Quoted from the Apple post-purchase Customer Survey that I filled out after buying an iPad 2 at their Manhattan Upper West Side store:

“That day was the fourth day that I arrived at the Apple Store at 6AM to stand in line to buy an iPad (Thurs 21st, Fri 22nd, Sat 23rd & Mon 25th). On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, after waiting for between 20 minutes – 1 hour, we were told there were no iPads that day.  This evident disconnect between the channels of distribution and Apple’s own branded retail store seems ridiculous to me.  Especially from a tech company such as Apple.  A company that tracks and reviews every song download and iPhone/iPad application proposal.  For the retail store to tell me and every other customer that they “have no idea” what they will be receiving that day is crazy.  Someone does.  Even possibly as little as two people up the supply chain.  If Apple wanted to have that information available, they (you) would.  What if a potential customer could log onto iTunes or a special Apple website at midnight the night before and find out what each store would be offering in the morning: 10 iPad 64G, 15 iPad 32G AT&T, etc.  Or none for that matter.  That way the customer wouldn’t have to waste their time getting up ridiculously early and go to the store only to find that, oops!, there are no iPads that day.  Come back tomorrow and try again!  Apple would still sell the same amount of iPads.

And please do not use the excuse that giving out this retail availability information would allow people to game the system.  The system is already being gamed.  12 of the 13 people ahead of me in line yesterday morning were Chinese.  I tweeted a photo of it if you would like to see evidence.  They all bought two iPads.  And the ones that I saw while I was waiting to purchase mine all paid in cash.  I am not sure what is going on here but I bet someone at Apple does.  Is a blind eye being turned?  The New York Times even wrote an article about it happening at the Soho store a few months ago in regards to the iPhone 4.

I am a designer and brand consultant so I understand the concept of leveraging distribution to build demand.  But if the system that is put in place to manage demand is not designed correctly, it has the potential of doing harm to the brand image.  Maybe I am alone in thinking this, but to me it does not take much thought to realize that Apple’s system of distribution and customer information is flawed.  And we the customers suffer.  If I didn’t need this iPad for a trip this week I would have never stood in line four times and be turned away three times to buy one.  I definitely won’t do it again.  I like Apple.  But I like Apple a lot less than I did before standing in line a week ago.”

Well, the conclusion to the challenge had finally come.  The ten winning concepts, along with seven concepts that chef Jamie picked, have just been announced on the OpenIDEO website here.  And I was thrilled and honored to discover that one of my concepts had been chosen to be included in the winning ten.  You can see the full entry here.

I had great fun coming up with concepts for this challenge and interacting with the other designers that contributed comments on my design work and concepts of their own.  The OpenIDEO platform has been amazing in cultivating a sense of collective work to find solutions to big problems.  I am really excited to see how it develops with subsequent challenges.  I also am excited to see what chef Jamie does with the ideas and concepts that have been generated from his challenge.  His focus on school lunches and kid’s eating choices in both the UK and US is tough work but vital for us to think about.  And strive to fix.  I appreciate his efforts and look forward to seeing some real change in how kids eat.  I am happy that I could be a part of the process and contribute to his work with my concepts for his OpenIDEO challenge.  I look forward to more opportunities to contribute to Jamie Oliver’s healthy eating programs in the future.  Thanks to both Jamie and IDEO for making this challenge happen!

Summer Spheres: Salad of Baby Heirloom Tomatoes and Mozzarella

Peel baby heirloom tomatoes and marinate in olive oil, salt and red wine vinegar.  Dress baby arugula and purslane with a vinaigrette of olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, anchovie, shallot, cornichon, dijon, salt and pepper.  Plate tomatoes and greens with fresh mozzarella, melon, pickled green tomatoes and good olive oil.

Ravioli of Duck Confit

Glaze baby carrots.  Glaze cipollini onions.  Make ravioli pasta sheets and stuff with a mixture of duck confit, ricotta cheese, chopped parsley, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, etc.  Cook ravioli and plate dressed with a sauce of sauteed chanterelles, glazed cipollinis, flageolet beans, green peas, fresh thyme, chicken stock and one glazed baby carrot.  A summer-to-fall transitional dish.

Corn sauteed with leeks, garlic, green onions, white onion.  Simmered in cream and chicken stock with corn cobbs, leek greens, bay leaf, thyme sprigs, salt and white and black pepper.  Strained.  Served with caramelized sauteed corn, basil chiffonade, olive oil and chili oil.

