In Defense of Westland

Over the past six months I have said many terrible things about the city of Westland.  I have done everything from calling out the poor nutrition of its residents to making up fake awards calling it the worst food city in the entire country.  During my report about Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, I made a claim about Westland’s obesity levels that may have taken it a little far.

But before I get into the rest of this post, I have to admit that I made the title of this post “In Defense of Westland” as click bait.  There is no defending Westland.  It’s the worst food city in America.  There is no real award making that an official statement, only the truth. The only cities that prevail over Westland as having a worse food situation would be those that have no restaurants at all.  My goal with this post is to understand why the food is so terrible and to call attention the few places that are getting it right.  This is sort of a quasi-internet deep dive, part review, part rant style post and I hope we get to the bottom of why Westland’s food scene is such an absolute shithole.

My first step when looking at food in a certain region is to examine the residents. As most American cities were, Westland was inhabited by the Potawatomis, a Native American tribe, in the 18th century.  The Potawatomi people hunted deer, elk, and wild birds and caught fish. The Potawatomis were also among the first to tap trees for maple syrup in Michigan.  Some even refer to the Potawatomi era as the golden era of food in Westland.  In 1827, white people saw this happening and decided to fuck everything up. They saw the maple syrup being extracted from the trees, the women and children gathering berries and then men cooking freshly butchered meat over open fires.  They decided that this was unacceptable and they would work tirelessly to ensure that this settlement became home to the worst food in what later became known as America. They also erased any mention of this from prevalent history books so one hundred or so years of history detailing the destruction of culinary practice remains hidden deep in libraries, which no one in Westland knows of.

After World War II an area of Westland known as the Norwayne Historic District was built for defense workers.  They were given subsidies for their rent and a small town began to form.  They constructed a fire station, two schools and a church.  It became home to over 1200 families.  After the war was over, the families were given the option to purchase the homes and preference for the leftover homes was given to veterans.  In the late 40s, it was a popular place for soldiers returning home to call home.  No information was given to these defense workers and veterans about the strict policies still leftover from the early 1800s on food practices in the area.  As you can imagine, these was a shock to those who risked their lives for this country.  When they returned home expecting a home cooked meal on the table, they were met with well done steaks dressed with ketchup.  They fought these policies and argued that the laws were archaic but the town leaders argued that these policies had gotten them to where they were today and must be kept alive.  Any deviation in food quality would cause the town to turn to Anarchy.

Over the next thirty years there were many attempts to reverse the laws of the 1800s requiring Westland to remain the worst food city in America.  In 1959, Westland appointed Ray Croc as a lead consultant for city restaurant development.  Under his rule, restaurants in Westland were required to either be a franchise itself and/or have a minimum of twenty other locations.  His belief was that these requirements would cause chefs and restauranteurs to look elsewhere in their search of homes for their fancy restaurants.  To take it a step further, a large shopping mall was built in the middle of the city with a large food court specializing in bland food and mass produced meals.

By 2008, Westland became a hotbed for people that wanted to be surrounded by terrible chain restaurants.  Unfortunately, these were not the most desirable class of people and only added to the motivation of the longstanding residents of Westland to relocate. Longtime citizens had endured decades of terrible food but once these people, who were often crass and lacked basic hygiene, began to enter it was too much to endure.  The area that ones housed defense workers and soldiers returning from World War II became know as Shacktown, due to the deteriorating and mostly abandoned homes.

Despite the fleeing of the majority of its quality residents, Westland continued to become a popular destination for the worst chain restaurants in the country.  Applebee’s decided to build a restaurant across from Westland Mall.  Red Robin, not to be outdone, struck ground directly across the street from Applebee’s.  Mike Illitch read about the growing shitty restaurant development in the area and decided it would be a perfect location to serve the second worst pizza in the country.  Not to be outdone, Pizza Hut moved quickly to position themselves to serve the worst pizza in the country to the residents of Westland.  Fifteen coney islands were built between 2005 and 2010, with a brand new Rams Horn being built in 2010 to top off Westland as the shittiest food city in the country. The people who adopted Westland as their home during this time were thrilled that they could have a consistent, recognizable meal whenever they pleased.  Ray Croc’s policies were still intact so there was no chance they would have a bad meal at a place they had never heard of.

