tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14988272685656304892024-03-17T23:02:47.895-04:00The View from My Italian KitchenA look at topics relating to food, entertainment, travel ... and whatever else pops into my head.Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.comBlogger486125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-62995006030181827642023-08-26T16:54:00.000-04:002023-08-26T16:54:30.783-04:00Jumping Off The Ozempic Bandwagon<p>No No No Ozempic!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBZ8q7NmC1nCmrB6o82SI2t8f-9cjpIStPRlOKiBTOfDu2ku3iJrrJ0_JIIDhsScwMylnMvh09DaIGV5THcjcW8q-85fGdNup0FQOToM_UQXcyuL0aNCY9aIaSUNsIH9sA_Jy6jUpHXbWnFJNs_4P2YLompeITQHf41cuvfIyMIAdtoaBbsnzAh7R3veE/s1920/ozempic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBZ8q7NmC1nCmrB6o82SI2t8f-9cjpIStPRlOKiBTOfDu2ku3iJrrJ0_JIIDhsScwMylnMvh09DaIGV5THcjcW8q-85fGdNup0FQOToM_UQXcyuL0aNCY9aIaSUNsIH9sA_Jy6jUpHXbWnFJNs_4P2YLompeITQHf41cuvfIyMIAdtoaBbsnzAh7R3veE/s320/ozempic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A cautionary tale.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm old and I make no bones about it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of the many downsides of aging is
the concomitant decrease in metabolism. Whereas ten or fifteen years
ago I could drop thirty pounds by simply drinking one less Pepsi per
day, I now find myself in a constant grudge match with my waistline,
a match wherein the waistline usually prevails. I've always said. “A
waist is a terrible thing to mind,” a pun that is sadly all too
true these days.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tall, dark, and handsome? Well, two out
of three ain't bad. My older sister, who also fights the battle of
the bulge, is fond of likening our genetic forebears to “bricks
with legs.” Dark-haired and olive complected, most of our maternal
family has always been what used to be called “stocky.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, as I recently watched the readout
on the scale inch inexorably upward despite my best efforts, I
decided to try a shortcut. I decided to try Ozempic.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Unless you've been living in a retreat
with some Tibetan monks or something, you've heard of the latest
celebrity weight loss fad. Everybody and their third cousins twice
removed have been losing massive amounts of weight by injecting
themselves weekly with the Type 2 diabetes drug semaglutide, aka
Ozempic.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ozempic is a glucagon-like peptide-1
(GLP-1) agonist medication that aids in lowering blood sugar by
helping the pancreas make more insulin. It mimics a naturally
occurring hormone, and as those hormone levels rise, they go to your
brain, tricking it into thinking you're full. Ozempic also slows
digestion by increasing the time it takes for food to leave the body.
It's kind of the chemical equivalent of bariatric surgery.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The light and fluffy commercial that
co-opts Pilot's 1970s hit “Magic” has firmly planted the refrain
“Oh oh oh Ozempic” in consumer's minds like an annoying earworm.
It shows happy, smiling people going about their happy daily
activities, all while the happily upbeat narrator warns of
pancreatitis, vision problems, severe stomach pain, low blood sugar
risks, or myriad allergic reactions such as swelling of your face,
lips, tongue, or throat, or problems breathing or swallowing. Severe
rash or itching, fainting or feeling dizzy, or having a very rapid
heartbeat are also mentioned, although obviously not manifested by
any of the chipper actors cavorting around the screen. In a supreme
example of “duh”-ness, the announcer advises you not to take the
crap if you're allergic to it. And as a happy little girl bikes down
a suburban street on her newspaper route, a brief disclaimer flashes:
“Common side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain,
and constipation. Drinking plenty of fluids may reduce your chances
of dehydration.” “Which,” the announcer intones, “may worsen
kidney problems.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hey! Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Where can I get some?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, Ozempic is not actually approved
for weight loss, so your doctor has to prescribe it “off label,”
meaning you'll have to mortgage your house in order to obtain a
couple of months' worth. Unless, of course, you are “lucky”
enough to actually have Type 2 diabetes, in which case most
insurances cover it to the tune of $25 to $50 per month.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While I am not a raging,
insulin-dependent diabetic, I have in recent years – as my gross
tonnage has increased – become prediabetic.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A normal A1C level is below 5.7. Levels
of 5.7 to 6.4 indicate prediabetes, and anything over 6.4 is
full-blown diabetes. I consistently bounce around between 5.6 and
6.2, maybe spiking a 7.0 if I've been particularly neglectful. When
that happens, I drop that extra Pepsi I referred to earlier and,
while I no longer lose thirty pounds, I do usually manage to drop a
couple of A1C points.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That said, my primary doc agreed to put
me on Ozempic, not so much for diabetic control but to see if I could
lose a few pounds. Which, in and of itself, would likely keep my
blood sugar levels level. Win-win, right?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, one of my nieces got herself on
the stuff and had remarkable success. Dropped something like forty
pounds in just a couple of months. Even got herself a case of
“Ozempic butt,” a frequent complaint caused by the sagging that
results from losing too much too fast. But she had gotten some sort
of promotional deal from Novo Nordisk. When it ran out and she was
faced with $1,300 a month to continue, well......</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another niece, however, had an entirely
different experience. She lasted three weeks before the bloating,
gassy, nauseous, stomach-lurching effects she was living with
three-and-a-half days out of seven finally got to her and she said,
“<i>basta!</i>” Well, since she doesn't actually speak Italian,
she just said, “enough.” She quit and never looked back.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I figured I'd chance it because I'm one
of those odd ducks that never seems to really get side effects from
medications and such. Just lucky, I guess. But, boy, did my luck run
out.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I got my little blue pen and was ready
for the long haul. I even went out and bought a sharps disposal
container for the used needles. It's a tiny little needle for a
subcutaneous injection. Since the five thumbs I have on each hand
sometimes limit my manual dexterity, I got my wife to handle the
first injection into my upper outer thigh.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The starting dose is 0.25 mg, which you
maintain for four weeks before doubling to 0.5 mg. The starting dose
doesn't really affect your blood sugar; it's just supposed to help
your body adjust to the oncoming digestive-related issues.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, I got shot in the leg on a Sunday
afternoon. I knew the stuff was low-dose and slow acting, so I wasn't
really expecting anything to happen immediately or even for the next
day or two. And I was right. Nothing happened for a couple of days.
Then, along about bedtime on Tuesday, I started feeling “off,”
for lack of a better term. Not sick, per se, but feeling like it
wouldn't take much to tip the balance. I woke up Wednesday morning full-on
nauseated. An actual breakfast was out of the question, but I risked a couple
of slices of toast. Bad move. Within an hour, the trips to the
bathroom began. And they didn't stop for the next eight hours. This
morning's toast, last night's dinner, yesterday's lunch – it all
came out one end or the other. There might even have been some
toenails in there towards the last.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Then came the diaphoresis. Also known
in medical parlance as secondary hyperhidrosis, in everyday language
it means the cold sweats. Followed by the dizziness and
light-headedness, dry mouth, and a degree of disorientation. Having
had medical training in a previous existence, I knew I was
dehydrated. And I also knew there wasn't a damn thing I could do
about it, because ginger ale, Gatorade, water – whatever I tried to
use to hydrate – came barreling right back out. So when the wife
got home from work, I said, “Honey, we're going for a ride.” And
off to the ER I went.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Phenergan is wonderful stuff and once I
got some – and a couple of bags of I.V. fluids – I was right as
rain within a couple of hours. Well....sort of. I managed to move out
of the bathroom Wednesday night but I remained in residence in the
bedroom for most of Thursday. I was absolutely wiped out.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Friday was better and Saturday was okay
and thus ended Ozempic week one.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Week two started again on Sunday. And
it was Wednesday afternoon before the gassy, bloated, slightly
nauseous feeling started to gain traction. This time I headed it of
with Pepto-Bismol. I was still sick for two days, living on mashed
potatoes, pudding, and crackers, but at least I stayed out of the
hospital.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I thought week three was going to be
the beginning of my success story. I was still sick by midweek, but
not as bad as the previous week and nowhere near the way I had been
the week before that. Of course, my toothbrush had to vie for space
on the bathroom vanity with the Pepto and the GasX and all the other
OTC concoctions I was using to stave off the symptoms.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Oh, and I had lost ten pounds. Being
nauseated by the thought of food will do that to you.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another Sunday rolled around and, with
high hopes for the coming week, my wife gave me another jab. This
time, it didn't wait until Wednesday. I was back in the ER by late
Tuesday night. More fluids, more phenergan......and no more Ozempic.
