Joe Ray

Friday, October 12, 2018

Quick Takes From The 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit

Sunday afternoon, I got off a long-haul flight from Korea to Seattle, and immediately crossed town to where the Smart Kitchen Summit had just kicked into gear. The Summit the nerd prom for the connected kitchen set, full of some of the best minds in cooking along with manufacturers trying to find the right balance between food and tech. Talks and panels have names like “reinventing the recipe,” “food robot evolution,” and, um, “augmented food experiences,” whatever those are.

Not to be outdone, I moderated one panel about the future of restaurants and sat on another about reviewing called, “Is this thing on?”

While wandering the conference, I tried wheat-based ‘chicken’ nuggets—they weren’t bad!—tasted a dragon fruit ‘berry’ that came out of a printer (NRFPT) and was badgered by a robot waiter hawking a tray full of beef jerky. I also learned that many of those who were pioneers of creating food tech word salads have changed surprisingly little in the four years since the conference started.

That said, I could feel things falling a little further into place, and perhaps becoming a little bit better. Here, I thought I’d share a few quick thoughts I had—in italics—and quotes I heard while at the Summit.

...

Countertop smart ovens—like June and Brava—are becoming a thing. The June, for example, can recognize which food you put inside of it and suggest its preferred method to cook it, and the Brava has heat zones so you can cook steak in one, mushroom in another, and onions in a third.

Three things strike me when I see these ovens.
-One: they seem to be reinventing sheet-pan meals, and you already own the oven to make those.
-Two: they’re small, so they can’t really replace your home oven if you want to have more than one friend over for dinner.
-Three: they take up a ton of counter space and aren’t really the kind of thing you’re going to store in a cupboard when you’re done.

...

THE RECIPE
- “People don’t have to bake to survive” — Stephanie Naegeli, Nestlé
- “You can’t cook without a recipe” — Cliff Sharples, Fexy Media
- “Bacon is a challenge” — Matt Van Horne, June, whose oven now offers 36 ways to make bacon
- I’d argue that it might just be a challenge for their oven and one good method is just fine.

...

VOICE CONTROL
- “It’s more complicated to do a recipe with voice than not. It has to be a marriage of voice and screen” — Stacey Higginbotham, Stacey on IoT
- “Voice is great, but not when my daughter’s yelling” — Jason Clarke, Crank Software
- “‘[I love being able to ask Alexa] what’s the ETA on my chicken?’ when I’m in the living room.” — Matt Van Horne, June

Stuff like this last quote constantly leaves me wondering ‘Didn’t your recipe already tell you that? Didn’t you set a timer?’

...

THE CONNECTED KITCHEN
Manufacturers and tech companies are starting to understand that if there’s going to be anything like a “Kitchen OS” they need to communicate with each other’s machines (and not just to other products in their own brand.)

- “All the devices will have to connect…but I don’t personally like the idea of robots in the kitchen” — Shelby Bonnie, Pylon AI
- “Is [the applicance] a hub or an end device? If it’s an end device…don’t fool yourself that you want to be a hub…Nobody wants to watch Netflix on their thermostat.” — Jason Clarke, Crank Software
- “We’re past the novelty stage of turning the lights on with the phone” — Christofer von Nagel, BSH Home Appliances
- “Most [new] Whirlpool products will be connected within the next year” — Brett Dibkey, Whirlpool
- “We’re sick of going to the grocery store. We just want to push a button and have food dropped on our doorstep” — Pablos Holman, Intellectual Ventures
- “We were metal benders and now we’re an experience company…The digital experience is defining who we are” — Brett Dibkey, Whirlpool
- “Today you ran a lot. Today we recommend this recipe.” — Stephanie Naegeli, Nestlé
- I’m fine without my Fitbit telling a giant global food corporation that I went for a jog.
- “Connecting a radio and a shaver doesn’t help anyone” — Ben Harris, Drop Kitchen

...

