Before I get into this post, I want to readily admit that I am not the target audience for this particular gadget. While I do own a car (a green 16-year-old Subaru Legacy Wagon that I adore), I live a block and a half from my office and so don't need a vehicle to cover that distance (I drive once or twice a week and should really sell it, but I'm attached). Back in the days when I did drive more frequently, my car was so old that it didn't have integrated cup holders (although my dad did bolt a makeshift one to my dashboard). Add on to that the fact that I rarely eat fast food, and you result with a girl who has no working need for a French Fry holder that fits into a cup holder.
However, I can see how there are people who might just find this product appealing. To you I say, if you think you need this "accessory" you eat far too many French fries. If you choose to eat fries while driving, you should accept that your fingers are going to get greasy and that you're your going to have an oil-spotted paper bag in your lap.
Whether the motive is to get word out to consumers about how a new product tastes or to lure customers into a restaurant with free food in the hopes that they'll buy other stuff, too, the practice of "sampling" is becoming more and more popular. Sampling used to be restricted to smaller companies that couldn't afford million-dollar advertising campaigns, but now even huge corporations like Starbucks and McDonald's are doing it.
How this affects social psychology, business, and marketing, we'll leave to other blogs, but here, we're just concerned about the free food! The last few months, especially in April when consumers' wallets were hit with taxes, companies gave out everything from free burritos to frozen yogurt.
Coming up, both McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts will be giving away free samples on May 15.
Lately, there have been some raised eyebrows in BK's direction, mainly because they won't agree to pay their tomato pickers an extra penny per pound of tomatoes.
The tomato pickers have to pick 125 buckets worth of the fruit in order to get $50-60 per day, and work 10-12 hours in the hot Florida sun. The new measure would only cost BK an additional $300,000 per year, out of their $11 billion yearly revenue.
Other fast food joints have already agreed to pay their workers more, but BK continues to stall. Some people are afraid that tomato growers would wind up with the money, instead of the pickers, and others are worried the new agreement will violate antitrust rules.
But the shadiness doesn't stop there. BK execs admitted that they have a relationship with Diplomatic Tactical Services, a security firm with a creepy, amorphous name, which helps BK spy on its clients.
Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, recently wrote an op-ed for the Timeson the subject, shedding light on BK's Big Brother tactics.
I always knew there was something hiding behind that awful molded plastic King in the commercials...
The woman, an employee of a Tim Hortons coffee and donut chain in Toronto, gave a fussy toddler the tiny, 16-cent donut (called a "Timbit") to eat, and was promptly fired by her overzealous manager.
The woman said she would have paid for the donut, but the store was busy and she had to work.
As soon as Tim Hortons' corporate offices heard of the firing, they quickly issued a statement that the firing was a mistake (it was implied that the woman was re-hired).
Seriously, though: who would want to go back and work for that maniac? Whatever happened to the customer coming first?
Hopefully, the woman will be able to get away from the boss with the anger management issues, and get a better job. Like at the local IHOP.
The chain has launched a new web site, Arby's Rescue Brigade. It looks like you join up and help spread the word about Arby's. So far there are 360,000 members. They're also holding a contest. If you're the the biggest Arby's fan in America, make a video and submit it to the site. The winner not only gets to be in a TV spot, but they get free Arby's food for life.
I've only eaten in an Arby's once, 19 years ago in Hawaii. I'm not even sure if they have one in my area of New England.
It wasn't until I started cooking meals from scratch on a regular basis that I discovered just how much of a fallacy this whole pre-made foods business is. I'm not talking about one of those tasty, pre-roasted chickens or fresh meals you can buy at the supermarket, but rather canned and frozen foods. They are great in a pinch, but they are not a big time saver, and they're certainly not a decent substitute for fresh foods.