In 2010 two families realized an opportunity in this terrible, terrible city.  They read through Ray Croc’s policies and realized that there was nothing that said they couldn’t open a small grocery in Westland.  There was also nothing saying they couldn’t serve food out of a grocery store.  This developed into Dos Hermanos Market and La Taqueria Alameda being constructed as what some called “Guerilla Restaurants” — Establishments that looked like a grocery store but was really a restaurant.  Word began to spread and a small group of people that had once traveled to other regions to sample quality cuisine began to research the policies that now dated back 140 years.  They eventually hired legal representation and sued the city over their rights to quality food.

There was a long court battle, which took place at the local Buffalo Wild Wings, with the final ruling being that establishments serving quality food would be allowed in Westland. There were several qualifications the establishment must meet though.  The first was that it had to be built around carry out.  The second was that there was to be absolutely no fine dining.  The third was that if you had a capacity of over thirty seats you had to pay a small percentage that went into supporting the existing terrible restaurants in the city.  The fourth was that a good restaurant could only be constructed every five years.  After these policies went into place, Gabrielle’s Cheese Steak Hoagies was constructed on Wayne Rd.  With the obesity levels in the area and the new requirements it seemed like a natural marriage.  Five years later, Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken was constructed with the demographics of the area being a perfect customer base.

This all sounds well and good to the majority of people.  Most people just want to be able to take their family out for a good meal.  Unfortunately, the “less desirables” that moved into the area seeking familiarity with their food still cling on to policies created by 1800s settlers and Ray Croc in the 1950s.  Thankfully, because of the internet, these people have a voice and thanks to screenshots I can share them with you. Thanks Yelp!

Here is Icie F. on her visit to Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, which advertises on their website as having some of the best hot and spicy chicken around:

Here is Rick W., who had his life ruined by Taqueria Alameda, because they had to close early and didn’t actually try their food.  Apparently this is a valid reason to boycott a family’s business and tell everyone you know about it:

Did you know that reviewing a McDonalds is a thing?  Well Rob.S, an Elite Yelp Reviewer does, and he’s REALLY UPSET!!!!

And finally, it’s very important to Jake G. that everyone knows that Burger King fucked up his lemonade.

So in summary, the people of Westland are responsible for having no more than three somewhat quality places to eat.  They are to blame.  As you can tell from their history, they have standards and by standards I mean they must have their meals served to them by a familiar name in terrible mass produced fashion.  Even then if you don’t give them what they are used to it will be blasted all over the internet which is enabled by a wonderful website called Yelp.  Newer, more high end restaurants or even restaurants taking chances have no shot at making it in Westland because the people know what they want and they want it the same every single time.  Why would any quality restaurant move in when cities like Dearborn, Plymouth, Ann Arbor and Detroit are a drive away and are home to people who will support good food?

So last thing, there is no defending Westland.  It is the worst food city in the entire country.

Let’s Learn About Butter

I must issue a warning before I begin this post about one of the most beautiful ingredients in cooking.  There is no rant in this post.  I will not review anything.  There is nothing about restaurants.  This is the latest in my Internet Deep Dives category where I take something small and expand it into as much information that I can find.  If you’re a home cook looking to step your game up a little bit, this is probably a good post for you. If you’re just here to look at pictures and read a food blog, GTFO.  This one isn’t for you.

The reason I dove into a deep exploration of butter is no oil seems to compete with it. Every tried to make scrambled eggs with canola or vegetable oil?  They taste completely different.  Ever tried to use an oil to brown meats and realized they didn’t do half the job that butter can?  Well, I have.  I knew the basics of where this beautiful yellow stick of fat came from but I wanted to more information.

So what is butter anyways?  Butter is created by separating cream from milk, which actually produces thee separate products:  Butter, skim milk and butter milk.  Skim milk is the result of the cream being completely removed from the milk.  The cream is beaten, or churned, until it separates into solids and liquids. The liquid is drained and the solid portion gives you that yellow fatty yellow substance.  The liquid resulting in the churning process is butter milk.  When you let the solid portion sit in room temperature it solidifies further and is formed into blocks of what is now butter.  Typical American butter that you buy at the store is 80% butter fat, 15% water and 5% other stuff.