I went from “oh oh oh Ozempic” to “no no no Ozempic” in four
weeks. I informed my doctor and told him we were going to go back to
the old way of doing things. No more shortcuts.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When I mentioned this to my pharmacist
– while filling a prescription to help me deal with the after
effects of this crap – she said, “Oh, yeah. There are lawsuits
being filed as we speak.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Seems that in addition to the
delightful gastro side effects I experienced, there's
one more little disclaimer they need to add to their toxically upbeat
and positive ad campaign: gastroparesis. Basically, it's a matter of
Ozempic doing its job a little too well. Food moves so slowly through
the stomach to the small intestine that it may stop moving
altogether, resulting in a paralyzed stomach. Resulting in
<i>more</i> nausea, vomiting, abdominal bloating, abdominal pain,
severe dehydration, acid reflux, and malnutrition. Undigested food
may remain in the stomach and harden. Doesn't that sound like fun? They ought to make a commercial about that. On the upside, you'll lose lots
of weight.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Look, your mileage may vary. The niece
who had a modicum of success with Ozempic admitted to having “some
discomfort at first.” One of my numerous attendants in the ER said
she had had no trouble with it at all. (Even in my weakened and
semi-delirious state, I managed to give her a raspberry.) I'm just
saying, don't jump in with both feet. Stock up on clear liquids, OTC
medications, and toilet paper and hope for the best. Everything may
be just peachy for you.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I wish it had been for me.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-72868341684291723722023-06-17T17:39:00.001-04:002023-06-17T17:39:47.166-04:00Don't Waste Money On Precooked Bacon! <p> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>Money Can't Buy Happiness. But It Can
Buy Bacon, And That's Close Enough</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUX8lN5IP-ldlqOHR0WIfTwNNfeFgvcnlQ77y1rLqd0C7id2xMGjim4pyXCl9pH02KlW0dmAdWgwm8tW02XJSgLELvB9fSewTJlgfLaIuK4obOKfyUhzusONgSKqziOXH0xQzJSmK_dvdLdVMmbNVuH5IVRD0viBEB6yuQV10IjCyLU1lt6raf_BUwow/s259/precooked%20bacon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUX8lN5IP-ldlqOHR0WIfTwNNfeFgvcnlQ77y1rLqd0C7id2xMGjim4pyXCl9pH02KlW0dmAdWgwm8tW02XJSgLELvB9fSewTJlgfLaIuK4obOKfyUhzusONgSKqziOXH0xQzJSmK_dvdLdVMmbNVuH5IVRD0viBEB6yuQV10IjCyLU1lt6raf_BUwow/s1600/precooked%20bacon.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br />I've decided to stop turning around in
the grocery store because it seems like every time I turn around, the
prices have doubled. This is especially true for my favorite porky
ambrosia and yours...say it with me now... “mmmm...bacon!”<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm old enough to remember when bacon
sold for sixty-five cents a pound. The good stuff is going for
upwards of $7 a pound now. You can still get cheap store brands for
less, but you usually get what you pay for, you know? I can buy
restaurant quality bacon through a restaurant supplier and it costs
me a lot less; in fact, I just brought home the bacon – five pounds
of it – for about $16. You can, too. There are a lot of restaurant
supply outlets across the country that are open to the public. They
may not be as convenient as your neighborhood grocery store,
but......</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And, speaking of convenience, let's
talk about precooked bacon. I love the stuff. It's like instant bacon
when you want to throw a couple of slices on a sandwich or a burger
or crumble it over a baked potato or in a salad. But who wants to
spend the time and clean up the mess involved in cooking up two
slices of bacon for something like that? Enter the modern marketing marvel that
is precooked bacon.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As the package says, it's real bacon,
fully cooked and ready to use. Just pop it in the microwave for a few
seconds and it's good to go. Because the high salt content and
cooking method preserve the meat from bacteria, precooked bacon is
shelf-stable in the store and you just toss it in the fridge after
you open it. It'll be good for at least a couple of weeks.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That said, if I balk at paying seven
bucks for a pound of uncooked bacon, there's no way I'm going to fork
over five or six dollars for a measly two or three ounce package of
the precooked stuff. There are usually sixteen to eighteen slices of
uncooked bacon in a one-pound package. The precooked stuff averages
about ten slices per package. No way.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So here's what I do: when I bring home
my five-pound pack of bacon, I prep it for freezing via the method I
discuss elsewhere on this site. (See “Bacon Is A Terrible Thing To
Waste”) But I separate out about a pound that doesn't go right into
the freezer.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">First, I start my oven preheating to
400<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">°</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">
F. </span>Then I grab a rimmed baking sheet (½ sheet pan) and a
cooling rack to fit inside. I line the bottom of the tray with foil
before setting in the rack just to make for easier cleanup later.
Next, I lay out as much bacon as I can fit on the rack, usually about
ten or eleven slices. It's okay if it overlaps a little because it
will shrink up some as it cooks. Into the preheated oven it goes for
fifteen to twenty minutes. The time depends on how you like your
bacon. I know people who want it to “oink” when they pick it up
and I know people who want it so crisp it shatters into bacon bits
when they pick it up. I'm pretty much in the middle of the two
extremes, so I start peeking into the oven after about fifteen
minutes. No flipping necessary, I just put it in there and keep an
eye on it. When it's done to my preference, I drain it on paper
towels.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, what you have here is – are you
ready for this? – <i>precooked bacon! </i>The
same stuff they're going to charge you an arm and a leg for in the
grocery store. All you need to do now is wait until it cools
completely, then lay it out on the same sheet pan (assuming you've
cooled and cleaned it) and stick it in the freezer for an hour or two
to flash freeze it. Portion it out in single slices or in twos or
threes or whatever and wrap the portions in wax paper or parchment
paper. Stick the wrapped bacon in a zip lock bag and put it back in
the freezer. It'll stay nice and tasty for two or three months.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When
you want a quick bacon fix, take a portion out of the bag and
microwave it for a few seconds. Or, if you're really super-prepared
and all, you can put it in the fridge a couple of hours ahead of time
to thaw. Now it's ready for your sandwich, your burger, your salad,
your baked potato, your pizza, or you can scarf it down next to a couple of eggs or all by itself. Heat it up or not, depending on what
you're going to do with it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And
all the while you're devouring your precooked portion of porcine
pleasure, you can smile because you didn't fall prey to the latest
time-saving-but-money-wasting marketing gimmick. Win-win!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You
know, money can't buy happiness. But it can buy bacon, and that's
close enough.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-28764535480091269342023-05-25T12:58:00.000-04:002023-05-25T12:58:30.903-04:00Praise For Plain Pasta<p> </p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>Don't
Overlook the Simple Pleasures</i></b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh32ESjtMxYLyO7N6VbnHrymajkmSdRkaUSfQew0VQsFtSN61ccZeGoVFws0GTh4dRA_GZ6FvmArTNpkoCXzqbxQ4Oh43ZUTs8tDoSeCqo1FzLUzN4HXkcF-mhjzaYJYZNByw8WlD6eaYoclgnYwZ7BVZpow_Eu8_fnnedOJcLPmbwd-Oh9JhRlqT63XA/s578/spaghetti2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="578" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh32ESjtMxYLyO7N6VbnHrymajkmSdRkaUSfQew0VQsFtSN61ccZeGoVFws0GTh4dRA_GZ6FvmArTNpkoCXzqbxQ4Oh43ZUTs8tDoSeCqo1FzLUzN4HXkcF-mhjzaYJYZNByw8WlD6eaYoclgnYwZ7BVZpow_Eu8_fnnedOJcLPmbwd-Oh9JhRlqT63XA/s320/spaghetti2.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Mmmm, pasta. You ought
to see my pantry. You'd swear I had stock in DeCecco and Barilla. I
love pasta. And that love affair goes way back.<p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The very first pasta I
remember eating was “wagon wheel” pasta made by La Rosa. I was
four or five years old and my mother cooked it up and sauced it with
nothing but butter and I was the happiest kid in the world. Fast
forward several – ahem – decades, and if you still want to make
me the happiest kid in the world, put a plate of plain buttered pasta
in front of me. Works every time.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">That's because plain
pasta with butter and maybe a little Parmesan cheese is the most
basic Italian comfort food. In Italy, it's called <i>pasta al burro
</i>or sometimes <i>pasta
bianca. </i>One of the most popular
forms of the dish, <i>pastina,</i>
has been in the news a lot lately because Ronzoni, one of the biggest
manufacturers of pastina pasta in the US, stopped making the classic
little star-shaped noodles back in February, causing widespread panic
buying and hoarding. Sure, other companies produce it; Barilla
markets it as both Pastina and Stelline. But Ronzoni had by far the
biggest grocery store shelf presence for its pastina product and
long-time customers were understandably miffed by its sudden absence.