Salad of Arugula and Baby Heirloom Tomatoes with purslane, cipollini, purple radish, grapes

Peel baby heirloom tomatoes and marinate in olive oil, salt and red wine vinegar.  Dress arugula and purslane with a vinaigrette of olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, anchovie, shallot, cornichon, dijon, salt and pepper.  Plate with tomatoes, glazed cipollinis, purple radish halves, grapes and confit grape tomatoes.

Take advantage of the Green Market while it’s hot.

Searching the internets I found the very thorough Wandering Chopsticks blog and her recipe for a pork Banh Mi which called for, among other things, ‘Char Siu’, a Chinese Barbecued Pork.  I liked what I saw.  But I also came across Sam Sifton’s article in the New York Times about the pork spareribs that chef Zak Palaccio does at his Fatty ‘Cue restaurant.  I liked that also.  I decided to combine the two.

I deboned a pork shoulder.  I then prepared the fish sauce and garlic brine from the Fatty ‘Cue recipe, making the apartment smell quite funky.  Not feeling any need to tie the meat, the shoulder went into the chilled brine and then into the fridge overnight.  I had a few more minutes (Alton was still on) so I also made a simple pickle of julienned carrot and daikon radish with white vinegar, salt and sugar.  That also went into the fridge to mellow.

The next morning I pulled the pork out of the brine and dried it off.  I then prepared the Char Siu marinade from the Wandering Chopsticks recipe.  Smearing that all over the shoulder, the pork went back into the fridge for another two hours.  Was this overkill?  Hopefully not.  I then roasted the shoulder according to the Chopsticks recipe although here the instructions were a bit vague.  The recipe allowed for pretty much any cut of pork from a should to a loin or belly.  So, naturally, cooking times would vary.  But since my pork shoulder was on the thick side I figured my cooking time would be on the long side so I let it go for about two hours, only occasionally prodding it with a thermometer near the end to make sure the internal temperature was 165F (74C).  Hitting that mark I then did as the recipe said and put it under the broiler for a few minutes on both sides to let the sugars caramelize a bit more.

ton, When the pork shoulder rested enough to handle I cut it into thin slices.  And tasted it of course.  The meat was out of control good.  A depth of taste complexity, sweetness, spice and fishy funk that I had not ever before achieved.  This was getting exciting.  I then made the Wandering Chopsticks dead simple pate recipe of not much more than chicken livers, fish sauce and butter.  Also very good.

Time to assemble the sandwiches.  A relatively soft baguette gets smeared with the chicken liver pate on one side.  The other side of the bread would typically get a mayo application but not wanting to overplay the fat content of the sandwich, not to mention that I didn’t have any on hand, I skipped this step.  I then loaded in warm pork slices, sprigs of fresh cilantro, sticks of cucumber, some of the pickled daikon and carrot  and topped it all of with a little bit of Sriracha.  Amazingly good.  And surprising how close my pork banh mi was to ones I had that were professionally made.  Serving this makes you look like you know what you’re doing.  For a depth of taste that has real profundity, the combination of barbecued pork, pate, fresh herbs and vegetables in a bahn mi is hard to beat.

Not having the foresight to book a table in the dining room well enough in advance, we hoped that eating at the bar would be an available option.  Initially, it looked like all the bar seats were already taken.  But through some sort of miracle that only super-professional and generous staffs can manage, we soon found ourselves seated and looking at menus.  We chose the five course chef’s tasting menu.  The fullest experience would have been the eight course dinner.  But in a foreign land as we were and concerned about return train times and babysitter attitude we decided that the five course dinner would allow us to experience most of the restaurant’s offerings without being rushed.  The big decision taken care of we settled in for dinner.  Having eaten several times at Blue Hill Restaurant in Manhattan (and the immense pleasure of working in its kitchen a couple times) we knew we were in for a treat.  Chef Dan Barber has become very well know for his sensitive use of seasonal vegetables, herbs and fruits.  So we were excited by the prospect of chef Barber having all of the farm’s varied and carefully grown produce right there at his fingertips.

