GUSTI Blog

Day One of FFS 2009

 

Too tired to write much and running out to Day Two. Here are pictures of some of our friends and products at the Show. More tomorrow. Booth 2949.

Ducale Restaurant

Ducale, a restaurant on the upper West Side in Manhattan, gets better every time I go. It's the perfect neighborhood restaurant: nice space and good food at reasonable prices. One of the reasons I like this restaurant is that Jerry, the chef, is eager to learn about authentic Italian foods. Yesterday, taking advantage of the fact that Nicola Bovoli is in town and is an expert on olive oils, we arranged a tasting of a few EV Olive Oils at Ducale (read about it, here) and Jerry loved it. In exchange, Jerry prepared for us a great tasting menu. Click the arrow below and watch what you will eat when you go to Ducale restaurant. If you do go, say hello to Jerry from us.

EVOO Tasting - Vicopisano, Tratturello and Cru di Cures

Nicola Bovoli arrived in NY last night and we already have put him to work. We asked him to taste three EV olive oils from three different regions, Cru di Cures from Lazio, Tratturello from Molise and Nicola's Vicopisano from Toscana. He is a Mastro Olivario, i.e. an official taster of EV Olive Oils and he presides all kinds of panels for awards and certifications in Italy. So, he knows more than a thing or two about the gold liquid. He also said that the olive's cultivars, the kind of soil, the microclimate of the particular olive grove would characterize the taste of each oil. In a blind tasting, in fact, he would be able to tell you where each of the ev olive oils come from. This is what he had to say (click the arrow to watch the video)

I made a mistake in the video (a few, actually, but this one point is important). The olive with which the Tratturello is made is NOT Tonda di Larino but Gentile di Larino. Francesco, will you ever forgive me?

Gustiamo and La Cucina Italiana Magazine at the Fancy Food Show NYC 2009

If you are reading this blog, you should know by now that we are going to be at the Fancy Food Show, at the end of June. Booth #2949 (read here for more).

It is our great pleasure to share our booth with our friends of the American edition of La Cucina Italiana magazine. La Cucina Italiana magazine is an offshoot of the Italian "La Cucina Italiana", which is the oldest cooking magazine in Italy (in the world?), being published since 1929. Many editors in Italy ventured to copy the concept and format of the magazine. La Cucina Italiana keeps its strong position, more than double the distribution of the next similar magazine.

The other day, I was talking to Jacopo, the descendant of the Italian founders who transferred to NY to oversee the American magazine. He told me that one of the factors that make the magazine so successful in America is that it is authentic and all the recipes are developed in Italy, in the main office in Milano. We love the magazine and always read and use it, as our mothers did in Italy. Like Gustiamo, the magazine is the real thing, when you talk real Italian Food.

During the show, the chef Antonio Cinicola will cook recepies of la Cucina Italiana with authentic Italian products from Gustiamo. We will post all the recipies on our website, here is the first: Pasta with Tomatoes, Olives, Anchovies and Capers. Buy any or all of the ingredients included in the recipe and you'll receive a discount of 20%. This offer is valid until July 15 (or until supply lasts) and the magic word is "CUCINA". You have to write "CUCINA" in the special instructions of your shopping cart, in order to receive the discount.

Lots of reasons to stop by our booth #2949: meet our friends from La Cucina Italiana, taste authentic Italian foods and grab a free copy of the magazine. See you there.

The Euro Is Killing Us

  The Euro is at its highest point in five months and it's very bad news for Gustiamo. In fact, we pay our producers in Euros and we pay them either in advance or as soon as we receive shipments. Our producers are so small, they can't afford to give us longer terms.

Experts say that the dollar is becoming weaker and weaker because the Fed is printing money like crazy and the government is issuing trillions of dollars in new debt to help us out of the recession. It might be good for America, it's certainly not good for Gustiamo.

Today, we exchanged our dollars at 1.42 to make our payments in Euros. Meaning, it takes $1.42 to buy 1 Euro. Five months ago, we were paying the Euros at $1.20. It's a disaster.  But don't panic! We are going to try very hard not to raise our prices until the end of the year.

Now Twitter - Will We Ever Have A Life Anymore?

I can't tell you how much time we spend trying to keep up with new technology and trends.  Could it be because we are not exactly spring chickens, any longer?

