nickshanagher

The first book by Michael Pollan that I read was called the Food Rules and could be summarised in seven words: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants. His latest book Cooked is a banquet of ideas with lavish digressions and an amazing cast of real life characters as he explores how people cook with fire, with water, with air and with earth. “People call things cooking today that would roll their grandmother in her grave,” food industry market researcher Harry Balzer tells Pollan. “Like heating up a can of food or microwaving a frozen pizza.” And this idea is why local shop owners find themselves in the food business. Balzer goes on to say: “A hundred years ago chicken for dinner meant going out and catching, killing, plucking and gutting a chicken. Do you know anyone who still does that? It would be considered crazy! Well that’s exactly how cooking will seem to your grandchildren. Like sewing or darning socks-something people used to do when they had no other choice. Get over i...

Fresh Kitchen is a stand-alone sandwich shop under the Sainsbury brand that the FT says is ear-marked for an "agressive roll-out" into the UK if the first site, opened in London's Fleet Street last month, is successful. The paper says that the supermarket chain could open 200 of these outlets, pitching it headlong with Pret-a-Manger and, by extension, with fast food chains like McDonalds. Waitrose, it notes, is already selling sandwiches in some Boots shops and ran its slide rule over the Eat, a coffee and sandwich chain. "Takeaway foods is likely to be the next battleground between the big supermarkets," the paper says. Of course, most local shops with a convenience offer are already aware of the opportunity for food-to-go. This story is further validation of their strategy. While it may be unwelcome to have fresh competition from Sainsbury and others, who are already attacking the c-store market hard, it is still further confirmation that the local gro...

I was looking at the bench outside the village hall on Saturday evening as the local youth gathered, thinking how the faces change but the attitudes remain the same. The mood changes from bored, to sad, to rowdy, to occasionally menacing. Occasional trips to the local stores ensue, where their older siblings are often employed. Which brought to mind an article by up-market columnist Tyler Brûlé in which he discoursed about the bench outside his shop in Marylebone high street; how it activated the street and created a sense of community. He wrote: "One of the most valuable lessons we’ve learned since moving into the shopkeeping business last November is the importance of offering people a place to sit. The addition of a simple teak bench in front of our London shop a month ago has revealed a number of interesting facts about human behaviour and modern urban planning. The first is that the sheer number of men and women – both young and old – who take up a place on the bench to rest ...