ONE LAST ONE, JUST FOR FUN
“We’re German! We engineer the shit out of everything!” — Christofer von Nagel, BSH Home Appliances

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Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Coming Soon To A Kitchen Near You: Smart Trends And More At The Chicago Housewares Conference

I’m fresh back from four days at the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. Once I got off the plane in the Windy City and had an Italian beef sandwich at Al’s, I was ready to see what almost every possible kitchenware manufacturer is doing, all in one place.

Wandering the acres and acres of show floor, I picked up on several trends—some encouraging ones, some not so much. I was also inspired by two students, surprised by something that’s not usually up my alley, and figured out what I’ll be writing about for many stories to come.

Here are some takeaways:

TRENDS

THE SMART KITCHEN
—After years of ups and downs, the smart kitchen is starting to move forward in a (sorta) unified direction. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of false starts and failed companies worth of shakeout ahead, but this trip allowed me to see the bigger picture of where it might go. One of the best examples of this was a discussion with Christoph Milz and Philip Tessier at Hestan Smart Cooking. Hestan will soon be selling a built-in induction range and (likely next year) a gas range that will allow guided cooking when used with their pans. Even more exciting, they plan to offer the guided cooking capability to people who have a Bluetooth-enabled stovetops with other brands they’ve partnered with.

—Tyler Florence of Innit’s claim that “The Recipe Is Dead” seems to have wisely recognized as the idiot clickbait that it was.

—I loved the Thermomix when it was introduced in the United States. Their new Cook-Key attachment gives the existing TM5 model the capability to connect to the cloud and store 5,000 recipes. If you’re really organized, you can tell it what you want to cook for the week and it will give you a comprehensive grocery list broken down by the section of the store.

EYE-ROLLING TRENDS
—Big brands are really getting into making all of the things. Not everybody should be slapping their label on an electric pressure cooker or sous vide machine, but it’s happening. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint, but it cheapens the brand when these new products don’t add anything new to the game.

—To wit, everyone is now making an air fryer.

—Everyone is also trying to make All Things Coffee.

—Sigh and sigh.

THE PRACTICAL KITCHEN
As somebody who’s deep into the practicality of anything that goes into the home kitchen, I was glad to find plenty of new, unconnected products that help keep things moving while we cook and clean. Some highlights:

—Staub is out with glass lids for a few of its Dutch ovens so we can see what’s going on while we cook.

—Polder’s got a little platform built onto one of its drying mats, giving glasses a stable spot to dry off.

—There’s lots of effort being pointed toward people with small kitchens and limited storage space. The forthcoming D3 Studio Line is not from L’Oreal, but a supremely stackable set of pans from All-Clad.

—Similarly, Zwilling has a peculiar-looking ‘Universal Lid’ that can cover everything from a small saucepan to a large skillet.

—As a panelist at IHA’s Inventor’s Corner, I was happy to discover the FluteSpa—a plastic container in the form of a six-pack holder. It allows you to put wine glasses—flutes for now, red and white glasses in prototype—in the dishwasher without chaos erupting.

SOME BUDDING GREATNESS
I met some amazing young designers who, as the winners of IHA’s Student Design Competition (https://www.housewares.org/show/sdc), had their own section on the show floor.

—Following a trip to Nepal where he saw dozens of used plastic water filters discarded on roadsides, Cody Moore came up with a design for a mold to make filters made of clay and sawdust (two easy-to find and biodegradable materials).

—I also met Brandon Rodriguez who’s building the Novus Home Brewing System, a compact machine that uses Keurig-style pods to make a six-pack’s worth of beer. Pico Brew may wish to figure out when he’s graduating and turn him into a Seattleite!

A PLEASANT SURPRISE
I’m a ‘form follows function’ guy, but a couple of things really caught my aesthetic eye at the show.

—Smeg’s unlikely partnership with Dolce & Gabbana makes for some of the coolest-looking appliances I’ve ever seen.

