant, BTW.) Similarly, up until very recently, really good authentic Mexican fare was all but impossible to find in Philadelphia, and a chain might have had a better reception then than now, when Mexican immigration into the city has produced a slew of decent, inexpensive Mexican restaurants and groceries. The problem with chains is that people's taste in food is all too often conditioned by them, which makes it a little harder to get some of them to appreciate the really good stuff then they run across it. But I do not consider chains the scourge of the earth. Except maybe for the Olive Garden.

DiBruno Brothers in Philadelphia carries the lemonade, and maybe some of the other flavors too. The corporate Web site has a map showing the countries where their products are sold. Clicking on the bottle sitting on top of the United States produces a similar map with a bottle over every state where you can find their products. (There are three bottles on California--does that mean they consider it three states?) Unfortunately, it's hard to determine which four states are represented by the bottles sitting astride the Northeast Corridor. Distribution must depend on either independent distributors or individual retailers. You can get Lorinda in Nebraska and Arkansas, according to the map (presumably Omaha and Little Rock, but knowing how college towns are, it may be Lincoln and Fayetteville), but not in the other states of the Central Plains, where (at least in Kansas City and St. Louis) there are presumably customers willing to try this line. I'm not sure whether or not to take this description from the "Products" section as an insult or not: "Lorina Sparkling Lemonade Pink "It was conceived especially for the American market, which appreciates turbid drinks." Oh, and a word to the mapmaker: You show the US headquarters for the company as being in Miami, but your arrow points to the bottle over Georgia.

So glad you enjoyed it. I'd thought that you would. It's just so much more, elegant than the other sparkling ciders I've tried. It really is the closest thing to an Apple Champagne that I could imagine. It's a little more expensive than Martinelli's, but worlds better. The up side is it's a lot cheaper than Champagne! I still have one bottle left that I'm hoarding in my fridge. ← Is this available at retail anywhere in the Philadelphia area? Or must I order directly from the manufacturer? --Sandy, no longer a total teetotaler but still interested in keeping his alcohol consumption modest

The inventors probably grew up within or within a one-hour drive of Interstate 435. (Map freaks, look it up: there's only one Interstate 435 in the entire United States.) While the following has nothing to do with bagels, it is Jewish enough, IMO, to be included here: A friend of mine came up to me after the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus' holiday concert (I sing second tenor) and said that he enjoyed it, with the exception of the song we chose to acknowledge Hanukkah, a piece called "Over the Skies of Yisrael." While the song incorporates a traditional Jewish prayer, my friend told me that the song was really not Jewish at all, but rather a gentile's notion of what a Jewish song would sound like. Or, as he put it: "It's like serving matzo ball soup with bacon bits." Surely there are other sins that reach the level of the transgressions described thus far. Parboiling your "barbecued" spareribs, for example, or requesting Swiss cheese on your cheesesteak. Can we get some other examples here, folks?

Tonight, it was a dish that is probably the most popular item I prepare from leftover Thanksgiving turkey, aside from hot open-faced turkey breast sandwiches or a little leftover turkey breast and stuffing: Turkey Shepherd's Pie. It's also one of the few ways I get my pea-hating roomie to successfully down peas. (Sorry, no pictures. I forgot to take any, and I don't think you all want to see what's left in the casserole dish.) It's pretty straightforward: Chop up leftover turkey (this is usually how I foist the dark meat successfully on my white-meat-loving partner), mix with carrots, celery and peas (this time, onions replaced the celery), pour about 2 cups of turkey gravy over all the solid ingredients, then cover with about 3 cups of mashed potatoes spread over the mixture. (I do add some seasoned salt and pepper to the mashed potatoes, but otherwise add no seasoning; my partner has to watch his sodium intake.) Next time, I will remember to freeze rather than refrigerate my stock, however. The stock I had made and saved (see the "Mystery in my stock pot" thread) had either gone or was going rancid, so I had to resort to gravy from a dry mix packet. I usually make enough to serve six. After the three of us attacked it, there's about enough left for one decent serving. Edited to add: ...which I ate for lunch before heading to the office the next day.

How far are you willing to travel? Do you want to stay within walking distance of the Convention Center? Chinatown lies immediately east of the Convention Center, and I'm sure that many on this board will second my recommendation of Szechuan Tasty House in the 900 block of Arch Street. The menu doesn't have a large selection of vegetarian dishes, but it does have them. The place lives up to its name, and it's a great place to take a group of people for an inexpensive yet fabulous meal. There used to be a vegetarian Chinese restaurant called New Harmony around the corner on 9th. I'm not sure whether it's still open. There is a great Burmese restaurant, Rangoon, on this same block of 9th. Vietnam Palace, just north of the Convention Center on 11th, and Vietnam, right across 11th from the Palace, are two of the better Vietnamese restaurants in the city (but once again, it's been a while since I've been to either, so I don't know how extensive their vegetarian selections are). One place a little further away that I know has a good selection of vegetarian dishes is Passage to India, at Juniper and Walnut. There are better Indian restaurants in the city, but all of those are out by the Penn campus, and this one's good enough and within walking distance of the Convention Center (3 1/2 blocks from the main entrance--two blocks south, one-and-a-half west). These should get you started. More should follow from my fellow PhillieGulleteers.

