Updating Your Bar Glassware

Edward Drummond Libbey came to Toledo in 1888 from Boston where he and his family owned the New England Glass Company. Mr. Libbey decided to move the company west to take advantage of Toledo’s plentiful natural gas and sand, both important resources for a glass manufacturer – as well as economical building sites and an enthusiastic labor force. Northwest Ohio welcomed Libbey with open arms. In fact, the Blade of August 17, 1888 wrote, “All Toledo welcomes you to the future glass center of the world!” In 1892, after firmly establishing the glass company in Toledo, Libbey changed the name of the business to The Libbey Glass Company.

When Max Wolfe, owner of Massimo Ristorante in Walnut Creek, CA wanted a glassware update he called on Christine Workman, Account Manager from Libbey Foodservice.

Chris immediately asked questions to qualify what requirements Max had for his glassware.

• Should it be stackable?
• How will it be washed?
• Volume of the operations?

All questions that help Chris narrow down the products that will fit Max's bar, ultimately saving time in the presentation of appropriate products and more importantly saving Max money in the long run by using the right glass for the job.

Some of the reasons that operators still trust Libbey first for their glassware needs are their special glass treatments and their lifetime guarantees.  Read on for more about those from Libbey Glassware.



For over 86 years, Libbey's proven commitment to quality has been backed by our well-known guarantee, "a new glass if the rim of a Safedge glass chips." If the rim of any glass covered by the Safedge guarantee chips, Libbey will replace or refund the price of the glass when it is returned to the dealer/distributor from whom it was originally purchased. Of course, this guarantee does not cover breakage.

 



If the rim or foot of any one-piece stemware item chips, Libbey guarantees to replace or refund the price of the glass when its returned to the dealer/distributor from it was originally purchased.



Libbey's Sheer-Rim/D.T.E. (Dura Temp Edge) stemware and tumblers feature a beadless edge that is first cracked-off then polished to produce a fine, yet durable edge. This creates a combination of elegance and affordability in glassware for operators looking to upgrade their beverage service, while stil maintaining longer service life. Sheer-Rim/D.T.E. Tumblers and Stemware are guaranteed against chippage of the rim.

Libbey’s exclusive DuraTuff® treatment is a special thermal after-process for “pressed” tumblers and stemware that produces durable glassware with prolonged service life for the foodservice industry. Look for the DuraTuff® name embossed on all Libbey DuraTuff® tumbler and stemware products, such as élan®, Endeavor®, Quadra V, Gibraltar®, Everest, PaneledTumblers, Inverness, Dakota, Restaurant Basics, Casual Coolers and Winchester.

Libbey’s heat-treated tumblers and stemware are created through a special heating and rapid cooling process after the glass is formed. This secondary process on “blown” glassware is performed only on the upper portion of the glass where most abuse occurs. Libbey’s heat-treated glassware offers increased resistance to thermal and mechanical shock.



For more information about glassware or to be put in touch with Chris please contact Brian Isaeff, Territory  Manager, US Foods San Francisco @ 925-588-3279



Southern Comfort and New England Tradition

Take a comfortable seat around the bean hole as we tell you how Kentucky’s most famous export combined with Boston’s legendary legumes create a true melting pot classic, beloved in states all across the great US of A..

“Baked beans were, and still are, an economical way to satisfy hearty appetites, and nothing beats the deep infusion of flavor that long, slow baking imparts,” explains Damon Lee Fowler, culinary historian and author of six Southern cooking books. “Down South, our version is enriched with tomato sauce and bacon, and became a popular side dish served everywhere from roadside barbecue joints to church covered dish suppers all year round.” His “Old Fashioned Baked Beans, Southern Style” recipe dates back a century, and calls for any kind of pea, red kidney or pinto beans, heated and soaked for an hour, then mixed with sweet and savory ingredients such as unsulphured molasses, dark brown sugar, tomato sauce and thick sliced bacon, and baked for at least 5 hours—some prefer to cook them overnight for as long as 10 hours. Every region adds its own touches, and every cook does too, he says, which can include a healthy dose of house-made barbecue sauce, a dash of hot sauce, chili powder, garlic, or a splash or two of bourbon…more on that later.