—To a lesser, but still impressive extent, I saw beautiful designs on KitchenAid mixer bowls.

—Finally, I’m not much of a tea drinker, but on the show’s last day, I fell hard for Dafu Ironware’s enamel-coated cast iron kettles. Lovely.

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Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Pizza and Perfection on the L Train

Cue the rock music, throw on a cool T-shirt and hop in the L train to Williamsburg – Roberta’s cures what ails you. While the possibility of a lamb dish worthy of a spot in Daniel next to a pizza might sound a bit schizophrenic, here it works just fine.

With its woodsy feel and merry, multicolored light garlands on the walls, Roberta’s, est. 2008, has a feeling of a saloon that sits not too far from the 49th parallel – one that hits full swing by 7 and stays that way till the last tippler is pushed into the Brooklyn night at closing time. I was invited by my sweetheart, Elisabeth, who’d picked up on some very strong hints on where I’d like to celebrate my birthday and we were not let down.

These guys, particularly chef Carlo Mirachi, have some serous friends in the food sourcing business. ‘Beef Carpaccio’ shows up with the marbling of something noteworthy and turns out to be Wagyu from a farm on a big, flat state out west. A drizzle of stellar olive oil creates a dreamy, one-two-three-four adagio progression between vegetal freshness, slick vegetable fat, beefy meatiness and Wagyu fat. I got as much pleasure nibbling away at it as watching Elisabeth enjoy it – something she readily encouraged.

One plate over, tiny bay scallops with crispy bits of trout skin, Meyer lemon and poppies snuggled in a bowl, reminding me of not one but two childhood favorites – Mom’s broiled scallops, and, thanks to the poppies and the almost bread-y flavor to the broth they waded in, the frozen Pepperidge Farm rolls she’d make in the oven when I was little.

The big gun, however, was the lamb breast main course, cooked sous-vide for a long time then sizzled for a short time to create a crispy/melting combination that recalls the textures of a savory crème brulée. Nearby, a comma of yogurt, dollops of a light mint aspic and gently-braised leaves of, I believe, radicchio and Swiss chard provided punctuation marks of acidity, bitterness and a faint sweetness. Any three-star restaurant would be proud to serve the dish at three times the price.

Next to the lamb, we’d ordered a pizza – this is a pizzeria, after all – and maybe because it was next to something so spectacular, our pie was the evening’s only relative whiff. The ‘Tracy Patty’ pie features tasty mozzarella, ricotta, lip-smacking boquerones (vinegar-drenched anchovies), garlic and savoy cabbage, but it lacked some juicy agent like tomatoes or more of that amazing olive oil to shuttle each slice it to its final home.

No matter. Next time we go, we’ll likely try another pie. Perhaps the ‘Voltron’ – it’s got sopressata.

While some crow that the bar-like atmosphere is an odd or uncomfortable place for food this sophisticated, we could have cared less. This is the kind of spot where you want to grab good friend or three on your birthday and have one of the best nights of the year, fussiness be damned. Mirachi’s created an American doppelganger of Sicilian chef Francesco Cassarino’s wonderful Pizzeria Caravanserraglio.

On the subway and once nibbling some of Elisabeth’s fantastic birthday cake at home, we got talking about the best dishes we’d ever had. Rare are the meals that engender that sort of conversation.

“What were the tens?” Elisabeth asked, a question that brought us around the world and back to the meal still in our bellies.

Our lamb, we agreed, was a 9 ½, the scallops a scarce point and a half behind.

“What about the Wagyu carpaccio?” I asked. “A solid eight?”

She responded without hesitation.

“That was a ten.”

Roberta’s
261 Moore St.
Brooklyn
(718) 417-1118
www.robertaspizza.com

(Editor’s note: No reservations at Roberta’s - go early or wait in line.)

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Is Paris The World Champion of Gastronomy?

