No Bait and Switch with Dinner’s On The Table

Posted on July 9th, 2008 in Food Opinion, Personal Chef by Ira Weiss

ABC News reported recently that higher food prices are causing some restaurants to become "creative" when it comes to the food they’re serving on your plate by swapping out one food item for a less expensive one, or reducing portion size without editing the menu to reflect the change . When you order a main course of Grouper you have every right to expect to be served Grouper, not Catfish or some cheaper fish in its place.

This isn’t cutting costs, it’s robbery on the high seas. If a certain food is too expensive, don’t offer it or do raise the price, but don’t steal from customers. You might say it’s the equivalent of buying a knock-off piece of clothing. The brand name is there, but it was manufactured by someone else, with reduced quality of craftsmanship and materials.

Dinner’s On The Table Personal Chef Service will never use bait and switch tactics. We’re food lovers as much as we are providers. We respect ourselves and our food as much as we respect the clients we cook for. We hand-pick every ingredient we buy for your cookdate or dinner party  and strive to acquire exactly what you order. If for some reason we can’t find a specific ingredient due to seasonal or supply issues, we’ll inform you and ask what you would like in its place.

Leftovers: The Story of Prepared Foods

Posted on July 9th, 2008 in Food History, Food Opinion, Personal Chef by Ira Weiss

I was talking with a friend the other day and the topic of leftovers came up. They flat out said they hate leftovers and reheated food. That statement had me scratching my head in wonderment. Modern prepared foods are entirely based on the concept of leftovers and reheated food. Only if my friend bought only raw ingredients and prepared everything from scratch would they avoid eating leftovers and reheated food.

For Example:
 
Canned foods are cooked right inside the can after it has been filled and sealed. The ready to eat soups are leftovers which are reheated. Usually with chemicals added to help "preserve" them for a long shelf life. Campbell’s Condensed Soups are cooked, then continually cooked to make it condensed, and then placed in the can and brought back up to temperature to kill off bacteria before it is sealed. Canned veggies are also cooked right in the can. Jarred foods are precooked too. Again, this is to kill off bacteria.
 
Frozen vegetables? They’ve been blanched. Par-cooked so their cellular structure can adapt to the freezing process.
 
If your family eats cold cuts or hot dogs they are also pre-cooked. Formed meats like boiled ham, chicken loaf, bologna, and hot dogs are made of meat from "various parts" and cuts of the animal that are not able to be sold in the butcher department. This meat is then sent through a grinder, placed into a form and cooked. They are in essence leftovers. Even your turkey breast or roast beef from Boar’s Head was pre-cooked.
 
Frozen dinners, the wonderful plastic things that you have in your freezer. Healthy Choice, Stouffer’s, Swanson; all leftovers that require reheating. When you buy frozen raviolis the dough may be uncooked, but the cheese or meat inside has been precooked for health safety reasons.
 
Pasta that you buy in a box. Ronzoni, Mueller’s, Bertolli, etc. The pasta has been cooked and then dehydrated. When you reboil pasta it is essentially reconstituted, reheated leftovers. And the tomato sauce you purchased in a jar is the same. Also precooked waiting to be reheated. Sorry, but Annie’s all natural or Kraft Mac & Cheese is leftovers. I’m not sure whether it comes with a powdered cheese or a liquid cheese package, but that’s precooked too. Powdered cheese is ground, dehydrated cheese with other stuff added in to help "stabilize" it.  Or is that dried then ground? Hmmm. And liquid cheese isn’t much better.
 
Most if not all of these foods are prepared weeks or months before they reach your dinner table…
 
Yes, we use store bought pasta, peanut butter, sesame tahini, canned beans and occasionally, canned tomatoes plus other prepared foods in our cooking. This is because there’s nothing wrong with them and the texture and flavor can make a difference. Especially, in the winter when fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are not  readily available. We will also use frozen vegetables if fresh aren’t available, but we notify you first. We do however make our own pasta sauce – never from a jar. Of course, if our client’s wish for us to make pasta and beans from scratch, we can do so.
 
90% or more of the food we prepare is from scratch using choice meats, fresh vegetables and fruit. And we buy organic upon request.
 
This is the beauty and simplicity of Dinner’s On The Table Personal Chef service. When Dinner’s On The Table cooks your meals you can count on the food being only 0-6 days old by the time it’s eaten (if eaten during the weekly timeframe between cookdates). We don’t add any preservatives or chemicals.  2-3 dinners are kept in the fridge and the rest placed in your freezer to be thawed 24-36 hours prior to eating. Meals frozen for 3-7 days never get freezer burn and have very minimal if any textural differences than if they had been left in the fridge. We’ve actually tested this in our home before we started the company.  Any dishes we feel would be affected by the freezing process we recommend to be left in the fridge and eaten within 3 days.  
 
And we hope you agree that they taste much better than the mass-produced TV Dinners you buy in the grocery store. Our satisfied clients say it all, http://hudsonvalley.ratingsmart.com/businesses/23289/listing.
 
So, in essence, the concept of disliking leftovers, or if you wish, prepared foods, is a state of mind. Because we eat them everyday of our lives. Civilization couldn’t have grown to this level of sophistication and size without them.