First Texas Pete And Now Barilla. Doesn't Anybody Read The Damn Labels?

Watch Out, Chattanooga Bakery. You're Next

I was amused a few days ago when I read of a lawsuit filed by some guy in California who was claiming injury because he discovered that “Texas Pete” hot sauce is not made in Texas but is, in fact, a product of North Carolina.

O-o-o-kay. The Garner family has been making its “Texas Pete” sauce in Winston-Salem, North Carolina since 1929. It's never been made in Texas and nobody ever claimed it was. When the Garners started producing an old family recipe for commercial sale back then, a marketing advisor suggested branding it as “Mexican Joe.” But the all-American Garners wanted an all-American name, so they thought a little north of of the border and then, instead of “Joe,” they tacked on “Pete,” the nickname of one of the Garner boys. Since Western movies and movie cowboys like Tom Mix were all the rage in the early 1930s, they slapped a colorful image of a rootin', tootin', lasso-swingin' wrangler on the label. Thus was “Texas Pete” born.

Fast-forward about a hundred lawsuit-free years and now some dimwit claims that he thought Texas Pete was made in Texas because there's a drawing of a cowboy and the word “Texas” on the front label? Really!? Did this MENSA reject ever think of looking at the back label? The one that says with excruciating clarity, “TW Garner Food Co., Winston-Salem, NC 27105.” The only thing that shocks me more than the abject stupidity of this suit is the fact that it actually got accepted by a court.

Side note: As a result of this pea-brained pagliaccio's trifling tort, interest in and sales of “Texas Pete” have skyrocketed.

And now I see that someone of the same apparent mental acuity is going after Barilla. I don't even know where to start to unpack this one.

Let's begin with the basis of the suit: the pair of brain trusts filing this one say that they were enticed to buy several boxes of Barilla product based on the pasta maker's slogan, “Italy's No. 1 Brand of Pasta,” featured prominently on the front of the box between two images of the Italian flag. Well! It should be obvious that this screams the indisputable fact that the stuff in the box comes straight from the Old Country, giusto? I mean, after all, it says “Italy” on the box and then there's that green, white, and red flag and everything. (Face palm) OMG, I hope these idioti never drive past my office on a day when I'm displaying the bandiera d'Italia on the pole outside. They're likely to sue me for not being the Italian embassy or something.

Okay, I'm looking at a box of Barilla pasta. And yep, there it is. Right there on the front of the box. Between two little Italian flags. “Italy's No. 1 Brand of Pasta.” Now I'm going to turn the box over. Oh, wait! What does it say there on the side? “Barilla America, Inc. Northbrook, IL 60062?” And what else does it say, right under that part? “Made in the U.S.A. with U.S.A. and imported ingredients?” Gee, I guess the loony litigants missed that glaring disclaimer.

I've been writing for years about fake Italian food products masquerading as authentic under the guise of green, white, and red packaging and pseudo-Italian words that end in vowels. The thing is, Barilla is not fake. It's a privately-owned Italian pasta producer headquartered in Parma. And it really is the leading pasta producer in Italy. So what's wrong with displaying that fact on the packaging? How many products ballyhoo themselves as "Number One" or "The Country's Best" or "The World's Finest" or something? These nut bags are suing for false advertisement. But the claim of being Italy's number one brand is not false. 

Barilla has American production plants in Iowa and in New York that utilize the same equipment and processes that they employ in Italy. But in no place on that iconic blue box does the company state that the product in the package was made in Italy. Unless, of course, it was. In that case, the limited products  that are made in Italy and sold in America (Barilla Tortellini and Barilla Oven Ready Lasagne) clearly state, “Product of Italy. Distributed by Barilla America, Inc.” All ya gotta do is read the whole box instead of just looking at the colorful pictures. If it doesn't say “Product of Italy” or “Prodotto d'italia” or if it doesn't bear the PDO/DOP seal designating it as a Protected Designation of Origin/Denominazione Origine Protetta product, then it's not from Italy. Pretty simple. The only thing simpler is suit-happy dullards who can't read labels.

And yet, an even simpler federal judge ruled that the couple suffered “economic injury” and that they presented enough evidence to prove that they wouldn’t have bought the Barilla if they had known it wasn’t made in Italy. Like it says on the f***ing box.

Talk about a slippery slope! Buitoni uses green, white, and red packaging and there are Italian words – “dal 1827, Da Casa Buitoni” – on the label. But Nestlé owns that company and its products are manufactured in Danville, VA. Are they the next ones to be fitted for a lawsuit? What about Ronzoni and San Giorgio? Both are American-based companies. Granted, they don't mimic Italian colors or use Italian verbiage on their packaging, but the names certainly invoke Italy, don't they? And I literally can't count the number of little Italian flags that wave at me from cheap store brands that want to capitalize on Italian identification for their sadly inferior American-made dreck. Are they all liable for deceptive advertising litigation now that Barilla has been targeted?

Barilla says “assurdo.” (Well, the company spokesperson actually said “unfounded,” but I think “absurd” fits better.) They basically said, very politely, of course, “Look at the box, morons,” and then went on to state, “We’re very proud of the brand’s Italian heritage, the company’s Italian know-how, and the quality of our pasta in the U.S. and globally.”

The kooky complaint whines because Barilla doesn’t exclusively use Italian wheat in its products and exploits consumers who are willing to pay more for authentic Italian pasta. Have you priced a box of Barilla lately? Trust me, it ain't nowhere near what you're gonna fork over for “authentic Italian pasta.” Common sense should tell you that. But, unfortunately, common sense isn't all that common anymore. The whiners also gripe that Barilla has an unfair advantage over “lawfully acting competitors” at the expense of “unwitting consumers.” "Unwitting"? Let's try “witless consumers”. Like the ones who are asking an American court to stop an Italian company from using Italy’s likeness in its marketing and on its products. Oh, and, of course, they want monetary compensation because they say they overpaid for the pasta. OVERPAID!!?? Barilla sells for about two bucks a box!! Get me an address for these dipsticks and I'll send them ten bucks so they can drop their stupid suit.

Watch out, Chattanooga Bakery, Inc. You're next. (For the uninitiated reader, Chattanooga Bakery makes Moon Pies. Not on the moon, mind you, but in Tennessee. Aha! Another lawsuit in the offing!)

Okay. My blood pressure is now through the roof and my confidence in humanity is somewhere down in the sub-basement, so I'm going to conclude this diatribe. I'm just going to go out and buy me some North Carolina Texas Pete sauce, some Iowa Barilla pasta, and maybe some Tennessee Moon Pies and chill out. So sue me. 

A Few CHEAP And Easy Tips To Help Keep Your Kitchen Organized

One Man's Trash …

I've written a lot about kitchen and/or cooking organization because it's something I'm really passionate about. And if you've ever read anything I've written on any topic, you'll know I'm usually pretty cheap. Oh, I don't mind spending money on quality necessities, but I do object to spending big bucks on generally useless gadgets and geegaws that, more often than not, wind up in a junk drawer or a “donate to Goodwill” pile.

So let me share with you a few of my favorite cheap and easy ideas for keeping your kitchen neat and organized. You can call them “hacks”.....but I won't. I hate that over-used word for things we used to simply call “tips.”

Easy Appliance Cord Management

Appliance cords are a pain. You can try wrapping them up like the electricians do with their long extension cords. Or you can tie them up with rubber bands or something equally ineffective. Works okay until the rubber band stretches or breaks. I saw some cool-looking thingys on Amazon that looked like little cleats you can attach to your appliance and then wrap the cord around the cleat. Fine if you want a cleat permanently affixed to your toaster or mixer. And they're a bit pricey.

