If you live far away in LA it may not be easy to track down
Cambridge’s Session Americana, so you would enjoy Dave Alvin and The
Flatlanders, who are touring the Southwest by train. The Flatlanders
are a legendary roots trio from Lubbock, TX. Member Jimmie Dale
Gilmore had a short memorable scene in The Big Lebowski when he was
threatened while bowling by John Goodman. Alvin first achieved fame
in The Blasters. The combination sounds wonderful. Maybe CrashARTS
can get them to South Station.

Session Americana has a web site
http://www.sessionamericana.com/index.php?page=calendar
and that suggests they are practicing until October 17 when they play
in Quincy, Ma.

Here is the LA Times piece.
latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-dave-alvin29-2009sep29,0,7643730.story

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on Starbucks push for its
instant coffee. At the March annual meeting Starbucks prez Howard
Schultz first described the new Via instant coffee. Howard is
photographed looking like a cross between Nathan Detroit and the
villain on an episode of LA Law. Howard has gotten rid of the
basketball team he once owned, thank goodness, but he still seems tone
deaf to how his personal image represents his company. Buy this guy a
pair of khakiis and a blue oxford. He’s incapable of doing a good
fake like Steven Jobs. Jobs used to dress like Howard, although he
usually looked more like Sky Masterson than Stubby Kaye’s taller
brother, or for those who remember, Sheldon Leonard.

The money quote from Julie Jargon’s article is “We’re convinced a
majority of people won’t be able to tell the difference,” said Mr.
Schultz, who explained that he has been secretly serving Via to people
at his office and home for months and they haven’t realized they were
drinking instant coffee.” Why not serve Folger’s crystals? This is
revealing a core problem at Starbucks which is how far everyone is
from the product they sell. If Howard -the company President- and his
friends can’t tell the difference between instant coffee and what is
supposed to be gourmet product why should customers have any
confidence in them?

The Seattle Post Intelligencer had an article on Th, May 1, 2008 by
Andrea James.

Starbucks hopes new drinks can lift profits
Energy beverages, smoothies, food among changes planned

Starbucks’ newest initiatives — including offering fruit drinks –
seems puzzling, and “all over the board” to outsiders, said Bradford
Hudson, a marketing professor at Boston University who teaches the
Starbucks case study.

“It’s interesting to try to figure out what’s going on with
Starbucks,” said Hudson, who has watched the company for 10 years as
an academic and as a customer. One of Starbucks’ success secrets –
which Schultz is aware of — was to treat coffee as if it were wine,
and to appeal to connoisseurs, Hudson said.

“I don’t think most people know the difference between good and bad
coffee,” Hudson said.

“The reason people think Starbucks coffee is good is because Starbucks
tells them it’s good. … In my mind, there’s something inherently
contradictory between a position based on connoisseurship and 30,000
units.”

Here’s a good summary of the global ice cream market, with emphasis on Nestle and Unilever. Unilever owns Ben and Jerry’s. Haagen-Dazs started in NYC and was once owned by Pillsbury of Minnesota but is now owned by General Mills of Minnesota, howevert the right to distribute Haagaen-Dazs in the US is owned by Nestle. Is that clear? This article is from Business Week and if you care about the commercial and industrial aspects of ice cream it is interesting.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2007/gb20070824_230078.htm

Masshightech.com has an article about Moobella winning a new round of fundraising to continue to improve their on-demand ice cream vending machines. Moobella has “burned” through $25M and secured an additional $18M. The idea of an ice cream ATM has a Jetsons quality to it. I attended a superheated demo in Kendall Square, where the atmosphere was breathless with imminent success. The ice cream has certainly gotten better but why anyone who didn’t live on a space station would want this stuff is beyond me. At least at this stage of development. I may simply lack vision. The company has tested machines at the Natick Mall and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The WPT test went well.

For the details go to
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2009/09/14/daily61-MooBella-advances-on-demand-ice-cream-machine.html

A final personal comment is the name isn’t very good. I’ve never been fond of cows and the juxtaposition of “moo” with the Italian “bella” is contrived.

Adam Simha designed our blue metal chairs and the sofas at 899 Main Street. He also invented -more or less he might say- Burnt Caramel. The NYTimes has a plug for his knives.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/16/garden/20090917-seen-slideshow_3.html

The photo looks like a still from a slasher movie. The plastic knife block was designed by Leonardo Bonanni of MIT.

