I am not sure how many readers of TasteOdyssey have had the pleasure of shopping at Trader Joe’s – a low priced organic grocery food store that generally creates its own products – also one of the largest companies in the US – but for any who have, this video nails the experience perfectly. Whether you have had the pleasure of enduring the parking situation or going for milk and ending up with seaweed snacks, I hope you enjoy this great video by carlsfinefilms.

King Cakes are as deeply entwined with the traditions of New Orleans and Mardi Gras as parades, Bourbon Street, and jambalaya. The city of New Orleans is the proud host of the popular Mardi Gras Festival, and celebrants consider a Mardi Gras King Cake a necessity. These unique delicacies are so coveted that people throughout the country order them from their favorite bakery or bake one for their family and friends.

It amazes me how many great chefs can cook fantastic dishes yet fail to be able to write recipes in a clear and concise way that makes for easy reading and understanding. Many could do with working in manufacturing industry for a number of weeks and learn the skill involved in preparing a bill of materials for a product because in this way they would get to understand how certain ingredients can be grouped together to make a “sub assembly” before the preparation into the final assembly.

As we move towards the RDIF paradigm, we are seeing very advanced techniques for surveying how people make decisions in the grocery aisle. Some techniques are as simple as baking goods from frozen dough onsite to elicit an olfactory response, to companies like VideoMining that automates the process of face recognition by way of security cameras in the store to Path Intelligence from Britain working with MIT that plots the positions of cellular handsets as they transmit to cellular networks in order to measure a consumer’s “dwell time.”

A friend of mine here in Los Angeles, who runs a home-based catering company that delivers single serving meals to private homes recently turned me on to the New York based Rao’s Specialty Foods company. Rao’s is perhaps the most exclusive restaurant in East Harlem, New York.  You can’t call and reserve a table – […]