Sometimes I find myself getting cranky about the excessive bounty of vine fruits and root vegetables that seems to overload restaurant menus like a seasonal cornucopia this time of year. (I know it’s true because I just re-read my column from this time last year.)
Continue reading Fall back
All posts by INDUSTRY STANDARD by Marsha Lynch
Critical mass
I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that Louisville keeps making the national and international news lately for its chefs, restaurants and foodie scene. Maybe I’m just noticing more because we cut the cable umbilical at home a couple of months ago, but I don’t really think so – a lot of these recent articles and mentions are in other media besides television. In the last six weeks alone, it’s as if the national culinary media were astronomers discovering Planet Louisville for the first time, orbiting along deliciously at the other end of their telescopes.
Continue reading Critical mass
Troubleshootin’
A couple of weeks ago, a new sheriff rode into town: Eric Flack, WAVE 3 Troubleshooter. Mr. Flack spent most of an afternoon (at least!) gathering the information for a regular expose of the seedy underbelly of local food truck sanitation practices. The shocking footage was shot at multiple locations including a three-tub wash station at a temporarily-licensed mobile vendor – not an actual food truck with a permanent annual certification. Again, this was not a food truck; it was a guy with a two-week temporary permit, a travel trailer and a canopy tent.
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Treat your servers well
In my previous column, I wrote about the bizzaro owners of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, Ariz. — a couple so weirdly paranoid and self-absorbed, so invested in their own bad behavior, they have totally skewed the spectrum of guest abuse forever. And then I was introduced via the Internet to the creature that is Taylor Chapman.
Continue reading Treat your servers well
Zen and the art of oh-no-they-didn’t
Last week, I read with interest multiple media accounts of the saga of Amy’s Baking Company, a restaurant in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Amy’s is the latest of a long list of ailing restaurants to throw itself into the arms of the producers of “Kitchen Nightmares.” “KN” stars ubiquitous Chef Gordon Ramsay, who famously swoops in to tell you what you’re doing wrong. Nearly every episode follows the same formula; Ramsay is disgusted by your cooking, disgusted by your slovenly ways, and put off by your dated décor.
Continue reading Zen and the art of oh-no-they-didn’t
First Saturday in May
Derby again already? I feel like I’m still recovering from last year.
Since my column is usually published the last Wednesday of each month, I’ve written a few Derby week columns over the last five-plus years. I started out aiming to reread them this morning, thinking, “Well, I don’t want to repeat myself.”
Continue reading First Saturday in May
A stone in the ocean
A list of “50 Things They Never Told You About Being a Chef” is going around on Facebook. Naturally, I clicked. Why wouldn’t I? I enjoyed the list. Clearly it was written by a cook who’d paid some dues. There were obvious things included, like: “You will not cook gourmet dinners at home. You’ll be too tired, and too fed up of cooking.” As I type, there are three sorts of greens and a half-pound of salt pork in the fridge awaiting my attention. Gourmet dinners? How about any dinner at all?
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The Great Horsemeat Scandal of 2013
Oh. Ugh. Burger King acknowledged a few weeks ago that some of its burgers sold in Britain and Ireland had unfortunately included a percentage of horsemeat. Some patties sold at British supermarket chain Tesco included up to 29-percent horsemeat. Worst of all, some crappy frozen lasagna included ground horsemeat, as well. If you’re a Kentucky-American, do you feel a certain sense of outrage and disgust?
Continue reading The Great Horsemeat Scandal of 2013
All the good headlines are taken
When the announcement came that Lynn’s Paradise Cafe had closed, I considered writing a column headlined “(Lynn’s) Paradise Lost,” but before my monthly column’s week rolled around, there was already an article titled “Paradise lost” – in this very paper.
Continue reading All the good headlines are taken
Happy New Year, foodies!
Nearly two years ago in this column I made a “Louisville food industry wish” for the new year, calling for relaxed rules and clarity in food-truck regulations for Metro Louisville. And while we’re not 100 percent where we need to be, I commend Mayor Greg Fischer and his crew for enabling our local food-truck explosion. Well done. We now have a Louisville Food Truck Association, headed up by the ever-entrepreneurial Leah Stewart of Louisville Dessert Truck and Louisville Candy Buffet.
Continue reading Happy New Year, foodies!