If you want to make your own, it’s actually very simple if you have the tools at home. If you don’t feel like reading all of this, here’s a seven minute video on how to make your own butter.

My next question was why is butter yellow when milk is white?  Is this some kind of chemical reaction from the separation of liquid and fat?  Well, this is where things get even more interesting.  I think the single most interesting part of food is the effect of the animal’s diet and physical habits have on the taste and physical characteristics of the food that it produces.  Butter is no different.

The difference in color is primarily due to the higher fat content of butter. Cows that eat grass and flowers store an orangish pigment in their fats that is found naturally in those plants.  That pigment gets carried over through the fat in their milk.  Through the churning process fat globules cluster together, membranes break apart, and that pigment is exposed within the fat which causes to be that yellow color you see.

If cows are raised on pasture, their butter is more yellow when the milk is collected in late spring or summer, when the cows have more grass to chew on. In wintertime, even cows raised on pasture are usually brought inside and fed grain, which doesn’t have much of that pigment. Some dairies freeze butter so they can sell the yellow-tinted kind year-round.   Many industrial dairy producers raise cows without ever putting them out on pasture so yellow color is added to their pale butter to make it more appetizing to consumers expecting a yellow butter.

Now here’s one that most people ask.  Isn’t butter really bad for you?  The answer is yes, absolutely yes.  It’s a very simple fact that eating too much fat in excess is bad for you.  But to play devil’s advocate here, is it really that much worse than the substitute you’re probably eating?

Let’s use margarine as an example, which is most people’s favorite substitute for butter. At one point in history, 27 states had a ban against margarine.  It’s still illegal in Wisconsin to serve margarine in schools.  Why?  Because margarine is terrible. Margarine was created in the early 1800s as an inexpensive substitute for butter. Early margarines were made from animal fat. In the 1900s, people discovered how to harden liquid oils and vegetable oil replacing animal fat. What is margarine? It is a manufactured, vegetable-oil-based substitute for butter.

Check out the ingredients of I Can’t Believe it’s not Butter:

Vegetable Oil Blend (palm oil, palm kernel oil), Soybean Oil, Water, Buttermilk, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Potassium Sorbate, Vegetable Mono and Diglycerides, Lactic Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta – Carotene.

Here’s my resolution with butter being unhealthy:  Don’t eat a lot of it.  It’s recommended that no more than 7% of you daily food intake should consist of saturated fats.  If you eat at a lot of restaurants but you’re using margarine at home, you’re silly.  Butter and fat are what make most restaurant food taste better than your home cooking.

So the final question, what is the best butter?  Well, if you’re going to really do it right French butter is the way to go. When we talk about French butter, we’re really talking about a style in which butter is produced throughout Europe. French-style butter refers to a cultured butter that has been churned longer to achieve at least 82 percent butterfat. Often times the fat percentage reaches as high as 86 to 88%. Traditionally the butter is allowed to ferment to achieve a light sour taste, but you’re more likely to find butter made with added cultures. Either way, you still end up with a tangy butter.  Some even re-inject cream into their final molds which adds even more richness to the butter.

You can actually find French butter at pretty much any grocery store and it is worth paying an extra few dollars for it.  Scrambled eggs, which led me down this rabbit hole, taste completely different than with American butter.  There is a rich, creamy taste added and the eggs become much fluffier.  My personal recommendation is pick up a brick at Trader Joe’s and you will find yourself asking why you have been using Traditional American butter all these years.

Another type of butter worth checking out is Ghee.  Ghee is an Indian clarified butter, meaning that the milk solids and water are removed leaving only the good stuff.  Ghee has a higher smoke point than regular butter and most cooking oils, stays fresh for as long as a hundred years, contains no dairy and has actually proven to be healthier than traditional butter.  Rub some Ghee on some Naan bread and your life will be changed forever.

If you chose to read through this entire post about butter, I hope you learned a few things.  I would like to summarize by saying butter is delicious in the right portions.  We spend so much time thinking about what ingredients are bad and what ingredients are good.  If you stop and think, what is in that fat free sour cream you’re eating?  Sure, it’s fat free but what engineered ingredients have been added to something that is primarily made from fat to make it fat free? Butter adds richness and depth to food and assists in making the meal an experience.  Use it to brown your steaks, add richness to eggs, but don’t slather it all over your food on a daily basis.