But if you nip down to a decent hardware place, you can pick up something called a “Cable Cuff.” I get mine at Home Depot, but I'm sure they have them elsewhere. Amazon's got 'em. It's an adjustable, reusable plastic clip that's intended to be an alternative to cable ties. It's got serrated teeth and a push-button release. You just wrap up your cord, slip on the cuff, clamp it shut, and.....that's it! Push the button to release the clamp when you want to use the appliance. They come in a variety of sizes to accommodate anything from a skinny little cord to a frickin' tow cable. Well.....maybe not a tow cable, but you get the idea. They're durable. I've had some of mine for years. And they're …. here's my favorite word....cheap. The mini size is about a dollar, the small and medium ones are less than two bucks, and you can get large ones for around three dollars. I wrap up extension cords with them and they live on my KitchenAid mixers (both hand and stand), my fryer, my griddle, my bread machines, my induction cooktop burners, my immersion blender, my immersion circulator, my Instant Pot, my air fryer – pretty much anything in my kitchen that has a cord. They are cheap, easy, and indispensable.

Free Appliance Slider Mat

Speaking of my KitchenAid mixer, that rascal is heavy! Depending on the model, super well-built KitchenAids, with their all-metal construction, weigh in anywhere between twenty and thirty pounds. And that's wonderful for performance and stability. But it's also hernia-inducing, especially if you're storing it on a lower shelf in you cabinet. My sister has one of those nifty spring-loaded lifters built in to her cabinet. When she wants to use her mixer, she can just lift the shelf it's stored on and lock it in place. A hundred, a hundred-fifty, two-hundred dollars for the convenience. No thanks. There's also a cheap plastic solution called a countertop slider. It's a two-piece gadget where the top part slides over the bottom part on little plastic rollers. The one I have is really cheap. It's one of those “As Seen on TV” things and I think I paid $9.99 for it. And I got what I paid for. I use it under my SodaStream because anything heavier than a pound or two just crushes it. It doesn't have a prayer of standing up to my KitchenAid. They also make a so-called “slider mat” just for heavy buggers like mixers and such. It's just a rubber mat with a grippy side on top and a slick side on the bottom. They run about ten to fifteen bucks on Amazon and at the big box stores.

OR...…if you're cheap like I am, just get a dish towel out of the drawer and spread it out on the shelf where you mixer lives. Fold it double if you want but just make sure you leave enough of the towel exposed that you can grab on to an end. Now set your half-ton appliance on it and easily slide the machine to the back of the shelf. When you want to use it, grab that end of the towel you left exposed and pull it forward. Slides like a dream. And it won't cost you a nickel. Of course, you'll still have to lift and lug the thing to wherever you're going to use it, but at least you won't have to wrestle with it in the depths of the cabinet, and that's half the battle won.

Cheap Prep Bowls

You know what prep bowls are right? They are the little bowls the pros use to.....hold their prep. You see them on the TV cooking shows all the time. And, wonder of wonders, you can use them at home, too! You can find sets of glass or metal prep bowls on Amazon or in those overpriced kitchen stores for anywhere from ten to twenty dollars a set. Or you can do what I do: recycle trash.

Surely at some point you've bought little single-serving, lunchbox-size plastic cups of applesauce or fruit or pudding or Jell-O or vegetables or something. Don't toss them in the trash when they're empty. Toss them in the sink, wash them up, and then use them for prep bowls. Most of them are a ½ cup capacity and they are perfect for holding your spices or other ingredients. I have stacks of them in my kitchens and they are an integral part of my mise en place. Whenever I'm cooking, there'll be rows of these little plastic cups containing measured amounts of butter or salt or pepper or sugar or oregano or minced garlic or chopped onions or carrots or whatever. And they're free! Can't get cheaper than that. You don't have to worry about breaking them or denting them like you do with the expensive ones. And if you do somehow mess one up, just go eat some more applesauce.

Cheap Pan Protectors … And More!

I have a pretty large collection of cookware. In years past, it hung on pot racks in my home kitchen like it did in my restaurant kitchens. But these days, I have one of those fancy cabinets with roll-out drawers under my main cooktop, so all my pots and pans currently live in there. Now, nothing will screw up the surface of a pan – especially a non-stick pan – like nesting or stacking it with another pan. The only thing worse is just throwing them all in a drawer like throwing cats in bag and seeing which ones come out unscathed.

I'd really rather still have my pots and pans hanging up, but since I have to stack them, I stack them with pot and pan protectors in between. These, too, can be pricey little dudes if you go online or to the kitchen place with the hyphenated name. Between ten and twenty smackers for as few as four of the silly things.

OR....you knew there was an “or,” didn't you?....you can hie yourself down to the dollar store and pick up a roll or two of non-slip padded plastic shelf liner. The rolls are a foot wide and five feet long. Do you know how many little padded pot and pan protectors you can make out of that? Lots. For just a little over a dollar. And you can cut them into whatever size and shape you want and need.

And while we're on the subject of non-slip padded shelf liner, it has some other handy kitchen uses. In culinary school, they teach you to slip a damp towel or cloth under your cutting board to keep it from slipping around. Well......the shelf liner in question is non-slip after all. Cut a section to fit under your cutting board and Bob's your uncle. (Actually, George was my uncle, but that just ruins a perfectly good British-ism.) And you know those little rubber/plastic doodads that you can buy or procure as promotional items from stores and insurance agents to help you get a grip and loosen the lid of a stubborn jar? Non-slip shelf liner works great for that purpose, too. Sometimes appliances like mixers and bread machines like to “walk” around on slick countertops. And if you don't catch them before they take that final step off the edge......well.....it ain't pretty. Been there, done that. But a nice hunk of non-slip shelf liner keeps those wandering appliances right where you put them. And, of course, you can use it to line your drawers and shelves, too. Great stuff. Versatile and cheap!

Free Silpat Storage

Do you have silpats in your kitchen? You know, silicone baking mats? If you don't, you should. They are a baker's dream and they're handy for other general cooking purposes, too. They come in sizes ranging from full-sheet to half-sheet to quarter sheet. They even come in rounds and octagons. And whatever size or shape they are, they are wretched things to store. Storing them flat is not a really good idea. They are very much prone to getting torn, scratched, melted or just generally damaged. And they are kinda expensive to replace. The good ones are, anyway. No, the most efficient way to store them is to roll them up. Here again, rubber bands are about useless. You'll be hunting a new rubber band every other time you use the silpat. String? Wire ties? Not so much. “They” (the manufacturers) make a gee-whiz little silpat storage band to protect your investment and it will only set you back about five bucks. Each. Let's see......I've got eight silpats, so that's......that's way more than I'm gonna spend.

SO......you can just recycle more trash. I'll bet you've been throwing those empty paper towel rolls in the ol' bin, haven't you? Tsk, tsk. Save those cardboard cylinders and stuff 'em with rolled up silpats. They fit perfectly, leaving an inch or so outside the tube for easy access. And if you have smaller mats, you can cut the cardboard rolls to size. And when they get raggedy after a few hundred uses, just wait until you run out of paper towels again and you've got a brand new silpat storage container.

One man's trash … can sure save you a lot of treasure. 

