X-ray assurance
Standing up to be counted, Paradise Tomato Kitchens, supplier of tomato-based sauces for several of the country's leading restaurant chains including six of the top 15 pizza chains, is reportedly the first in its field to employ an x-ray system that detects harmful particles that may have entered products during the manufacturing process.
Cooking shellfish
Raw shrimp turn pink and firm. Depending on the size, it takes from 3 to 5 minutes to boil or steam one pound of medium size shrimp in the shell.
Todd Foutty (rhymes with "howdy"), dir. of food operations at 750-bed MetroHealth Medical Ctr. in Cleveland, oversees—among other responsibilities—the implementation of a sophisticated cook-chill production and food delivery system that he initiated as part of a $3.5 million renovation begun in 1998.
Members of the meat and potato crowd—still a solid majority throughout the country—are generally willing to vary their entrees with a selection of grains "on the side," especially those that are either made-to-order, exhibition-style, or well-seasoned with an appetizing array of spices and herbs, operators report. Many locations now offer menu grains as a daily feature of their salad bars and often include them in specialty recipes on a weekly basis.