Here’s something good from across the street.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/what-smells-good-0124.html

Across the street means MIT, not Salt, Craigie on Main, Area Four, Catalyst, or Rendezvous. Those are nearby famous restaurants.
Chefs and others in the food business spend huge amounts of time using informal methods to guess about flavors that might prove popular. Recently I was discussing popular ice cream flavors with a manager. Some of the flavors we began making within the last five years are very popular, like B3, Goat Cheese Brownie and variations on Khulfee. He said we should make more of these unusually popular flavors.

As though we chose to make less popular flavors, or forget the goal of creating flavors people love so much they will go out of their way to come to Toscanini’s

The article in question is by Larry Hardesty of MIT’s News Office.

“The Swiss flavor company Givaudan asked CSAIL principal research scientist Una-May O’Reilly, postdoc Kalyan Veeramachaneni and the University of Antwerp’s Ekaterina Vladislavleva to help interpret the results of tests in which 69 subjects evaluated 36 different combinations of seven basic flavors, assigning each a score according to its olfactory appeal.

“For each subject, O’Reilly and her colleagues randomly generate mathematical functions that predict scores according to the concentrations of different flavors. Each function is assessed according to two criteria: accuracy and simplicity. A function that, for example, predicts a subject’s preferences fairly accurately using a single factor — say, concentration of butter — could prove more useful than one that yields a slightly more accurate prediction but requires a complicated mathematical manipulation of all seven variables.”

This not how we proceed. New flavors have come about because of accidents, including Burnt Caramel and Bourbon Vienna Finger Cookie. Returning to ideas of the past like our revived interest in Saffron flavors including Salty Saffron. Some flavors may work better or be more appealing years after their introduction. During a trip to Philadelphia I had a great Avocado Sorbet at Capogiro. Since then we have been working to make something as good. Years ago we made Avocado ice cream but avocado works better as a sorbet. Nocciola and Gianduia were suggestions from a vendor and ratified by an MIT student from Italy. Most of our South Asian flavors were suggested by a Harvard professor but one came from an MIT student who grew up in Kenya.

“At MIT after all the functions have been assessed, those that provide poor predictions are winnowed out. Elements of the survivors are randomly recombined to produce a new generation of functions; those are then evaluated for accuracy and simplicity. The whole process is repeated about 30 times, until it converges on a set of functions that accord well with the preferences of a single subject.

“Because O’Reilly and her colleagues’ method produces profiles of individual test subjects’ tastes, it can sort them into distinct groups. It could be, for instance, that test subjects tend to have strong preferences for either cinnamon or nutmeg but not both. By marketing one product to cinnamon lovers and another to nutmeg lovers, a company could do much better than by marketing one product to both. “For every one of these 36 flavors, someone hated it and someone liked it,” O’Reilly says. “If you try to identify a flavor that the whole panel likes, you end up settling for a little bit less.””

Some readers will be reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s reporting on spaghetti sauce.

http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html

It is possible to pursue the Great White Whale of popular flavor ideas with purpose but I think it is equally valuable to be more alert to existing ideas that may be transformed or tweaked. And some times companies have great success by ignoring the conventional wisdom. At a time when everyone in America was proclaiming a national urge to eat healthy, Ben and Jerry introduced Cookie Dough.

Our Black Bottom Pie recipe was inspired by a Jeremiah Tower cookbook. Early in the store’s history when I was discussing flavor ideas with a professor he encouraged me to use the term “appropriated” rather than “stole.”

We’re playing a lot of Bill Frisell this week. Frisell is a personal favorite and a darling of music writers. He’s playing Friday and Saturday at Scullers atop the DoubletreeHilton Hotel next to the Mass. Turnpike exit in Allston. Some of you remember when there was a Coke plant there with a memorable sign on top and a turn of the (20th) century production line that a pedestrian could watch on the street level.

We started Toscanini’s when the Coke plant was there and in the beginning we had piles of Steely Dan cassettes. My brother and I agreed on Steely Dan and only argued about favorite tracks. He convinced me and I remain convinced that Chain Lightning is a great guitar song. At one point I had a Bruce Springsteen lyric in mind about a “a little place that played guitars all night and all day” and thought of just playing guitar music.

The music is first and foremost for the customers and then for us. Workers have a tendency to play music they like and play music they really at peak volumes. Workers “need” to start the day and end the day with loud music. Over the years we’ve incorporated restrictions on music into our application process, our hiring and our training. No Black Metal. No Death Metal. No Speed Metal. No gangster hip hop. No Beastie Boys because I hate them. No songs where you can hear bad words. And we share a very clear list of bad words that cannot be discernible. Some new workers are surprised when we reel off more unacceptable words than George Carlin had ever contemplated.

The music has changed over the years as our tastes have changed and as people come and go, sometimes leaving memorable musical footprints. One guy, from Commonwealth School of course, knew everything about New Zealand power pop and thought that if he played enough of it at a loud volume all of America would embrace New Zealand power pop. It didn’t happen and he abandoned music to become a securities litigator, which is a happy ending of sorts.

