I have an age-coping mechanism. At the start of the New Year, when we all share a heightened awareness of time passing, I remind myself that I’ll be another year older. That way, when my birthday rolls around in August, I can happily enjoy the cake and ice cream without feeling morose.

Some people groan about growing older. I admit I do, too. But I am also grateful for that extra year to explore new foods and new trends. Most importantly, the years pay off in the kind of experience needed to be able to assess what’s really going on in the food world today and to put it in context. I’ve had a lucky head start, since I became an editor at a New York magazine at age 22. So I’ve been tracking trends for a good number of years. [more…]

Everyone who works in public relations plays an advocacy role. So you have to believe in your clients’ products. If your heart isn’t in it, you can’t promote with conviction.

Of course, sometimes the product may not be what you would care to cook or eat yourself. But if you know that it fills an honest need for some other segment of the population that’s okay, too. If I were only going to promote products I love, my next client would have to be a foie gras account, like my lucky colleague, Karsha.

One client product I’m personally crazy about is Kerrygold Butter. It is just plain unctuous — rich and creamy — with a remarkable natural golden color. The cows in Ireland are not confined to barns but get to roam free during the day, eating a diet of the greenest Irish grass (not grain). So the butter from these contented cows turns out a deeper gold color from the beta carotene in the grass. Not only is it a great table butter and butter for cooking, it’s the queen of butters for baking. [more…]

During the Great Depression, my grandfather urged his children to be farmers because everybody has to eat. Today, we might say the same about food marketing.

The difference this time around is that we have many more choices. So it’s not enough just to produce food. Marketers are battling for share of stomach. This is where niche marketing comes in.

The auto industry is suffering, but Smart Cars and Mini Cooper sales are booming. They’ve found just the right niche in this environment — small, but cool cars that are fuel-efficient at a fairly reasonable price point.

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, (subscription required) another industry looking for a niche is the $25 billion appliance industry. With the housing slump, appliance sales are declining. Consumers aren’t likely to upgrade for new features in this economy. But they just might — to accommodate a lifestyle change. [more…]

I love Thanksgiving, the all-American holiday that reminds us to give thanks for our blessings and celebrate amidst a bounty of food. Kitchens smell of turkey roasting, pies baking and good things simmering. It’s a simply delicious holiday, celebrated for all the best reasons.

I have my standards. We order a free-range turkey from Whole Foods because we find these turkeys more meaty and more flavorful. And I always make cornbread stuffing from The New York Times International Cookbook, which requires grinding the giblets in a meat grinder, baking cornbread and endlessly chopping onion, celery and green pepper, as well as mincing a lot of garlic, parsley and basil.

BUT I also make pumpkin pie from the recipe on the Libby’s pumpkin can, a Crisco pie crust and the cranberry sauce recipe on the Ocean Spray bag. Sure I’ve toyed with making pumpkin creme brulee or pumpkin cheesecake, using a different crust and making fresh cranberry salsa. But these recipes are tried-and-true and simple, giving me time to explore new recipes for the second dessert I bake and all the side dishes. [more…]

Tucked beneath the Koolau Mountains on the leeward side of Oahu is Nalo Farms, salad bowl to Hawaii’s top chefs. There I met Dean Okimoto, owner and president. As we walked past neatly tended rows of produce, he explained that the greens he grows are different from their Mainland cousins. “Our environment is hotter — 74 to 90 degrees — and we have volcanic soil.” The conditions produce a different leaf structure and flavor.

Tiny leaves of arugula are more tender in the Islands and the additional sunlight makes the flavor more pungent. Because the leaves are thinner and lighter in weight than the Mainland variety, you get more volume. “One ounce of salad looks more like two ounces,” Okimoto said. [more…]

I just returned from Honolulu Tuesday night, after a week away for the Les Dames d’Escoffier annual conference and a few days of vacation. Les Dames is an organization of women leaders in the food, beverage and hospitality industries and membership is by invitation. The Hawaii chapter staged a brilliant conference that included a luau at the Bishop Museum and a trip to Kualoa Ranch, where we toured the gardens, learned all about poi, and boated in the ancient native Hawaiian fish ponds. This is land familiar to fans of Jurassic Park, LOST and other productions.

During any downtime, I was busy getting my fix of local foods — saimin, shave ice, plate lunch, malasadas, laulau and a Hawaiian breakfast — Portuguese sausage, eggs and rice drizzled with soy sauce. I also needed to fit in breakfast on the veranda of the historic Moana Hotel, tropical drinks with paper umbrellas, dinner at Alan Wong and 3660 on the Rise, and time for family and Honolulu friends.

But this isn’t a story about my trip. It’s really about a thoughtful presentation by the conference’s keynote speaker, Rachel Laudan, a culinary historian and author of The Food of Paradise, a book that had been recommended to me 12 years ago by Zanne Stewart, who was then executive food editor of Gourmet magazine. Laudan’s speech aligned perfectly with my craving for the local foods of my Hawaiian culinary heritage. [more…]

Years ago, when I had a laundry product client, I wanted to do a PR campaign to promote using cloth diapers just one day a week to minimize disposables in the landfill. Thank heavens we didn’t try it. Who would give up a convenient behavior — using disposable diapers — for such an inconvenient option? It would take a lot more green commitment than could be inspired by a PR program to effect that revolution.

Until recently, the same was true of another convenient behavior, eating out. With foodservice sales increasing year upon year, family cooks were ready to hang up the apron. But not so fast. Home cooking is back with a vengence. With the economy in a tailspin, more consumers are going home to the range.

And that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Despite good news about the second-largest harvest of American corn, ever, and projections of record-breaking harvests of wheat and oilseeds from the world’s farmers this year, The Wall Street Journal reports that bumper crops will not offset increasing world demand. [more…]

I am a constant reader, with ecclectic tastes. On my nightstand you might find a British murder mystery, military history (Civil War or World War II), political biography, contemporary fiction, or a literary classic (anything I never got around to reading in English Lit or any leftover paperbacks from my sons’ English classes).

Right now, I’m reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Memoir, by Bill Bryson, a hilarious look back at growing up in the 1950s in Des Moines, Iowa.

Bryson takes us back to American food tastes then:

“Like most people in Iowa in the 1950s, we were more cautious eaters in our house. On the rare occasions when we were presented with food with which we were not comfortable or familiar — on planes or trains or when invited to a meal cooked by someone who was not herself from Iowa — we tended to tilt it up carefully with a knife and examine it from every angle as if determining whether it might need to be defused. Once on a trip to San Francisco, my father was taken by friends to a Chinese restaurant and he described it afterward in the somber tones of someone recounting a near-death experience.” [more…]

I ate 12 desserts at one sitting yesterday. It was a recipe tasting for a client whose products are in the baking category.

People are envious when I tell them I get paid to eat desserts. It’s hard work, but somebody has to do it!

Actually, it is work. A tasting isn’t a time to pig out on food and just say whether you like it or not. This is serious business because the recipes are a critical marketing tool. Whether they are used on packaging, on a Web site, in a brochure, or for press releases to the media, recipes from food manufacturers should be designed to stimulate product purchase and usage, and ultimately, provide a positive result to motivate repurchase. [more…]

Last week was one of the first glorious summer-like weekends in San Francisco. So I spent Saturday and Sunday gardening blissfully. It was time to open the sun umbrella over the table on the deck, fire up the grill to cook up some burgers, and sit back with a cool glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

With the skyrocketing cost of gas and food, expect consumers to be entertaining at home in their own backyard instead of going away on vacations and dining out. And why not, with more consumers building outdoor living spaces that make staying home a summer pleasure? [more…]