The granddaddy of them all, Boston Baked Beans, comes from ancient pottage, and was introduced to America by early colonists. The Puritan settlers in Boston used their nutritious, filling taste all weekend, baking them on Saturday for dinner, serving them again on Sunday for breakfast with codfish cakes and Boston Brown Bread, and one more time for lunch that day. Also popular in Maine, beans prepared in a bean hole kept the lumbering camps well fed in the late nineteenth century. The method lives on today, with baked bean aficionados like East Coast chef Chris Schlesinger (one of the first to install a live fire grill in his restaurant), who cooks them up in a “tricked-out, souped-up” pit in his backyard, according to the NY Times. He prepares them just like in the old days, by digging a hole, building a fire of hardwood logs in it, letting the wood burn down to embers, and putting a pot of presoaked and parboiled beans into the embers, covering with dirt, and leaving it for 8 hours. “The gradually declining heat perfectly melds the earthy flavor of the beans with the fatty richness of the salt pork, the sweetness of molasses and maple syrup and the gentle tang of mustard…these beans might just be worth all the effort,” reports the Times.  

And then there’s bourbon, with its own spirited history, beginning in the 1700s with the Kentucky settlers. Getting crops to market over narrow trails and steep mountains was a daunting task, so they learned to convert corn and other grains to whiskey to make them easily transportable and prevent the excess grain from rotting. When farmers shipped their whiskey in oak barrels down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, the long trip aged the whiskey and gave it a distinct flavor, caramel undertones, amber color, and legions of fans. Almost 200 years later, a 1964 Congressional Resolution declared bourbon an indigenous product of the US, making it “America’s Official Native Spirit.” 

So why bourbon and beans? Chef Ouita Michel, owner of 3 Kentucky restaurants and nominee for James Beard Foundation Award as Best Chef, Southeast, says bourbon’s sweetness is a natural match for the brown sugar commonly used in baked bean recipes.  She suggests more than a splash: “If you can’t taste the bourbon in your dish, you didn’t use enough.” Award-winning celebrity chef and restaurateur Michael Mina, calls the 3 B’s—bourbon, bacon and beans—a must for any recipe, and adds some unique touches like a ½ cup of strong coffee and a cup of fresh chopped pineapple. Too complicated? The “Five Ingredient Fix” Chef Claire Robinson keeps it simple with dried navy beans, soaked overnight in a large bowl of water, dark brown sugar, Dijon mustard, bacon slabs and 2/3 cup of bourbon, baked for 4 hours.  Even simpler is “Semi Homemade Meals” host Sandra Lee’s recipe: 2 cans of baked beans, chili sauce, bacon pieces, molasses, brown sugar and bourbon, cooked for about 15 minutes over medium high heat, and served hot.

No Need to Pucker Up: Meyer Lemon Juice - Sweet and Smooth

Meyer buyers know, this is not your typical lemon. A distinct species of its own, with a sweet, floral taste that’s a cross between a lemon and mandarin orange, Meyer lemons have won over the great chefs of America, one drop at a time.

The man behind the lemon. What does it take to have an actual fruit named after you? For Frank Meyer, surely the US Department of Agriculture’s most adventurous employee, it was the result of a series of explorations of China’s plant life.  When he brought back the dwarf lemon from a remote region near Beijing, China where he had seen it used mainly as an ornamental yard plant, it proved a natural for California gardens. “The plants bear immediately and are almost never without fruit,” marveled garden writer John Armstrong in his 1933 Los Angeles Times column.

 New and improved. Some not-so-sweet times followed for the Meyer lemon in the next few decades, however, when it was blamed for being the carrier of a virus killing other citrus, and subsequently banned.  Its savior: Four Winds Growers and Joe Grimshaw, who discovered a virus-free clone in the 1950s, which was developed and certified as the “Improved Meyer Lemon” by the University of California in 1975.  All Meyer lemons grown in the US today descend from this healthy specimen, and it’s still the most popular citrus grown at Four Winds, some 40 years later.