So, reading Astin Cubed's post on "Simple Food" today was like reading a rant of my own, without the obsession with snap peas. How can so many of us have forgotten the simplicity of fresh? Or heck, even balancing the two? If you have zero time to make dinner, throw the fish sticks in the oven, boil/microwave/shred and fry some potatoes, or maybe throw some Caesar dressing on some romaine. If you have enough time to go out, wait to be served, eat, wait to pay, and come home, you certainly have enough time to cook up some pasta, fry up some chicken, make a salad, steak, or even stir-fry. Or, even take a day with some free time, make up a lasagna, and eat it during the week, month, or year.
My favorite frozen food: Using those Thanksgiving leftovers to make REAL roasted, carved turkey meals that I can eat all year.
My favorite "fast" food: Leftover fried potatoes with a fried egg on a toasted baguette.
I made the grave mistake of ordering Pizza Hut online once, about eight months ago. I had a craving, I read about the online ordering, and I went for it.
...Big mistake. First, it was way too expensive. Second, I happen to live in one of those delivery netherworlds - between the boundaries of one delivery area and another - where the delivery dude refuses to visit. This, however, was not made clear to me on the website - I was easily able to enter my address, and the system informed me that my food would arrive shortly.
Two hours later, no pizza. I wearily called up my local Pizza Hut branch, and a pissed-off sounding teen answered. "...Yea? Pizza Hut?"
"Um...I ordered online, and it still hasn't arrived. Do you happen to know...?"
"Oh. Yea," she said, snapping her gum. "We don't deliver there." (This, mind you, was about .75 miles away). "You can come pick it up."
Effective immediately, a federal appeals court says that all New York restaurants must post their food's caloric information on menu boards, and should begin no later than tonight at midnight.
The bill will apply only to restaurants with 15 establishments or more, and demands that the calorie counts be printed in the same font and size as normal menu information (even if this means making the rest of the menu's text teeny-tiny).
Fines will be instated beginning July 18 if restaurant owners do not comply with the new law.
Restaurant owners will fight out the case again in court on June 9, when the showdown will likely begin again.
Get ready to laugh: among Health magazine's top healthiest restaurants are - drum roll, please - Denny's, Bob Evans, and Romano's Macaroni Grill.
Hmm - the kings of maple syrup-drenched sausage and carb-heavy pasta dishes, respectively, are also the healthiest?
Granted, I don't go out to eat very often. But - are these places actually healthy? I find it hard to believe.
The magazine's other choices are equally as confusing: Olive Garden? Uno Chicago Grill? Last time I checked, phrases like "extra cheese" and "more breadsticks" were the norm at these haunts.
When I was young and my family lived in Los Angeles, we had a tradition that we'd go to Wendy's for dinner any time the power went out. In our little Eagle Rock bungalow, the power went out nearly every time it rained, which meant we got over to Wendy's at least once every couple of months. My parents liked Wendy's because they had baked potatoes and a salad bar, and as far as fast food went, it seemed better than many of the other alternatives.
However, it looks like Wendy's, soon won't be Wendy's, at least not as we currently know it. Arby's, the chain known for big (and in my opinion, mediocre) roast beef sandwiches, is gobbling up Wendy's for a cool $2.34 billion dollars. I am sure that Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, is rolling over in his grave. According to this AP article, the rest of his family certainly isn't happy about it.
Bruce Oldfield - who has designed clothes for Catherine Zeta Jones, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall, Jemima Khan, and Diana, Princess of Wales - has designed a new uniform line for McDonald's UK staff.
According to Daily Mail, McDonald's spokesman David Fairhurst said, "It's a mark of respect for our staff that an internationally-renowned designer has created the uniform especially for them. Our people do a challenging job serving two million customers a day and we want them to feel good doing it."
Daily Mail has some more photos of the other new uniform designs. Check them out and tell me if these new uniforms would make you feel better about working for McDonald's.
Do you wear a uniform to work? Does it affect the way you feel about your job?
Midtown Lunch points out that Chipotle's implementation of the law is neither.