Another worker hated The Police for being more popular than The Talking Heads. Eventually The Heads became a big Toscanini’s band. He also hated Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders for being mean to Ray Davies of The Kinks. One woman loved Janet Jackson Over time I came to love the work of her producers Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam. A group of workers from MIT’s Random Hall insisted on House Music, Deep House, Detroit House and all manner of club music. Bonnie Raitt’s first two, almost perfect albums made a comeback. First on vinyl and then on CD’s and eventually via various MP3 players.

The devices used to reproduce music changed the music and the way the store feels. Those Steely Dan cassettes were 30 to 45 minutes a side. That produced a clear opportunity for someone else to choose music, but with IPhones and IPods a worker could arrive at 8AM and leave at the end of the week without any interruption in his choice of music. This forced people to be assertive or solicitous, to ask others if anyone wanted to play something different, and forced impatient workers to ask if they could play their copy of The Harder They Come or Hot Hot Hot by Arrow.

A friend said that good music selection at a cafe is hearing something unfamilair that you are surprised to like or hearing familiar songs in a new context. It is background music but not elevator music. You should be able to hear a conversation.

We pay some attention to commodity prices for milk, sugar and cocoa. I plod through articles like the following from today’s Wall Street Journal. The article was written by Alexandra Wexler.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203750404577173241864893920.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_RIGHT_Top

But at the end of the article, which seems altogether confusing about what might happen to cocoa prices, there is an interesting observation.

“Some experts believe hard economic times will reduce demand for luxuries such as chocolate, but others say the debt crisis in Europe, the world’s largest consumer of chocolate in per-capita terms, could also send futures higher. Consumers are likely to buy more sweets as they seek comfort during trying times, they argue.

“The rougher the economy, the greater the stress,” said Rohit Deshpande, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School. “And the greater the stress, the greater the need for the socially acceptable stress-relieving chemical [dopamine] in chocolate.”

I was lucky enough to see this performance, and lucky enough to read Michael Lutch’s appraisal in today’s G Section of the Globe.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2012/01/23/cantata-singers-astonish-breathtaking-pairing/y3trPs2eWmbf3nUN9rfOpJ/story.html

MICHAEL J. LUTCH

David Hoose, music director of the Cantata Singers.

CAMBRIDGE – The Cantata Singers’ pairing of obscure works by Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt Saturday at First Church, Congregational, was the kind of masterstroke that looks obvious – after someone else has thought of it. Schnittke was born in Russia of Volga German Jewish parents and spent the end of his life – he died in 1998 – in Hamburg. Pärt was born in Estonia and lived in Vienna and Berlin before returning to his native country at the turn of the century. Schnittke’s early influence was Shostakovich; Pärt’s was Schoenberg and serialism. What they came to share was the Eastern Orthodox Church (Schnittke converted) and a mystical musical language that seems part cathedral and part constellation. Led by Cantata Singers music director David Hoose, the program was called “The Astonished Breath,’’ and it was certainly astonishing.

The first half was given over to Schnittke’s “Concerto for Choir’’ (1984-’85), a 45-minute masterpiece in four movements whose Russian text is drawn from the 10th-century Armenian monk and mystical philosopher Grigor Narekatsi’s “Book of Lamentations.’’ The opening movement, a hymn of praise, is an exultation of larks, or angels, with as many as 16 vocal lines forming star clusters. An “alleluia’’ is threaded through the more sober second movement; the beating of dove wings is heard in the fourth, or perhaps it’s the oscillating universe.

The Cantata performance of this ferociously difficult piece sounded oddly Western, and a little careful, not rapt, the Russian pronunciation good but not idiomatic. The big bang of the second line (“Bestowing priceless gifts upon us’’) was just a fluttering exodus of bats, and the ghostly echoes that end the second movement weren’t ghostly enough. But it was a devout reading, and there was plenty to admire as well, like the deep basses, and the starburst on the word for “creating,’’ “tvoryashchi.’’

Pärt’s 1990 (revised in 1997) “Berliner Messe,’’ which made up the program’s second half, is in Latin, and it reflects Western plainchant and Poulenc in the same way that the “Concerto for Choir’’ reflects Orthodox chant and Stravinsky (especially the Stravinsky of “Zvezdoliki’’). The piece can sound bleak and austere to a fault, an aural depiction of the sleek blue glass church and bell tower of Berlin’s rebuilt Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche. But the Cantata Singers, using the original version for chorus and organ, incorporated that church’s bombed-out ruin as well, the rough stone providing warmth and emotional weight and even richness. Berlin and Pärt could be equally proud.
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.

While retaining her responsibilities as Director of Volunteers our new racing correspondent reports from Maine. This doubles the size of our New England Bureau since Tommy will continue to cover Pond Hockey.

