Posted on 06/20/2015 1:43:20 PM PDT by RightGeek
In January, McDonald’s, leaning against the winds of fashion, said kale would never replace lettuce on its burgers. In May, however, it said it will test kale in a breakfast meal (breakfast is about 25 percent of McDonald’s sales). Kale might or might not cause construction workers to turn at 6 a.m. into McDonald’s drive-through lines, where approximately two-thirds of McDonald’s customers place their orders.
McDonald’s also says its milk will soon be without artificial growth hormones, and chicken (McDonald’s sells more of it than of beef) will be free of human antibiotics. All these might be good business decisions and as socially responsible as can be. They certainly pertain to McDonald’s new mantra about being a “modern, progressive burger company,” whatever that means.
The meaning will perhaps be explained by the progressive burger company’s new spokesman, Robert Gibbs, formerly Barack Obama’s spokesman and MSNBC contributor. McDonald’s British-born CEO Steve Easterbrook clarifies things, sort of, while speaking a strange business dialect: McDonald’s will be “more progressive around our social purpose in order to deepen our relationships with communities on the issues that matter to them.”
Suppose, however, you just want a burger and fries, not social purposes and relationships? You might prefer Five Guys or Shake Shack, where the burgers taste fine even without the condiment of community uplift.
[snip]
McDonald’s, deep in an identity crisis, is awakening tardily to Ira Gershwin’s truth: The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, they’re only made of clay. Everything is perishable, and history is a story of vanished supremacies. Easterbrook, channeling his inner Hillary Clinton, vows to “reset” McDonald’s. Perhaps his reset will go better than hers did with Vladimir Putin.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Management consultants used to talk about Ray Kroc holding up a Big Mac at management meetings and declaring that he didn’t need anyone whose job is not related directly to one of them. He and Gibbs would have had an interesting discussion about the burger business.
It feels like the whole world has gone to the crazy side. Just seven years ago, I didn’t feel like my country was a lost cause. Now I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.
Whatever. They’ll still suck.
You can get beef tallow from your butcher.
Fries are best when fried twice.
Cut your potatoes, soak in salt water for at least an hour, overnight if possible. Dry them on towels. Fry your cut potatoes once until they are just tender but not browned, then let them cool. You can freeze them at that point, and then you can fry them up the rest of the way any time.
If they need more salt be sure to sprinkle it on immediately after lifting them out of the oil/fat or the salt won’t stick.
Even better if you take about 1/4th cup of that Crisco and replace it with ice cold bacon grease.
“A McDonald’s employee revealed to me that they take a picture of you and your vehicle when you go through their drive through lane.”
Can’t blame them, given the public. They may have a policy: Claim you were shorted on a purchase once you get the benefit of the doubt, claim it 5 times in a row, get used to walking in to buy your food (assuming they don’t use facial recognition also).
“Five Guys is the worst burgers and their fries are terrible.”
Agree on the fries - a roll of the dice. Went to a 5 Guys in the Northeast, food was good, but the price was just short of a 5-star French restaurant in Manhattan (not quite, but you get the point). They came to Houston, went into one to eat there - their peanuts were soggy. Wound up they hadn’t discovered that the Texas Gulf Coast is sometimes humid. Mentioned the peanuts to staff - they laughed at me, so never been back.
Given their rapid-fire expansion, and prices, I expect them to collapse quite fast. You can’t flood the market with a huge number of stores if they’re pricy, simply because people aren’t able to afford going there on a daily, or weekly, basis. Maybe monthly, but that’s about it.
I don’t try items that have butter in them because I’m afraid they’re imitation. So I generally use real butter. I’m making a Victoria Sponge right now and the butter is coming down to room temp. I wish I could get lard from a butcher; I either use the Hormel stuff or Crisco.
Yes, Amazon sells it.
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