Meyers go mainstream. Two decades later, Meyers achieved cult status, sparked by Alice Waters’ embrace in her groundbreaking 1999 “Chez Panisse Café Cookbook. “Meyer lemons are sweet, thin-skinned and famous for their ethereal perfume. Although common in California backyards, they are just beginning to be commercialized. Ask your friends or relatives in California to send you some." In the next decade, chefs like Martha Stewart and Bobby Flay realized its potential: a thin edible rind, a high volume of juice and none of the tartness of a regular lemon. According to NPR, Stewart began featuring them in recipes, including her lemon-pine nut tart, whole-wheat spaghetti with arugula and pistachios, and a take on classic coffee cake with thinly sliced Meyer lemons in the batter. They not only fit in everywhere a regular lemon would, but were sweet and versatile enough to be used in pastries and preserves, juiced for cocktails, drizzled over vegetables, whipped up into aioli, and to serve as a base for a vinaigrette partnered with grilled chicken and fish, or meats like lamb and pork.

A steady flow of Meyer. Its fan base continues to grow, in hot spots all across the country. Pittsburgh chef Alan Peet raves, “It's rich yet light at the same time. They're sweeter than regular lemons and you get a little tang in there." Seattle’s Eva restaurant owners champion Meyers because “they provide "lemon flavor without all the acid” and use it for gremolatas (an Italian garnish), lemon butter, yogurt drizzle and tzatziki. Kirkland executive chef Brian Scheehser created an ultra-trendy and hugely popular house-made Limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur, with the juice of fresh squeezed Meyer lemons and simple syrup to blend with the vodka, while Tango restaurant owner Travis Rosenthal grows his own Meyer lemon tree. “I can tell you that, honestly, it is the best lemon I've ever had. I plan on enjoying my glass of Meyer lemonade.”

An oft-cited LA Times article, which deemed it “a furiously addicting fruit with an intoxicating aroma and hints of honey and thyme” got everyone’s juices flowing with 100 ways to use a Meyer lemon. Among the more exotic: shrimp piri piri with black rice and Meyer lemons; lemon-cardamom ice cream; lemon gimlet with Meyer lemon juice and zest, soda water and Meyer lemon simple syrup; Meyer lemon gremolata; Meyer lemon hollandaise sauce; Meyer lemon salsa; Meyer lemon beurre blanc for salmon or Artic char; squeezed over a freshly cut papaya or guava to bring out the flavor; avgolemono sauce with Meyer lemon juice, beaten eggs and hot broth to serve over fish or steamed artichokes; Meyer lemon crème Anglaise; crêpes suzette with Meyer lemons instead of oranges; Bellini with Prosecco, Meyer lemon juice, simple syrup and strips of peel; dipping sauce with Meyer lemon juice, fresh chopped cilantro, basil, mint, minced garlic, ginger and chiles.

The squeeze is on for the finest fresh juices, and our Rykoff Sexton Meyer Lemon is at the top of the mix!

The Secret Life of the Key Lime

Although it seems uncomplicated on the outside—a tart lime named for its popular cultivation in Key West, Florida—keep unpeeling the Key lime story, and you’ll find some juicy insider info.

A Key Distinction. The original lime, citrus aurantifolia, a native of northeastern India and Southeast Asia, made its way to Florida via Spanish explorers in the 1500s, but it wasn’t until 1835 that US consul and horticulturist Dr. Henry Perrine made it official and established the first Key lime groves in the Florida Keys. In 1906, the phenomenon really took off, replacing Florida’s commercial pineapple groves. Known as Mexican, West Indian or Key limes, the small, roundish, seedy and sour fruit with pale greenish flesh and green rinds were prized for their acidic juice and rich aroma. However, by the 1920s, hurricanes, citrus disease and urban development wiped out years of growth, and Persian lime trees were planted in place of the thinner-skinned, thorny Key lime trees. Today, many homeowners in southern Florida have a Key lime tree or two in their backyard, and while a small comeback is in the works, Mexico and Central America account for 90 percent of the Key limes sold in US supermarkets, according to foodreference.com. 