Chipotle uses calorie ranges so the consumer is left to guess what add-ons make the meal more or less caloric. Midtown Lunch does some math using calorie counts buried in Chipotle's website and determines that, "If you want a burrito on the low range of the calorie scale (420), you will be ordering a flour tortilla, filled with vegetarian black beans. No salsa. No sour cream. No rice. No cheese." That's one boring burrito. Midtown Lunch questions whether you could even call it a burrito.
What do you think? Are these calorie counts better than nothing or are they too confusing to be useful?
Krispy Kreme is in another battle, and this time it isn't with Dunkin' Donuts.
The beloved donut chain is being sued by a company called Caribbean Creme. Seems that the company has a fruit drink also called Caribbean Creme and they aren't happy that Krispy Kreme has come out with a drink and doughnut called Caribbean Kreme. It's part of their "Chillers" line.
I have as much legal expertise as Barney Fife, so I have no idea if this has merit or not. But maybe Krispy Kreme should have spelled it "Karibbean Kreme."
Notice the capital "S" on Subway. Godzilla is going up against the sandwich chain, not a series of underground cars.
Toho, the company that owns the rights to Godzilla and the Godzilla movies, is suing Subway for using the monster in its ads. Now, the ads never state that the monster is Godzilla, but he looks a lot like the famous monster and he does invade Japan in the spots. Subway never got Toho's permission, and aired the spots during American Idol and other TV shows, pushing their "Five Dollar Foot Long" campaign.
When I was a kid and my parents would take me out to fast food (a very infrequent occurrence) there were always strict limits on what I could order. I was allowed a small burger (although my mother preferred that I get a chicken sandwich) and milk. Soda and french fries were not allowed (these rules did not apply to my father, and so I would beg a few fries and a sip of his root beer). I would always promise myself that when I was older and able to order my own food, I'd get whatever I wanted.
As I've gotten older, I haven't really kept that promise to myself, mostly because fast food just doesn't taste as good to me as it once did (and I don't want to die by the age of 40). However, somebody out there kept that childhood promise, and did so by ordering a Whopper with 15 additional orders of bacon, for an additional cost of $9. They certainly took the term bacon burger to a higher level than has been seen before. For more pictures of this slightly insane sandwich, head over to about:blank.
Before I get into this post, I want to readily admit that I am not the target audience for this particular gadget. While I do own a car (a green 16-year-old Subaru Legacy Wagon that I adore), I live a block and a half from my office and so don't need a vehicle to cover that distance (I drive once or twice a week and should really sell it, but I'm attached). Back in the days when I did drive more frequently, my car was so old that it didn't have integrated cup holders (although my dad did bolt a makeshift one to my dashboard). Add on to that the fact that I rarely eat fast food, and you result with a girl who has no working need for a French Fry holder that fits into a cup holder. 
Whether the motive is to get word out to consumers about how a new product tastes or to lure customers into a restaurant with free food in the hopes that they'll buy other stuff, too, the 
Arby's wants to save you from ordinary fast food.
It wasn't until I started cooking meals from scratch on a regular basis that I discovered just how much of a fallacy this whole pre-made foods business is. I'm not talking about one of those tasty, pre-roasted chickens or fresh meals you can buy at the supermarket, but rather canned and frozen foods. They are great in a pinch, but they are not a big time saver, and they're certainly not a decent substitute for fresh foods.
When I was young and my family lived in Los Angeles, we had a tradition that we'd go to Wendy's for dinner any time the power went out. In our little Eagle Rock bungalow, the power went out nearly every time it rained, which meant we got over to Wendy's at least once every couple of months. My parents liked Wendy's because they had baked potatoes and a salad bar, and as far as fast food went, it seemed better than many of the other alternatives. 
Krispy Kreme is in another battle, and this time it isn't with Dunkin' Donuts.
Notice the capital "S" on Subway. Godzilla is going up against the sandwich chain, not a series of underground cars.
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