I mean, <i>pastina </i>is
like the next step up from mother's milk for most Italian children. A
little plain pasta, some butter, some cheese, and usually an egg.
Okay, so my mom was weird starting me off on buttered <i>rotelle.
</i>Must come from the French part
of the family, I don't know.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I
do know that when my own youngest son reached that pasta devouring
age, it had to be plain pasta with butter. Never mind that most
kiddie menus served up some form of spaghetti in tomato sauce. No,
no! None of that for <i>il mio bambino. </i>If
the pasta had even a trace of anything but plain butter on it, all
bets were off. I recall a certain Old Spaghetti Factory in Atlanta
that once dared to put brown butter on my kid's pasta. Wow! The way
the acoustics in that place echoed, it was not a pleasant experience
for anybody. Later on, six years of living in Italy expanded his
palate quite a bit. But, like me, he still appreciates a good dish of
plain pasta with butter and cheese.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Did
you know that <i>pasta al burro </i>is
the basis for fettuccine Alfredo? When you go to Italy, unless you're
going to one of the tourist traps in Rome, don't bother ordering
fettuccine Alfredo. They'll look at you like you've got a third eye.
Instead, ask for <i>pasta al burro </i>
or <i>pasta bianca. </i>They
may still give you funny looks because that's a dish commonly served
to children and folks with tummy troubles, but at least they'll know
what you're talking about.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">See,
about a hundred years ago, a Roman restaurateur named Alfredo di
Lelio had a very pregnant, very sick wife who could keep very little
on her stomach. About all she could tolerate was Alfredo's <i>pasta
al burro, </i>which he made with
egregious amounts of butter and cheese for extra flavor. A couple of
Hollywood luminaries, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr and Mary Pickford, were
honeymooning in Rome and wandered into Alfredo's eatery. They
inquired about the dish his wife was enjoying. Alfredo probably
thought, <i>“Boh. Americani pazzi.” </i>But
he dutifully served them some plain pasta with butter and cheese. And
they LOVED it! They loved it so much that they went back to Hollywood
and told everybody they knew – and they knew a lot of people –
about the wonderful Italian dish they had in Rome. Fettuccine
Alfredo, they called it, and thus was a culinary legend born.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Of
course, American chefs didn't have access to the same quality
ingredients Alfredo used in his restaurant, so they wound up
bastardizing his simple creation, adulterating it with milk and cream and all kinds of
extraneous additives to achieve what they thought was a close
approximation. Sorry. No. Not even close. Nothing beats the silky,
buttery unctuousness of the sauce that naturally forms when you
briskly stir together plain hot pasta, high-fat butter, real
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and just a tiny bit of the water in which
the pasta was cooked. <i>Buonissimo!</i> And
far superior to anything you'll find in a jar.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There
are another couple of variations on plain pasta. <i>Pasta
cacio e pepe </i>is one. Plain
pasta, some butter, some Parmigiano and pecorino cheeses, and a good
dose of some freshly-ground black pepper. That's all you need in
life, you know?</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Unless
you want to use olive oil instead of butter and throw in some garlic.
Then you've got <i>pasta aglio e olio. </i>Another
mouth watering dish that's just super simple.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If
you want a different flavor profile, you might try <i>pasta al
limone. </i>Same basic ingredients –
pasta and butter with some lemon juice and lemon zest.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I
suppose <i>carbonara</i> could be a “plain” pasta dish. I mean, it's
pasta, butter and cheese with bacon and eggs mixed in, but with all
the egg tempering and such, it's just too fussy when you're craving
something quick and simple.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When
I'm just too tired or too uninspired to prepare something
complicated, I boil some water, SALT IT, add some pasta, cook until
<i>al dente, </i>then ladle
it into a pasta bowl, mix in some good quality butter – something
like Kerrygold – and season it to taste. Then I kick back and enjoy
it while watching TV or reading a book.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As
to what kind of pasta? It doesn't really matter. Smaller shapes work
best. Something <i>rigate </i>with
a little texture to it is even better. Plain old spaghetti or
linguine are fine, too. Tube-shaped pastas don't hold light sauces
real well. Except ditalini. That one's small and it works okay in
this application. Broad noodles like tagliatelle or pappardelle aren't
really agreeable with buttery sauces, either. Doesn't mean you can't
use them. Just keep extra napkins on hand if you do. I like <i>farfalle</i>
or <i>farfalline</i> (aka
“bowtie” pasta.) And, of course. I never turn down a bowlful of
good ol' buttered wheels.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rich,
exotic, fragrant sauces are beautiful. I swoon over a good marinara
or a flavorful amatriciana. A spicy arrabiata is a wonderful thing.
And, of course, Bolognese is the gold standard of pasta sauces. But
in the rush toward those long-cooking, preparation-heavy concoctions,
don't overlook the simple pleasures to be found in a little plain
pasta, some butter and some cheese.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-60038604199159383112023-04-04T19:31:00.001-04:002023-04-04T19:31:45.900-04:00At Last! It May Soon Be Illegal To Massacre Italian Words!<p><b>There's No “American
Way.” Wrong Is Wrong.</b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwCoexTE4x-fU3OJghl477N0Hw-qhneR6wMYnkMhlKsAj-ZnQ3FrmHXdSg9xnV-MO48HMJIk71iT6QFnLCo9mEYxZ29mZXWrEDXVgXGArgvP_bltQtnk4ISEL04Nrv2F31BIdXAMWykAA9eCKvNC3Pmr33JHJHJSmRvZqeOhqf-C6ehO5N_xhADuS8w/s291/wrong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="291" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwCoexTE4x-fU3OJghl477N0Hw-qhneR6wMYnkMhlKsAj-ZnQ3FrmHXdSg9xnV-MO48HMJIk71iT6QFnLCo9mEYxZ29mZXWrEDXVgXGArgvP_bltQtnk4ISEL04Nrv2F31BIdXAMWykAA9eCKvNC3Pmr33JHJHJSmRvZqeOhqf-C6ehO5N_xhADuS8w/s1600/wrong.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><br />As regular readers
know, I have long been on a quixotic quest to stamp out the egregious
mispronunciation of Italian words. Italian is such a beautiful,
flowing, melodious, language that it makes my ears bleed to hear some
flat-accented English-speaker ask for “broo-SHET-uh” in an
Italian restaurant. Brits and some Canadians with their bowls of
“PAST-uh” (rhymes with LAST-uh) and Americans who put
“mare-uh-NARE-uh” sauce on it make me want to run screaming into
the night.<p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Oh, well, that's
just the American way of saying it.” Yeah. And it's also the WRONG
way of saying it. I am fond of quoting French author and critic
Anatole France who once said, “If fifty million people say a
foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” There's no “American
way” or “British way” or whatever. There's simply a right way
and a wrong way.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And maybe soon the
Italian government will back me up. Under new legislation being
introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Culture
Ministry would set up a committee to monitor the “correct use of
the Italian language and its pronunciation” in schools, media,
commerce, and advertising. This means that “mare-uh-NARE-uh”
miscreants could be fined somewhere between $5,000 and $100,000 for
mutilating the most lyrical language on Earth.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Unfortunately, the
penalties would only apply in Italy.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The fantasy that such a
law could be enforced in the US is drool-inducing. For one thing, it
would enrich the coffers of Italy beyond the dreams of avarice. And
it would end the endless aural assault on my nerves. Just think! I
could finally enter an Italian eatery without cringing every time
somebody ordered a plate of “spug-ETTY mare-uh-NARE-uh” with a
side of “broo-SHET-uh.” It would be wonderful! <i>Meraviglioso!</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But,
alas......it's only a dream.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">I
get little support among my native Italian friends in America because
Italians are inherently too polite to correct anybody. Fortunately,
my Italian heritage is tempered by a strong dose of French and
everybody knows that the French will slap you silly over the
slightest mispronunciation of a syllable.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And
fuhgeddabout any sympathy from Italian-Americans. They are among the
worst offenders what with their “gabagool” and “moozarell”
and “rigott.” Interesting fact: most Italian-Americans don't
actually speak a word of standard Italian, relying instead on the
garbled dialect words and phrases passed down by their parents,
grandparents, and great-grandparents. I saw this in action myself