That’s the question French food critic Francois Simon posed to a little panel: Nick Lander, Carlo Petrini, Ken Hom, Anissa Helou, Yumiko Inukai and…yours truly. For a recent article in Le Figaro’s magazine, Figaroscope.

Here’s my response in Version Originale…

World capital? That’s loaded question.

Twenty years – even 10 – ago, the question was bandied about for fun but we already knew the answer, but now, just using the places I know well, it’s a legitimate debate. Barcelona combines an unquenchable curiosity and solid base to keep themselves on cuisine’s front edge. Sicily combines incredible raw ingredients with solid value and New York could win on sheer numbers yet it is Paris’ equal in quality and exponentially more diverse. India is a time machine whose cuisine never ages.

Plus, in Paris, coffee is awful and the beer second rate. It’s also pricey. That said, you forget all problems instantly when the former butcher who can hold four bottles of wine in one hand and owns Le Severo puts a côte de boeuf aged 40 days under your nose. You forget it when Pierre Gagnaire boils down a great vat of red wine to make a tiny component of a sauce. You forget it when Laetitia at Le Bistro Paul Bert greets you with a smile, seats you at your favorite table and gifts you with a glass of wine and when it comes to choosing a bottle of wine doesn’t foist something you can’t afford on you. You forget it when three bottles, two glasses of Calvados and one conversation into a meal, you realize with a start that it’s 5 a.m. and you’ve been at the table for nine hours.

Undeniable world champ? Not anymore. However, the French exception still reigns. Let’s call Paris first among equals.

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Friday, September 09, 2011

GOING NATIVE

I met Hilary Nangle, a fellow Boston Globe freelancer, Maine specialist, skier extraordinaire, and all-around good egg, at a travel writer’s conference last year. Late this summer, I sent her a pair of desperate notes:

ME:
Hi! Heading to maine w family for the afternoon. Got any snack/clam shack recs between Kittery and Ogunquit? Thanks!

This is a sort of abuse of a perk of the trade on my part, particularly when you note my timing. Yet within an hour I had a response…

HILARY:
Bob’s Clam Hut, Route 1, Kittery, tops a lot of lists of the best fried clams. If you’re craving Jamaican fare, there’s a funky takeout spot on the inland side of Route 1, in Cape Neddick, north of York. Flo’s Steamed Dogs have a legacy of their own (written about in both Gourmet and Saveur). It’s also on Route 1 in Cape Neddick (ocean side, look for a reddish-brown roadside shack, open to 3 and not a minute later). Brown’s Ice Cream, Nubble Rd, York, is wonderful, and if you want an old timey experience, stop by the Goldenrod in York Beach (makes taffy, fudge, ice cream). No culinary traveler should miss Stonewall Kitchen just off 95 on Route 1 in York (heading north, exit just before toll). In Ogunquit, Bread and Roses bakery always has wonderful treats.

We try as much as we can - Bob’s is the bomb (see photo), the Jamaican joint was closed, Flo’s was fantastic (they serve Moxie!), and Bread and Roses’ coffee (Carpe Diem) does the trick in spades.

ME:
My word, have I not even written back to say thanks? I’m such a dog. One last question - turns out we’re coming up for a lobstah story Monday & Tuesday (post hurricane, I hope!) any Freeport-area places to stay?
Grazie!
Joe

HILARY:
Grin! Freeport, you can’t beat the Harraseeket Inn (http://www.harraseeketinn.com, it’s close to everything—steps from Bean’s, outlets, shops, restaurants, and it has the best dining in Freeport (okay, new chef since I last went, so can’t guarantee that, but innkeepers are committed to excellence and have deep Maine roots.

Other good spots in Freeport: Mediterranean Grill, Azure Cafe.
H.

All this lady does is throw strikes! Follow Maine’s self-proclaimed Travel Maven on Facebook.

Thank you, Hilary!

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Thursday, February 17, 2011

THE CREPE KING OF OYSTER CITY

CANCALE, France - Dad, Jim and I leave the ladies to roam on their own for a bit and we head to the oyster stands to split a few plates, sitting on the sea wall and flipping the shells into the sea.