We use skype, youtube and flikr.  We Blog on this Gustiblog. We were about to finally update our Gustiamo page on Facebook... and what do we hear? Facebook is out. If you do Facebook, you are out of the loop. Twitter is the next thing. Now, who would care to receive short messages (max 140 characters) about what we are doing that precise moment? Apparently, lots of people. I opened an account on Twitter, never posted a thing and have already 8 followers. I don't know how they arrived at my account, because I can't find theirs. I emailed Twitter for directions. This is our next project. Stay tuned. God, will we ever get to have a life again?

Junk Food Goes Local!

    Frito-Lay is a division of the American company, PepsiCo. For our Italian friends who never heard of it, Frito-Lay is the biggest manufacturer and seller of potato chips, corn chips and other junk foods. It's a huge company whose products sound like Doritos, Tostitos, SunChips ... and they are sold everywhere from supermarkets, to gas stations, to drug stores.

I read this article in the New York Times where they say Frito-Lay claims they are local, because the potatoes they use are grown in farms (huge) near the factories. Junk food claiming to be local leaves me with the same feelings I had when, three years ago Wal Mart announced they would go organic. (This is the newsletter we sent out in 2006.) Ie, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

VICOPISANO EV Olive Oil Is a Silver Finalist for SOFI Awards 2009

 Gustiamo goes to the Fancy Food Show, booth #2949 (read all about it here) at the end of June and it already looks promising. We just received notice that our Vicopisano Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a finalist for the SOFI gold Awards. You might have never heard of the SOFI Awards, but it's a big deal, in the specialty food business. It's considered the highest honor in the industry, like the Oscars for movies. In fact, the award itself looks like an Oscar statuette with the chef hat. A national panel of experts spends three days tasting and evaluating some 1,500 products. They choose 111 Silver Finalists in 31 categories and Vicopisano won in the Olive Oil category.

For the occasion, the producer of Vicopisano EV Olive Oil, Nicola Bovoli and his wife Lucia, will be with us in New York, during the Fancy Food Show. This is how world famous Olive Oil expert, Judy Ridgway, describes this spectacular olive oil in her "Best Olive Oils Buys Around the World" guide: "An attractive aroma of apple skins and grassy sorrel leads into dry herbal tones with almond essence and vanilla. Bitter almonds skins mingle with growing pepper. The latter remains as a tingling sensation in the deeply nutty aftertaste."

After this description, don't you feel you must meet the man who makes this wonder of nature possible? Click on this link and watch Nicola interviewed by me, last year. Then, come to the Fancy Food Show to taste his olive oil and meet him personally.

We would love you to meet Vicopisano in the comfort of your home, even before you meet Nicola at the Javits Center at the end of June. Write "SOFI" in the "special instruction" box of your shopping cart and your bill and credit card charge will reflect a discount of 20% Vicopisano Olive Oil. Promotion valid until June 25th. 

Fancy Food Show 2009

The Fancy Food Show is a specialty food trade show that is held twice a year; San Francisco in the winter and New York in the summer, at the Javits Center. This year it's June 28, 29 and 30. It is huge, I believe the biggest of its kind. All kinds of: merchants, producers, megacompanies and small ones like Gustiamo; real, fake and funky foods, all 250,000 of them, according to the organizers. You will walk with the other 24,000 people (also, according to the organizers) and you can feel lost and dizzy, if you don't know where you are going. So, remember 2949 and go there. It's our booth, right outside the so called Italian pavilion, which is the immense space purchased every year by the Italian Trade Commision.  

Despite these hard economic times, we decided to repeate last year's experience (on the left our booth in 2008 - it will be the same, in 2009 - can't spend a cent more). We decided to go, again not so much because we hope to create new business (which we would love, but it does not happen, there), not to see what is happening out there in the market (nothing is happening out there - it's always the same stuff) but to meet you, our friends and have a good time.

The booth is expensive, but we try to keep other expenses to a minimum. No carpet, no decoration and no particular lighting. The shelves and tables come from the office and we bring all the products ourselves (the charges from common carriers are outragious). But we'll have tastings and a friendly chef will prepare dishes with our foods. If you want to see a preview of some of the products we'll bring in, read this page, which is the official Gustiamo exhibitor page. So, see you at 2949.