Eating out in Grand Rapids tends to be pretty generic. There are tons of chain restaurants, and even most of the local restaurants have fairly the same menu. James and I decided to try a new place the other night that came highly recommended for having a good menu. I was very excited to try some new food!

One of the appetizers was called “Root Chips.” I asked the waitress, and she described them as homemade potato chips (normal), sweet potato chips (little less normal), and beet chips (not normal at all). To my knowledge, I have never eaten beet, so I decided to go for it. The trio of colorful chips came with a side of warm goat cheese for dipping. While the potato chips and even the sweet potato chips were a little run-of-the-mill, the beet chips were amazing. I was surprised by how sweet they were, and all of the chips were fabulous dipped in the warm goat cheese.

I have a new found interest in beets and I can’t wait to bake up some beet chips myself. These root chips (and goat cheese dip) were certainly the best thing I ate this week!

The current bill sponsored by a House of Representatives delegate from California deals with an issue that you probably encounter every day. The hot button topic? The volume of commercials on television: why must television commercials be so loud? From a marketing perspective, the answer is simple. When the commercials start, people leave the room. In order for people to hear the message, advertisers needs to make the commercials louder.

In this video from CNN explaining the bill, several “on the street” interviews reveal what a nuisance these loud commercials are. Fair enough, but as one commentator points out, doesn’t Congress have bigger issues to deal with?

Granted, another commentator remarks, those issues are big and messy. No one really knows how to fix the economy or implement a national health plan. No one has a nice, neat plan for the issues going on abroad. So, in a field of political land mines, this is a fairly straightforward piece of legislature that will be easy to pass and regulate. It probably will not change any one’s life, but it will relieve a minor annoyance during stressful times. A little bit of relief is better than none at all.

Interestingly, the video on CNN’s website was bookended by advertisements playing at a louder volume than the video itself. Perhaps CNN can learn a little something from this bill as well.

A book that I borrowed from the library featured a selection of food writings throughout history, including a small excerpt from Marcel Proust on madeleines from 1913. It was a particularly endearing post on the petite French cakes and how warming they were with a cup of tea.

It was a heady thought, reading words from the great Proust on something as mundane as madeleines. I happen to mention this to a fellow baker and she offered me a madeleine pan to borrow over the holidays. I could not recall eating a madeleine, let alone making them. I had, however, recently read a post on Vanilla Garlic on Chocolate Lime Madeleines.

The recipe was simple enough: chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, salt, and lime zest. The results were delectable, light little cakes with a wonderful hint of lime. I was quite pleased, so I also whipped out a batch with white chocolate instead of dark. The results were slightly different in texture, much more moist than the dark chocolate (probably due to the high fat content in white chocolate).

The process of baking and serving the madeleines was wonderful, and it built up my confidence in the kitchen. The little cakes were also a perfect compliment to a cup of hot cocoa after a long walk in the snow with the dogs.

One thing that most everyone looks forward to during the holidays is the food. Family gatherings usually have their own traditional spread of food, which varies wildly depending on the family and the function. For whatever reason, most of my family’s functions seem to revolve around ham-on-bun (or a similar “on bun” type main dish). There isn’t anything particularly wrong with this, though it isn’t terribly exciting either.

When we celebrate the holidays with James’ extended family, however, the food is a bit more exotic with a Mediterranean flair. We both look forward to the hummus, which in Detroit is as close to authentic as one can get without a passport. This year’s delight was hushweh (or hashweh, depending on your source), which is a Lebanese Lamb Dish. It is basically a stuffing with pine nuts, though sometimes made with rice.

And with the hummus and pitas? The best thing I ate this week!

As 2009 draws to a close, many foodies (expert or not) are starting to make predictions for the top food trends in 2010. While there is no definitive source on such matters, plenty of people are willing and able to speculate on what’s going to be big in food in the next year.

Some of the big trends of 2009 included “recession vegetarianism” and food shortage scares (that never actually happened). “Recession vegetarianism” was the general term used as people scaled down their meat intake in the face of a recession in attempts to reduce food costs as prices steadily increased. While this trend did not have roots in a moral or environmental cause, it was nice to see people reducing their meat consumption and turn to alternative proteins like beans and lentils.

For the big food shortage scares, most of the predictions seemed to fall on deaf ears. Early in the year, farmers sounded the alarm that avocados would be scarce. It retrospect, it appears the farmers may have been wrapped up in the recession hysteria and exaggerated what was a smaller crop than usual. Same goes for pumpkins, as it was reported that the autumn staple would be hard to find, yet no one reported consumers fighting over the last orange gourd at Halloween or grandmothers wrestling for the last can of pumpkin puree before Thanksgiving (see also: The Great Canned Pumpkin Shortage of 2009: A Lame Marketing Strategy?).

What can we look forward to in 2010? Well, Foodchannel.com has a list of Top 10 Food Trends for 2010, including mainstreaming sustainability, food with benefits (such as orange juice with added calcium), experimentation and willingness to try new things, and the rise of individuality in food.  Their list of 10 are all fairly generic, and to some extend are already occurring. Not quite a forecast, it is more a review of the shift in food that has started to occur in America and where it might go next.

In general, it appears people have had enough of “recession” food and instead want to focus on food good for the body and the planet. Words like sustainability, organic, and “green” are continuing to dominate food reports and trends. Consumers are starting to look for merchants and products that are fair trade or independent, placing less of an emphasis on cost. People are also placing a higher value on health and healthy food, even though it is often more expensive that prepackaged foods.

Building on this trend were movies and  memoirs about food and food consciousness, which will continue to be popular in 2010. Food and pop culture are starting to merge in new and interesting ways, and it will be exciting to see where this leads the average consumer. 2010 might be a key year for the development of food as a pop culture item, which will hopefully bring home cooking into the limelight (and not just as “recession” cooking).

As for what 2010 will bring for this site and the Bitter/Sweet blog, you will just have to wait and see what happens!