Very quickly we found ourselves embarking on the unfolding culinary showcase of what the Stone Barns farm had to offer.  Our dinner began with raw baby vegetables, some lightly glazed in a brief brine, skewered on tines set into a block of wood, something of a trademark for Blue Hill.  We then got roasted cantaloupe shots to accompany slices of house cured ham and amazingly flavorful bresaola.  No need for forks with this course, the saline fat of the ham and beef tasting great on my fingers.  Next came a roasted veal bone split open to give access to the deliciously melted marrow and topped with American sturgeon caviar.  A minimalist take on the familiar surf and turf.  At London’s St. John their famous roasted bone marrow is served with a lemony parsley salad and sea salt to cut the fattyness of the marrow.  Here the salty caviar doesn’t so much cut the taste of the marrow as it does accent it, opening up the taste of it in your mouth as if blown in on an ocean wind.

Things really picked up with the next course, a salad of garden vegetables served with dollops of yogurt.  The varied amalgamation of vegetables was amazing, the several beans lightly cooked and tasting nicely ‘beany’, the different tomatoes sweet and juicy orbs of acid zing.  The yogurt was light as a cloud, more of a foam than a cream, it’s soured tang marrying wonderfully with what we were told was a cantaloupe vinaigrette.  Also delicious.

My memory is failing me at the moment as to the exact order but I am pretty sure the next course we were served was Blue Hill’s current ‘farm egg’ dish.  A breaded egg, still soft in the center served on a delicious pool of multi-colored curried beans.  Sort-of a twist on two traditional British dishes, Scotch eggs and Indian congee.  That was our guess anyway.

We were next presented with a dish of poached lobster in a dairy-less corn chowder.  The lobster was amazing.  Cooked perfectly.  And the corn, for having no dairy, tasted profoundly of sweet butter.  Olive oil we were told.  Bathing the lobster pieces in the broth tasted like Summer by the sea in a bowl.  But why go dairy-less in the middle of a cow-filled farm?  Was this just a show of technique and execution?  Whatever it was it was delicious.

The course following might have been my favorite.  Duck breast and beets.  A very pretty composition on the plate, the duck was two slices cut from the breast, seasoned beautifully, the skin seared to crackling perfection.  This was presented with beets two ways, small roasted beets with leaves still on and long twisting slivers of raw beet, all marinated in a raspberry vinaigrette.  The dressing accentuated the inherent sweetness of the beets and all combined with the duck in a wonderful salty-sweet richness.

If the duck was my favorite of the evening, the final savory course was a very close second.  Presented as grass-fed beef with ‘milk and carrots’, this dish was a cow-lovers dream come true.  Three slices of beautiful beautiful beef, prepared sous vide to a soft rosey done-ness, seasoned and then quickly seared to give the edges a slight tooth of salty carmelization.  This was served with a sauce made of tender chunks of carrots simmered in milk.  The sauce made slightly sweet by the carrots, it was a simply delicious adornment to an almost flawless piece of beef.

The dessert course was roasted corn ice cream which I really enjoyed.  It was served with a rectangle of cake… was it a corn cake of some sort?  Not sure.  But it was very good.

The one other thing to note is that we were drinking wine from Blue Hill’s ‘By the Glass’ list.  The first rose on the list was a nice beginning in that it was crisp, dry and not very sweet.  I find many roses to be way too sweet for me to enjoy.  So this was a nice wine to start with.  But the big standout for us turned out to be the Hirsch Vineyard’s Blue Hill label pinot noir.  I had been disappointed with pinots a lot recently, most too thin and one-dimensional, but this wine changed my mind.  A really great aroma, the way wine should smell.  And a taste that opened up in the mouth.  And just for the record, we did not know that the Obamas has a bottle of Hirsch when dining at Blue Hill last year.  ’Great minds’ evidently.

The entire Blue Hill staff was delightful.  Not only accommodating our spur-of-the-moment arrival but also very generous with their time, making us feel immediately welcome.  Everyone was knowledgeable about the food and wine, easy to talk to and readily available to answer our questions.  One of the captains even escorted us to a quick peek into the spacious and beautiful Blue Hill at Stone Barns kitchen where chef Barber was overseeing everything.  One of the nicest spaces to cook in I have seen in a long time.

Overall our evening at Stone Barns was simply terrific.  The farm compound itself is gorgeous. It made me -briefly- desire to live in the country and grow beautiful vegetables.  If a farmer’s life looked as rustically modern as this I think I could enjoy it, regardless of the distance from good pizza.  And the food… well, the food was wonderful.  Chef Barber and his Stone Barns team are crafting some seriously good food out there.  Our dinner was spectacular and one which we will remember as among the best we have had.  The little extra effort needed to get to Stone Barns is definitely worth it and a trip that we will surely make again.  Soon.