Okay! So I'll Use The Dishwasher

Being Slowly Dragged Into The Modern Age Of Dishwashing

Many years ago, I wrote a lengthy piece here (like anything I write is less than lengthy) on the proper way to wash dishes. I called it “How To Wash Dishes.” Catchy title, huh? Then a few years later I revisited the topic of hand washing dishes in an article called “How To Hand Wash Dishes Revisited.” Both pieces focused on the primary way I always used to get dishes clean: two hands and lots of hot, soapy water. I only mentioned automatic dishwashing machines in passing. And while I stand firmly by the information I imparted in those original articles on hand dish washing, I'm here today to give the automatic dishwasher its due.

My wife doesn't understand my ambivalence toward dishwashers. That's because she always had one. Dishwashers were not a part of my upbringing. I never had a dishwasher in any of the houses in which I was raised. Never even saw one. My first experience with a dishwasher came when I started working in restaurants. I was well into adulthood before I rented an apartment that was equipped with a dishwasher and, following my mother's example, I never touched it.

See, mom was one of those people who believed that dishwashers were wasteful and expensive. In her senior years she lived in an apartment equipped with a dishwasher: she used it to store her Tupperware. For nearly thirty years that dishwasher held dishes but it never washed the first one.

A wealthy socialite named Josephine Garis Cochrane invented the modern dishwasher in 1886. It seems her clumsy servants kept chipping her fine china when they washed it. She tried washing the dishes herself for awhile but hated the chore, so she was motivated to design a motorized rack and water jet system that she constructed with the aid of mechanic George Butters in a shed behind her Chicago home. She debuted her invention at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, for which she won the prize for “best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work.” The company she founded, Cochran's Crescent Washing Machine Company, became part of KitchenAid after her death in 1913.

When I was a kid, dishwashers were still pretty much considered toys for rich folks. By the time adulthood and the 1970s rolled around, they had become far more commonplace and today more than seventy-five percent of American homes have a dishwasher. Of course, as I said, my mom had one, but because she didn't really understand it, she never used it.

Mom believed, as many people of the time did and as some still do, that dishwashers were wasteful and expensive to use because they repeatedly filled and refilled with hot water. Not so.

Dishwashers don't actually “fill up.” Only a small basin at the bottom of the unit fills with water. The water in that basin is heated by electric elements to a temperature of around 150 degrees Fahrenheit. A pump pumps the heated water into rotating spray arms which force the water out and on to your dirty dishes. Food particles and other gunk are either deposited in a filter or chopped up and disintegrated much like a garbage disposal. More sophisticated modern machines have “soil sensors” that help them determine just how dirty your dishes are and adjust their operation accordingly. After the dirty water is drained, the basin refills, reheats, and sprays rinse water over your clean dishes. Then, if you've chosen the “dry” setting on your machine, the heating element activates and dries your washed and rinsed dishes.

So, far from being “wasteful,” dishwashers are actually more efficient and thrifty than hand washing. This is especially so because of a current trend toward hand washing dishes under running water rather than the “old-fashioned” method of filling up a sink or sinks. A running tap uses about a gallon and a half of water per minute. An average sink can take between four and five gallons to fill. So you've got two sinks that you fill with eight to ten gallons of water maybe twice a day. Or you're running water out of the tap for five or ten minutes twice a day and using five to ten gallons of water each time. Most people load the dishwasher up and use it once a day, and modern dishwashers generally use less than four gallons per load.

As far as energy consumption goes, yep, a dishwasher uses electricity and hand washing doesn't. Unless you count the energy required to heat the water in your water heater. But if you only use it once a day or once every other day, it's a negligible expenditure.

And dishes get cleaner and more reliably sanitized in a dishwasher simply because of the higher temperatures involved. There's no way, rubber gloves or not, that you can hand wash dishes in 150 degree water.

All that said, there are some limits to using a dishwasher. For instance, I cringed the other day as I watched my son, a man with twenty years of professional food service experience behind him, throw a bunch of non-stick pans in the dishwasher. Not ever a really good idea. Aluminum, cast iron, copper, non-stick, none of it belongs in the harsh environment of a dishwasher. Even stainless steel, which is technically “dishwasher safe” really isn't. The heat, the humidity, and things just banging around in there in general are never good for the finish on pots and pans. And dishwashers are hell on handles, especially wooden ones. I always hand washed pots and pans in my restaurants and I hand wash 'em at home, too.

Same goes for knives. Never put a sharp knife in the dishwasher. For one thing, because of the aforementioned agitation, it won't stay sharp for long. And the same conditions that ruin the handles of pots and pans do no good whatsoever for knife handles. Always wash knives by hand.

Unless specifically marked “dishwasher safe,” plastics and acrylics should not go in the dishwasher, lest they not come out in the same shape or condition they were when they went in.

Have you got a nice, expensive insulated travel mug or cup? Wash it by hand. The high temperature in the dishwasher can damage the vessel's vacuum seal. And if you have pewter, brass, or copper drinkware, keep it out of the dishwasher, too. The dishwasher pits and discolors such metals.

Wood cutting boards, wooden spoons, things with wooden handles, etc. are all dishwasher no-nos. No quicker way to warp and crack woodware than the hot, hot water in a dishwasher.

And, with apologies to Mrs. Cochrane, don't put your fancy dishes in the dishwasher. Most modern porcelain and china is dishwasher safe, but antique dishware, especially hand-painted or gilt edged stuff, is likely to be damaged.

A lot of the potential for damage depends upon how you load the dishwasher. Too many people just throw stuff in there, shut the door and push the button. And then they fuss when something comes out broken or damaged. Or when it doesn't come out clean.

Remember, your spray arms are squirting water at a minimum of 20 psi. That's gonna make things wiggle and jiggle in those racks. And those arms spray in a set pattern. If you load carelessly, you could wind up with damaged and/or dirty dishes.

The spray arms spray out in a circular motion, so load your dishes in a manner that will face them inward toward the center of the machine. Unless, of course, you want the bottoms cleaner than the tops.

The heating element is in the bottom of the machine, so put plastics and delicate items on the top rack. Glasses go on the top rack, too, to avoid both the heat and the excessive agitation.

And place your flatware in such a way as to not allow it to “nest.” If two spoons nest together in the basket, one of them is going to come out less clean than the other one. That's why there are multiple compartments in the basket. Spread things out, preferably heads up. If you've got a lot of flatware, try alternating pieces heads up and heads down to keep them from nesting together. Better still, though, is to not overload the dishwasher.

And finally, you don't have to wash your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. Thanks to my OCD mother, this is one I'm often guilty of. Now, you need to scrape off the big chunks of food, okay? This is a dishwasher not a disposal. But modern machines and detergents actually work better when the dishes are dirtier, especially the models with “soil sensors.”

Caveat: if you don't run your dishwasher every day – say you load it up over time and run it after two or three days – the dishes you put in there will need to be a little cleaner going in because if everything dries on the surface of the dishes for several days, it'll be harder for the machine to take it off.

So, after decades of being elbow-deep in dishwater, I'm finally being slowly dragged into the twentieth century world of using the dishwasher. (I know it's the twenty-first century. Don't rush me!) My dishwasher-loving wife is thrilled that I will now load dinner dishes into the dishwasher rather than insisting they be done by hand. I still wash cookware and bakeware by hand as well as all the stuff I mentioned that shouldn't go in the dishwasher. And I'm still just as likely to wash up the breakfast dishes by hand as opposed to loading them in the machine and letting them sit all day. But, hey, baby steps, you know? At least I'm not using my dishwasher to store Tupperware.

Is It Marinara Or Is It Tomato Sauce?

It's More Than “Toe-MAY- toe” or “Toe-MAH-toe”

Tomato season is in full swing and I've got buckets of the delicious little ovoids waiting around to be turned into sauce. But what kind of sauce am I going to make? Will it be marinara or tomato sauce? And what's the difference, anyway?

