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Hi,

Sometime ago I wrote a post Psychology + Food = Let the mind games begin!!!

I contacted Dr. Wansink recently who indicated their experimental restaurant is evaluating food rather than the psyche games. Nonetheless he and his wife agreed to have dinner with us on April 29th in Champaign in their experimental restaurant, costing about $20 each without tax and tip. Presently, Trixie Pea, Pigmon, Soupcon and her boyfriend and I plan to drive down to Champaign.

Some may go on to Owensboro, KY, though dining in Champaign is not contingent in joining in that trip.

I suggest coming earlier in the day to meet up with Champaign local poster Adam Stephanides for a short BBQ crawl. For those staying the night and desiring late night entertainment should check the website http://www.openingbands.com covers the C-U music scene, so you might want to check them out as the time approaches," according to Adam.

Let me know if you want to join us.

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Hi,

I plan to come around noon to Champaign to spend the afternoon checking out BBQ and Jarlings soft custard with Adam Stephanides. We plan to cover Little Porgy's, Old Fashioned Donut and BBQ, Jackson's Ribs & Tips and Po' Boys BBQ, which doesn't open until 5:30 PM. If anyone wants to drive down with me to please advise.

Our reservations are at 6:30 at the 'Spice Box,' located on the University of Illinois Campus at:

Bevier Hall
905 South Goodwin Avenue
Room 286
Champaign, IL
217/333-6520

This is a red brick administrative and classroom building associated with ACES (Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences). There is some construction of the building with two entrances open and easy to access to our destination.

We will also meet Jill North who was Dr. Wansink's coauthor on those restaurant articles and who is in charge of the fine dining kitchen.

Afterwards, we've been invited for dessert and wine at Brian Wansink's home. As I stated earlier, this is a last hurrah as Brian is moving to Cornell in early May.

I expect this to be an evening of interesting discussion. If anyone else cares to join us, then speak up now!

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Locations potentially visiting on Friday afternoon:

Delights Frozen Yogurt & Ice Cream (MAYBE)
629 East Green Street
Champaign, IL 61820
217-352-2697

Hickory River Smokehouse Inc (MAYBE)
1606 Willow View Road
Urbana, IL 61802
217-239-2472
http://www.hickoryriver.com/

Jackson's Ribs-N-Tips Restaurant & Lounge
116 North 1st Street
Champaign, IL 61820
217-355-2916

Jarlings Custard Cup
309 West Kirby
Champaign, IL 61826
217-352-2273

Lil Porgy's Bar-B-Que
1917 West Springfield Avenue
Champaign, IL 61821
217-398-6811

Lil Porgy's Bar-B-Que
101 West University Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
217-367-1018

PO Boy's Bar-B-Que
58 East Columbia Avenue
Champaign, IL 61820
217-352-5521

Ye Olde Donut Shop
60 East Green Street
Champaign, IL 61820
217-359-3311

We will visit one or the other Lil'Porgy's, but not both. Hickory River Smokehouse is a franchise originating in Champaign-Urbana, if there is time available we'll check it out.

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Did you ever consider trying Longhorn Smokehouse? They make a really good brisket in Urbana....around Cunningham and Kerr...

Longhorn Smokehouse changed its name to Hickory River.

We never provided a report on our trip to Champaign from last week. The final group included Cathy2, Adam, Pigmon, Trixie-Pea, and me.

For me the highpoint of the visit was not the food, but our discussion with Brian Wansink. As noted, Dr. Wansink is leaving for Cornell this summer. This is a major loss for our friends at U of I. As he tells us, UC Davis, Cornell, and Illinois are the top schools for serious reserch in food science. Dr. Wansink's home discipline is marketing, and this becomes clear as his core interest is how the setting and priming cues permit people to think about and appreciate food. For instance he showed us his "refilling" soup bowls (something out of Candid Camera or out of Rube Goldberg). You are served tomato soup (an opaque soup so you can't see the bottom of the bowl) and find that no matter how much you eat, there is still soup in the bowl. Those who are served soup in this way eat a considerable amount more than those who are not (but I was surprised that the amount was only about a third more, IIRC). His experiments with wine labelling (asking subjects to judge North Dakota wines as opposed to the same California wine) also demonstrates the importance of priming. What we think we are eating determines how much we will eat and how much we will appreciate what we eat.

All of this is important to us in that it raises the question of whether we enjoy the restaurants that are frequently praised because of their ambiance of authenticity or because of the qualities of the food. Would we choose fried chicken at Evanston Chicken Shack over Popeye's, say, if it were a blind tasting. Of course, we shouldn't push this too far - taste cannot be totally overwhelmed by expectations, but it should give us pause.

My sense was that Dr. Wansink is decamping for the food program at Cornell, because of the unwillingness of Illinois to permit his experients in the University's training restaurant, which is a pity, although perhaps the residents of C-U can breathe easier.