recently when a New Yorker opened a little Italian-American cafe
nearby. He tossed one of those dialect words at me in describing a
dish on offer. When I responded by asking, “<i>è fatta in
casa</i>?” (is it homemade?), he
looked at me like I'd grown a third eye. My <i>“non parli
italiano</i>?” was met with, “I
don't speak Italian. We just always call it 'gabaladina'.” No
wonder I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Everybody
else calls it “caponata.”</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">See
why Italy would make a mint if it was able to enforce proper
pronunciation worldwide?</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And
I really don't understand why the Italian language gets the old “it's
the American pronunciation” treatment when other languages are
strictly adhered to in the US. For instance, even the most
linguistically limited American can go into Taco Bell and perfectly
pronounce “quesadilla.” I have yet to hear the guy who says
“mare-uh-NARE-uh” down at the Italian joint say “kwes-uh-DILL-uh”
over at the Mexican place. (Okay. My wife's grandfather used to say
“TACK-oh,” but he was the exception,) Nobody orders “FILL-it
MIG-non” anywhere, do they? Most people take the time to learn that
when ordering soup in a Vietnamese restaurant, it's pronounced “fuh”
and not “foe”. Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese,
German.......all get their due respect in terms of proper
pronunciation. But Italian? Nah. Say it any old way you want and just
fall back on “that's the American pronunciation.” I don't get it.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">So,
back to that proposed legislation in Italy, the bill would also try
to combat the use of English and other foreign words in official
communications. Apparently “Anglomania” is becoming a problem,
with random English words, phrases, acronyms, and names creeping into
the official Italian lexicon, something that the bill's sponsors say
“demeans and mortifies” the Italian language. Wow! If they want
to be mortified, let them come to the States and sit in an Italian
restaurant for an hour or so. They'll go back to <i>il bel
paese </i>and wash out their ears.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">“I'd
like a KAL-zone with some ex-PRESS-oh, please. And maybe a bowl of
min-uh-STRONE, too. GRAT-zee.” <i>Uffa! </i>It
just made my fingers hurt to type that.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Buona fortuna,
Italia. </i>You're going to hear a
lot of gobbledygook about how languages are “living things” that
“evolve” and that pronunciations change through “common usage.”
Yeah. Well stick evolution in your ear, Darwin, and stop leaning on
“common usage” as an excuse for intellectual laziness.
Mispronunciations of “marinara,” “bruschetta,” “calzone,”
et.al are not high-flown “evolution through common usage.” They
are just plain wrong. Foolish, even. And you know what Anatole France and I have to say about foolish things, right?</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-8634411585089103122023-02-23T19:03:00.001-05:002023-09-22T22:24:47.217-04:00Another Restaurant Bans Kids, Another Whiner Whines<p><b><i>We Are the Many, You
Are the One</i></b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZk_4W9fMPRO9lWmcg-R9yGEusrkL0zJGFpwjGqk56ArmxSLeh3qRiBQ7_s67duvtA6OFsFyuXpBIbeU9OCq8G5tRU_g8-aQGGyPEdyYA85g0wztUIsU8qzGh5We3PSY0IsNniiyLXU5K3MLBhU1jubN6fhAMDFO0ZPBcW13MxRAgred4uspukyrCZpQ/s276/no%20kids.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="276" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZk_4W9fMPRO9lWmcg-R9yGEusrkL0zJGFpwjGqk56ArmxSLeh3qRiBQ7_s67duvtA6OFsFyuXpBIbeU9OCq8G5tRU_g8-aQGGyPEdyYA85g0wztUIsU8qzGh5We3PSY0IsNniiyLXU5K3MLBhU1jubN6fhAMDFO0ZPBcW13MxRAgred4uspukyrCZpQ/s1600/no%20kids.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><br />Okay, so an Italian
place in New Jersey, a place called Nettie's House of Spaghetti, has
joined a growing list of eateries making the decision to limit or
outright ban children from the premises. In this case, beginning in
March, no kiddies under ten years of age will be allowed. Here's the
statement they issued:<p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“<i>We love kids. We
really, truly, do. But lately, it’s been extremely challenging to
accommodate children at Nettie’s. Between noise levels, lack of
space for high chairs, cleaning up crazy messes, and the liability of
kids running around the restaurant, we have decided that it’s time
to take control of the situation. This wasn’t a decision that was
made lightly, but some recent events have pushed us to implement this
new policy. As of March 8, the day we return from our winter break,
we will no longer allow children under 10 to dine in the restaurant.</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>We know that this is
going to make some of you very upset, especially those of you with
very well-behaved kids, but we believe this is the right decision for
our business moving forward.</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Thank you for
understanding.”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Ah,
but not everybody understands and the whiners have begun whining.
Some are complaining on the restaurant's social media –
“That is really sad to hear .. I
was looking forward to trying out your place but with a well behaved
9 year old I’m not welcome .. sad ..”<i> </i>And
that's to be expected. It's happening everywhere and I probably would
have just let this story pass as a non-story had it not been for a
lengthy screed I saw in <i>Bon Appetit </i>
in which the writer not only decries the ban but posits that
restaurants that ban kids are “missing the point of restaurants.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In
this writer's view, restaurants are apparently supposed to be
training grounds in a child's social development. By banishing them
to fast food joints and places like Chuck E. Cheese, it seems we are
all somehow responsible for stunting their social growth.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The
writer exhorts that a restaurant is “a perfect place for
parents to teach their kids how to be people around other people, and
the perfect place to teach parents how to shepherd their kids through
the world. It’s the ideal environment, too, for non-parents to
remember that they are part of a community, and that by tolerating
kids in their space, and doing so with patience and kindness, they
are upholding their own stake in the future of the greater
community.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Wow! And I thought I
was just going in for a nice plate of spaghetti that I could consume
in relative peace and quiet. I had no idea that “the future of the
greater community” hung in the balance.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Look, there are a
couple of key issues that are being overlooked here, both by the
savior of the “greater community” and by the parent of the
well-behaved nine-year-old child, chief of which can be summed up by
another commenter on Nettie's Facebook page: <i>“… having worked
in the industry since I was 14, I’ve never seen anything like I
have in the recent past. Kids are out of control and most parents are
oblivious. The disregard for manners and common decency is unreal.”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Bingo!
THAT'S why restaurants are banning kids. Because too many
undisciplined kids are brats and too many oblivious parents are
imbeciles. And it is, as the commenter commented, a fairly recent
phenomenon.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">I
grew up in the late fifties and early sixties. My kids grew up in the
eighties and early nineties. When my mom took me to a restaurant and
when I took my kids to a restaurant, the expectations were the same
as they were at home: come to the table, sit down, shut up and eat.
You don't scream, you don't play, you don't run around like a rat on
acid. You sit down, you shut up, and you eat. After which you can be
excused and you can go to your room or you can go outside and scream
and play and run around all you want. But you're not gonna do it at
the table, whether that table be in the dining room at home or in the
dining room of a restaurant. Them's the rules.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And
I never had the least bit of trouble enforcing those rules. Neither
did my mom. Something inherent, maybe? I don't know. I just know that
there were many occasions on which I was complimented for my kids'
behavior in restaurants. I didn't beat them, I didn't threaten them,
I didn't scream at them. I didn't have to. Neither did Mom have to do
those things to me. My kids and I were, as the Nettie's commenter
described, “well-behaved.”</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Let's
be honest: in most households today, the inmates run the asylum. The
kids make the rules and mom and dad just go along with them because
it's easier and less threatening than dealing firmly with the
misbehavior. You want to talk about sad.....that's the definition of
sad. But it's true.</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">And
now you want to bring your misbehaving brat into my restaurant so he
can run around and be a general nuisance to all my other customers
while you sit obliviously by? And more than a nuisance, a liability?
