All posts by Sophie Pattison

Eats, Food

Giving Mark Bittman’s Healthy Burger, Fries & Shake Recipes a Test Ride

Mark Bittman

What do you think of as “fast food”? I’m sure almost everyone would answer McDonald’s and Taco Bell, but what about Subway, Starbucks or Chipotle? Do all these restaurants fall into the same category, or are there levels of the junk food sector?

Mark Bittman breaks it out for you one way in a New York Times article: “The industry refers to McDonald’s and Burger King as ‘quick-serve restaurants’; Chipotle is ‘fast casual’; and restaurants where you order at the counter and the food is brought to you are sometimes called ‘premium fast casual.’” But Bittman has constructed his own categories based on the quality and sustainability of ingredients and practices.

The categories are: Junk Food—those places like McDonald’s or Subway. Next up is Nouveau Junk, which he explains involves better ambience and maybe better ingredients; Bittman lists Pret A Manger, Five Guys, and Starbucks as examples. Chipotle falls into Bittman’s category of Improved Fast Food because of their fresh ingredients that are prepared in the restaurant. He docks points for flavorless chicken and high-calorie burritos, but awards points for the ease of eating vegan and seeing the chicken cooked right in front of you.

Bittman also lists Chop’t, Maoz, Freshii, and Zoës Kitchen as examples of Improved Fast Food, but he has hopes for a new category: Good Fast Food.

“What I’d like is a place that serves only good options, where you don’t have to resist the junk food to order well, and where the food is real — by which I mean dishes that generally contain few ingredients and are recognizable to everyone, not just food technologists. It’s a place where something like a black-bean burger piled with vegetables and baked sweet potato fries — and, hell, maybe even a vegan shake — is less than 10 bucks and 800 calories (and way fewer without the shake).”

Bittman offers his own recipes for this meal: burger, fries, shake. His hope is that if it is cheap and easy for people to make this meal in their home, then corporations will pick up on the growing demand for food like this. The meal he outlines is relatively simple, cheap and quite delicious. I have made it twice now, and here are some things I’ve learned in the process.

The Tofu Shake (Photo: Sophie Pattison)

The Black-Bean Burger & Sweet Potato Fries (Photo: Sophie Pattison)

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The Black-Bean Burger

This is a flavorful, hearty burger without being overly greasy or leaving you with some serious regrets after consumption. The outside is crispy, and the inside is warm and soft. The fatter you make your burger patty, the more soft it will be on the inside. If you like a more well-done texture to your burger, I would make your patty thinner than usual because the outside crisps quite quickly and I was unable to achieve a more well-done texture on the inside of the thicker patties I made. One of the more expensive ingredients for the burger is the dried porcini mushrooms. I made the burger once without the mushrooms and there was almost no difference in the texture and consistency of the final result. There is a small difference in flavor, but if you are trying to save money or you don’t like mushrooms, you can leave them out in good conscience. I served this burger with sautéed onions and avocado on Dave’s Killer Bread to great success.

Sweet Potato Fries

For maximum crispiness of the fries, I discovered it is super important to have your oven very hot. Since my oven is quite old and doesn’t heat very well, I had to heat it to more than the suggested 400ºF in order to get my fries to crisp and brown in a reasonable amount of time. Moving the oven rack closer to your element (whether it’s on the top or the bottom of your oven) will help with this as well. The seasoning Bittman suggests for these fries creates a salty, flavorful fry that is balanced by the sweetness of the potatoes. Best sweet potatoes fries I’ve ever had.

Mexican Chocolate Shake

The tofu works well in this shake. With a raggedy-old blender such as mine, you are left with a slight sandy feeling at the end, but if you have a better blender you may be able to avoid this. One mistake I made with this shake was using dark chocolate instead of semi-sweet; another was using coconut creamer instead of almond milk because it came in a smaller container. The combination of dark chocolate and a heavier milk substitute made this shake taste more like a heavy mousse that you could only eat a few bites of than a light, chocolaty shake to accompany a burger and fries. Despite the mistake of using the coconut creamer, I was surprised to find that there was no coconut flavor mixed in with the chocolate. With the right ingredients this shake has the potential to be exactly what it should. Don’t be put off by the tofu, it’s exactly what this shake needs.

Drinks, Food

Down in SoDo, Promising Experiments with Shochu Cocktails

(Photo: Sophie Pattison)

KC Sheehan got one of the first craft distillery licenses in Washington, right after Dry Fly, who nabbed the first. But though his SoDo Spirits Distillery got its license in June of 2009, they didn’t get their first product out until October 2011, and they missed out on a small “craft-spirits” rush, as distributors shopped from among the new options.

Now, Sheehan says, he’s waiting for distributors to find room on their trucks.

But another problem is that hardly anyone knows what his signature spirit, EvenStar Shochu (sho-choo), is. There, Sheehan’s plan of attack is to educate people about shochu, which he thinks is an exceptionally special spirit.

That explains why I was walking through the heart of industrial SoDo the other day. To get to Sheehan’s distillery, I had crossed an extensive amount of railroad tracks via what may or may not have been a sidewalk approved for pedestrian use. As I turned onto Occidental Avenue, I was sure I was going the wrong way. On both sides of me were large warehouses, most of them unmarked. Large trucks narrowly squeezed past as I walked along the sidewalk-less road. I almost missed the (comparatively) small distillery.

I knocked on the large, thick door, not certain I’d be heard. In fact, I was pretty sure the whole building was empty—maybe even abandoned. The door did not open. A few minutes later, Sheehan stuck his head out the door. He hadn’t heard my knock, but was coming to put out his mobile doorbell.

I entered the warehouse to find a neat, well-lit and well-decorated room, with Jack Johnson playing in the background. There were bottles of shochu displayed on the beautiful second-hand hostess counter that Sheehan said he had bought from a restaurant that was going out of business. Though he says he buys almost everything second-hand, the showroom is polished and professional.

Sheehan’s SoDo Spirits Distillery is the only distillery outside of Japan to make authentic, or “honkaku,” shochu. This means that they make the shochu using local ingredients mixed with imports from Japan. Sheehan explained that shochu has been made in Japan since the 16th century and can be made from a variety of ingredients, including sweet potatoes, carrots, sweet chestnuts and rice. Sheehan makes his shochu from pearl barley, the result of which is called a mugi shochu.

The process of making shochu is very similar to that of sake. The barley is washed, the husk is removed, and then it is cooked. Once the cooked barley has cooled, it is layered with a fungus called koji (which is also used to make sake) in a temperature-controlled room. The flavor of the koji-seeded barley is earthy and nutty, with a slight sweetness to it. The process of preparing the barley allows a natural sugar to form. This natural sugar is the only sweetener in shochu, giving the final product a clear and subtle flavor that you won’t find in sweetened, flavored vodkas, and the like.

Nowadays, shochu is the most popular spirit in Japan (more popular than sake). It is favored for its light flavor and lack of a strong alcohol taste. It is also, Sheehan said, low in calories (only 30 per ounce), lower in alcohol content and good for the arterial system (or at least, as good as it gets). He told me that EvenStar Shochu is faithful to the traditional Japanese beverage, but also has a unique twist to appeal to an American customer base.

Shochu is distilled only once, which gives the flavor more character and a lower alcohol content. The one-time distilling also makes it a very pure alcohol, allowing it to pass through the body quite easily — you would have to drink a lot more shochu than vodka to get hung over.

Despite the ease of drinking shochu straight, Sheehan touts its success in cocktails. He described it as having “a vermouth-y feel” and suggested a martini with a shot of vodka or gin and two shots of shochu. The smooth, soft, non-ethanol taste of shochu takes the sharpness right out of the vodka and gin. Similarly, it tames too-tangy juices, as in a traditional screwdriver or a vodka cranberry.

EvenStar makes four different kinds of shochu: Original, Ginger, Mint and Chili. The original is the most versatile, according to Sheehan. It can be used in cocktails, martinis or it can be drunk straight. The original is made with an infusion of rosemary, and there is a definite herbal flavor to it. The rosemary itself is so subtle that it is hard to know definitively what kind of herb you are tasting, but there’s a clear medicinal, herbal hint.

Still self-distributed, the EvenStar line is carried in most independent liquor stores, as well as at the Metropolitan Market, and some restaurants, but Sheehan looks forward to the day when he’s carried by a major distributor. Know any shochu fans? If you buy a bottle, you get a free t-shirt.

