http://girlmeetsfork.com/featured/summer-fancy-food-show-on-abcs-sonoran-living/
Discover Susie Timm’s fresh look at amazing specialty food as seen at the summer Fancy Food Show. It’s a great time to be alive with these options. Enjoy!
Taste of Cincinnati is upon us in just a few weeks. We’re pumped to attend this year! It’s a first for us and we barely can contain our excitement. Plus, we’re rollin’ in the Schnecken Shack. From the meeting last week with the chamber’s organizing force, I got to thinking what exactly makes award-winning food? (regrettably, the organizers didn’t see fit to include food trucks in the “best of” category this year.)
For us, great food is more than taste. It includes ingredients (it is made with the best, be free of icky junk). Great food is a feast for the senses too. Beyond the mouth, it has to look good too. Interestingly, studies show people eat with their eyes before anything else. So, texture, color, shape all influence my decisions on whether something is great, or just so so. 
What about you? What makes you ooh and ah over a treat or meal?
Lot’s of conversation lately about the definition of artisanal. What is, what isn’t. Can big corporations create an artisanal product? To some extent, I find the discussion similar to the word “all natural” or any of the other buzz words that drive us to buy a product. There’s so much mispresentation and/or downright fraud in the food industry that it’s hard not to be skeptical about what claims manufacturers make.
And if you think it’s all big bad corporations that mislead consumers, think again. I am dismayed at the number of “local growers” who sell at farmers’ markets who really purchase their “homegrown produce” from wholesalers. That’s why reputable farmers’ markets actually tour the farms of their growers.
One thing I know for sure is at Queen City Cookies we create edible art everyday. Each baked good we make is created by hand in small batches. We cut the cookies by hand, decorate them by hand, and package them by hand. Each bakery artist leaves a bit of their personality and lots of love with every cookie, pie, schnecken, and package.
I believe you can see as well as taste the love in our products. So feel secure in the truth: Our products are truly artisinal.
But just in case the whole discussion is a bit tiresome, grab a piece of schnecken, a slice of crack pie, or a cookie and check out this post. I think it adds a bit of humor to the topic.
Enjoy!
http://m.eater.com/archives/2012/05/02/lewis-black-artisanal.php
Loved this article in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer. It was amazing to read the exciting feedback from our fans and admirers I didn’t know we had. It truly makes all of the work, the expense, and the sacrifices of running a small business worthwhile. And, thanks to Dan Cohen of Clearbrook Farms and Debbie Simpson of Multi-Craft Printing for helping us along the road. We’re grateful for all the love, Cincinnati. Hope we make you proud!
One of the great things about owning a bakery is creating new taste treats. I love dreaming of flavors, tastes, textures, bites of bliss dancing in my head, each coming to life in a brilliant dance memories joined by locale. Whether we like it or not, our culture is on the go, ready for the next thing, be it food, fashion, or love.
Our company is less than a two years old, and I created our bite-sized elephant shaped cookies less than a year ago. We’ve added new flavors, sweet, salty, savory, and smokey to the line up. And now, as an award-winning cookie creator, the most oft comment behind congratulations, is “do you have any new flavors coming out?”
While I love the joy of a new taste sensation as well as anyone, I am struck at how insatiable retailers are in providing us with new treats. Is this something we demand from them, or we’ve somehow convinced them is necessary for us to buy more? What happened to enjoying the classics or savoring our food?
We haven’t run the course with our products that have barely made it to market and already we’re being asked to produce new, new, new. And yet, Oreo’s are still the #1 cookie in America, followed closely by Chip’s Ahoy. Apologies if I have these inverted. I appreciate innovation, but let’s slow done and appreciate what’s in front of us. That’s a good tip, be it food, friends, or life.
and a class schedule.
Edible image cookie from the magical opera, A Flowering Tree
Queen City Cookies and Cincinnati Opera are collaborating to bring even more sweetness to Cincinnati music lovers. With the opening of the 2012 season, Queen City Cookies will become the official bakery of Cincinnati’s grand opera company. From Die Meistersinger to The Magic Flute, Queen City Cookies has partnered with Cincinnati Opera to create cookies as magical as the performances at Music Hall. “Our founding mission includes the support of extraordinary institutions in Cincinnati,” said Queen City Cookies owner Peggy Shannon, “so we are delighted to partner with the world-class Cincinnati Opera.”
Since the Northside bakery’s inception in 2010, Shannon has dazzled each opera cast and crew with her edible works of art adorned with the season’s illustrations and iced cookies depicting scenes from the repertoire. And in that first summer, Queen City Cookies was a gracious host when a very special confection was in the works. Baritone Christopher Schaldenbrand, who was appearing in La Bohème, used the bakery’s state-of-the-art facilities to create a Parisian-themed surprise birthday cake for the legendary British director Sir Jonathan Miller. “Queen City Cookies has delighted us with their whimsical cookies that taste as good as they look,” says Evans Mirageas, The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera. “We’re thrilled to put the spotlight on their delicious treats in an official capacity.”
Cincinnati Opera’s 92nd season opens June 14 with a double bill of Pagliacci and Gianni Schicchi, followed by the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and concludes with the romantic classic La Traviata. Special performances of María De Buenos Aires, a collaboration with concert:nova, will also be presented in July. Subscriptions, flex-packs, and individual tickets are now on sale at the Cincinnati Opera Box Office at (513) 241-2742.
Worked today with Lisa Ballard, our fantastic graphic designer, to create nothing less than an Oh My Goodness LOOK At THAT new food truck. We are close to launching the truck into the streets of Cincinnati.
It’s exciting to imagine people’s faces the first time they see the truck. We work hard every day to create a sensory explosion of magic for the mouth and the eyes. We’re getting close, but still have a long way to go.
Here’s some of the early drawings. We’ll see how the finished product looks!