Here's something from Nettie's management: <i>“It’s become
a liability to us - kids running around the restaurant in circles
when we’re trying to carry trays of food and drinks has made doing
our jobs extremely difficult.” </i>Not
to mention dangerous.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So
your little angel darts out in front of my server carrying a tray of
hot soup or coffee or something. And your sweet, darling, inoffensive
baby, who was, after all, just being a child, winds up with second
and third degree burns. Who are you gonna sue? Certainly not yourself
for being a rotten, overindulgent parent. Am I right?</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The savior of the
future of the greater community further claims that “we have to
more critically think about what role restaurants play in our
communities, and who gets to be included. If you’re looking to feel
like god for the price of an entree, and you feel like the presence
of kids disrupts that experience, and that is the reason why you
don’t want kids in restaurants, then your relationship to
restaurants is broken.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Excuse my Italian, but
<i>vaffanculo! </i>Considering the price of an entree these days,
you're DAMN RIGHT I expect to “feel like god.” Or, at the very
least, I expect to have my dining experience respected. Which, sadly,
segues into this loony's next paragraph: “If we exclude children
from that experience, we’re only further entrenching the worst
parts of modern society: everybody believing they’re solo entities,
obligated only to their own self-interest, with no idea what it means
to bend a little to give way to others, to automatically scoot your
chair in so someone can pass behind you. A society full of people who
are acting only in their own self interest is a society where
everyone—even those who don't particularly like eating dinner next
to kids—is doomed.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">DOOMED!! OMG, I don't
even know where to begin to unpack this baggage.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Believe me, I'm the
first person to scoot my chair in so somebody can pass behind me. But
not if that somebody is somebody's screaming, out of control,
misbehaving brat, who should be sitting down, shutting up and eating
like the rest of civilized society. And don't tell me that the
restaurant is the place to learn that civilized behavior. NO! You
LEARN it at home and then you PRACTICE it in the restaurant. That's
the way preceding generations have done it and if you are truly
concerned about the “future of the greater community,” that's the
way you should be advocating for it to be done now. Or would you
decry that I'm obligated to my own self-interest if I objected to
your disrespectful, undisciplined offspring running and screaming up
and down the aisles of a movie theater or a church?</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm sorry. I've got
sixty people sitting at tables in my restaurant, acting in their own
self-interest and paying a good deal of money for the privilege of
doing so. In you walk with your kid-who's-just-being-a-kid and your
laissez-faire attitude toward manners and discipline and sixty other
folks suddenly have to “bend a little” to give way to you so as
to preserve the future of the community? I don't think so. Remember
what Mr. Spock said about the needs of the many outweighing the needs
of the few. Or the one? Sorry, cupcake. We are the many, you are the
one. How godlike of us!</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And Nettie's alluded to
“crazy messes.” I've seen what you and the future of the
community have left behind. And I've seen beleaguered servers trying
to scrape and clean the results of your lack of discipline off the
tables, floors, chairs, and walls. But, hey! You don't have to clean
it up so why should you care? Talk about acting in one's own
self-interest. If you're so almighty enlightened, why don't you stick
around and clean up the mess your brats made?</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Okay, I'm ranting now,
so I'm gonna quit. Bottom line, after March 8<sup>th</sup>, go to Nettie's. Or to anyplace like it
that caters to “the worst parts of modern society.” Chances are
you'll find me there in my god-like glory acting in my own
self-interest and risking the future of the community. Make sure you
say “hi.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-46087949151607032222022-10-25T13:19:00.000-04:002022-10-25T13:19:54.713-04:00First Texas Pete And Now Barilla. Doesn't Anybody Read The Damn Labels?<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>Watch
Out, Chattanooga Bakery. You're Next</i></b></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1X-AC5hD1fg4y_6MyROUrGnERk5I_Gl3uQIFd1MsHmqZXHfz9hApyqx90suCB7foGp6CS0Ogdfpq1mO2iMNxUlUZ1rCtOCmfX6ul-gUBQIOloITbWzJkjVEfzMgAx4OZm_bJXShM7UClaOBl61JcdmJ1Du14kJVgtTNEdzPQ7ptFH6nDJBFZXnygv-Q/s1300/texpete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1X-AC5hD1fg4y_6MyROUrGnERk5I_Gl3uQIFd1MsHmqZXHfz9hApyqx90suCB7foGp6CS0Ogdfpq1mO2iMNxUlUZ1rCtOCmfX6ul-gUBQIOloITbWzJkjVEfzMgAx4OZm_bJXShM7UClaOBl61JcdmJ1Du14kJVgtTNEdzPQ7ptFH6nDJBFZXnygv-Q/s320/texpete.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />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.<p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>back </i>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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Side
note: As a result of this pea-brained <i>pagliaccio's </i>trifling
tort, interest in and sales of “Texas Pete” have skyrocketed.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 o<i>bvious </i>that this screams the indisputable
fact that the stuff in the box comes straight from the Old Country,
<i>giusto? </i>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 <i>idioti </i>never
drive past my office on a day when I'm displaying the <i>bandiera
d'Italia </i>on the pole outside.
They're likely to sue me for not being the Italian embassy or
something.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>side</i>?
“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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>is </i>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. </p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>made</i> in Italy.
Unless, of course, it was. In that case, the limited products that <i>are </i>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/<span lang="it-IT">Denominazione Origine
Protetta</span> product, then it's not from Italy. Pretty simple. The
only thing simpler is suit-happy dullards who can't read labels.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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?</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Barilla says <i>“assurdo.”</i>
(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.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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!)</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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. </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-24852644521054566092022-09-21T13:11:00.001-04:002022-09-21T13:11:59.483-04:00A Few CHEAP And Easy Tips To Help Keep Your Kitchen Organized<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>One
Man's Trash …
</i></b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj27JbJKtMcxWZbDP7cOLI5yYfmo5A4Rj4G4_c1Cwquukxd24HaqhZMzG5X1Oer6FbO7ndSBdw6Py-QL0zten2OoDCC5LibY5KLBPEWA0blPRRAlOE34UVi1jQm5bTr4JYTMmOGQoth9t8AAPuSTbV4xThC9nAbxPsl0sp2yXbEuYrWlTZgKtYiCmqfVQ/s225/cable%20cuff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj27JbJKtMcxWZbDP7cOLI5yYfmo5A4Rj4G4_c1Cwquukxd24HaqhZMzG5X1Oer6FbO7ndSBdw6Py-QL0zten2OoDCC5LibY5KLBPEWA0blPRRAlOE34UVi1jQm5bTr4JYTMmOGQoth9t8AAPuSTbV4xThC9nAbxPsl0sp2yXbEuYrWlTZgKtYiCmqfVQ/s1600/cable%20cuff.jpg" width="225" /></a></b></div><b><br />Easy
Appliance Cord Management</b><p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Free
Appliance Slider Mat</b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>really
</i>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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Cheap Prep Bowls</b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv_sYSTfz1mu2blqT6Mr4lI2WwXn8D9Z4QlI_RCqpRiXXrqHrhDAkhan-W__1qolQal-0YNfnQ53KyqFvHuMs5A7O1ielUeeAFCFFHnhonN7TV2ZoXERR6UuxHY4RovwqnEzxGC2F76BUzVq_uXbYieEYCJWJzHqrqDYx6zj5TIO3fnUQjcC7tGWhPBw/s225/applesauce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv_sYSTfz1mu2blqT6Mr4lI2WwXn8D9Z4QlI_RCqpRiXXrqHrhDAkhan-W__1qolQal-0YNfnQ53KyqFvHuMs5A7O1ielUeeAFCFFHnhonN7TV2ZoXERR6UuxHY4RovwqnEzxGC2F76BUzVq_uXbYieEYCJWJzHqrqDYx6zj5TIO3fnUQjcC7tGWhPBw/s1600/applesauce.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br />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.<p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>mise en
place. </i>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 <i>free! </i>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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Cheap
Pan Protectors … And More!</b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>is
</i>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 <i>cheap!</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Free
Silpat Storage</b></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One
man's trash … can sure save you a lot of treasure. </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-74085032195808635132022-07-30T14:19:00.000-04:002022-07-30T14:19:31.079-04:00Okay! So I'll Use The Dishwasher<p><b><i>Being Slowly Dragged Into The Modern
Age Of Dishwashing</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SIWd9x_tdJKUWw6dNiUYZXrPMtKWiAgGDY_D1K56EVp1LcfxZs7E19lM3V52dTJUQRHVtLkTtp4rIy3gcxeoQgevh16FBva-IIuC8Tq7Hj4nBybLknPW6WIx2oa6cAugErnOoD0jx1qgIpIR0cjIO0fbKv_3XNjjCaYo0MAczc-4usg-r75GlSLKZQ/s225/diswasher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SIWd9x_tdJKUWw6dNiUYZXrPMtKWiAgGDY_D1K56EVp1LcfxZs7E19lM3V52dTJUQRHVtLkTtp4rIy3gcxeoQgevh16FBva-IIuC8Tq7Hj4nBybLknPW6WIx2oa6cAugErnOoD0jx1qgIpIR0cjIO0fbKv_3XNjjCaYo0MAczc-4usg-r75GlSLKZQ/s1600/diswasher.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br />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.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>had </i>one,
