Keeping tabs on: Fairway

[Fat Guy]

I recently received galleys of a new book by Steve Jenkins, to be published in July by Ecco (a HarperCollins imprint). It's called "The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway." There are also several recipes by Mitchel London.

The book is very interesting, though not particularly well written. There's a lot of good information about Jenkins, Fairway and innumerable foods. Also lots of photos.

[Fat Guy]

Pet peeve about Fairway: The Olive Bar.  Why do they fully cover most  of the olives in soybean oil?

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In the new Fairway book, Steve Jenkins says they use olive oil. I also examined several of the barrels this morning, and tasted a bunch of olives, and it looked like olive oil to me. I'll keep looking into the matter. Maybe one day I'll run into Jenkins and be able to ask him.

[dagordon]

Disturbingly, Fairway is still advertising jamon iberico bellota at (at least) their Broadway and Red Hook stores, even though they have known for some time now that they do not have this product.

I was at the Fancy Food show today and spoke with the guy in charge of Fermin's exports, and he said he's actually aware of the issue, and he has spoken with Fairway's distributor about it. But nothing seems to have come of this.

I won't shop at Fairway anymore because of this. Are the pruneaux d'Agen that they're selling really from Agen? Maybe they're from somewhere near Agen, and Fairway thinks it's close enough... Is the wild salmon really wild? Maybe it's farmed, but Fairway thinks it tastes close enough to wild...

Again, it's one thing to make an innocent mistake about what you're selling. But this is now just dishonest. There are plenty of other food purveyors in nyc whose honesty isn't questionable where I can take my business.