 

Sweet Baby Ray’s is Really Bad.

I’m going to make a statement that is going to be unpopular to the majority of people who are reading this.  Don’t worry, It’s OK if you disagree because I’m going to spend the next five minutes of your life convincing you that you’ve been absolutely destroying your meat with a disgusting sugar sauce that shouldn’t be allowed allowed to have the word “Barbecue” on the label.  So here we go.

Sweet Baby Ray’s is bad.  It’s really bad.

But why you might ask?  Most of you have probably been using Sweet Baby Ray’s your entire life.  These $2 bottles of “barbecue sauce” sit on end caps in your local grocery store every summer screaming for you to buy it.  That nice vintage looking bottle with “This Sauce is Boss!” written on the neck of every bottle.  That sweet tasting brown sauce that seems to enhance the flavor of your family’s boiled ribs, chicken cooked on the gas grill and even overcooked pork chops.  Sweet Baby Ray’s seems to make everything great!

No.  Just no.  Sweet Baby Ray’s is not barbecue sauce.  Barbecue is beautiful.  Barbecue is flavored by wood or charcoal and gives the meat a naturally smoky flavor.  Not sauce with smoky flavoring.  Barbecue sauce can be a lot of fun and is often crucial to give piece of meat a nice caramelization on the outside — And before I go on, yes I know caramelization requires sugar.

But what if I told you that for every two tablespoons of Sweet Baby Ray’s you slather on your overcooked ribs, it’s the equivalent of eating the same amount of sugar as three Oreos?

Would you ever add 4 sugar cubes to your coffee?  I wouldn’t either.  Just a heads up, when you dump two tablespoons of Sweet Baby Ray’s on your chicken wings you’re eating just that.  Four cubes of sugar.

Did you know that every time you destroy a perfectly good piece of brisket with two tablespoons of Sweet Baby Ray’s you’re eating 34% of your daily recommended sugar intake?

Here’s where things get really creepy.  There is no actual sugar in Sweet Baby Ray’s. Through advances in sweetener technologies over the years, Ray is able to lower the cost of his sauce by using both High Fructose Corn syrup AND corn syrup which has satisfied Wal-Mart customers across the country.

Now let me wrap this up for you and clear up a few things. I’ve never claimed to be a health conscious eater.  I rarely read nutritional labels and have frequented many all you can eat buffets.  My point in all this is that you are essentially pouring corn syrup with smoke flavoring over a beautiful piece of meat.  Think about that for a second.  A living thing lost its life and you are pouring a substance on it whose creator won’t even go the extra mile to use real sugar.  Not trying to go all hard hitting on you with that statement, but seriously.  Use a quality sauce or no sauce at all.  The purpose of barbecue sauce is to add that tang to your meat, not to completely overtake the flavor with massive amounts of sugar.

So do yourself a favor and sample a different sauce the the next time you fire up the grill at home.  You can do better than Sweet Baby Ray’s.  There are hundreds of options out there who actually use sugar to sweeten their sauce and whose purpose isn’t to be the focal point in your food.  Barbecue sauce should be the Jamal Crawford of your barbecue, a crucial role player who comes through when you need him and has been there for you throughout the years.

If you really want to get crazy, here is a recipe for something that tastes just like Sweet Baby Ray’s but is actually good.

• 1 bottle bottle organic ketchup (Real sugar, plus you shouldn’t be using ketchup for anything else anyways)
• 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1.5 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (you could add more if you prefer a smokier BBQ sauce)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions: Combine all ingredients.  Cook for five minutes  Enjoy not eating Sweet Baby Ray’s.

I hope this information has allowed you to move past this kindergarten barbecue sauce and graduate to treating your meat to something better.  You’re not a four year old dipping chicken nuggets in barbecue sauce.

You’re better than Sweet Baby Ray’s.

 

Why Does McDonalds Coke Taste So Good?