We were particularly grateful that Dr. W shared the evening with us (ending with wine and dessert at his home - and offering us lodging!). Not only was he on crutches, but the Wansinks are selling their home and, I believe, had an Open House the next day. What a guy! The best food of the day was without question the Almond Pie of Mrs. W., a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. It was superb. What a gal!

The food at the U of I student restaurant was well-presented and speaks well for the culinary competency of late-teen Mid-Americans.

Other than this, my favorite food of the day (aside from perfectly fried shrimp at Frank's Shrimp House in Beverly) was BBQ tips at Lil' Porgy's in Champaign. They were a little tough, but the sauce was nicely spiced, and the steak potatoes were good when hot.

Thank you, Cathy, for arranging this road trip. And godspeed to Dr. and Mrs. W.

Hi,

I edited the announcement post and left in all the salient points. I will hopefully write up my impressions sooner rather than later!

I appreciate the consideration, though I also offer thanks to Adam Stephanides who very nicely escorted us all over Champaign Urbana. Dr. Wansink was quite impressed we found PO Boy's Bar-B-Que and that it was open! Following our lead, he was planning to visit Jackson's Ribs-N-Tips Restaurant & Lounge, which he'd never heard of, before leaving town.

Dr. Wansink will likely be visiting Kendall College later this year. I hope he can lecture the Roundtable, then we can take him on a food crawl.

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

According to research done by the National Restaurant Association, the most important restaurant customer satisfaction metrics, in order of declining importance, are:
1. Restrooms
2. Ambience
3. Service
4. Food

Real research results. That said, I can't blame anyone for wanting to be at Cornell -- a nice place to be indeed, and very nice restrooms.

_________________
Chicago is my spiritual chow home

Excellent article in today's Times on Dr. Wansink (who has apparently moved on from C-U)


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/dining/11snac.html?ref=dining

HI,

We met him on his last days at C-U, before moving on to Cornell. Our visit there is one of my posts I have never finished writing. Maybe I will get to this finally because it was a very interesting experience.

Thanks for highlighting the article on Brian.

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

I look forward to that. I remember and quote some of his findings regularly, both ones you have shared and from reading other things he wrote.

Of course I am above being influenced by the restrooms, or the provenance of the wine and am able to focus solely on what is on the plate, but it is useful to understand how those with less focus and self-awareness can be swayed .

_________________
d
Retired, gone fishing, and exploring my curmudgeon within

For what it's worth, I happened to catch Dr. Wansink on the Sunday Today show while I was visiting my mom this weekend. He was promoting his new book, Mindless Eating.

It was very routine, they basically moved down a table with little settings and revealed a brief tidbit about each. I can't actually recall any of them.

But good for him for getting the exposure.

Sorry, apparently Today show viewers are not the demographic who post clips of everything to YouTube!

_________________
Joe G.

"Whatever may be wrong with the world, at least it has some good things to eat." -- Cowboy Jack Clement

Hi,

Five and half years may be a record for how long it took to post an event report.

In this time, Brian Wansink and his wife have had at least one child. Brian moved on to Cornell and spent a year as a Presidential appointment to be the Executive Director for USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) -- it's the group in charge of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines and the Food Guide Pyramid (MyPyramid).

Reading back old e-mails this evening, yes I keep almost all of them, it refreshed my memory. When we went to U of I, I was hoping to be part of one of those behavior studies. Maybe I was and never detected it, though I think not. We learned from Brian the school had frowned upon these behavior studies at the school's fine dining kitchen restaurant.

What surprised me, and I am kicking myself this evening, he had proposed to cook dinner at his home. While I am sure I declined to save him extra work, it sure seems stupid now to have declined to eat instead at U of I's fine dining kitchen restaurant. Modesty has a price.

Brian Wansink introduced us to Jill North, his co-author on the bottomless soup bowl and other papers, who was then head of fine dining. He was very complimentary of her efforts to these studies.


4-29-05-010 Jill North and Brian Wansink by cal222, on Flickr

After dinner, we went to his home for dessert and wine. In the garage, he kept the endless soup bowl contraption. When a diner came to the table set with two bowls and a soup pot, the bowls were already filled with soup.


4-29-05-052 table set by cal222, on Flickr

Each bowl had a hole to convey more soup into it.


4-29-05-047 Bowl with hole by cal222, on Flickr

The soup pot had a hole to drain soup from.


4-29-05-050 soup pot dispenser by cal222, on Flickr

Connecting pot to bowl were tubes with a shut-off valve in between.


4-29-05 Soup pot coupler by cal222, on Flickr


4-29-05-046 bowl with coupler by cal222, on Flickr


4-29-05-002 under table control by cal222, on Flickr


You have to wonder if this garage kept set-up will someday be in the collection of the Smithsonian's American History Museum. I hope it didn't go to the curb when he moved.

It was quite a memorable evening.

Regards,

_________________
Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast