Hello, and welcome to the CulinaryWoman Newsletter. A special greeting to our new subscribers. Dive into our past issues, and if you decide you’d like to support our work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription.
You’ll receive articles throughout the week and you’ll become eligible for our giveaways of items like coffee, tea, cookbooks, gadgets and more. CulinaryWoman doesn’t accept ads and or sponsors; our readers keep us going. Thanks!
How To Keep Customers Coming When The Temperature Climbs
It’s a banner summer in many northern vacation towns. Even last month, when I was up north in Michigan, I encountered lines out the door, and customers happily indulging in food and beverages. They were generating the kind of revenue that brings a smile to an owner at the end of the day.
But hundreds of miles to the south, the situation is different. Hot temperatures and threatening storms are keeping many diners at home. That’s happened in Phoenix, which has had three dozen days above 110F (not just 100F — 110F).
And summer is always a slow season in New Orleans, aside from festivals and other special events that draw visitors to town. It’s notoriously a time when restaurants throw in the towel.
How do you coax people out? By offering special menus and in one instance, Christmas treats.
A Memphis summer tradition
In my book, and here in the newsletter, I’ve introduced you to Kat Gordon. She’s the effervescent owner of Muddy’s Bake Shop in Memphis. Kat is a student of Zingerman’s business philosophy, which is how we met.
When she renovated her bakery, she built a separate classroom space so that she can teach concepts like visioning, customer service, fearless feedback and hospitable leadership.
But her real business is baking, from delectable bundts and cupcakes to cookies. If you go on her website this month, you’ll notice something unique: the lineup includes items you’d expect to find during winter holidays.
There are Santa Baby cupcakes, sprinkle cookies, gingerbread folks (the non-gendered variety), a Deck the Halls cake trimmed in colored lights, and spiced tea.
The offerings fall under the heading of Christmas in July, an annual event that Kat says delights her customers in Memphis, where the summer weather routinely hovers in the 90s with high double-digit humidity, not to mention dramatic thunderstorms.
In an email, Kat explained how it came about.
“It’s one of our longest-standing (and most beloved) traditions” which started around 2010, she recalls. “As a kid, my summer camp always celebrated Christmas in July, and it was so goofy and fun!”
The event is not only fun for customers, it’s a boost for her team. “It gives us a great opportunity to train any new hires on some holiday recipes, experiment with possible updates to the holiday menu, and mostly just have fun,” Kat says.
“And yes, it DOES give us a bump in sales for sure, always extremely welcome in July.”
Her best sellers are peppermint bark, those gingerbread folks, and reindeer cakes (gingerbread cake with caramel icing) which “fly off the shelf the fastest.”
Despite the hot weather, “We always have a cult following of people who are thrilled to snag multiple bags of our spiced tea mix to hold them over until the real holiday season,” she says.
Tricking the mind with Coolinary
A few years ago, a New Orleans marketing effort caught my attention. COOLinary signs up restaurants to offer two-course lunches for $25 or less, and three-course dinners and brunches for $50 or less.
This year’s COOLinary will be held throughout the month of August. In the past, many of the restaurants were located in either the French Quarter or in the Uptown shopping and dining area.
But lately, there’s been an effort to expand the offerings geographically across the city, and to allow diners to choose restaurants with diversity in mind, too. On the COOLinary website, you can search via neighborhood, whether outdoor seating is available, if the meals can be obtained via takeout or delivery, and by type of ownership.
Among the 96 participating restaurants, 21 are minority owned, and the cuisines range from traditional Creole and Cajun to Caribbean. While more than half the places are still located in the Quarter and Uptown, you’ll find some in traditionally Black neighborhoods, across the Mississippi River and a few in New Orleans suburbs.
The price points might not be as low as they once were, but they’re pretty reasonable given how food costs are soaring.
Facing down the heat
Our friend Jason Goodenough is experiencing sellouts of his supper club, which kicked off in New Orleans in April. His upcoming series, which will be held at the end of August, is called It’s F——-g Hot. “Join us to celebrate the glory of the misery of summer in New Orleans,” his tickets page reads.
The food will range from chilled and light to spicy and acidic. “It will cool dat heat you can feel all the way down to your soul,” Jason declares.
The hot weather has some restaurant associations pleading with customers not to be scared away by the heat.
In Texas, which has more restaurants than any state besides California, the state restaurant association has concocted a contingency plan for its members to follow amid soaring temperatures. It includes:
Having a generator available in case an air conditioner or refrigeration unit falters.
Changing hours of operation away from the heat of the day to cooler times, such as morning or early evening.
Adding misters, fans and water dispensers for staff and guests, especially outdoors and on enclosed patios.
Pushing carry out and delivery, so customers can eat in the comfort of their air-conditioned homes.
It’s understandable if you decide not to venture out in triple digit temperatures. But you can help support your favorite restaurants and chefs by showing up for meals and their summer events. They are a lifeline until the heat moderates.
Farewell To An Iconic Singer — And Enthusiastic Cook
As music lovers know, Tony Bennett died last week. I was blessed to have met him and heard him sing live several times. He was every bit as delightful and gentlemanly as you’ve heard.
Along with being a master of American popular song, Tony loved to cook.
Even after he was diagnosed with Alzbeimer’s Disease, he and his wife Susan were often featured on Tony’s social media pages whipping up their favorite dishes.
Tony was a fan of Ina Garten (aren’t we all?) and he and his wife turned to her recipes time and again. In June, 2021, they featured her Skillet Roasted Chicken and Potatoes on their Insta, with the message, “We love Ina Garten’s cookbooks. Her recipes are such a gift!”
On her Instagram page, Ina wrote, “Sending love to Susan. What a wonderful life you had together. Tony will be so missed but the memories will live on forever.”
Are Vacations Becoming Competitions?
In the past, many people saw vacation time as an opportunity unplug, put down their electronic devices, and live a little. No more.
In a story on Vox, Rebecca Jennings said that travel was becoming an “urban bloodsport.” She decried the tacky social media posts from American tourists that denigrated Paris as “smelling like piss, cheese and armpit” and another that said reaching the Amalfi Coast was like “manual labor, not vacation.”
Wrote Rebecca, “Is travel cringe? It certainly feels that way, particularly if you’re traveling to one of the destinations that have become symbols of internet-driven over-tourism — Tulum, Lisbon, Reykjavik, Mexico City, Santorini, Dubrovnik, to name a few from the past decade.”
She spoke with legendary travel expert Rick Steves, who admits his role in popularizing places. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and when I started, there was not enough information. Now there’s too much,” he said.
Rick describes the kind of travel that has emerged in the last decade or so as “bucket list” tourism, where people use crowdsourced information and top 10 lists to plan their trips and end up annoyed that everyone else is there, too.
It’s a really thought-provoking piece that is bound to make some people re-think their urge to take fashionable holidays, or even whether to vacation at all.
Admittedly, I am heading off on one of my bucket list trips next week. I am spending a week in Saratoga, New York, where I will be watching the ponies at the Saratoga Race Course. This year’s big race, the Whitney, falls on my birthday.
After that, I’ll be heading to Toronto, where I haven’t had the chance to visit since 2019.
I will do my best not to be “that tourist” and be respectful of scenery and of course, any restaurant staff that I encounter.
After Restaurants Complain, Toast Backs Off
A few weeks ago, I told you about the 99 cent processing fee that Toast, the restaurant transaction app, began adding to checks that totaled $10 or more. Restaurants and food places rose up in outcry.
And now, Toast is backing off. Toast CEO Chris Comparato apologized for the move, saying it was supposed to keep a lid on costs, but was not perceived that way.
Toast’s backtrack shows the power of protest, and also what a bad idea it was to add a fee without telling your clients.
The World’s Most Lucrative Celebrity Chefs
This British chart floated into my email last week, and I have to admit it was intriguing. Slingo, which is an online gaming site, measured the value of celebrity chefs around the world, based on their social media reach, number of restaurants, and the number of Michelin stars their places hold.
(On Sunday, a British pound was worth $1.29, so add about 30 percent to the figures above.)
The winner was Gordon Ramsey, the foul-mouth British chef. Did you know he has 56 restaurants? Ramsey is trailed by French chefs Yannick Aleano and Alain DuCasse. The most familiar name to many Americans is Wolfgang Puck, coming in at No. 9.
To be sure, using Michelin stars as a criteria is going to favor European chefs, since Michelin doesn’t have guides for a number of American cities (the latest to join its collection will be Atlanta).
But the figures concerning the value of an Instagram post certainly show the hidden money surrounding these dining celebrities.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
I’ve re-opened my Etsy shop, which is called City Tips Vintage. I launched it during the pandemic, borrowing the name from my City Tips Guidebook. (Someday, I’ll update it, since the pandemic probably did some damage to my restaurant listings.)
You’ll find some interesting food-related finds, such as an Apollinaris match striker and some contemporary looking demitasse cups and saucers from British Airways. Take a look here.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/CityTipsVintage?load_webview=1&bid=RhbAcfWLUJlt-Byb_GnLFbmQa8aT
Meanwhile…
If you’re a writer or small business that could use some social media or strategic help, get in touch with me. CulinaryWoman Coaching is standing by with a list of experts.
Email: culinarywoman@gmail.com
Instagram: look for me (@) michelinemaynard, and the City Tips shop is (@) City_Tips_Vintage. I am also posting (@) micki_in_nola to support my New Orleans friends.
Threads: I’m (@) mickimaynard although I’m waiting for Threads to offer more functional features before I post there regularly.
I’ll see our paid subscribers tomorrow with Red Beans and Advice, and everyone else next Sunday. Stay cool and pace yourselves!