It's really pretty simple: With a bright, fresh taste, marinara is quicker and easier to make, while tomato sauce possesses a deeper, richer flavor and there is a good deal more involved in its preparation.

Let's start with the variety of tomato that makes the best sauce. You can make tomato sauces out of just about any kind of tomato, but the best “saucing” tomatoes are Romas. A variety of plum tomato, Romas have thicker fruit walls, fewer seeds, and a denser, drier, firmer texture. You can slice them up and eat them raw in a salad or on a sandwich, but they are at their very best when cooked down into a sauce.

The fad in recent years has been to call any Roma tomato a “San Marzano” tomato. You see them labeled that way in cans at the store and I even bought some “San Marzano” seedling plants at the local nursery once. And it's mostly just marketing junk. There is only one true San Marzano tomato and it is grown in the rich volcanic soil near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Anything else is a San Marzano-style or San Marzano type. The kind you can grow in your backyard that bear the “San Marzano” name are just offshoots of the common Roma tomato that have a thinner skin and a pointier shape than the real thing. And the ones in the can used to be called “Italian-style tomatoes” until San Marzano became the marketing buzzword of choice. Oh, you can buy authentic San Marzanos in cans. Look for the “D.O.P.” seal that certifies the product has been produced in its protected designated area of origin. Anything else is a San Marzano style or type. They grow them in California and I can grow them in my garden. Are they going to taste the same as the real ones? Nope.

So, if I wanted to transform my bumper crop of Romas into tomato sauce, there a a couple of ways I could go. I could embrace my French-ness and do a sauce tomate, one of Escoffier's “mother sauces.” This one is a beast that starts with a roux and incorporates vegetables, herbs, beef or veal stock, and pork fat along with the tomatoes. And it's going to take two or three hours to make. And the result is thick, rich, and flavorful. And it's okay on spaghetti but it's lousy on pizza. Too overpoweringly “tomato-y.”

Same for tomato sauce. Traditional tomato sauce is almost like a stew in that it uses a ton of ingredients and it takes a long time to cook. And it's labor-intensive. Why do you think Italian nonne work on it for entire Sunday afternoons? You start out with a soffrito of carrots, celery, and onions – all of which you have to mince up first. You cook that up in some olive oil and then you start adding in the garlic and the oregano and the basil and the salt and pepper, and, of course, the tomatoes, which you leave whole and then crush them up by hand as you add them to the sauce. Simmer it for three hours or more until you can almost stand a spoon up in it and you've got a sauce that is thick, deeply sweet, and very rich. You can throw some pepperoncino in there to make it into an arrabiata sauce or you can add in some vodka for a – you guessed it – vodka sauce. There are lots of things you can do with a good basic tomato sauce – if you have the time and energy to make it.

My Roma bounty is going to become marinara. Four ingredients, twenty minutes or so, and it's ready to lend its bright, fresh flavor to everything from pasta dishes to pizza to a dipping sauce for mozzarella sticks. It's a flavor profile that enhances a dish with a light hint of tomato rather than overwhelming it with heavy richness.

Lots of colorful theories abound regarding the origin of marinara. All of them have something to do with the sea – mare, in Italian. Some say it was cooks aboard Neapolitan ships who came up with the sauce. Others offer that it was the wives of returning Neapolitan sailors who originally cooked it up. In any case, it's been around since shortly after Spanish explorers introduced American tomatoes to European palates in the sixteenth century. In fact, Italians were among the first to grow and consume the strange new fruit that many Europeans considered poisonous until well into the nineteenth century.

And, while we're at it, STOP MISPRONOUNCING IT!! It makes my ears bleed every time I go into a so-called “Italian” restaurant and hear people ordering “mare-uh-NARE-uh.”AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! That horrible flat “a” sound is like nails on a blackboard to me. And to any Italian speaker. Italian is a lyrical language of fluid beauty. “Mare-uh-NARE-uh” is about as fluid as a clogged toilet. The thing is, Italians are impeccably polite when it comes to people massacring their native language. Most of them won't correct you for even the most egregious mispronunciations. Fortunately, my Italian heritage is tempered by a good dose of French, and those folks will rip you a new one in a heartbeat for linguistic crimes and misdemeanors. So listen up, morphological miscreants, the word is pronounced “mah-ree-NAH-rah.” And if you can roll the “r”s a little, so much the better. English is in the global minority when it comes to having long vowel sounds. The rest of the world – Italy included – does quite well without them, thank you, relying instead on the broad "a," pronounced like the "a" in "father" or "water." So it's “mah-ree-NAH-rah” not “mare-uh-NARE-uh.” Please!

Okay. Off the soapbox and back to the recipe book.

All you've got to do for a great marinara is to heat up a little olive oil and cook some minced garlic in it for about a minute – burned garlic is a very bad thing – before adding in crushed tomatoes and some fresh basil. Stir it up and season to taste with salt and maybe a tiny bit of crushed red pepper flake, then simmer it for fifteen or twenty minutes, stirring occasionally, and ecco! You've got a bright, sweet, fresh, delicious sauce all ready for your pizza or pasta dish. It's going to be a little thinner than traditional tomato sauce, but it's supposed to be. Who needs Ragu or Prego or whatever else comes in a jar, right?

Two ingredients to mention: sugar and butter. Some people have had their tastebuds ruined by excessive amounts of sugar. If you crave that sugary-sweet taste you get in some store-bought products, then add a pinch of sugar to your sauce, especially if you're making marinara. Tomato sauce has carrots in the base soffrito and they add a lot of natural sweetness. But tomatoes are already pretty sweet, so don't overdo it. And adding a small knob or pat of butter can smooth out the flavor and texture of a sauce and give it a nice glossy finish. Nice but not necessary.

Oh, and did I mention that uniquely Italian-American creation called “gravy?” You're right. I didn't. Because “gravy” doesn't exist in Italian culture. It's wholly a creation of Italian immigrants who wanted to better “fit in” to their new American homes. They saw that Americans poured meat-based gravy over their food, so these newly-minted Italian-Americans called their hearty tomato and tomato-based sauces “gravy” so they'd look and sound more American. Simple as that. Don't believe me? Go to Italy and ask for gravy on your pasta. They'll seat you in the crazy corner with the folks who ask for spaghetti and meatballs and fettuccine Alfredo.

Okay, as mentioned, I've got a gardenful of nice, fresh Roma tomatoes. And I'll be making sauce for the rest of the summer. But what will I do in, say, January? Same thing the other pros do; I'll go buy some canned tomatoes. Only a rabid purist or a complete idiot will tell you that canned tomatoes are inferior to fresh ones for making sauce. As a cook and occasional restaurateur, I can promise you that the tomatoes in the sauce you're eating at your favorite red-sauce place came out of a Number 10 can from a rack of Number 10 cans in the pantry and not from some farmers market or fairy tale garden out in back of the restaurant. Nope. Nothing whatsoever wrong with using canned tomatoes for marinara or tomato sauce. Just watch the quality. If you can score authentic D.O.P. San Marzanos, go for it. Otherwise, good tomatoes from brands like Cento are just fine. As with everything, you get what you pay for.

Now, go out there and grab some tomatoes – canned or fresh – and get saucy! 

Without Ham, Does Arby's Really “Have The Meats!”?

Last Time I Looked, Ham Was Still A Meat

I drove past my neighborhood Arby's the other day. I've been doing that a lot since last fall when the chain wrongheadedly removed any and all traces of ham from their menu.