The Millionaire Life of Pie. Florida’s official state pie since 2006, Key lime pie made its sweet debut a couple of centuries earlier, possibly by sponge divers working in the area who combined the locally abundant limes with condensed milk and eggs they had on their boats. Limes and sweetened condensed milk (handily invented by Gail Borden in 1856) proved to have terrific chemistry—the duo interacted to make thick, delicious filling without refrigeration or cooking. Cases of the newly available milk were brought in to the parched climes of the Florida Keys by resident millionaire William Curry, whose cook “Aunt Sally” was credited with inventing the beloved key lime pie recipe. Other experts, like Key West historian and author of the recently published Key Lime Pie Cookbook, David Sloan, feel Aunt Sally’s receiving way too much credit for having simply perfected the recipe invented by the divers, perhaps adding a crust and whipped cream topping.

Current recipes are as likely to sport a pastry crust as a graham cracker one. Whipped cream or meringue topping?  Equally perfect, and a matter of preference.  Modern pastry chefs often tweak the basics: four egg yolks, a can of condensed milk and half a cup of bottled Key lime juice. At the Breakers in Palm Beach, for instance, the chef doubles the dose of condensed milk, uses cake flour in the crust, and bakes for a brief time instead of just refrigerating to give his legendary pie an extra creamy filling and delicate crust. At Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies, based in Brooklyn, but inspired by his Floridian childhood desserts, pies are produced in small batches, using only fresh Key limes juiced right before making the pies. On one point everyone agrees: the real deal is yellow, with a soft texture, not green or stiffened with gelatin or cornstarch.

Beyond the Crust. At the unofficial home of the Key lime, Kermit’s in Key West, visited enthusiastically by Food Network, Paula Deen and others, Key lime pie is only the beginning.  As owner Kermit Carpenter says: “How about Key lime cookies, Key lime salsa, Key lime chutney, Key lime taffy, Key lime jelly beans, Key lime tea, Key lime olive oil, the list goes on and on!” And it does, from citrus salsa and smoked mullet spread appetizers, to omelets, to grilled Mexican-style fish, tuna salad with Key lime dressing, to burger and tartar sauces, gazpacho, and sweet potatoes, all featuring the sweetly tart Key lime juice.  And there’s more…in Key lime country, up and down Florida’s 127.5-mile US 1 Overseas Highway, restaurants proudly showcase their own Key lime specialties, such as milkshakes, martinis, mousses and sorbets, jams and jellies. The acidic lime also juices up marinades for fish and seafood, meats, poultry and stews, harkening back to conch cooking done by Key West’s early settlers. It’s prized in Mexican cooking as well, used for its pickling properties in ceviche, and enhancing the flavor of soup, vinaigrette, and the mighty margarita.

*LA Times, 2011

The Seafood Scoop! 5/13/2013

 

For sales support please contact: Brian Isaeff | 925-588-3279 | Brian.Isaeff@USFoods.com

NEW:  Ahi Tuna Cubes __________________________________________________________

 

Precut ahi tuna cubes Frozen and vacuum packed. *Sold in 5# cases (5 individual 1# pouches) Perfect for ahi poke, creative appetizers, or small kebabs.