but because she didn't really understand it, she never used it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Same
goes for knives. <i>Never </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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-<i>first </i>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.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-40049149522716827602022-07-05T19:30:00.001-04:002022-07-05T19:30:36.978-04:00Is It Marinara Or Is It Tomato Sauce?<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>It's More Than “Toe-MAY- toe” or
“Toe-MAH-toe”</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jGGBOyE_t1S5XOcXzG5vkkRapuARLP_UEWm2JctOqADZd-W8geZvBpWLve0hMI0CwqaH87-T9f-6ZKNRBp4szfI98k7gADj3Te4tSPZPiYO8NteaVtBiOiPzOxUyyQiNOapbvebS2xW8h8TSuQGCpVD9sx4_5m0jn-5r7cspYcIhWnH3FkeYzP_ynQ/s700/roma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jGGBOyE_t1S5XOcXzG5vkkRapuARLP_UEWm2JctOqADZd-W8geZvBpWLve0hMI0CwqaH87-T9f-6ZKNRBp4szfI98k7gADj3Te4tSPZPiYO8NteaVtBiOiPzOxUyyQiNOapbvebS2xW8h8TSuQGCpVD9sx4_5m0jn-5r7cspYcIhWnH3FkeYzP_ynQ/s320/roma.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />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?<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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-<i>style </i>or
San Marzano <i>type. </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>sauce tomate, </i>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.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>nonne
</i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Lots
of colorful theories abound regarding the origin of marinara. All of
them have something to do with the sea – <i>mare, </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Okay. Off the
soapbox and back to the recipe book.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>tiny </i>bit of crushed
red pepper flake, then simmer it for fifteen or twenty minutes,
stirring occasionally, and <i>ecco! </i>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?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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
<i>pinch </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>promise </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, go out there
and grab some tomatoes – canned or fresh – and get saucy! </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-51132262651601337642022-06-07T15:42:00.004-04:002023-06-27T16:53:04.627-04:00Without Ham, Does Arby's Really “Have The Meats!”?<p><b>Last Time I Looked, Ham Was Still A
Meat</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowu1z7-As3kUO2qO_mhkj7joG-VK6zNBhjviESZkHEvrMO8G3poXvcQ7grfqgJ9NO5Tb55D1uGCglSaN_Ptn-A8fKIYA58IhzvXpVuPdyADrCg6LHlAD83rwW9sk_gsulnSLTArk5_YYyUjv8VSONkVfE23GdlvgPT6du0tJGVW51JIvRLnxCGb5R1A/s262/no%20ham.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="262" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowu1z7-As3kUO2qO_mhkj7joG-VK6zNBhjviESZkHEvrMO8G3poXvcQ7grfqgJ9NO5Tb55D1uGCglSaN_Ptn-A8fKIYA58IhzvXpVuPdyADrCg6LHlAD83rwW9sk_gsulnSLTArk5_YYyUjv8VSONkVfE23GdlvgPT6du0tJGVW51JIvRLnxCGb5R1A/s1600/no%20ham.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><br />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.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">WHAT!!! The place that trumpets “We
Have The MEATS!” doesn't have <i>ham</i>
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?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But
corporate is standing by its choices and proclaiming that customer
satisfaction is its main priority. Ummm.....look over here, guys.
This lifelong customer <i>ain't </i>satisfied.
And I've got a lot of company.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So
come on, Ving Rhames, let me hear you say it: “Arby's. We have the
<i>meats....</i>all except
ham!”</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">UPDATE: This worthy petition is barely showing up on the radar. Let's give it a boost! <a href="https://www.change.org/p/arby-s-bring-back-ham-and-cheese-sliders-at-arby-s" target="_blank"> https://www.change.org/p/arby-s-bring-back-ham-and-cheese-sliders-at-arby-s</a></p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-88297793052621500762022-04-03T18:07:00.000-04:002022-04-03T18:07:19.454-04:00Andrea Bocelli Is Simply Amazing<p><b><i>Il Maestro <span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">È</span>
Veramente Meraviglioso</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEBqAKZSiYtyG4WzmREoFDd90dR5Gv_o4EHbQ7nH8RoxD5sX1B55dHZUl87zPYXXpRAzln1jqOcIljVmzY2XzgtLjZGwLlalM518rqeYjHirqRVM_TtL0ftvih_V5XACAzjDeGwYFpoAcz7oZvGcjAVs_xUCMpKOcMHa-aiaet2FYTzzc3VMBPnU42sA/s257/andrea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="257" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEBqAKZSiYtyG4WzmREoFDd90dR5Gv_o4EHbQ7nH8RoxD5sX1B55dHZUl87zPYXXpRAzln1jqOcIljVmzY2XzgtLjZGwLlalM518rqeYjHirqRVM_TtL0ftvih_V5XACAzjDeGwYFpoAcz7oZvGcjAVs_xUCMpKOcMHa-aiaet2FYTzzc3VMBPnU42sA/s1600/andrea.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br />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.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>love</i> 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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>lot </i>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?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>does </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>any
</i>of Andrea's songs will almost
instantly mitigate my mood. His voice is truly magical.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>so
</i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">His
work as a solo artist is amazing. But when he partners with other
artists, <i>il maestro è veramente meraviglioso!</i>
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 Bubl<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">é</span>,
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 <i>so </i>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.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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
<i>speaking </i>English, he
<i>sings</i> 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 <i>sound </i>of his
voice that will transport you. The tone, the timbre, and the texture
of his vocalization is simply superb.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-27483418520104757692022-03-21T14:23:00.002-04:002022-03-27T16:44:15.887-04:00Hey, “Patriots!” How About Showing Some Real Respect For Your Flag?<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i><b>There's Nothing Wrong With
Displaying Your Love Of Country And Your Respect For Its Flag. Except
When You Don't.</b></i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDgkzrYvbvY6cfy1fIOG76LJ4wsFCXuRTEsQ_HY65UvexnN-rvHiTcMHA8k22UHamdiWmk13RWqElf93sObw7v1xzE3xP9zF7eAtoT-kLZ8jYmHx40CGUx7VnN_hIxt_6BTexydEnzIszWtDqNdnsjQ7oksn9Zlm_wnqNEniMaBzcF62uCKLjXmta4Zw=s311" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="311" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDgkzrYvbvY6cfy1fIOG76LJ4wsFCXuRTEsQ_HY65UvexnN-rvHiTcMHA8k22UHamdiWmk13RWqElf93sObw7v1xzE3xP9zF7eAtoT-kLZ8jYmHx40CGUx7VnN_hIxt_6BTexydEnzIszWtDqNdnsjQ7oksn9Zlm_wnqNEniMaBzcF62uCKLjXmta4Zw" width="311" /></a></div><br />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.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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, <b>“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.”</b> Man, if I had a dollar for every time I
observed <i>that</i> 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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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, <b>“The flag should never
touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or
merchandise.”</b> Which also eliminates using the flag as some sort
of “patriotic” drape. That's what bunting is for. <b>“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.”</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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: <b>“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.”</b> 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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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......</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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,
<b>“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.” </b>That means that, no
matter how devoted you are to your favorite candidate, it is a
<i>violation of federal law </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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: <b>“The flag should never be used as
wearing apparel.”</b> It goes on to include bedding and drapery in
that prohibition and adds that, <b>“No part of the flag should ever
be used as a costume or athletic uniform.”</b> 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 <i>on</i>
uniforms, of course, are allowed, but not flags <i>as
</i>uniforms.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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: <b>“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.”</b> 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?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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, <b>“The flag should never be used for
advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.”</b> The same
section goes on to say, <b>“It should not be printed or otherwise
impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for
temporary use and discard.”</b> 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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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: <b>The flag should never be carried flat or
horizontally, but always aloft and free.”</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="https://www.legion.org/documents/legion/pdf/flagcode_07.pdf">https://www.legion.org/documents/legion/pdf/flagcode_07.pdf</a></u></span></span>.