I went to the big Apple store on Wednesday night with a friend who was picking up her repaired laptop. As we were leaving we stopped to talk with a friendly worker named Jean. Lots of retailers have greeters. Think of Wal Mart. And some restaurants realize the importance of a final “thank you” but I’d never seen a mainstream retailer do what happened at the Apple Store. My friend was holding her Apple and old hard drive when Jean asked if she wanted a bag to hold everything. She said yes and I wondered where he was going to go to get a bag. We were all standing in the store’s wide entrance. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a strong oversized bag that was big enough to be worn back-pack style. Practical magic and the sort of lesson that reinforces everything you remember about service.

The Big Coffee War in Boston goes on and on, like the 30 Years War. Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks slug it out with McDonald’s. I go to the McDonald’s in Central Square for breakfast and I can report that almost no one buys the McD lattes or whatever childish name they want to call their drinks.

Much more interesting is the low level war involving the city’s best coffee enthusiasts. Barismo has opened a small shop in Arlington, on Mass. Ave. across from Flora. They roast at this location and they also make great coffee. Barismo also sells espresso beans to the three Espresso Royale Cafes, and more importantly they have been training people. The espresso drinks at the BU ERC are very very good and the Newberry St. location produces espresso drinks that are only a little less so. Meantime Simon’s on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge makes great coffee using Barismo and George Howell proudcts. In Harvard Square the small, wonderful Hi Rise Pie Company uses Barismo and Ritual from San Francisco. The Pie Company has wonderful outdoor seating with great sunlight, great customers and what is usually the best espresso drinks in town. Three days ago, after drinking a lot of good espresso’s around town I had a memorable shot of Ritual’s latest roast.

Cafe Fixe in Brookine and Taste Cafe in Newtonville also work extraordinarily hard to make great coffee. Maybe its more of a healthy competition than a low level war of national liberation, and we’re lucky to be here.

The Wall Street Journal ran a poignant article about the endangered status of Post Grape Nuts. They don’t sell many boxes of this cereal, although we buy dozens of boxes to use in ice cream. As I have noted before, there is a popular ice cream store on the island of Jamaica that adds Grape Nuts to its flavors. We sell a lot of Grape Nut and Grape Nut Raisin ice creams. I don’t understand why the C.W. Post Company doesn’t follow us and all those Jamaicans and come up with an ice cream based on hardcore crunch. They could save jobs. And help the President.

Since we opened several ingredients have followed the buffalo herds out of the supermarket shelves. Postum was a substitute for coffee that was essentially dried chicory. It didn’t taste much like coffee when combined with hot water but if you added milk it was interesting, and we used Postum in combination with real coffee and spices to make Capuccino ice cream. Like Elvis Postum has left the building and we switched to imported jars of chicory. Hydrox cookies have vanished from grocery shelves although we can still buy large boxes of them that are intended for foodservice uses. Anyone who grew up in New York City remembered the endless arguments about Oreos versus Hydrox cookies. I was in the Hydrox camp. They were always kosher and vegetarian

Lately we’ve been making a lot of good new flavors. We made Strawberry Pink Peppercorn Sorbet, Pineapple Red Chile Sorbet, Lemon, Lemon Thyme, Bourbon Vienna Finger Cookie, Lemong Butter Vienna Finger Cookie and we revived Troy Thompson’s Cambridge Lime Pie. Two new flavors illustrate something about how flavors become popular. Kevin Rafferty’s B3 is immediately popular. Customers ask us about it, people email about the flavor’s availability and there is a lot of Twitter noise about the flavor. Hooray. But Kevin also came up with Miso and that’s a flavor that I like a lot, and the customers like less. People try it with apprehension and agree that “its not bad” but don’t yet love it. Miso ice cream tastes like a salty caramel, but not quite. I think Miso is a wonderful idea done well, and I also think that this flavor could have broader appeal if we’re patient.

We increased the amount of Miso Paste and made it more assertive. This is not an altogether original flavor. You can pay $10 in some highbrow fusion restaurant and get it, or we’ll sell you a small paper cup of it for $3.80. Its part of our commitment to customer service. Some ice cream flavors, like popsongs, movies or tv shows need a little patience before the audience finds them. I think over time customers will find Miso. It is never going to challenge French Vanilla or Chocolate Chip but it can become a regular flavor that is uniquely available here in little ol’ Central Square. We were patient with Burnt Caramel and Khulfee. Now both flavors are in our Top 20.

As an accompanying story to the report that Herrell’s is closing its store in Harvard Square, the Globe has repeated a feature about Boston ice cream stores. We’re included.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/gallery/ice_cream_around_boston?pg=11