SALMON SERIES (PART I OF III)                                                                                                                                  

Salmon: Where it’s sourced Canada (Farmed) GMO Norway (Farmed) Non-GMO Chile (Farmed) GMO California & Alaska King (Wild) California, Oregon, Washington (Wild)

Special Offerings This Week                                                                                                          

 Halibut Cheeks Succulent and delicate Beautiful when seared, or sautéed….(looks and cooks like a large scallop) 2906311 Fresh Halibut Cheeks 2906311 Fresh Halibut Cheeks   Black Cod/Sable/Butterfish Rich, flakey, and wonderfully divine. Serves well in Asian inspired cuisine…try broiled with miso PN 4660379  Black Cod Fillet  Corvina Meaty and versital.  This amazing seabass is great herb or nut crusted, grilled, or baked. 2594703 2598985 Corvina Fillet Skin On Corvina Fillet Skin Off 2594703 2598985 Corvina Fillet Skin On Corvina Fillet Skin Off

                                                                                                                                     

The Mother of All Celebrations is Here!

 Move over Christmas, take a hike New Year’s, get out of the way Valentine’s Day—the biggest and busiest dining out event takes place on the second Sunday of May, better known as Mother’s Day. Morphing from a simple English prayer service to a day full of family-friendly feasts took several centuries, but today’s moms truly have it all, served up with lots of love.

The ‘Day’ Begins. In 1600s England, “Mothering Sunday” was celebrated annually on the fourth Sunday of Lent, with a prayer service to honor Virgin Mary, and children brought small gifts and flowers to celebrate their mothers. In honor of the day, servants and trade workers were allowed to travel back to their hometowns to visit with family, and all enjoyed a reprieve from the fasting and penance of Lent, with elaborate meals, setting the stage nicely for today’s dining extravaganzas (more on that below!). Its journey to American icon is paved with irony, beginning as a strictly no-frills affair to protest the killing of all mothers’ sons in war by the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic herself, Julia Ward Howe. Her 1870 proclamation called for a Mother’s Day celebrating peace and women (and not a bouquet or mimosa in sight), and was observed for a few years on the second Sunday of June. The banner was picked up in 1905 by Anna Jarvis, who founded Mother’s Day in the US to honor her own activist, social worker mother. She, too, envisioned it as a simple tribute, with carnations at a church service to symbolize a mother’s pure love. Irony #2: Anna Jarvis, who never married and never had children, is known as the Mother of Mother’s Day. For years, she gathered supporters and lobbied the powerful for an official declaration of the day, paying off on May 8, 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. Let the celebrations begin…

Mother Love Spreads. Fast forward to today, when 80 million adults plan to lift a glass, raise a fork and spend almost $3.5 billion on meals to fete mom. From all-you-can-eat buffets groaning with brunch dishes to elegant 3-course prix-fixe dinners, everyone’s eating with family, in style. Savvy restaurateurs lure them in with upscale menus, special kid’s meals, and freebies for mom…appetizer, dessert, glass of champagne, a single rose. As Monkeydish.com reports: “It seems like a holiday where splurging is the way to go. And if Mom is happy, everyone is happy!”  Dinner remains the most popular meal (55%), with lunch or brunch, bringing in another third each, and breakfast at 12%, according to the NRA. Moms weighed in with their favorite type of restaurant to visit this Sunday: steak, seafood or barbeque reigned, at 34%, American cuisine closely on its heels at 24% - with ethnic cuisine and buffets rounding out the choices at about 20% each.

Mom vs. Food: Of course, Mom wins all on her big day, at the seat of honor everywhere. OpenTable reports the most Mom-friendly dining cities, defined as “places where it’s terrific to be both a mom and foodie” as Long Beach, CA, Tampa, FL and Boulder, CO, but restaurants in every city will be putting it all on the table for mothers. The $75 buffet at T Cook’s Royal Palms goes big with butter roasted sea scallops, celeriac and parsnip puree, braised baby leeks and lemon foam; braised short ribs with wild mushroom polenta, garlic rapini, thyme and beef jus; but the $98 brunch at NYC’s Picholi raises the bar even higher with a 3-course brunch including duck confit hash with sweet potato, poached farm egg, chipotle hollandaise, spring baby Lamb with artichokes barigoule and goat cheese gnocchi. Too over the top?  Stay at home sweet home with this  make-it-yourself dinner from NY Times “The Minimalist” food critic Mark Bittman, which he says Dad and kids can pull together in three hours: roasted-beet salad with goat cheese and walnuts, braised chicken with tomatoes, olives and capers, topped off with a sweetly simplified version of tres popular French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s molten chocolate cake…and several glasses of wine for mom!