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, <b>“The flag represents a living country and
is itself considered a living thing.’’</b> If you really consider
yourself to be a patriotic person, shouldn't you take better care of
the “living thing” that informs your ideal? </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-34930456999561808232022-01-14T15:22:00.001-05:002022-01-14T15:22:21.132-05:00A Defense (and a History) of the Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich<p><b><i>There's Nothing Wrong With A Good Ol'
PB&J</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeVIA3GtWdoOxMias1l-Ca44fNHDJKfppo9QwhOsAY0bhoVbmCn6RWZqPH0nAgQDOlb2xhOpBad4pdPnSInxOJee0kBkTAfcknsjrj4Sgi7-D1E6RPD1u68GZM6PYDOJu0tqD9B3NiMW5fay44e43R45FglZ6EKIAdEdF6--lKdF0bGu45ronk1IlIDw=s450" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="450" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeVIA3GtWdoOxMias1l-Ca44fNHDJKfppo9QwhOsAY0bhoVbmCn6RWZqPH0nAgQDOlb2xhOpBad4pdPnSInxOJee0kBkTAfcknsjrj4Sgi7-D1E6RPD1u68GZM6PYDOJu0tqD9B3NiMW5fay44e43R45FglZ6EKIAdEdF6--lKdF0bGu45ronk1IlIDw=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />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 <i>paesani </i>piped
up with, “Nah, he's just going home to have a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.”<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I actually wasn't,
but so what if I was? There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good
ol' PB&J.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Italians
aren't much into peanut butter. Despite having many <i>supermercati
</i>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 <i>marmellata </i>(jelly)
in Italy, but I think you'd probably be arrested if you were caught
spreading it between two slices of bread.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Back when John Montagu, the 4<sup>th</sup>
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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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, <i>“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.”</i></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.”)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As far as bringing these three elements
together into the palate-pleasing comestible we know today, here's
what happened.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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 <i>The Boston Cooking School Magazine of
Culinary Science and Domestic Economics</i>, included this
instruction: “<i>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.” </i>Hence
the first published “recipe” for a PB&J sandwich.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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, <i>affordable</i>
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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And
the beat goes on. According to a survey of 1,000 people recently
conducted by Peter Pan and published in the <i>New York Daily
News, </i>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.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, to
my friend's opinion of the beloved American classic, I say,
<i>chi se ne importa.</i> 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.<i> </i>And now I've
gone and flung a craving on myself so I think I'll go keep up my
average. <i>Ciao!</i></p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-84868842220999737052021-10-15T12:58:00.006-04:002021-10-15T14:59:19.010-04:00Review: The Open Kitchen, Charlotte, North Carolina<p><b><i>A Great Old-School Italian-American Place</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5F-OT1qxQKRHHbAuK__yJmzsazk_iFz8eCicd6RvgRc1ggHOZsjnEcbtmAS57HRpdKAROXbO9adJocaSA7lHeYGhp-M7CY3dCiGPQT5mJli0dHUbZFLLJhti67wUYi_9WncTxktyAilB/s400/open+kitchen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="364" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5F-OT1qxQKRHHbAuK__yJmzsazk_iFz8eCicd6RvgRc1ggHOZsjnEcbtmAS57HRpdKAROXbO9adJocaSA7lHeYGhp-M7CY3dCiGPQT5mJli0dHUbZFLLJhti67wUYi_9WncTxktyAilB/s320/open+kitchen.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><br />I was in Charlotte, North Carolina
recently to attend a show at the Belk Theater at Blumenthal
Performing Arts Center (a <i>fabulous </i>venue,
by the way) and was hunting for an Italian eatery for our theater
party of four.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Many
years ago, my default Italian place in Charlotte was a lovely spot
called Zarrelli's<i>,</i> run
by a charming Neapolitan immigrant named Aniello “Neal” Zarrelli.
Sadly, Neal died in 2017 at the age of 87 and his wonderfully warm
and welcoming restaurant passed into the Queen City's culinary
history.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Charlotte is an
up-and-coming food city and there is no shortage of modern, upscale Italian
restaurants in the metropolitan area. But I do so miss Zarrelli's and
it's traditional menu and atmosphere. So when my online search led me
to a story about the city's first pizza restaurant, I was intrigued.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Located on West
Morehead Street between Freedom Drive and I-77, The Open Kitchen was
founded by brothers Speros and Steve Kokenes back in 1952 to serve
the factory workers in what was then a heavily industrial
neighborhood. And if the surname “Kokenes” doesn't sound
particularly Italian to you, that's because it's not: the brothers
were of Greek heritage. Steve was born in Washington, DC and that's
where he first encountered a relatively new dish called “pizza” or "pizza pie" as it was often dubbed in those days.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's
hard to imagine today, as pizza has become so ubiquitous and embedded in American culture, but back then pizza was an exotic dish found only in
Italian enclaves in big cities. Gennaro Lombardi, an immigrant from Naples, is generally credited with opening America's first pizzeria in Manhattan's Little Italy back in 1905. American servicemen in WWII developed
a taste for the tasty comestible when they encountered it in local places in Italy and
they brought that taste back home with them. Soon pizza was moving
out of the “in” spots in places like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia and was spreading across the
culinary landscape like wildfire. That fire was fed by entrepreneurs
like Dan and Frank Carney, who founded Pizza Hut<i> </i>in
Wichita, Kansas in 1958 and by local Italian immigrants like the two
that opened the first pizzerias in my small Midwestern home town;
Marino's<i>,</i> in 1955 and
Luigi's<i> </i>in 1957. Both
places were huge hits with area teenagers who were among those that helped pizza take over the
American food scene in the next decade.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Anyway, the Kokenes
brothers brought the new-fangled dish to this Southern bastion of
grits and gravy nearly seventy years ago and it's still going strong
in its original, definitely retro location. The neighborhood has
changed and is now “trendy,” but the venerable eatery still
reflects the Greek and Italian traditions of the family that opened
it, and pizza is still at the center of the menu.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I fell
in love with the exterior at first sight. Thanks to renovations and expansions in the '60s and '70s, the place doesn't look <i>exactly
</i>like it did back in 1952, but
it's darn close. Then I stepped through the front door and was
immediately transported back in time.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The comforting
aroma of Italian food caresses your olfactory sense as soon as you
enter. You are seated at a sturdy table covered by a red-checkered
cloth and you are presented with menus. You can barely read them, of
course, because the place is very dimly lit, just as a traditional red sauce joint should be. The friendly and accommodating server takes
your drink order and returns fairly promptly with your beverages and
with a basket overflowing with an assortment of fresh bread, little
tubs of butter, crackers, and some very slightly stale individually
wrapped breadsticks. Remember those? I do. They were the highlight of
my meal when I was about ten years old.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now it's time to
order.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As I said, there
are a lot of Greek touches to the menu including Chicken Livers
Greque, Pizza ala Greque, and a Greek Salad, but the focus is on
Italian-American dishes like Baked Ziti and Chicken Parmigiana, along
with various other chicken, veal, and seafood offerings. And, of
course, lots of pasta. There are a variety of soups, salads, and
appetizers from which to choose and several Italian-ish sandwiches,
if that's your thing. And, lest we forget the star of the show,
there's pizza.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">My
dining companions all went in different directions. One ordered
Lasagna Di Stefano – a blend of pasta, ricotta and provolone
cheeses “oozing with our tempting meat sauce.” Another chose the
Chicken Parmigiana – “tender chicken, sautéed in a tomato,
mushroom, and wine sauce, then covered with mozzarella cheese and
baked to perfection. Served with spaghetti ala marinara.” My wife
opted for meat ravioli in an “oh-my-god” meat sauce. As for me,
hey! <i>Sul serio? </i>Why
would I go to Charlotte's first pizza place and not order pizza?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Six 'o
clock on a Saturday evening and the place was quite busy, but our
food was delivered surprisingly quickly. And it was out-of-this-world good. We all ate until <i>eravamo pieni – ma non
troppo pieno per dolce. </i>For you
non-</span><i>paesani</i>, that sort of means we were stuffed but we saved room
for dessert. Two chocolate mousse split among the four of us.