Arby's ham was simply to die for. More than fifty years ago, the very first commercially prepared ham and cheese sandwich I ever put in my mouth came from Arby's. From that day until just a few months ago, Arby's was my “go-to” fast food choice. I had lunch or dinner at Arby's at least twice a week for more than fifty years. And now I just drive by, sadly longing for the good old days.

See, it was kind of funny, what with Ray Kroc's roaring success with the first McDonald's franchise not far from where I grew up, but I didn't do hamburgers as a kid. For some reason I no longer remember, my mother didn't eat burgers. I think it was a dietary issue of some sort. She had a lot of those. Anyway, she never made them at home and never had them when we went out somewhere. But give her a roast beef sandwich and she was a happy woman.

So when I was growing up, we bypassed the golden arches and headed straight for the big cowboy hat. And it was there that I discovered the juicy, pit-smoked, melt-in-your-mouth joy of perfectly oven-roasted, thinly sliced ham piled high on a sesame seed bun and topped with a slice of melty Swiss cheese.

Now, in those days, Arby's didn't do French fries; their side offering was the potato cake, of which I was not a particular fan. Potato cakes were okay and I came to appreciate them a lot more as I got older. But back in the day it was not at all uncommon for me to get a ham and cheese sandwich at Arby's and then nip over to McDonald's for what were then the world's best French fries. That was, of course, before they started pandering to the veggie crowd and ceased frying their slender shoestring strips of potato in a blend of beef tallow. But that's another issue for another time.

I was at once outraged and devastated the day I pulled in to my local Arby's drive-thru and found that the Ham and Swiss slider – the replacement for my venerable Ham and Swiss melt – had been eighty-sixed from the menu. “Okay,” I said, “Can't you just throw some ham on a bun for me or something?” “I'm sorry, sir,” came the reply. “We no longer have ham.”

WHAT!!! The place that trumpets “We Have The MEATS!” doesn't have ham anymore? Last time I looked, ham was still a meat, right? So, I'm sorry, Arby's, but if you don't have ham, then you don't really have “the meats,” now do you?

I don't know what happened. Some bird-brained bean counter at parent company Inspire Brands corporate headquarters in Atlanta probably crunched some numbers and decided they could save a nickel by ditching one of “the meats.” Of course, by removing ham from the menu, Arby's not only sacrificed the slider but also deep-sixed the Loaded Italian sandwich, one of its more popular offerings. Gone, too, is another heritage staple item, the aforementioned potato cakes. Apparently they hired some marketing research outfit to research their market and the resultant survey indicated that customer demand had shifted. Of course, you'd never know that by looking at Twitter and Reddit and other social media platforms where the disappointment is pretty palpable.

And then, adding insult to injury, Arby's has just announced itself to be a hamburger joint, a direct slap in the face to founders Forrest and Leroy Raffel. The Raffel brothers – the R Bs in “Arby's” – wanted to operate a fast food franchise based on something other than hamburgers. But they're long gone and nobody cares, right? So let's hype a new fifty-two-percent Waygu beef burger that we can peddle for more than six bucks a pop. And never mind that the food critic for the Washington Post calls it a “big, beautiful, beefy blunder.”

But corporate is standing by its choices and proclaiming that customer satisfaction is its main priority. Ummm.....look over here, guys. This lifelong customer ain't satisfied. And I've got a lot of company.

And you can tell me all day long that your disastrous decision to discontinue popular traditional menu items “simply means that there are even more delicious options to look forward to for the future.” I won't be there to try them. There's a Hardee's right down the street from my nearby Arby's and they still have a pretty decent ham and cheese sandwich there. Not as good as Arby's by a long shot, but better than the nothing option I'm getting from my former favorite fast food choice.

So come on, Ving Rhames, let me hear you say it: “Arby's. We have the meats....all except ham!”

UPDATE: This worthy petition is barely showing up on the radar. Let's give it a boost!  https://www.change.org/p/arby-s-bring-back-ham-and-cheese-sliders-at-arby-s

Andrea Bocelli Is Simply Amazing

Il Maestro È Veramente Meraviglioso

Okay, I'll admit it: when it comes to Andrea Bocelli I'm an unabashed fan. And I'm certainly not alone. The incredible Italian tenor has admirers in all walks of life. Sure, you'd expect the “opera crowd” to fawn all over him, but I am constantly amazed by the breadth of his appeal among everyday people who wouldn't know Verdi from a Volkswagen.

The first time I ever heard of Andrea Bocelli was about twenty years ago when an admirer in a small-town florist shop waxed effusive about his phenomenal voice. More recently, I encountered a lady in Walmart who struck up a conversation about Valentine's Day gifts. When I mentioned that my wife and I were going to see Andrea Bocelli's Valentine concert, the lady nearly swooned. “Oh, I just love him!” And when my wife mentioned the same concert in her office, a place largely populated by guys who talk a lot about huntin' and fishin' and football, she was surprised when one of them said, “Oh yeah, I'm taking my wife to that concert.” So to say his fanbase is broad would be an understatement.

Now, I'm an old guy, okay. But I'm an old guy who spent decades in various aspects of the entertainment business, and I know a lot of famous people. As a broadcaster, I interviewed hundreds of celebs and stars over the years and as a performer I shared a stage with a few of them. I say this not to brag, but to make the point that I've been close up with a lot of talent in my time and I'm not easily starstruck. So what is it about Andrea Bocelli that compels me to purchase nearly all of his recorded work and to dash out to the box office every time he comes within a hundred miles of me?

First and foremost, I adore music. I always have. I found my singing voice long before any other talent manifested itself, and music has always been my first love. All kinds of music; classical, opera, rock and roll, pop, country, jazz, standards, swing – I can listen to and enjoy pretty much anything. And I can expand and adjust my musical tastes. For instance, I never thought much of Lady Gaga until she teamed up with Tony Bennett and just blew me away. Then I went back and listened to some of her solo stuff with new ears and a new appreciation of her talent.

I also respect music and the power and influence it can have in people's lives. Music is a universal form of expression. Whether it's a powerful tenor delivering a soaring aria, a symphony performing a stirring composition, a folk singer strumming a guitar and singing a moving ballad, or an aborigine beating out a tribal rhythm on a drum, music has the ability to reach in and capture a part of your soul.

In 1697, William Congreve, in his play “The Mourning Bride,” famously said, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. To soften rocks, or bend the knotted oak.” (And, yes, it is “breast” and not “beast.” Somewhere along the line, the quote morphed when somebody dropped the “r.”) And, as it turns out, that's not just florid seventeenth-century hype. Music actually does have soothing power. Modern scientific research has revealed that listening to music can increase the body's level of oxytocin and serotonin, the brain's natural mood elevators, invoking a sense of calmness and reduced anxiety.

And that's where Andrea Bocelli's voice takes me. In a pantheon of entertainers from ABBA to ZZ Top, no other artist can soothe my “savage breast” the way Andrea Bocelli can. It doesn't matter how horribly life has treated me on any given day, the first notes of any of Andrea's songs will almost instantly mitigate my mood. His voice is truly magical.

Even though he started his musical career playing and singing in a Tuscan piano bar, a lot of people automatically label Andrea as an “opera singer.” And, make no mistake, he is that. But he is also so much more. His “pop” chops are incomparable. As much as I appreciate his operatic virtuosity, it's his pop-oriented repertoire that I can, and do, listen to by the hour.