Later, we double back for lunch at the Breizh Café. With the mother ship here, and branches in Paris and Tokyo, this place is multiplying like, um, hotcakes and that’s not such a bad thing.

Bertrand Larcher serves classics with high-quality fillings or more creative combinations like my smoked herring, lumpfish roe and cream - smoky, salty and just a little sweet. Whatever you get, the buckwheat crepes are crispy on the outside, downy within.

Nobody at the table offers to share - a good sign - and we wash it down with a Fouesnant cider that has a wonderful, farmy funk.

I run out to feed the meter before the dessert crepes - chocolate and butter and apple compote, cider syrup and whipped cream - are ordered and return to two rather tiny wedges the gang has ‘saved’ for me. Not bad considering I had to push the idea of dessert on them.

After that, we go back out and have more oysters on the sea wall.

Not really. But we thought about it.

Count on 15-20€ with cider.

Breizh Café - MAP
7 quai Thomas
Cancale
+33 (0)2 99 89 61 76
www.breizhcafe.com

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Monday, January 24, 2011

NO MAP, NO PHOTO. NO WAY.

This is a public service writeup for what we call the “run away” column on the Simon Says site.

I’ve spent the last few weeks on the road, working on a Frommer’s guide update in Burgundy and the Rhône. Meeting an out-of-town colleague and his wife for brunch right after my return to Paris, I was happy to have someone else choose the location.

Les Editeurs sits across the street from Yves Camdeborde’s wonderful Le Comptoir and a stone’s throw from the Odeon metro. Walls of books and red-leather chairs make Les Editeurs look like a nice place to while away an afternoon, perhaps that’s best done with a beer or something else that they didn’t create on site.

Yesterday morning, 25 euros bought Sunday brunch at Les Editeurs. Brunch is a Parisian trend I’ve never understood in ten years here - a bad translation from the beautiful, bountiful American original. The French version is often overpriced and boring. Les Editeurs version included watery OJ, bad coffee, a basket of croissants and soggy toast and a plate with small ramekins of unremarkable scrambled eggs, a fruit cup, yogurt and something else that my mind has blocked out.

My colleague’s wife ordered a fifteen-euro club sandwich which she asked for without bacon. She was informed the sandwich was pre-made, but she could remove the bacon.

Really? Why do you need to pre-make a club sandwich in a restaurant? There are other time-saving/corner-cutting measures to take in a kitchen that don’t make bread soggy.

She did her best to push the sandwich around on her plate, but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. The waitress asked her about it and she couldn’t lie. To their credit, they comped it.

I’ve just come off of three days of incredible food in Lyon - fantastic three-course meals for under 20 euros. Yes, you can argue you pay for a prime location, but today’s brunch made me want to walk to the train station and have a few more meals in the Rhône before returning to Paris and pretend like I just got back.

Les Editeurs
4 Carrefour de l’Odéon
75006 Paris

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

STARS BETWEEN THE BUILDINGS

A stroll through Ragusa Ibla will shave hours from the time you need to get to know people.

We’ve just had dinner at Pizza Nove. Suffice to say, Ristorante Caravanserraglio retains its Sicilian pizza crown.

We head up to Ragusa Ibla for a walk, stopping off for a completely unnecessary gelato at Gelati DiVini and Francesco orders cups of jasmine and olive oil. (The olive farmer pleases the ladies in our group with edible flowers and does a bit of marketing at the same time - genius!)

More importantly, how do you turn jasmine - still blooming across the countryside in the Sicilian fall - into gelato? And how do you do it so it doesn’t taste like cheap perfume? This is the place to find out.

We head back into the side streets, staring at the stars between the buildings. Smiling. Present.

