Two fast-casual pasta concepts, including one developed by a former Cheesecake Factory executive, are scheduled to debut this year in New York and Los Angeles, looking to capture what some see as an untapped opportunity within the segment.

Hello Pasta this week will open the first of four locations planned for New York City. The restaurants will offer imported, organic Italian pastas and a choice of 11 “Italian-American” sauces made with natural, locally sourced and organic ingredients for under $10.

In Los Angeles, industry veteran Howard Gordon, a former senior vice president of business development and marketing for The Cheesecake Factory Inc., said he is planning to launch a new concept called Itriya Café Spaghetti & Ssam in the fall that will explore the multicultural flavors of both pasta and ssam, or savory foods wrapped in lettuce, tortillas, bao or pita bread.

NRN

George Siemon, CEO of the Organic Valley Co-op of 1,600 farmers, is not worried that consumers trying to save money will abandon organic milk and other products for lower cost non-organic foods. While sales growth did slow during the recession, Siemon says demand for organic products is connected less to the business cycle and more to how educated customers are about food. “Organics is an education issue, not a recession issue,” he says in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in New York today.

“Educated women drive our business,” Siemons says, particularly new mothers who want to provide the healthiest food for their children. That demand is growing despite the recession, because consumer interest in organic food is growing — see Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden and the sales of Michael Pollan’s books. Organic Valley had revenue of $527 million in 2009 and is estimating $600 million this year. The co-op is both tapping into and perpetuating the movement that’s growing demand for its products. Siemons is confident that science will bear out the benefits of organic food, and a growing number of educated customers will allow more dairy farmers to switch to selling more profitable organic products.

Bloomberg Businesweek

While some well-known restaurants such as Tribute in Farmington Hills and Laffrey’s Steaks on the Hearth in Detroit fell victim to the poor economy, there are signs restaurants are recovering this year with new incentives as well as casual downsizing and concepts.

Jeff Baldwin, chef-owner of J. Baldwin’s in Clinton Township, knows that to be successful you’ve got to go beyond giving customers great food: First, you have to get them in the door.

For that, he credits his wife, Rose, who convinced him to offer cooking classes and get a machine that freezes martini glasses.

This year, business is up 20 percent over 2007. Baldwin credits the restaurant’s rewards program, which awards points for every dollar spent. Chef’s cooking classes are offered monthly, and he celebrates Liquid Thursday with half-price drinks and frozen martini glasses.

Detroit News

Finally showing signs of rebounding after more than two years of economic downturn, restaurants along the Gulf Coast are now anxious to see how the BP oil spill might hurt fish and seafood sales.
“This has been one of the most challenging periods for the restaurant industry,” Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association’s research and knowledge group, said Sunday at the kickoff of the three-day Southwest Foodservice Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

The restaurant performance index, which measures consumer confidence in the $580 billion industry, is showing positive movement for the first time in more than two years, he said.

Riehle credited industry indicators, such as a dramatic reversal in wholesale food prices over the last year and a slight uptick in tourism. Both trends are believed to be fueled by an improved national outlook and increased consumer spending, he said.

Chron.com

A cooking co-op, or dinner swap, is simply an agreement by two or more individuals or households to provide prepared meals for each other, according to a schedule. The goal is to reduce the time spent in the kitchen while increasing the quality and variety of the food eaten.

It’s not a new idea — dinner co-ops have been around for years — but it was new to me. Mine is based in my apartment building in Jackson Heights, Queens, which adds to the convenience. Members of our co-op, made up of four households, including two editors at the James Beard Foundation and Tony Liu, the executive chef of the Manhattan restaurant Morandi, exchange meals weekly.

It works like this: Once a week, you cook a dish (chicken enchiladas, for instance), making enough to provide at least one serving for each adult member of the co-op. (Children can be assigned half or full portions, depending on ages and appetites.) Around the same time, your fellow co-op members are cooking large batches of their chosen dishes.

The NY Times

For three years, the city has been urging District vendors to offer more complex fare. It has changed regulations making it easier for them to branch out. It has taken hot dog distributors to see the variety offered elsewhere. And it has run a series of informational meetings in six languages called “You Don’t Have to Sell Hot Dogs.”

The effort has been to little avail. All but a handful remain wedded to wieners and half-smokes. When asked why, the vendors — many of whom are immigrants — often cite a confusing raft of city health and bureaucratic regulations similar to those required of a restaurant. They also say they are intimidated by the owners of storage depots where they park their carts; the owners sell them hot dogs and packaged food and, many vendors say, pressure them to sell more dogs, not less.

The Washington Post

Regardless of the ridiculousness of the premise of this sushi commercial, it does induce laughter even if it may confuse some. Consumers are bound to talk over this ad, which is exactly what the creators had in mind and that is precisely what makes for a successful campaign, no doubt.

Although much has been written on the history of meat-eating, the topic of doneness is strangely unexplored. Over the past few years, Lynne Olver, of the food history site the Food Timeline, has begun surveying the subject, from the caveman on. In an e-mail, Olver explained that for eons, “[m]eats were cooked with one general goal: make them edible.” Nonetheless, even the ancient Greeks and Romans “prescribed,” as Olver puts it, certain methods of preparation in accordance with their humoral theory of medicine. For instance, according to Hippocratic teachings, beef “will agree best with those who use it well-boiled,” and pork “should be eaten without the skin, and in a coldish state.” Such aphorisms laid the groundwork for theories on preparation that developed in the following centuries.

I honed in on the modern American history of doneness, in large part because it can be tracked precisely—thanks to the meat thermometer. This early-20th-century invention brought about a giant cultural shift: the reliance on a gadget—rather than instinct, or experience—to assess our meat. The thermometer was promoted to home cooks as a tool of scientific precision. It was also an instrument of relaxation, something that freed you from worrying about misjudging the meat: “A roast thermometer makes for carefree roasting,” advised the 1959 edition of Fannie Farmer’s famous tome. By midcentury, temperature measurements were a common feature of cookbooks.

Slate

For food truck lovers — and there are many in this city — Wilshire Boulevard near South Curson Avenue is a mecca, distinguished by the sheer number of upscale trucks it attracts. On Wednesday about 1 p.m., there were nearly a dozen. Across the street from the La Brea Tar Pits, the India Jones Chow Truck, Mrs. Beasley’s Dessert Truck and Fishlips Sushi were all crowded into half a block.

For restaurant owners, the trucks are competition that take away business and hog precious metered parking spaces. Some shop owners are said to have called the police on trucks that languish beyond the allowed hour at a meter.

LA Times

“The only way the restaurant owners can help the fisherman is to increase demand,” Brennan said.

For now, he is mostly absorbing the increased seafood costs rather than risk raising menu prices.

The price of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico has skyrocketed since the underwater gusher began spewing April 20, raising worries about the area’s present and future as a seafood hub. On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expanded the amount of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that are closed to fishing because of the oil disaster to 80,806 square miles — or about 33 percent.

The rising prices are having a significant impact on restaurants along the Gulf Coast, which tie their menus closely to the unique tastes of the local seafood. But it appears to be having much less of an immediate effect on major restaurant chains nationally, which rely more on a global supply chain and negotiate longer-term pricing contracts.

In addition to pricing, Gulf restaurant owners also may increasingly find themselves battling fears that the area’s seafood has been tainted by the oil.

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