I tried this combo of ingredients listed in a reply to my "How to Fix Tuna Steaks...so they're not dry as dust?" post in this forum. Proportions are free-form; mine also substituted ground ginger for the diced.

This year's edition of "Where In the World is Matt Lauer" on NBC's Today Show included a segment from Shanghai where he explained why Chinese snack foods had these unusual (in the West) flavor combinations like lemon and potatoes. As he explained it, certain types of foods are considered "hot" by the Chinese--this concept has nothing to do with the temperature of the food or its spiciness in Scoville units--and these foods are balanced by contrasting "cool" foods. Potato chips, it seems, fall into the "hot" category, and citrus fruits and many vegetables are "cool." So a cucumber-lemon potato chip strikes the right balance.

Kansas Land Rush? As my mother (born in Omaha; grew up in Horton, Kan.; KU alumna, BSN '54, MSN '70) used to say, "Nobody set out for the West saying, 'We're going to make our fortune in Kansas!' No, Kansas was where the wagons broke down en route." Except, of course, for the Exodusters. But I don't recall anyone serving knockout potato pancakes in Nicodemus, Kan. As freeform as the pancakes themselves, I presume. This may inspire me to make too much mashed potatoes soon and use the leftovers in potato pancakes.

A-hah! So it wasn't my imagination. When we were there on Tuesday, I commented to my husband that the bar looked like a pick-up place. He didn't think so, so I started to doubt myself. ← That's why I referred to "taking in the show rather than being part of it." The one time I ate there--with a good friend and his then-kinda-sorta-lover--we ate on the balcony, which is quieter and a little more "intimate". As for that Brady reference, Katie, have you been on the rooftop level of the Continental Mid-town yet? The enclosed lounge is one of the Bradiest spaces I've been in in years.

Actually, the chips with Old Bay are made by Herr's. They struck the deal with Baltimore Spice Co. (now McCormick & Co.), the maker of Old Bay. Utz's are called "The Crab Chip--Potato Chips with Chesapeake Bay Seasoning." Utz also makes a Carolina Style Bar-B-Q chip that's quite good. (Think Salt & Vinegar, only substitute cayenne and paprika for the salt.) I did try Herr's "Steak & Worcestershire" chips once, and was mildly impressed. They tasted of instant beef broth and Worcestershire. Some other comments: --I note that someone brought up "salt and pepper" potato chips in this thread. Both Herr's and Utz (the two leading chip brands in this region; Utz outsells Herr's overall--it's the #4 brand of chips nationally--but Herr's is more popular within Metro Philly) offer their own versions. The thing I find amusing about these chips is that the promo text on the back of the bags are similar ("Salt and pepper...so simple, so good!"), but if you read the ingredients list, you will find they aren't that simple. In addition to the salt and pepper, you will find onion powder, garlic powder, a few other spices, and I think even MSG (I'll have to check the label again next time I see a bag). I like Herr's ketchup-flavored chips (Heinz, of course). But what I'd love to see is a ketchup-and-mustard-flavored chip. I'm rather fond of mixing the two condiments together and dipping fries in the blend, so I don't see why the combo wouldn't work with chips. I was somewhere recently--one of those Asian convenience grocery/buffets, I think--where I saw bags of Lay's cucumber chips. Those, I think, might work well. And speaking of Lay's: Anyone remember their "Flavors of America" series of limited-edition chips based on regional flavors? ISTR that there were some interesting combinations in that series, including lime, Monterrey Jack cheese, and cilantro among the various flavor blends. If we want to get doubly artificial, though: anyone out there tried Pringles Pizzalicious crisps?

Many, many moons ago, I was a summer intern at The Kansas City Star. This was 1976, the year of the Republican National Convention and the year I graduated from high school (I was the only intern the paper ever hired straight out of high school). Your daily paper and mine now have one thing in common: their corporate owner. It's been saddening to watch The Philadelphia Inquirer slowly decline into mediocrity* over the years since Knight Newspapers (the Inky's owner ever since Walter Annenberg sold it) and Ridder Newspapers merged under the helm of the Ridders, who have historically regarded newspapers mainly as vehicles to deliver eyeballs to advertisers. (They are that, but that's not why the readers buy them.) My recollection, however, is that The Star didn't run much in the way of food writing at all (unless you count business-section reporting on "agribusiness" as food writing) back in the '70s, when its employees still owned it. Oddly enough, I would go so far as to say that corporate ownership (if not Knight-Ridder, then Cap Cities/Disney-ABC) improved The Star in a number of ways, mainly by giving it money it increasingly lacked to do the sort of enterprising stuff that wins Pulitzers. That it devotes any space at all to writing about food and restaurants now is a sign of its improvement. Meanwhile, at least The Inquirer still has Craig LaBan, and Rick Nichols' valuable food-gossip column. Neither of these people took the buyout. *Edited to add: On second thought, make that "relative mediocrity" -- the "relative" being to what it was in its glory days in the 1970s and early '80s under Gene Roberts. It still does much very fine reporting even now (and probably was passed over for a couple of Pulitzers it should have won, including one that was awarded to The Kansas City Star). But the trendlines still seem to be headed downward, along with newsroom morale.