Better Buns=Better-Tasting Burgers

"It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun.  Yet, is it any more unusual to find grace in the texture and softly curved silhouette of a bun than to reflect lovingly on the hackles of a favorite fishing fly? Or the arrangement of textures and colors in a butterfly's wing?” Ray Kroc, McDonald’s founder

US Foods delectably soft rustic buns start with an authentic French pâte fermentée for a slightly sweet, complex flavor and light, chewy texture. Our Traditional bun has a soft, semi-open crumb and golden brown crust. Our Seeded Salt and Pepper Bun features premium sesame and poppy seeds, sea salt adn cracked pepper. Hefty enough to hold a meaty burger when loaded with delicious toppings.

 

The first production of soft, yeast buns in 1912 started the doughy sandwich makers on a roll that continues to this day.  Chefs, both professional and home cooking amateurs, can choose from a widening variety that starts with whole wheat, multigrain, sourdough or potato buns, adorned with toppings ranging from traditional poppy seeds to the more unusual melted Asiago cheese, salt and pepper, rolled oats and olive oil, but after a century of eating, a hamburger on a bun still spells all-American perfection. 

Start at Square One. Although many claim to have invented the first hamburger sandwich, some credit Louis Lassen for the creation of a ground steak patty between two pieces of white toast at his New Haven, Connecticut lunch stand in 1900. Others say “Old Dave” Davis wins the honors with his crisply grilled hamburger steak on two slices of thick homemade toast, topped with a raw onion, proudly served at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair. But no one used an actual bun until 1915-16, when Wichita, Kansas grill cook Walter Anderson flattened the competition with his novel concept: making traditional hamburger steaks into thinner, under 3-inch square-shaped patties that could be cooked quickly, and serving them on individual white buns. He sold the small, square burgers for a nickel each, encouraging customers to “buy ‘em by the sack,” according to Hamburgers: A Cultural History. If these sound familiar, they should—a few years later the ever resourceful Anderson partnered with Billy Ingram to found a little restaurant called White Castle, still making their iconic burgers, and sparking a real competition among gourmet chefs to create ever more sophisticated sliders (and sell them for way more than 5 cents each!).

Bun Basics. According to Meathead, Huffington Post food blogger on all things beef, hamburger buns must meet some basic criteria to make it onto the hamburger menu: won't dull the flavor of the beef, large enough to envelop the patty, allows the patty to take center stage, firm enough to hold together when wetness attacks it, soft enough that you don't have to bite down too hard and squeeze out the juices, and squishy enough to form fit around its payload so things don't fall out. His recommendations include Kaiser rolls (added flavor), onion rolls, brioche rolls (buttery), challah rolls (eggy), French bread roll (crusty), and pretzel rolls (salty and sturdy). The best bun ever, asserts Meathead, is at Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where James Beard Award-winning Chef Alex Young takes a house-made onion roll and loads the top half with generous amounts of clarified butter, and deeply toasts it on a medium hot grill. A recent taste test by The Food Lab of commercially available buns confirmed the characteristics of the ideal hamburger partner: soft, squishy and tender, with a tight but soft crumb and a distinct sweetness; one that holds up nicely to the burger's juices, but should never be tough or cottony. Chefs Line Buns to the rescue!  

Killer Buns. Finally, a quick look at an unusual fad that had nutritionists seething unhealthily a few years back—the “Luther Burger,” a bacon cheeseburger served on a Krispy Kreme donut as the bun, purported to be a favorite snack of the late R&B singer Luther Vandross, according to NPR. In her pre-enlightened days, Paula Deen served up a similar dish, now called one of her most outrageous recipes: a “Lady's Brunch” hamburger topped with fried egg and bacon, and two glazed yeast doughnuts as buns.