There are very few things people can agree on anymore.  Some people think Donald Trump is the perfect person to make this country great again.  Some people think that he’s a lunatic and we are headed toward the apocalypse.  North Korea believes that they need nuclear weapons to defend themselves from the United States.  There doesn’t seem to be any sort of common ground for anyone to stand on to start to build a general understanding of each other anymore.

I think there is one thing that we can agree on:

McDonald’s Coca-Cola is on another level.

I’m sure the majority of us have found ourselves, one time in our lives, taking a drink of a large Coca-Cola at McDonalds and wondering “How the hell do they make this so good?”. After all, it’s the same recipe everywhere right?  How has McDonalds figured out how to make something that tastes the same every other place taste so much better?  Has McDonalds and the Coca-Cola company come to some kind of secret agreement where they get a better version of their product?  Turns out, the secrets are out there and I’m here to give you the answer you have been looking for your entire life.  The mystery ends now.

In 1955, Ray Kroc came to an agreement with the Coca-Cola company to make them their official beverage supplier and McDonalds has been their biggest customer for years. Coke sales teams are prohibited from selling syrup to other restaurants for less than what McDonald’s pays, even if that means losing business to Pepsi-Cola.  Coca-Cola even has a separate McDonalds division.  The two companies have helped each other’s growth would neither would be as huge as they are today without the other.

With that partnership, McDonalds takes their Coca-Cola seriously.  Very seriously.  Every aspect of their Coke end game is looked at carefully — from how it gets delivered to their restaurants, to how it is delivered to customer’s mouths.  They have guidelines for each of their restaurants to follow to ensure that customers are getting the best Coca-Cola possible and damnit, it seems to be working.

The Delivery

First, McDonalds has their Cola-Cola delivered in large stainless steel containers.  Anyone who has worked in the food industry knows that soda is usually delivered in large plastic bags within cardboard boxes.  The stainless steel containers maintain freshness and preserve the ingredients inside.   This also allows the syrup to stay cooler during delivery.

The Filtration

Second, McDonalds invests more money in their water filtration process than other fast food establishments.  Specifically, their water goes through a double filtration process before it goes in your cup.  They call this the “gold standard”.  If you ever want to taste the purest water you’ve ever had go and try the tap water at a McDonalds.

The Temperature

Third, McDonalds takes the temperature of their soda very seriously.  The tube that runs from the refrigerator unit in the back of their restaurants all the way to their drive through window is properly insulated and continuously has water running through it to achieve a temperature just above freezing.  This cold temperature is essential for peak C02 levels which ensures the crispy, bubbly taste of Coca-Cola and stays carbonated for longer than other restaurants.  The syrup is also pre-chilled before it goes into your cup. The addition of ice into your cup and ice melting is also taken into account with the syrup-soda ratio.  If you ever get a Coke at McDonalds with no ice, expect a much sweeter drink than you’re used to.

The Straw

Finally, ever notice the size of the straw at McDonalds?  That’s not an accident.  The bigger straw apparently allows the Coca-Cola to reach more of your taste buds.  Taken a step further, McDonalds straws seem to be popular among a different community of Coke consumers.  Just ask this subreddit.

 

YouTube Food

Before I start this, I must admit that I have a very small attention span.  YouTube has probably overtaken normal television for me simply because I don’t have to commit to thirty minutes to an hour of viewing the same show.  It’s sad, I know. I can skip around and watch clips of different things and a different video is automatically selected for you after your chosen video finishes. It not careful, you can enter a wormhole and before you know it hours have gone by. One thing YouTube is especially great for is food programming. Anything you could want — techniques, recipes, visits to restaurants – they’re all on YouTube.

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite current programming. I’ll make this a regular thing where I share what I’m currently watching in a given week. If you have one that I haven’t listed, give me a shout. I’ll check it out.

Hot Ones is a very simple idea — Interviews with different celebrities and personalities while eating really hot wings. The host will typically ask questions right after they have eaten the wing.  In this episode, Eddie Huang attempts to eat the hottest wings first and almost dies.

Matty Matheson is a large tatted chef from Canada who has several shows on YouTube. His best is called Dead Set on Life and airs on Viceland.  Basically the premise of this is he visits different areas of the world, usually in North America, and goes through different food related experiences while yelling and swearing.  The intros are the best.  He also has his own channel where he does different food instructional which are surprisingly educational.