Gelati DiVini - MAP
Piazza Duomo, 20

Ragusa Ibla, Sicily
http://www.gelatidivini.it

PS - That fuzzy looking thing in the photo of Lex? That’s the gelato - she made us go back the next day. And the blissed-out grin? That’s the gelato, too.

PPS - Gelati DiVini has a host of other gelato flavors - check out writer and Ragusa resident Jann Huizenga’s take on it here, and read my Boston Globe Giro del Gelato here.

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

HALLOWEEN IN THE MOTHERLAND WITH THE WOLFMAN

Fueled on gelato and strong espresso, I take a sunset run through town and down into the canyon. Past the chapel dug into the canyon wall and west toward Modica. Nobody but the goats go beyond the shepherd’s farm.

I forget how wild it is out here. There are pomegranate plants, boughs bent with plump, almost-ripe fruit, wild herbs, particularly a form of sage that’s got a near-fruity smell and cactus full of prickly pear are everywhere. Dried carob beans litter the ground, thistles dot the trail and an owl-like bird I’ve never seen flies out of the trees and toward the sun.

I come to my turnaround point, legs nicked from the thick, high tufts of grass and turn on Green Day. The right music makes you feel like you’ve got rockets on your feet. I go as fast as I can the whole run home, thinking I’m going to lose it on a rock and they’ll hear the pop of my ankle echo down the canyon. Instead, I grunt, snort and make animal noises all the way back - who’s going to hear me? It’s the best run of the year.

Past the shepherd’s place, I pass a teenage couple, the air thick with hormones and perfume.

Staring at me, she shrieks “L’uomo lupo!”

Wolfman!

I howl obligingly.

Back in town, the sky purple after the sunset, noisemaking fireworks detonate in the air. Pigeons scatter into the air and school kids in uniform play soccer in a church square. A pair of widows dressed in black walk toward me and say good night to each other and turn in opposite directions, giving the scene an unintentional symmetry.

I’m back in the Motherland. It’s time to eat.

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Saturday, October 09, 2010

IN BRUGES: THE END OF THE BEER REPUBLIC

Last blog in Belgium Beer and Fries week! (Or was it ‘Brussels Beer & Fries’?) No better way to end than a final round or two in Brugges…
...
Thanks to our great B&B’s beer selections, a belly full of Brussels’ best (where I confirmed I’m more of a gueuze and lambic guy than a Trappist type) and a short time frame, we only sipped suds on the town on one night.

We’d been tipped off that Lokkedize was the spot people from town go to hide from the tourists and found that though there isn’t an enormous selection, beer is the drink of choice. On this night, there’s a great Straffe Hendrik from the town’s Brouwerij de Halve Maan. The food, though it didn’t look like anything to write home about looked like a good, inexpensive option.

Heading back to the B&B, we walked in front of De Republiek, a bar with just the right amount of people, just the right amount of light, just the right amount of noise and a great beer list. Somebody by themselves could come into this big space without feeling self conscious and a group of friends could enjoy a conversation without shouting.
We looked at each other and went in without a word.

The beer list was good enough to have Boon’s Oud Gueuze - a beer that’s been barrel aged for a few years then put in a bottle and stored for a few more. I had one (33 oz.) then another (25 oz.). What can I say? It was my last night in Belgium.

Before we left, I took a sniff and a sip (both deep). I could come up with a set of descriptors, but it was better than that. It smelled good. It made me smack my lips and smile. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but I said, “This is pretty perfect.”

It was.

Lokkedize - MAP
Korte Vulderstraat 33

8000 Brugge

http://www.lokkedize.be/bistro.html

+32 (0)50 33 44 50

The front of the menu says both “Hard to find and worth the discovery” and “We appreciate cash.”

De Republiek - MAP
St. Jakobsstraat 36
Bruges
http://www.derepubliek.be
+32 (0)50 34 02 29

Beer fans - continue your reading here with my Boston Globe story, Stalking A Wild Brew and Bottled Brilliance in Centurion Magazine. Cap it off with the beer & fry blogs from this past week.

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