The Process
The koji is seeded on the barley for two days. Then the mixture is allowed to ferment for ten days, and finally it is distilled in a potstill for two and a half hours. It if it is being flavored, the flavoring is put in with the mash as it is being distilled.

Urocanase and Arteries
During the koji process, an enzyme called urocanase is produced. This enzyme is particularly good for the arterial system, making shochu (as Sheehan reports) two times better for the arterial system than wine. Sheehan says “I can’t say that it’s healthful, but as alcohol goes it’s the most healthful alcohol.”

Business, News

Why Washington State’s Privatized Liquor Costs More Than Before

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So I-1183 (the initiative that privatized liquor sales in Washington last year) did not bring about the free-market paradise that the state’s tipplers were promised by supporters of the initiative. (See our earlier story comparing liquor prices at various retailers.) Spirits have been marked up, in some cases significantly. What exactly has contributed to this price hike? It looks like the one-two punch of high state taxes and a distributor duopoly that’s insulated, so far, against competition.

For comparison, sample liquor prices, based on a liter of $20 (pre-tax) liquor.

The accompanying graphic demonstrates the changes in liquor taxes before and after I-1183. At  The Tax Foundation, Richard Borean explains that, before I-1183, “Washington had a markup of 51.9 percent, an alcohol sales tax of 20.5 percent, and an excise tax of $3.77 per liter, making their total excise tax rate the highest in the country at $26.70 per gallon: more than 3 times the national average of $7.02 per gallon.”

I-1183 did not raise existing liquor taxes, but instead created retailer and distributor license fees (17 percent and 10 percent respectively). The distributor license fee will go down to five percent after the first two years.

It’s true, without any retailer mark-up to replace the state’s mark-up, the combination of taxes and fees post-I-1183 would amount to lower prices. But even if retailers weren’t out to make a profit — as they certainly are — there was a proviso on that 10-percent distributor’s tax: If it did not bring in $150 million in the first year (by March 2013), the distributors would have been responsible for making up the difference. Certain distributors, says Stone, actually raised their prices during the first year to meet that benchmark.

Sound Spirits, the Woodinville Whiskey Company, and SoDo Spirits (home of “only aunthentic Honkaku shochu) all report lowering their prices in order to keep shelf prices reasonable. Steven Stone, owner of Sound Spirits and president of the Washington Distillers Guild, says that even “a small change on the wholesale level can have a big effect on the retail price.”

Yet Stone is optimistic that prices will begin to calm down in the next year or two. The $150-million minimum will no longer be a factor going forward, and in 2014, the distributors’ tax will reset at five percent for all distributors and distilleries in business now. Stone thinks the liquor market is still bearing an unfair share of the tax burden, but he is not hopeful that the law will be changed anytime soon: “I kind of feel like we might be stuck—kind of like hotel California where you check in and you can’t check out.”

Another factor driving pricing is competition—or the lack of it—between distributors. In Washington, Southern Wine & Spirits and Young’s Market are by far the two biggest players, and as such they have the ability to affect prices via the labels they decide to carry. Part of what gives distributors in general their power is that distilleries need their access; in the best case, that’s a two-way street as distributors compete to sign popular or unusual spirits.

Woodinville Whiskey’s owner Sorensen says that their distributor (Click Wholesale) “is awesome. They let us focus on doing what we do best and they do what they do best.” But for a recently started company like SoDo Spirits, not carried by a distributor, the ease of one-stop distributing through the state is a dream of the past.

Though Young’s and Southern have built, effectively, a duopoly in the state’s liquor sales market, I-1183 sponsor Costco is still trying to work its way into the distribution market. Currently, the initiative states that no more than 24 liters (about three cases) may be sold from one retailer to another in a single sale. Large retailers like Costco and Total Wine & More could elbow, in practice, into quasi-distribution but for this.

If Costco can get I-1183 amended, the penny-conscious cocktail customer could see the results in drink menu prices, as Young’s and Southern respond to a large competitor carving out a piece of the distributing market. If in the short term, the lower distributors’ tax and the removal of that $150-million minimum cut for the state — even the prospect of Costco becoming a bigger player — will all contribute to price-pressure in the liquor aisle, no serious discounts are visible on the horizon. As frustrating as it is to admit, nobody can really know where the Washington liquor market is going in the next couple of years. Not even Nate Silver could call this game.