Aaron Franklin has his own channel where he teaches you literally everything about wood smoked Texas BBQ. Franklin BBQ is considered the mecca of BBQ and there are hours of content here going through everything from how to build your own smoker, to how to smoke any cut of pork you could think of. If you’re interested in getting into the smoking game, this is where you should start.

You Suck at Cooking – I don’t really know how to explain this one. You’re just going to have to trust me and watch it.

Binging with Babish is of my favorite new channels. Andrew Rea recreates recipes and dishes from pop culture, movies and TV shows and walks you through how to make them. It’s not always what you think and actually provides some really good information on technique and ingredients in a humorous way.

Tina’s Burritos

This will be part of an ongoing series called Internet Deep Dives.  Each week I will pick one food item, brand or category and give you more information than you thought you ever wanted to know. The fun part is I do the research as I’m writing the piece, so I learn along with you. This week, we dive into one of my favorite cheap eats, Tina’s Burritos.  The reason I chose this brand is because Tina and I have had a long time affair.  I’ve been eating her Red Hot Beef Burritos since I was ten years old and consider them to be the gold standard in frozen burritos. I was curious who this Tina is and how she is making such great product that is commonly sold for twenty cents a piece.  Here we go.

I suffered a major blow right out of the gate in my research.  There is no Tina.  Throughout my years of eating these burritos filled with textured vegetable protein, I always had a story in my head about this Tina.  A lady from a poor neighborhood cooked small burritos for her friends and family and as they began to move away she would freeze bags of them so they could enjoy her burritos in their new neighborhoods.  They would then share them with their new neighbors who would go on and on about how good these burritos were. One day, a neighbor turned out to be a rep for a frozen food company who demanded to know where these delicious frozen burritos were coming from.  He traveled miles and miles to meet with Tina and convinced her to sell her recipes to his company and become a consultant for a new “Tina’s Frozen Burritos” product line.  After a few months the company swindled Tina, as she didn’t know to sign a proper contract, robbing her of her recipes with only a small percentage in company stock to show for it.  From there, the company figured out a way to take Tina’s original recipe and replace all the good ingredients with things like textured vegetable protein, driving the price down to quarters for a single burrito.  Tina returned home and still makes her famous burritos for friends and family to this day.

OK, so that’s far from the real story of Tina’s burritos but it’s far more interesting, I’m sorry to say.  There isn’t even an attempt to post a picture of a lady rolling a tortilla and saying she is Tina. There just is no Tina. This was an absolutely crushing blow to me but I needed to to go on. Maybe I could find some sense in all of this.

Tina’s Burritos was started in 1980 by a company called Camino Real Foods based out of California.  Based off the financials I found, it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one buying Tina’s Burritos in bulk. Camino Foods does an estimated $127 million in annual revenue and employs 410 people. They only produce one other product so some quick math leads me to believe that they are possibly selling close to half a billion frozen burritos per year.  They are the number one single service frozen burrito producer in the world and currently own 60% market share. They were purchased in 1988 for $7 million by Nissin Foods, the company that brings you Top Ramen and Cup Noodles, but sold off in the early 2000s and now act as a privately owned company.

In the early 2000s, Tina’s decided to change up their recipe and size of the burrito to drive costs even lower. There was such public outcry that Tina’s reverted back to the original recipe and issued multiple press releases letting their customers know that they had gone back to their original spicy goop filled burrito recipe.

That is literally ALL of the information available about this mysterious burrito company.  That’s where the fun comes in on these deep dives.  I figured there would be fake Tina back story or that she was a real burrito making lady.  You would think a company producing that much revenue with that many employees would have more of a story out there, but no.  Tina’s Burritos likes their story just like they like their grocery story freezer placement: hiding on the bottom shelf.

While I was short on information, which completely ruins this first internet deep dive, I DID learn one important bit of information. Tina’s is EXPANDING.  For 22 years I have had no issues with consuming hundreds of Red Hot Beef Burritos every year with out even dreaming of new flavors.  Soon, they will be offering a line of Quesoritos, coming in three different flavors: Fajita and cheese, Chicken fajita and cheese, and finally… Beef, cheese and bacon.  I can not wait.