His work as a solo artist is amazing. But when he partners with other artists, il maestro è veramente meraviglioso! I mean, is there anybody Andrea Bocelli can't sing with? He has scored enormous hits with Celine Dion (“The Prayer”) and Sarah Brightman (“Con Te Partiro/Time To Say Goodbye”). I love his duet with Ed Sheeran on a great arrangement of Sheeran's “Perfect” called “Perfect Symphony.” He's also recorded with Jennifer Lopez, Stevie Wonder, Paul Anka, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Barbara Streisand, Nelly Furtado, Ariana Grande, Tony Bennett, Alison Krauss, Reba McIntire, Natalie Cole, Michael Bublé, Jennifer Garner, Giorgia, Katherine Jenkins, Christina Aguilera, Cecilia Bartoli, Josh Groban, Helene Fischer, and, through the magic of technology, Edith Piaf, just to name a few. He's recorded with family, too, from a wonderful duet of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra classic “Something Stupid” sung with his wife Veronica Berti, to a fairly big hit, “Fall On Me,” recorded with his son Matteo for the soundtrack of Disney's “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” to a sensational Internet streaming performance of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah” with daughter Virginia. And his voice blends so perfectly with all of them. I mean, talk about diversity and versatility! Read that list again and then tag him with that narrow “opera singer” label that so many uninformed people stick on him. Of course, he's recorded lots of opera, including “Notte 'E Piscatore” with his mentor Luciano Pavarotti, but that's just the thin surface of his endless musical talent. Did I mention that besides piano, he is proficient on flute, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, guitar, and drums? But, yeah, he's just an “opera singer.”

Andrea Bocelli was born in a small Tuscan village about twenty-five miles south of Pisa, so naturally he sings mostly in Italian. It's his first language and the one with which he is most comfortable. But he's also produced a lot of work in Spanish and in French as well as in Portuguese and Latin, and I've heard him sing a smattering of German. And, of course, even though he is somewhat halting when speaking English, he sings in it beautifully and effortlessly. I am the reverse; I'm a native English-speaker who can struggle through Italian. And I can understand enough of the other languages I mentioned to know which of them he is using. But the point is that the words don't matter. The fact that you may not know what he is saying is actually unimportant. It's the sound of his voice that will transport you. The tone, the timbre, and the texture of his vocalization is simply superb.

I had the opportunity to attend Andrea's last U.S. concert in 2020, just days before before the planet shut down for COVID, an event made even more magical by dint of the fact that it was the last live musical event I – or pretty much anybody else – would get to see for most of the next two years. I had to content myself with listening to the nearly two hundred Bocelli songs on my phone's playlist and repeatedly watching any and all of the six performance DVDs I own, not including the biopic “The Music of Silence,” which I also streamed a couple of times. (Told you I was a fan.)

And now that things are slowly creeping back toward some semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy, Andrea is back on the road and I burned up Ticketmaster the minute I saw that he was coming to a venue a mere hour-and-a-half away. And so what if I wound up sitting in the section where oxygen masks are optional? He sounded just as wonderful to me up there as he did to the folks who paid five times more to sit in floor seats. And his image was projected on three enormous screens that flank the stage, so I got to relish the whole concert experience and still make my mortgage payment. Win-win.

Obviously, Andrea does not travel with a full symphony orchestra and chorus. He utilizes local talent in the cities where he performs. As a friend of mine pointed out, this is another “win-win” because not only does it provide him with beautiful accompaniment, it also brings much-deserved attention to local artists. He does bring guest performers with him, usually an operatic soprano to accompany him for the first part – the “opera part” – of his show. Then he takes a break and returns to the stage for a selection of some of his more popular contemporary tunes. And he has a guest or two there as well. The last two times I've seen him it was the talented Italian-American singer Pia Toscano, whose voice blended beautifully with his on their duets and stood out strongly on her own solo numbers. A splendid professional dance couple provided some entertaining visual elements from time to time, but the highlights of the evening on the occasion of his most recent concert were Andrea's son, Matteo, and his daughter, Virginia, who added their remarkable talents to an already fulfilling evening.

Matteo is the next generation of extraordinary Bocelli musicianship. He is embarking on a solo career and has released a couple of singles, one of which he performed to enthusiastic response. And his duets with his dad were spectacular. But it was the youngest Bocelli on the stage who absolutely enchanted the audience when she joined her father in singing the previously mentioned adaptation of “Hallelujah.” I'm sure Virginia Bocelli had some people looking around to see who was behind the curtain singing because it was impossible that that voice could have emanated from a nine-year-old throat. And her stage presence is advanced far beyond her years. Her English was flawless as she joked with her dad about not “messing up” the number. She is most assuredly another developing talent to watch.

As I said, I've rubbed elbows with a whole bunch of entertainers across a broad spectrum of music. And I've loved 'em all and I've respected them all for their varied and wonderful talents. But Andrea Bocelli? I've never had the opportunity to meet him and, for all the hours I've spent with other “stars” of various magnitudes, I'd dearly love to spend just five minutes in conversation him. So, does that make me a fanboy? Okay, I'm a fanboy.

If you're one of those people who sees the name “Andrea Bocelli” and immediately writes him off as an “opera singer” who doesn't do “your kind of music,” you are seriously shortchanging the man and depriving yourself of a wonderful opportunity to broaden your musical horizons a bit. So go online and stream something – maybe one of the duets I mentioned earlier – and you'll see what I mean. And, who knows? Maybe I'll see you up in the cheap seats the next time he comes to town.

Hey, “Patriots!” How About Showing Some Real Respect For Your Flag?

There's Nothing Wrong With Displaying Your Love Of Country And Your Respect For Its Flag. Except When You Don't.

Newcomers to the United States are often impressed and/or mystified by the predominant presence of Old Glory on display seemingly everywhere they look. Indeed, I read of one foreign visitor who mistook an American fast-food joint for a post office because there was a big flag flying over the building. That's not to say that other nations don't take pride in showing off their national colors, but leave it to the Americans to “super-size” their patriotic fervor.

The Star-Spangled Banner that we all grew up to believe was the product of the mind and fingers of a Philadelphia upholsterer named Betsy Ross has been around since Revolutionary days. Not all historians agree on the Betsy Ross story and the flag itself underwent a lot of changes in those early days, but the banner that the Continental Congress approved on June 14, 1777 – the one described as consisting of “thirteen alternating stripes of red on white with thirteen white stars on a blue field” – wound up being pretty much the same as the one we see flying over post offices and fast food establishments today.

And in those early days, display of the flag was generally limited to military usage. As much as we like to think of those early American patriots as being flag wavers, they really weren't. They would have been as puzzled as the aforementioned foreign visitor to see flags flying from every home and business in the village. It wasn't until after the Civil War that displaying the flag became a “thing” and even then it was still pretty much limited to official and governmental use. Very few private homes owned or commonly displayed the American flag. No, it took the Communist “Red Scare” of the 1950s to really bring the old Red, White, and Blue to front porches across the land. Everybody was an unabashed patriot in those days and the preferred method of exhibiting that patriotism was to plant a flag somewhere on your property. And, of course, if you were a “super-patriot” you couldn't be satisfied with a common 3' x 5' flag. Oh, no! Bigger was better and soon the spectacle of flags the size of football fields streaming in the breeze over car dealerships became an everyday sight.

And that's all fine. Wonderful, in fact. There's nothing wrong with displaying your love of country and your respect for its flag. Except when you don't. And a whole lot of well-intended people don't.

