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food

Touring a Green Bakery

by Keith on December 6, 2010 · 1 comment

After 13 years living in Philadelphia, there are a couple of local specialties I have come to love.  I even promoted one of my favorites, scrapple (a delicious Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast meat), as we traveled.  With room for only three t-shirts in my backpack, I purposely chose one from my favorite restaurant in Reading Terminal Market, Down Home Diner, that promotes eating more scrapple.  Below is a snapshot of me in my scrapple-promoting shirt on the banks of the Nile River in Luxor, Egypt.

So while I may have grown up in Cincinnati eating Little Debbie’s in my lunches, once I got to Philadelphia I had no choice but to embrace Tastykakes.  I am especially fond of the fruit pies, but the chocolate cupcakes are delicious with a glass of milk.  So when I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to tour the new Green Tastykake bakery in the Navy Yard I jumped at the chance.  The private tour for the Philadelphia Harvard and Wharton Alumni associations, was led by Autumn R. Bayles, Senior Vice President – Strategic Operations.

Autumn led us from the spacious new lobby to the mezzanine level that is designed to eventually allow the public to tour and view the workings of the bakery.  And while they do not allow pictures of the great overhead views you get of the machines and bakery operations, there are great signs and multi-media displays discussing the history of the company in Philadelphia and the Green aspects of the building.   It reminded me of the SPAM Museum we visited as we traveled through Minnesota earlier this year.  Both brands have very loyal followings and have tapped into that consumer passion by celebrating their products and brands.

After touring the bakery and seeing how Tastykake is strategically using their sustainability practices to guide capital investments and their marketing on packaging, and how Tastykake is increasing transparency to consumers (despite the prohibition of pictures on the mezzanine), it is clear that they understand how to use sustainability as a way to drive their business and their brand.  When they do open the bakery to the public, I recommend a trip down to the Navy Yard to check out the bakery and have lunch at URBN’s public cafeteria.

Key Tastycake Bakery Green Features:

  • Targeting LEED-Silver certification, awaiting USGBC final certification.
  • A white, reflective roof, which minimizes heat-absorbing surfaces that contribute to global warming.
  • No-mow, drought-resistant grass that uses less water.
  • All wood doors and half of the wood used in the building come from certified sustainable sources that work to conserve trees.
  • Paints and carpeting with low chemical content that reduce ear, nose and throat irritation.
  • Refrigeration equipment using environmentally friendly refrigerants to minimize emissions that contribute to global warming.
  • Heat-recycling system, which reduces the amount of energy needed to produce products.
  • All products are packed in recyclable cartons and cases to save trees.
  • Solar panels on the roof that provide power to several of the building’s systems.

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A Year’s Difference in Thanksgiving Meals

by Keith on November 27, 2010 · 1 comment

Being back home certainly has some advantages.  One of the best is sharing holidays, like Thanksgiving, with family and friends.  We were certainly quite thankful to spend Thanksgiving  with them this year vs. being 6,000 miles away in the Jordanian desert.  When we were in Petra, Jordan, on what to everyone else it was just another Thursday night, we found ourselves spending half the night struggling to find something that was not made from chickpeas to eat for dinner and end up settling for a chicken kebap sandwich, because we realized it was about as close to turkey as we were going to get.

Another lesson I have taken away from our trip is to appreciate the vast variety of food available to people in the developed world.   Because I have always had nearly any cuisine imaginable close at hand, I did not appreciate what variety my palate craves until we had spent two months in the Middle East, eating a variation of some kind of chickpea spread, pita bread or kepab at nearly every meal.  And while many of these dishes were delicious, I challenge any Westerner to eat the same 3-4 dishes for every meal, including breakfast, for two months and then on Thanksgiving not go a little crazy looking for something different and traditionally American.

Being home this year did not disappoint.  We had quite the spread at two family gatherings in New York.  The first was in New York City and the second was a short Metro North ride north to the town of Irvington.  The picture to the left is just a glimpse of the traditional and variety packed gastronomic delights that awaited our first major holiday since our return home.

What strange stand-ins for traditional foods have you made while traveling abroad on American holidays?   What lengths did you go to secure a suitable substitute?  Let’s hear it in the comments.

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Pedestrians Eating

by Keith on October 4, 2010 · 0 comments

Food and walking. If I was going to sum up our year traveling with the two activities we did the most of, these would be at the top of the list.  A good chunk of the walking was undertaken as a way to find the food.  So when we arrived in Portland and saw on TripAdvisor that the #1 attraction, of the 316 listed, was an epicurean walking food tour, I was in with both feet, and of course my stomach.

Getting Started
The tour, which is run by Portland Walking Tours, started at 2pm in the mezzanine lobby of the Heathman Hotel.  After Herb, our guide, gathered up the group, we headed downstairs to the first floor retail chocolate shop, Cacao, where we were each provided a sample of European-style drinking chocolate.  The drink was vaguely reminiscent of the discontinued Starbucks Chantico.  Along with the drink we were provided information by the store manager about the origins of chocolate and the different growing regions for chocolate around the world.

Oil and Vinegar Mixed Together
The second stop, while not quite as sweet, was equally tasty.  And since I have more of a savory than a sweet palate, Benessere Olive Oils and Balsamic Vinegars offered a great chance to sample fruity and aromatic olive oils from all regions and balsamic vinegars made from a wide variety of fruit combinations.

The silver canisters allowed for easy tasting and if you like what you sampled all you had to do was fill an empty glass bottle, cork it and bring it the register.

Pretentious Coffee
After a quick stop at the Flying Elephant Deli to sample their tremendous tomato-orange bisque, we headed over to Public Domain to have a cup ‘o joe.  This was not any old coffee though, this was a cup ‘o Esmeralda Special Mario Carnaval, the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for over $120/lb. The beans come from a coffee plant known as “Geisha” that originated in Ethiopia in the 1930′s, with some of the seeds making their way over to Panama in the 1960′s. But it wasn’t until Daniel Peterson took over La Hacienda in 1996 that the beans were segregated from the rest of the plants on the farm.  My final verdict on the coffee was that it was okay, nowhere near worth the price tag, and while I appreciate people that take their food seriously, the pretension at Public Domain was way over the top for me.  Check out how serious the barista is.

Good Beer World HQ
The tour then wound its way from a spice shop to a Greek food truck, and then to my most anticipated stop: the Tap Room.  There we had 4oz samples of 3 delicious local beers.  I was very much looking forward to the micro-brews in Portland, because in 2008, Portland had 30 microbreweries located within the city limits, more than any city in the world.  That’s right, I was in the good beer capital of the WORLD!   Doesn’t get much better than that.

Culinary Communism
Despite being rather full and having just enjoyed a couple of very tasty beers, we still had three more stops.  The first was a sandwich shop in Chinatown for a traditional cubano of sliced pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickles and mustard.  Perhaps communism is the cultural connection?  No time to solve that riddle – we were off to the next stop at the Oyster Bar for a small but sweet Tillamook oyster on the half shell.

Sweet Ending
And finally the tour drew to a close with a sweet ending at VooDoo Donuts, home of the Bacon Maple Bar, which is a raised yeast doughnut with maple frosting and 2 slices of bacon on top!  While we sadly did not get to try one, our dozen sampler did offer a good variety of the unique combinations that has made VooDoo famous.

In Summary
I highly recommend this tour if you are in Portland and have any interest in food.  There is a reason they are #1 on TripAdvisor.  The tour was jammed packed with 10 stops in all.  Each one offered a great taste of the cuisine that makes Portland so special.  And our guide was humorous, had a genuine passion for his hometown and regularly went out of his way to make sure all of the guests had a great experience.

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