Cane sugar is a "throwback."

Today NPR had a piece on the new "throwback" Pepsi and Mountain Dew sodas. They're soft drinks made with cane sugar instead of corn syrup. Supposedly they taste better — a little less sweet.

Cane sugar sodas have been a cult thing for some time. I think it was six or seven years ago the first time I heard someone say "I buy  imported Mexican Coke in glass bottles," Mexico being a place where they still make soft drinks with cane sugar. In fact, I'm pretty sure the entire world makes soft drinks with cane sugar. The U.S. did, too, up until the 1970's.

What happened then?

In the 1970s, as part of a new agricultural policy, the federal government placed tariffs on imported sugar and subsidies on corn. Since most of our cane sugar was imported, it promptly got very expsnive. Corn, now subsidized, got cheap. Corn can be turned into sugar, but it's usually a lot more expensive than just buying cane sugar. That's why the rest of the world uses cane. But when corn syrup became cheaper in the U.S., soda makers — along with lots of other food manufacturers — switched. (While we use cane sugar in most of our foods, you'll often find others baking with corn syrup because it's cheaper.)

That simple market distortion — a tariff here, a subsidy there — has created a lot of strange effects. We now grow corn across the Midwest, much of it for sugar production. Compared to cane sugar, manufacturing sugar from corn creates a lot more pollution and uses more oil. Meanwhile, the countries that grow cane sugar — primarily poor economies in Central America and Africa — can't sell us what they make. Their sugar would travel further, but it would be made with far less pollution. It would also taste better. (This is a good example of how going "local" can get very complex very quickly.)

If you're interested in the strange tale of corn in America I highly recommend Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and the documentary it inspired, King Corn.
 

Sign Fail

I learn as much from bad design -- probably more! -- than I do from the good. Following my post on signs and signals, here's a common mistake we all make when we create signs whose information is incomplete.

Where is the designated area?

Not here...



Hey Bikes!
But no sign that says it's a designated area
(that glowing blob above says "Loading Zone")
Hmmm...

Unexpected Acts of Service

A new coffee shop opened up around the corner from me a couple weeks ago. It's a little like what people are calling a "Coffee 2.0" shop. These are the post-Starbucks coffee houses usually staffed by very intense, lean, bearded dudes and tattooed women who park their fixed gear bikes behind the counter and work their shift with their pant legs still pegged. The menus are sparse. Five drinks maybe, often no food, certainly no CD's or insulated mugs. The foam is poured seriously into exacting patterns: hearts, Christmas trees, apples, friendly lions.

While I like the monastic attention to that's given to the coffee drinks, the experience is often marked by a total lack of humor and, more often than I wish, poor service. Want a smile? Not today. Want a custom drink? Good luck. I've seen a sign at one place that basically said "We don't customize in order to respect the integrity of the drink." Huh?

This new place has been getting its bearings for the past couple weeks. Service has been up and down. But today I stopped in, grabbed a pound of beans and was walloped with a couple surprises.

"Hey, thanks for coming in. How are you going to brew those?"
I make espresso.
"Good -- they're great for that. What kind of machine?"
I told her.
"Nice. We're using that blend to brew our espresso right now. Same roast date even. I like it a lot, it's pulling awesome right now. Would you like a shot on the house?"
Hell yes!

The interaction was quick. The shot cost the cafe almost nothing. The attention and questions she offered were free. The experience was something I won't forget. Guess where I'll buy my next bag?

I was reminded of our kind of service. These small, thoughtful extra miles are what we do really well. They're not easy to invent on the spot, customized for every different customer, but they don't have to be. It was obvious that she'd offered people shots for buying a bag of coffee before. She had her own system that let her give service that felt fresh and personal and not contrived at all.

Making Signs for Speedy Decisions

We use signs and signals in our work every day to tell us when and what work to do. Alarms ring at 11:30am to signal the duddle. A garbage bag is full, hopefully signaling to empty it. A full buffer zone signals a picker to help their neighbor.

There is a dash of art and some science to making a good sign. Probably most important, a sign should be appropriate to its purpose. Where you need speed, a sign should be able to be understood quickly. Think of highway signs, meant to be read at 70 mph: big, bold, easy to read, using a shared conventional language. Where speed is not as important... well, I'm not going to go there. I think speed is almost always important for signals and signs. If I make a sign that takes a minute to understand when another could get the job done in ten seconds I just wasted your time. In lean terms I just loaded you with a lot of over-processing. Signs are used over and over so the over-processing waste adds up. A lack of urgency shouldn't be an excuse to make a complex sign.

Here's a list of 6 sign and signal options, ordered from quickest to understand to slowest. I'm sure I'm missing some since I'm working from experience, not a referenc manual, so I welcome thoughts and additions. (They're also ordered in terms of how much information they can carry -- more on that in another post.) When you make a signal, start at the fastest to see if it can do the job you need. If not, move to a slower option. If it doesn't work, keep going. Also, consider if you can break the task into jobs that need simpler, faster signals.