See, there's this thing called a flag code. Did you know that one actually exists? Do you know what it says? If you're one of those people who leaves your flag out until it fades and tatters to shreds, I'll bet you don't. And I'm sure you know less than nothing about the flag code if you proudly wave an American flag that has been defaced by a silk-screened image of whatever social, political, or cultural icon or logo you find appealing. Or if you wear your flag as some sort of misguided fashion statement.

People have been disrespecting the flag for a long time. In fact, it was a reaction to the use of the flag on beer bottles and such in the late nineteenth century that first inspired the idea of a code of official guidelines for the display of the United States' flag. Early efforts on a federal level failed, so individual states took up the cause. In 1923, the Supreme Court ruled that state governments had the authority to ban desecration of the American flag and in that same year, under the auspices of the American Legion, the first rendering of a flag code came into being. By 1932, all forty-eight states had adopted flag desecration laws. On June 22, 1942, FDR signed the Federal Flag Code, which led to Congress enacting it into public law on December 22, 1942. Titled simply as The United States Flag Code, it has been updated and amended a couple of times since then, but remains substantively the same.

The Flag Code is an actual federal law, but, by design, it lacks any real provisions for enforcement, relying instead on voluntary customs and non-binding terms like “should” rather than “shall.” Unfortunately, that makes it a law with no teeth with which to bite the numerous miscreants who flaunt its provisions.

I've got a twenty-five-foot flagpole in my front yard and I've got a flagpole bracket attached to the front of the building that houses my office. I even have little American flag garden flags that I put out on occasion. Lots of my neighbors have flags on display, too. But there's a difference between me and most of them in that I actually pay attention to the condition of my flags and to the proper display thereof.

I am an admitted flag-nazi. (Oxymoron? Perhaps.) I'm the guy who calls your business and demands that you remove that tattered pink, beige, and periwinkle remnant of what was once a proud flag from the pole in front of your store and replace it. I'm the guy who once stopped in a driving rainstorm to lower a flag that had torn away from one of its grommets and was unceremoniously and disrespectfully streaming loose in the wind in front of a local store. I'm the guy that will let you know if your state or business flag is an inch bigger than your American flag and if it's flying a quarter of an inch higher. My flag means something to me beyond being an ostentatious bit of pseudo-patriotic décor that I tack up and forget about. Does that make me some kind of super-patriot? Nah. I'm just a guy who respects the flag and what it represents.

For instance, unlike my neighbors, I raise my flag briskly early every morning, weather permitting, and lower it, slowly and ceremoniously, around sunset every night. Wouldn't it be easier to just stick it up there and leave it out all the time? Yes. Would it be proper and respectful. No.

Now, the current revised Flag Code does make provisions for me to leave my flag up all the time. It says I can leave an “all-weather” flag up in the rain. Nowadays, of course, just about all flags are "all-weather," made of durable nylons and polyesters, unlike the all-cotton flags of my youth. But since I'm older than that revision, I still bring the flag down when bad weather threatens. And the Code also allows for a flag to remain on display after dark provided the flag is properly illuminated. I've got an array of solar floodlights around the base of my flagpole to cover me in case I'm not home at sunset, but I still prefer to lower the flag before dark. It's just me. Is it you, too, or do you prefer to let the symbol of your patriotism hang limp and wet in the dark?

I generally go through a couple of flags per year because I absolutely will not fly a flag that is the slightest bit faded or torn. Section 8k of the Flag Code states, “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.” Man, if I had a dollar for every time I observed that provision being violated, I'd be incredibly rich. It saddens and disgusts me to drive around and see torn, tattered, faded rags hanging from the poles of some “patriot's” home or business. You want to be all “patriotic,” bubba? Then don't just hang your flag out until it rots and forget about it. Look up at it once in awhile. Remember it and what it stands for. And replace it when it needs to be replaced.

And if you're going to put on a patriotic show for your neighbors, don't display your flag in such a way that it drags the ground or comes in contact with trees, bushes, or what have you. Section 8 (b) says, “The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.” Which also eliminates using the flag as some sort of “patriotic” drape. That's what bunting is for. “The flag should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.”

And then there's my neighbor down the road who, I guess, considers himself a “god over country” kind of guy. As such, he displays his “Christian flag” over the U.S. flag on the pole in his yard. The Flag Code clearly says: “Other flags should not overshadow the American Flag in any way. The American Flag should be flown higher than lesser flags. If state, local or society flags are flown on the same halyard with the American Flag, the American Flag should be at the top.” I once sicced the local American Legion on some little Bible-thumping church that committed the same offense. I was pleased to see the situation rectified soon thereafter.

There is one religious exemption allowed by the Flag Code: it is permissible for a Navy chaplain to fly a religious ensign higher than the US flag while conducting a religious service at sea. But it is a temporary exemption: after the service concludes, the US flag goes back to the top. Since neither the little church by the highway nor my neighbor's yard remotely resemble a naval vessel at sea......

And then there are the “patriots” who like to mix their patriotism with their favorite political party, candidate, or brand of motorcycle by emblazoning all kinds of dreck on the surface of the flag they display. Uh, no. The Code states, “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.” That means that, no matter how devoted you are to your favorite candidate, it is a violation of federal law to silkscreen his name and/or image on an American flag! Same goes for your favorite brand of car or motorcycle. Or those kitschy things you buy at flea markets that have cowboys or Indians or soldiers or whatever emblazoned on them. It's your patriotic Second Amendment right to own a gun but it's a violation of federal law to have a picture of one printed on your flag.

Oh, and by the way, if you're showing your patriotism by wearing the flag, you're also displaying your disrespect for it. Section 8d is pretty straightforward: “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel.” It goes on to include bedding and drapery in that prohibition and adds that, “No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.” So, obviously, if you're wearing all or part of an actual flag as an element of your ensemble, you're in direct violation of the code. Flag patches on uniforms, of course, are allowed, but not flags as uniforms.

And, technically, those cutesy “American flag” t-shirts, neckties, and boxer shorts you like to wear to “honor” patriotic holidays are also Flag Code no-nos. See, under Section 3: “The words 'flag, standard, colors, or ensign', as used herein, shall include any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America.” So if you're wearing something that an “average person” would think represents the flag, you're breaking the law. Again, technically speaking, your t-shirt with an American flag proudly flying across its front or back is, according to the Code, an actual flag and should, therefore, be treated and disposed of properly. So do you patriotically burn your flag t-shirt or do you just turn it into a rag with which to wash your car?

And speaking, as I was in the previous paragraph, of patriotic holidays, how about all that nifty, patriotic stuff you have around for the Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day festivities? Paper plates, cups, and napkins all adorned with the image of Old Glory. How stirringly patriotic! Except for Section 8i of the Flag Code which reads, “The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.” The same section goes on to say, “It should not be printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.” In other words, although it may seem festive and patriotic, it's somewhat disrespectful to crumple up and throw soiled representations of your flag in the trash.

Oh, and that stirringly patriotic moment when your team's band or pep squad stretches the Stars and Stripes out across the football field? Sorry, not so much. Section 8c of the Flag Code reads: The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.”

Speaking on Flag Day (June 14) 1915, Woodrow Wilson said, “The things that the flag stands for were created by the experiences of a great people. Everything that it stands for was written by their lives. The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history. It represents the experiences made by men and women, the experiences of those who do and live under that flag.” There's nothing in that speech that represents the flag as a trivial patriotic decoration.

I've got a great book I picked up years ago entitled, “The Care and Display of the American Flag.” It was printed in 2004 by the editors of Sharpman.com and is probably the best and most comprehensive guide to flag etiquette I've seen. The American Legion offers a PDF of the Flag Code online at https://www.legion.org/documents/legion/pdf/flagcode_07.pdf. And there are tons of other resources available to assist and educate people in honoring the American symbol that the Flag Code itself describes by stating, “The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing.’’ If you really consider yourself to be a patriotic person, shouldn't you take better care of the “living thing” that informs your ideal? 

