McDonald’s Cracks an Egg for Advertising


Fast food giant McDonald’s and ad firm Leo Burnett have cracked a giant egg for an outdoor billboard that is designed to get your attention…and make you very hungry.

Reports the Chicago Sun Times:

This ain’t no ordinary egg. It happens to be 21 feet tall. It’s also been ingeniously designed to crack open to promote McDonald’s fresh eggs for breakfast. The billboard includes a timer that starts the cracking-open process around 6 a.m. each day. The egg closes up by around 10:30 a.m. The egg-travangza in Wrigleyville also will do its thing for each Chicago Cubs home game through at least mid-August.

McDonald’s also has a giant coffee mug in New York’s Times Square. Apparently coffee and eggs are still big breakfast items somewhere…

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Cookbooks keep coming…but why?

The New York Times has an interesting article about the some of their cookbook picks for Summer 2008. They also say that frankly cookbooks are mostly failures. And yet, publishers churn them out and people buy them — or at least, some of them. The truth is that most cookbooks are also commercial failures as well. Chefs see their names on the cover, do a few book signings, maybe a brief self-funded tour, and then it goes into to the remainders racks.

Says Sam Sifton of the Times:

It is an immutable truth of the food world, right up there with watched pots never boiling: most cookbooks are failures. You can cook with joy and distraction or follow the instructions to the letter, like a terrified parent responding to a detailed kidnapper’s note. Too often the result is mediocrity, food that just sits there on the plate, undercooked, overcooked, not rich enough, broken or, worse, boring.

This is a depressing state of affairs, but hardly surprising. There are a lot of cookbooks in our hungry world, and they keep on coming, every season, thick and glossy and unwise, to taunt the home cook and restaurant enthusiast alike. And we buy them. Cookbooks were a $530 million business in the United States in 2007, according to Michael Norris, a senior analyst for Simba Information, a market research firm. Nearly 14 million books about cooking and entertaining were purchased in the United States in 2007, according to Nielsen BookScan. The trend has been basically upward since at least 2002. On the basis of this summer’s offerings, it shows no signs of abating.

Yet there are still some good cookbooks out there, amid the fallen soufflés and curdled sauces. Even in the bad ones, there are some decent recipes, excellent observations, some help for the yearning cook. And in between, there are subtle lessons to be learned about what to look for when you’re at the bookstore pawing through some celebrity chef’s latest tome.

By the way, his list includes THE RIVER COTTAGE COOKBOOK, THE RIVER COTTAGE COOKBOOK, and IZAKAYA: The Japanese Pub Cookbook. Unfortunately, since it’s not a new book, the cookbook/travel guide/cultural essay CHOCOLATE FRENCH was not included (this time!).

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Death by Chocolate – Ashton Kutcher

You’ve heard of Death by Chocolate? Take a look at this killer chocolate skit from Saturday Night Live.

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TasteTV and TasteTV.com Chocolate News Updates

This Contest is Really Cheesey — No, really, it is

It’s kind of difficult to out-hype the following press release, so here it is in all of its glory:

Four Years and Still Cooking! The Tillamook Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Contest is Back

Think you have what it takes to become the next “Big Cheese”? Tillamook Cheese today announced the acceptance of recipe submissions for the fourth annual Tillamook Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Contest. The contest dedicated to an all-time favorite comfort food continues to evolve, and returns this year with a twist, giving amateur food lovers a chance to win $5,000 in the national cook-off and $2,500 in the “People’s Choice” online voting campaign.

This year foodies from across the country will have the opportunity to submit their homemade macaroni and cheese recipes on the contest’s new Web site, www.MacaroniAndCheeseAndCheese.com/contest. Finalists will compete for the 2008 title, $5,000 cash and 25 pounds of Tillamook cheese. Not to worry, the first runner up will receive $2,000 cash and 20 pounds of Tillamook cheese and the second runner up will receive $1,000 cash and 15 pounds of Tillamook cheese.

That’s a lot of cheese. We will say, however, that we came across a site by the Cheese-Chick.com that has very cool Tillamook cheese interview video.

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TasteTV and Tasteable Blogger Pick: UrbanDiner.ca

Canada has some great food and lifestyle bloggers, eh?

Here’s one from a list we’re putting together:
UrbanDiner.ca
http://urbandiner.ca/

by Andrew Morrison.

It seems like Mr. Morrison covers a lot of ground, with restaurant reviews, links to events, job posts, some video blogs, resto-gossip, and lots of eye-candy photos on the home page.

It makes want to you start planning a trip to BC (British Columbia for those of you who don’t know the names of parts of the country north of the US).

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How Many Brothers Chocolates are there?

There’s been a lot of buzz about Mast Brothers Chocolate and the Brooklyn Brothers ad agency’s new chocolate. It’s a bit confusing, but it appears some if it comes from the fact that one’s an ad agency that’s decided to go into the product business as well.

Mast Brothers, also with a Brooklyn connection, has the notoriety of being made from bean to bar, which is always unique.

Per Adweek about Brooklyn Bros:

NEW YORK The Brooklyn Brothers, an ad agency that is neither based in Brooklyn nor run by brothers, is getting into the chocolate business.

The New York-based independent is currently testing an organic chocolate called Fat Pig that it hopes to get into select stores soon.

“The first reason we decided to do this is because we adore chocolate,” said Guy Barnett, agency founder. “A year and a half ago I saw a report that the organic candy market is worth about $200 million. Knowing that the non-organic market is worth billions and billions, we wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.”

For more on Mast go to:
EatMakeRead
Brooklyn Based

Unlike many chocolatiers who use couverture — discs of pre-made chocolate that can be remelted for confections and bars — Rick Mast, 31, (on the left) and Mike Mast, 28, are one of a dozen or so American chocolate artisans who hand make chocolate from cocoa bean to bar.

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