“We have one horse – Fiona – whom Leigh has been raising since birth. She was a rescue of sorts (that is, her mom was a rescue who turned out to be pregnant, so Leigh placed the mare and kept the foal). We also just adopted two adorable donkeys from Save Your Ass Longear Rescue in New Hamster. One is a miniature donkey and the other is either a small standard or a large mini. Hard to say. Olive and Sadie (you can rename equines it turns out because they don’t know their names anyway). Burro is really just the name for domesticated donkeys who have gone feral. In the US, they live on BLM land and get rounded up for adoption. The donkey book I’m reading says the feral ones are easy to tame, though. We saw some as we drove through Arizona or New Mexico.

“And yes, it is a great fantasy come true, to finally have a horse! Once I get more settled in and used to taking care of everyone, we’ll start looking for a horse of my very own. Diane, who lives just up the street from us, lets me ride her big old draft horse, Sundance, when we all go out for a ride in the ‘hood. She has a very wound up Morgan horse – Brixham – whom she rides.

We’re open until 11PM tonight, Saturday January 20, 2012

We’re not serving Breakfast@TheBigTable this weekend but we will be open at 9AM on Sunday.

French Vanilla
Belgian Chocolate
Maple Walnut
Ginger Snap Molasses
Chocolate Chip
Grape Nut
Burnt Caramel
Malted Vanilla
Mango
Cocoa Pudding
Hydrox Cookie
Sweet Cream
Butter Almond
White Coffee Hydrox Cookie
Cranberry
Salty Saffron
Chocolate Hydrox
Bourbon
Cookie dough
Cinnamon Nutmeg
Vienna Finger
Coffee Ice Cream Sandwich
Toasted Coconut Macadamia
Peppermint Stick
Espresso
Chocolate Chip
Tiramisu
Goat Cheese Brownie
Fluffernutter

Mango Sorbet
Coconut Sorbet

We have Hot Fudge and Spicy Butterscotch Sauce

I got to ride around town with Tommy, while we delivered Christmas packages for Gill Fishman. I got to hear Tommy book a hardcore band for this weekend’s show in Harvard Square and ask about food allergies and special reuqests. After visiting many alienating office buildings downtown we headed for Saigon Sandwich on Washington St. I love Saigon Sandwich although right now I think I love Ba Le on Dot Ave. a little more. But Saigon Sandwich is next to the site of the long-shuttered Pagoda Theater where I first saw Jackie Chan in Armor of God. I still remember leaving the theater, exhilarated and walking through an empty edge of downtown. Saigon Sandwich was not yet open but eventually my memory will fuse everything into a single powerful idea.

French Vanilla
Belgian Chocolate
Nocciola
Salty Caramel
Burnt Caramel
Salty Saffron
Cocoa Pudding
Mint Chocolate Chip
Hydrox Cookie
Malted Vanillla
Wort
Espresso
Blackberry Rooibos
Sweet Cream
Bourbon Vienna Finger
Chocolate Chocolte Chip
Earl Grey
White Coffee Hydrox Cookie
Mango
Khulfee
Strawberry
Grape Nut
Maple Walnut
Ginger Snap Molasses
Tiramisu
Goat Cheese Brownie
Fluffernutter

Mango Sorbet
Coconut Sorbet

We also have hot fudge and Hot Spicy Butterscotch

Banks are closed.

Toscanini’s will open an hour late at 9AM and close at 11PM, our regular closing time.

Drove off to the South End to find Render Coffee Bar which I have been hearing about for weeks. They are included in the Disloyalty card you can get at Voltage on Third Street.

Render is at 563 Columbus Avenue, close to Mass. Avenue. Chris Dadey is the owner. They use Counterculture Coffee and Dadey previously managed Espresso Royale and Pavement. Render is serious about coffee without being disproportional about it.

As you would expect The Globe’s Ike Di Lorenzo was already there.

http://bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2011/11/16/slow-down-and-smell-coffee-render-south-end/zdJ3xsgYMKIVRwynDoSONK/story.html

Some days it seems impossible to get enough coffee so we then drove to Dorchester Avenue to visit Ba Le at 1052 Dorchester Avenue. They make extraordinary Iced Vietnamese Coffee. The small shop is filled with unusual foods but insist the Vietnamese Coffee is amazing. Some foods are as brightly colored as a Twinkie or Hostess Sno Ball. I’ve been slowly working my way through the store’s offerings, with guidance from Steve and Dana An. Sandwiches are great. I haven’t been able to determine if there is a hot Vietnamese Coffee.

Finally as the sun set we drove over to the CloverHub on Cambridge Street near Inman Square. This is the big Clover location and comissary and I’d give them a Jane Jacobs Award for a very small idea they have executed. There is what looks like a small room next to the entrance that might be an afterthought, or space for an ATM. In this neighborhood the space could be used by a fortune teller or a tattoo artist. Clover designed it to temporarily house very small businesses or pop-up business ideas with a short intended life. First in the space is Grillo’s Pickels. I love pickels. Pickles are great for you. They’ll cure anything and everything and make you happy. Grillo’s is collaborating with Clover and was giving away fried pickels. This is how to open a food business!

There is a vimeo movie about the company that was unavailable but here is the website

http://grillospickles.com/