A Defense (and a History) of the Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich

There's Nothing Wrong With A Good Ol' PB&J

I was at one of my favorite Italian hangouts the other day hanging out with some of my favorite Italians. I had backed out of having lunch with them because I had some errands to run. Naturally, one of my smart-ass paesani piped up with, “Nah, he's just going home to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

I actually wasn't, but so what if I was? There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good ol' PB&J.

Italians aren't much into peanut butter. Despite having many supermercati that feature imported American foods, peanut butter just doesn't make the list. In fact, Italy ranks second among European countries where peanut butter is nearly impossible to find. (France, of course, is first.) Now, you want to talk about Nutella and it's a whole different game. But peanut butter and jelly? Not so much. Yeah, they have marmellata (jelly) in Italy, but I think you'd probably be arrested if you were caught spreading it between two slices of bread.

I'm a child of the 1950s and here in the United States PB&J sandwiches were a childhood staple. I don't remember for sure how often Mom fixed them but I know I had PB&J at least a couple of times a week. Probably more. I was a picky kid and PB&J, along with grilled cheese, was a drop dead sure thing. I read somewhere that the average American child consumes 1,500 PB&J sandwiches before graduating from high school. I'm sure I was at least average in that regard.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich consists of three elements: bread, jelly, and peanut butter. So let's take a quick look at the history of each element.

Oh, come on! We don't really have to go into the history of bread, do we? Well.......yeah, we do. At least the recent history, because it directly contributes to the popularity of PB&J.

Back when John Montagu, the 4^th Earl of Sandwich “invented” the concoction that bears his name – the “sandwich” as opposed to the “john” – he had to have his servant hack slices of bread off a whole loaf because pre-sliced bread hadn't yet come into being. Once it did, of course, it immediately became the greatest thing since.......well, you know.

And we have Davenport, Iowa's own Otto Frederick Rohwedder to thank for that. A jeweler by trade and holder of an optometric degree, Otto somehow became obsessed with the idea of developing a machine that would slice bread. So he sold his three St. Joseph, Missouri jewelry stores and put the money into his invention. After a couple of setbacks – including a fire that destroyed his blueprints and prototype – he finally got it right and sold his first machine to a friend who installed it at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri. The first loaf of “Kleen-Maid” sliced bread was produced and sold there on July 7, 1928. The concept caught on. A review on the front page of the Chillicothe Constitution Tribune raved, “The idea of sliced bread may be startling to some people. Certainly it represents a definite departure from the usual manner of supplying consumers with bakers loaves. As one considers this new service one cannot help but be won over to a realization of the fact that here indeed is a type of service, which is sound, sensible and in every way a progressive refinement in Bakers bread service.”

Improvements were made on Otto's original design and soon the idea got around. In 1930, the Continental Baking Company introduced sliced Wonder Bread to the world. Three years later, American bakeries were producing more loaves of sliced bread than unsliced. (You can see Otto's original machine in the Smithsonian, by the way.)

Like bread, jams and jellies have been around forever. But, like Otto Frederick Rohwedder, it took Paul Welch, son of New Jersey dentist and grape juice inventor, Dr. Thomas Welch, to further the development of PB&J by coming up with a process in 1917 for pureeing Concord grapes into a jelly which he originally called “Grapelade.” (That's pronounced “grape-uh-lade,” a play on “marmalade.”)

Now, peanut butter has several fathers and, surprisingly, George Washington Carver isn't one of them, although he is widely credited with the paternity. Oh, in the early 1900s he masterfully pushed the Southern peanut crop to the forefront of agriculture, manufacturing, and just about everything else and his seminal “300 Uses for Peanuts” did include a peanut paste. But Canadian Marcellus Gilmore Edson (not to be confused with a guy named Edison) patented the process for making the stuff in 1884. He made his paste by milling roasted peanuts between two heated plates.

A few years later – 1895, to be exact – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the somewhat eccentric Michigan physician and health-food pioneer who gave us corn flakes, patented the process of making peanut butter from raw peanuts, which he marketed as a high-protein food substitute for people with no teeth.

Another peanut butter daddy was St. Louis physician Dr. Ambrose Straub, who first became acquainted with peanut butter at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. He got a local food company to produce a product he had developed and he took it to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, where it joined the hamburger, the hot dog, iced tea, Dr. Pepper, cotton candy, Jell-O, and the ice cream cone as the newest rage of the age.

And those of us who prefer creamy peanut butter to the crunchy variety have to give credit to California chemist and food businessman Joseph Rosefield who, in 1922, invented a process for making smooth peanut butter by using partially hydrogenated oil. He licensed that process to a company that created “Peter Pan” peanut butter in 1928 and in 1932 he marketed his own product under the name “Skippy.”

As far as bringing these three elements together into the palate-pleasing comestible we know today, here's what happened.

In the closing years of the nineteenth century and the opening of the twentieth, peanut butter began to spread.......no, I just can't do that.......began to make a name for itself among the habitués of upscale tea rooms in places like New York City, where it was often paired with pimento, watercress, celery and the like and served on saltines. Then in 1901, Julia Davis Chandler, writing in The Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics, included this instruction: “For variety, some day try making little sandwiches, or bread fingers, of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and currant or crab-apple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious, and, so far as I know, original.” Hence the first published “recipe” for a PB&J sandwich.

But peanut butter was still kind of “uppity,” you know. The stuff of tea rooms and arcane publications. So how did it come down to the masses? Well, two world wars and a depression did the trick. And here's where Rohwedder and Welch and the tetrarchy of Edson/Kellogg/Straub/Rosefield come into play.

Seems the US Army bought a large quantity of Welch's Grapelade to distribute to soldiers in WWI. They liked it and brought it home with them. Then Rohwedder gave the world sliced bread and the former soldiers and their families started spreading it with the already popular Grapelade. Now Rosefield's smooth, creamy, hydrogenated, and, most importantly, affordable iteration of Edson/Kellogg/Straub's original creation came along just as the country was slipping into an unprecedented economic depression. Hmmmm......You could buy a loaf of “nutritious” Wonder Bread (“Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways”) for about eight cents. A jar of peanut butter went for around a nickel and jelly was equally inexpensive. So, put them all together and you've got a decent meal of plenty for a pittance.

Uncle Sam figured that out, too, and issued rations of high-protein, shelf-stable peanut butter, along with Welch's entire run of Grapelade, to G.I.s in WWII. When G.I. Joe came home in 1945, he brought a taste for PB&J with him and passed it on to his baby-boom kids, of which I am one, bringing about a PB&J heyday that stretched from the '50s through at least the '70s.

And the beat goes on. According to a survey of 1,000 people recently conducted by Peter Pan and published in the New York Daily News, modern American children get their first PB&J at the age of four years and two months and keep on eating them right up through adulthood, to the tune of three sandwiches per month on average. Nearly half of all Americans regularly eat PB&J sandwiches and will enjoy 2,984 of them in their lifetimes. The other half just don't know what they're missing.

So, to my friend's opinion of the beloved American classic, I say, chi se ne importa. I like Nutella well enough, but give me two slices of my fresh, homemade bread, a jar of Jif and a jar of Welch's grape jelly, and I'm a happy camper. And now I've gone and flung a craving on myself so I think I'll go keep up my average. Ciao!