Types of Signs, Fastest to Slowest
1. Sound
2. Light
3. Color
4. Graphic image
5. Pictorial image
6. Text

Can you break the job down so it uses more simple signals instead of one complex one?

Braised Pork Shoulder

Braising—which means long, slow cooking with liquid—is one of the oldest, simplest, and most delicious ways of cooking. There are a lot of cheap, sinewy cuts of meat that are flattered by spending a few hours in soft, warm bubbling liquid. They become so tender they melt. Braising is everywhere. It's how mom cooked her pot roast, how chili is made, and it's the technique behind the brussel sprout recipe I shared.

The basic technique for braising has two steps.
1) Season and brown
2) Cook in liquid

There are a million variations on that theme, but the gist is always the same. Here's a simple way to apply the recipe to pork shoulder, something I really like.

Get yourself two pounds of pork shoulder which will serve 4-6 or leave two people with lots of tasty leftovers. Season it with salt and pepper by sprinkling and rubbing them in with your hands. Be generous. Brown under the broiler until the surface is just short of charred, turning to make sure it's cooked on all sides.

Put it in a good soup pot with water and perhaps some unsalted broth (chicken or beef) and white wine. The water should surround but not cover the meat, an inch or more should be showing. Add some bay leaves or thyme if you'd like.

Bring the liquid to a boil then turn it down quickly. Set the heat to a temperature where the surface of the liquid barely moves. Cover and let cook for a few hours. Hell, you could probably let it cook for a few days if you wanted. It'll just get better. The meat will fall apart when plucked with a fork.

If you need to eat right away dig in. It's good to go. But if you cooked it ahead of time, braised meats get really spectacular when you take a couple extra steps. Take the meat out of the liquid and let them both cool in the refrigerator. For the liquid: skim the hard fat that surfaces, reheat the meat in it, then reduce and strain for sauce. Slice the shoulder in thick slices, drizzle the sauce on top and give 'em a grind or two of Tellicherry pepper. Serve with a bit of strong mustard on the side, like Dijon.

Pasta Cooking Details

Harold McGee wrote a good article on cooking pasta with different amounts of water in today's New York Times.

It reminded me of a few details I've learned about cooking pasta over the years. Each one is a small thing but, added up, I think they make a big difference in the way it tastes.

Salt. I salt the water pretty heavily as soon as I put the water on. "Salty like the sea," says Signora Passalacqua, the mother of my Sicilian friend Gioacchino. (He's the export help we use for many foods we carry, like the Sicilian sun dried tomatoes, which as it turns out, go great in pasta.) Salty water gives the pasta a base of flavor you just can't get salting afterwards. I use the French grey sea salt. Dollar per pound, it's still the best sea salt I've ever tasted.

Stir soon. As soon as I add the pasta to the water I stir. This is the best way I've found to keep it from clumping and sticking.

Stop short. I cut the cooking short of done, when it's still very al dente, i.e. it has a bit of snap to it.

There and back again. I drain the water, shake the pasta once or twice then quickly return it to a warm pot, mixing it with the sauce. The extra bit of cooking with the sauce softens it further and, instead of absorbing water, the pasta absorbs sauce, making it even more flavorful.

Warm bowls. I drain the hot pasta water into the bowls and toss it out just before serving.

I don't add oil to the water, run water on it after it's cooked or throw a piece against the wall,to see if it's done, which are weird tricks I've tried once or twice in my day. In my experience, most of those things don't do much to help the cooking. Some even hurt.

One of my favorite pasta dishes for two is half a bag of Rustichella's fettucine with half a jar of Il Mongetto's plain tomato sauce mixed with a full tin of good tuna in olive oil, (Ortiz is a treat). I eat it almost every week!

What do you like?

Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs, Part I

The whole operation. More photos.

I first tasted bacon wrapped hot dogs in Mexico. Brad introduced me to them. We ate them as appetizers before going to dinner, which is an act of gustatory hubris I don’t entirely recommend. They’re a street food in the Baja peninsula, sold from hot dog stands. I thought they were particular to that area until I tried them a second time, this time in Sayulita, Mexico, a small town about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. There were two stands on the main town square dueling it out within eye shot of each other. Both charged ten pesos, about a buck.

In Sayulita the bacon is sliced paper thin and wrapped all around the hot dog like the candy stripe on a barber’s pole. They’re grilled and held warm until you order. The bun isn’t toasted, but they will ask you if you’d like it slathered with mayo, port and starboard inside the bun, and whether you’re up for any chopped raw tomatoes and grilled onions. The rest of the toppings are up to you. If you want to do it Sayulita style you can add mustard, ketchup, sour cream, pineapple, mango and relish.

If you like bacon and hot dogs separately, you might just lose your cookies when you eat one of these. They're easy to make at home. Just make sure to get the bacon sliced really thin. If it doesn’t hold to the dog you can pin it on with tooth picks.