Drinks, Food

Tracking Liquor Prices in Liquor Stores Large and Small

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A shelf at Metropolitan Market (Photo: MvB)

Since the beginning of privatized liquor sales in Washington last June—for the first time since Prohibition—the question on everyone’s lips has been: Where are the cheaper prices we were promised?

Remember stories like this? “The owners of Shanahan’s Pub in Vancouver say they fully support 1183, because it will mean they can buy liquor at cheaper prices, and pass those savings on to their customers,” reported KOIN TV in 2011.

Despite public approval for Initiative 1183 in the early days, there were those who disliked it from the beginning. “Like a lot of craft distillers, Kent Fleischmann, co-owner of Dry Fly Distilling in Spokane, will vote against I-1183. He worries that prices for Dry Fly’s vodka and gin could be driven much higher by retailer and distributor markups, plus new fees imposed by the initiative. He figures a 750-milliliter bottle of gin and vodka could rise from $29.95 to $40, a daunting prospect,” reported the Seattle Times.

Unfortunately for Fleischmann (and the liquor buyers of Washington) his prediction turned out to be correct. A 750-milliliter bottle of Dry Fly gin is now regularly priced $34.99 at the Metropolitan Market, or $44.99 with tax. In fairness, as Metropolitan shoppers know, the prices there tend to be a few dollars more than most places, but it’s clear that we have not entered the free-market promised land.

Still, another question remains: Do certain stores, large or small, chain or independent, sell liquor at better prices than others?

To find out, we compared the cheapest fifth of vodka, rum, tequila, gin, and whiskey at grocery and big box stores (for simplicity’s sake, we did not distinguish between Scotch, bourbon, etc., and instead just included the cheapest whiskey we could find—usually Canadian) at various outlets. Secondly, we conducted a price comparison of a fifth of Absolut, Bacardi, Jose Cuervo, Seagram’s, and Jack Daniel’s.

A chart of bargain-basement pricing (Sophie Pattison/The SunBreak)

For the lowest liquor prices, the brands range from well-known, bargain-basement vodkas such as Platinum ($10.99 at Metropolitan Market) and Burnett’s ($9.99 at Trader Joe’s and 8.99 at BevMo), to Trader Joe’s brands that we had never heard of before, such as Rebel Yell Whiskey ($11.99).

Total Wine & More boasts a brand called American Pride that beats the prices everywhere else in tequila ($6.99), gin ($4.99), and vodka ($4.99). The cheapest whiskey we found was Monarch Canadian ($7.49) at BevMo; the cheapest rum, Montego Bay ($5.49) at Trader Joe’s.

At Metropolitan Market, as savvy shoppers might expect, prices don’t go very low at all. The cheapest rum brand was Bacardi ($11.99) and the cheapest gin, Beefeater ($19.99).

A chart of famous names in liquor (Sophie Pattison/The SunBreak)

The reason we include the lowest price for every variety of liquor is to help readers gauge which stores have, overall, the least expensive brands. We are absolutely not recommending these as quality liquors. While the brand name American Pride might suggest a certain downhome dignity, its price of $4.99 for a fifth of vodka does not instill great confidence in brand quality.

We selected a hard-drinking neighborhood, collecting prices from several Capitol Hill grocery stores as well as one independent Capitol Hill liquor store and two of the new superstores. So far as the grocery stores go, the prices only differ by a few dollars. The QFC “regular” prices would make this store one of the more expensive places, but with a QFC Advantage card their prices closely match the other grocery stores. The prices listed in the chart for Safeway are those available with a Safeway Club Card.

The one independent liquor store we checked out, Northwest Liquor & Wine on 12th Avenue, did have slightly more expensive prices than the grocery stores for the brand name liquors we compared. However, their cheapest liquors were quite competitive with the other stores, and they even had the cheapest gin (McCormick’s $6.99) out of all the Capitol Hill stores, tying with Safeway (Essex $6.99), and beaten only by rock-bottom American Pride.