Killer French Fries, Literally
According to a new, widely publicized study, eating fried potatoes twice a week or more will probably kill you.
"But when researchers looked more closely at the types of potatoes people were eating, they found that eating fried potatoes—including French fries, fried potatoes and hash browns—at least two times per week was linked to a more than doubled risk of death," Time reported. "Eating unfried potatoes, such as potato salad and boiled, baked and mashed potatoes, was not linked to an increased risk of death."
Mashed potatoes are glorious and all, but as someone who once wrote a nearly 3,000 word ode to frites, IDGAF and I'm never going to stop eating them. A life without frites is not a life I want to live anyway.
FareStart's Amazon Lineup Announced
Amazon recently announced a big, ambitious partnership with the awesome local restaurant nonprofit FareStart, which was wonderful news in and of itself, but now we're getting all the juicy details. The Seattle Times' Bethany Jean Clement has the scoop on the five new ventures FareStart will be opening up on Amazon's South Lake Union campus. There's "full-service but casual" Maslow's, an "Italian-inspired" cafe called Rise, and a food court/market dining thing called Community Table, which will offer fast-casual BBQ, salad, and bowl options.
Besides the fact that "bowl" is now a subcategory of cuisine, this is all wonderful news, as FareStart does the type of impactful, tangibly-beneficial-to-actual-human-lives work that is too rare in charity these days. They get people out of bad economic situations, get them trained to work in an industry where their skills are desperately needed, and get them on with their lives. And they do it all while serving the hungry denizens of downtown some pretty goddamn delicious food. The fact that they're getting to cash in on the economic juggernaut that is Amazon's lunchtime crowd, while also getting money and space from Amazon to do it, is an absolute fistful of win.
OCR is Coming to SEA
Well, West Seattle to be precise. Olympia Coffee Roasters, the certified best thing about Olympia, will open a store on California and Bradford, reports Sprudge. This is fantastic. Despite growing up in the coffee nerd paradise that is Seattle, visiting OCR was my first experience with a quality, single-origin pourover. It was a gentle introduction, too. They're coffee nerds, but not coffee snobs, and their willingness to patiently explain the different roasts and preparation methods gave me a new appreciation for the stuff, which I'd previously imagined to be a clever way of getting hipsters to pay $5 for drip. If it's done right, it really is worth the money. That said, their more affordable batch brewed drip is also delicious, and its ability to make even the most mind-numbingly boring Commerce and Labor committee meeting tolerable is an absolute godsend. You can get OCR roasts in Seattle already—Analog, Canlis, Vif, and all of Heavy Restaurant Group's places serve them—but the cafes that OCR runs are top-notch, and getting one here in Seattle is great.
I Missed This, I'm Sorry
White Center has a new cocktail bar and restaurant called Zanzibar and it looks super cool. They've been open for awhile now, but I just got wind of it. It's right on the main drag, across from The Company Store.
Back Injury Bummer
Part of the ownership of the log cabin food truck Campfire BBQ is down for the count, no thanks to a nasty back injury, reports Eater. Stefan Giles, the husband half of the husband-and-wife team, is in no condition to fulfill his duties as pitmaster, and thus the operation will be on "indefinite hiatus." Here's to a speedy recovery, and in the meantime, Eater says that they'll be soliciting guest trucks to continue serving the hungry patrons of the Citizen beer garden in which Campfire has recently resided.
Goodbye Grilled Cheese, Hello Burgers
The folks behind Melt, the late pop-up window that did its level best to keep the patrons of Bar Sue from getting completely, irreparably shitfaced, are not out of the game. They also own Central District Ice Cream Company, and Seattle Met reports they'll soon open the punnily named Happy Grillmore next to Nate's Wings and Waffles in the CD. They're partners with Nate's owner (and former Sonics player) Nate Robinson, so that explains the location, and the concept is a brick and mortar version of their popular Portland food truck.
Satay Bar Open in Greenwood
It serves "Southeast Asian cuisine with a Thai twist," according to Phinneywood.
Popeye's Made the Physical Manifestation of Type 2 Diabetes
It's chicken tenders crusted in cookie dough flour. If there's a better way to say, "Fuck you, Michael Pollan," I can't think of it. If only people weren't such suckers for such obvious marketing ploys.
You'd think, after the Chizza and the Double Down, we'd have learned our lesson. You'd be wrong.
Dear God Why?
If cookie-crusted chicken wasn't depressing enough, here's a Food and Wine piece about how high end restaurants have started working their logos into their food as a response to Instagram food culture. Blech.