<i>Decadente e divino!</i><i style="font-style: normal;"> </i>The
Open Kitchen features a nice selection of wine and beer and our
choices perfectly complimented our wonderful meal.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Nothing we ate
broke the bank: my simple cheese pizza was eight bucks, the lasagna
was $10.75, the chicken parm was $15.75 and my wife's ravioli was
$13.50. I have been to places where one entrée would have cost as
much as our entire meal combined and would not necessarily have been
anywhere near as good.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">You'll find The
Open Kitchen at 1318 West Morehead Street. They offer dine-in,
curbside, and delivery. Open 11 am to 9 pm Monday through Thursday,
from 11 am to 10 pm on Friday, and from 4 to 10 pm on Saturday and
Sunday. Reservations are not required and large groups can be
accommodated with sufficient prior notice. Dress is casual and parking
is onsite, but it's not a very big lot. You can call them at (704)
375-7449 or find them on the Web at <a href="http://www.worldfamousopenkitchen.com">www.worldfamousopenkitchen.com</a>.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">May
the late Neal Zarrelli rest in peace knowing that there is still a
great old-school Italian-American place thriving in his city. And The
Open Kitchen has definitely made the list as my new “go to”
eatery there. Now, if only they had somebody strolling through the
dining room singing opera like Neal used to. <i>B</i><i>eh, non
puoi avere tutto.</i><i style="font-style: normal;"> </i>(You can't have everything.)</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-71142971006166854572021-08-17T17:30:00.002-04:002021-08-28T22:12:04.596-04:00Time To Stop Wasting Sliced Deli Meat<p><b><i>Keep Your Lunch Meat Out Of The
Landfill</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4wuLdrDYAK0akpzi1nrg5EPwhokHpZPUzx0oJFacKGRwq6y5NEw0LP8mobVfxj0d7chVkhXIs8tzY_b36HwkDpdXm-j1y_Bm0JXFHBYMmDY9a8AWP3CxHTPposrssKndT6F_OwNEpBX6/s479/ham_large.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="479" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4wuLdrDYAK0akpzi1nrg5EPwhokHpZPUzx0oJFacKGRwq6y5NEw0LP8mobVfxj0d7chVkhXIs8tzY_b36HwkDpdXm-j1y_Bm0JXFHBYMmDY9a8AWP3CxHTPposrssKndT6F_OwNEpBX6/s320/ham_large.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Some time ago I wrote about a pretty
slick trick for saving bacon. (Bacon Is A Terrible Thing To Waste,
April 12, 2017) When there's just one or two of you a pound of bacon
can spoil before you eat it all, so I suggested freezing it as a
means of preserving it. Not too revolutionary a concept, right? But
it was the way in which I froze it that was rather unique. Instead of
throwing the whole shingled package into the freezer and then having
to deal with trying to separate the slices as you need them, I rolled
up each individual slice and froze them that way. Using that trick,
you can get an entire pound of bacon into a quart freezer bag and you
can take out a single slice or ten of them, depending on your needs,
with no fuss or effort. Thaw them in the microwave for thirty seconds
or so and you're ready to go.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, I found I was having the same
issue with packaged deli meats. Deli meats go bad quickly once the
packages are opened. You've only got a three to five-day window to
use it up and as much as I like ham and cheese sandwiches, I really
don't want to have one every day for a week. So once again, the
freezer is the answer.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Most deli meats are sliced very thin. I
knew throwing the whole package in the freezer was going to be as
much of a pain as doing the same thing with bacon. So I tried
separating the slices into portions. For example, I usually put four
slices of ham on a ham and cheese, so I divided the package into
four-slice portions, separated by deli paper, and froze them. It
worked okay, but unless they were <i>completely </i>thawed,
the thin slices tore as I tried to separate them. And since
most packaged deli meats are “water added,” they get wet and
messy when you thaw them. Okay. Back to the drawing board. I used the
deli paper to separate the individual slices. Eh. All that got me was
wet slices wrapped in wet deli paper when the meat was thawed.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And then the little light bulb came on:
why not freeze the deli meat slices the same way as I froze the bacon
strips?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I picked up an eight-ounce package of
Hormel Natural Choice Sliced Smoked Deli Ham. I opened the pack and
started to work, taking each slice and rolling it into a neat
cylinder. The rolled cylinders went seam side down onto a sheet tray
and then into the freezer. After about an hour they were set enough
that they wouldn't unroll and they wouldn't stick together, so I
removed them from the sheet tray and popped them into a freezer bag.
I labeled the bag with the contents and the date, and it went back in
the freezer. Now I had a nice little bag of frozen ham rolls. Next
time I wanted a sandwich, I got the bag out of the freezer, selected
four rolls, put them on a paper towel in the microwave for thirty
seconds, and just like that, I had the makings for a nice lunch.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">According to the USDA, “Lunch meat is
safe indefinitely if kept frozen. Use it within one to two months for
best quality.” I've never had a package of ham last me more than
two months, so I can't testify to the verity of that statement, but
it is certainly a better alternative than letting it go bad in the
refrigerator after just a few days.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The same method works for chicken,
turkey, roast beef and whatever else you get from your deli or
packaged meat aisle. I will say this: it works a lot better with
prepackaged meat like the aforementioned Hormel product. Or whatever
your brand preference might be. Freshly sliced meat from your store's
deli is a little more finicky. Especially poultry. Not a lot of water
and not a lot of fat. My wife is a big fan of Boar's Head Ovengold
Turkey. Let me tell you, that stuff shreds like a mad thing when it's
sliced super thin, which is the way she likes it. Can you say “pulled
turkey sandwich?” And freezing it the common way only exacerbates
the problem. But it rolls up pretty well if you ask your deli person
to separate it as it's being sliced and then process it as soon as
you get it home before it has a chance to sit in the meat drawer of
your refrigerator.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hey, there's a lot of talk these days
about food waste, so why not try a simple method to help keep your
lunch meat out of the landfill? I know it takes a few minutes of
tedious effort to roll up slices of ham or roast beef or whatever.
(Rolling up bacon is extra fun because it's nice and greasy.) But the
payoff is well worth the pain when you can just go to the freezer,
unzip your Zip-Loc, and have nice, neat, perfectly portioned,
mess-free little meat roll-ups right at hand for whatever your needs
might be. It's an especially good idea if you want to save a few
bucks by buying in larger quantities than you otherwise would. Think
Sam's, Costco, or your local restaurant supply store. Instead of
shelling out supermarket prices for little half-pound packages, buy
two or three pounds, roll it up and freeze it. And you'll have quick
and easy sandwiches for a couple of months.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As I wrote before, a great way to
(literally) save your bacon can also work for your ham, roast beef,
chicken or whatever you want to serve your family rather than your
dog or your trash can. Saves food, saves money. Win-win situation.
Try it today.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-44041345374391564212021-08-08T18:20:00.001-04:002021-08-08T19:24:13.397-04:00Want Quick, Easy Bacon? Let George (Foreman) Do It!<p><b><i>I Don't Know Why I Didn't Think Of This
Before</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlxYfLUpPoVSgwjxZTRf_Bv1oaIWs1Do9hVP0x2d1iEPp6en5pr5TWLr8tmycNj0DtYqrh7v2gF6dcD1U9-16qOyZUR4ydHzkAwkUJoR8XevO0QQHSxrbzhCFwWVOJdncnHeyZctgAHgQi/s600/georgeforeman.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlxYfLUpPoVSgwjxZTRf_Bv1oaIWs1Do9hVP0x2d1iEPp6en5pr5TWLr8tmycNj0DtYqrh7v2gF6dcD1U9-16qOyZUR4ydHzkAwkUJoR8XevO0QQHSxrbzhCFwWVOJdncnHeyZctgAHgQi/s320/georgeforeman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I have written quite a lot about bacon
over the years. It's one of my favorite topics, to say nothing of its
being one of my favorite foods. I've written about bacon in general
and I've written about specific bacons. I've written about how to buy
bacon, how to store bacon, and how to cook bacon. And it's that last
topic that I want to address here.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have previously noted that my
favorite way to prepare the porcine ambrosia that is bacon is the
simple, old-fashioned way: fry it up in a pan or on a flattop
griddle. And for the most part, that remains true. That's the way my
mama taught me almost sixty years ago, and it's still the best of the
traditional methods. But what about some of the less traditional
methods, hmmm?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Microwave ovens and their attendant gadgetry did not exist back when I
first slapped a slice of bacon on a slab of steel. Do I have a
microwave now? Yes. Do I have a microwave bacon cooker? Yes. Do I
insert the latter into the former on a regular basis? No way. The
only time I microwave bacon is if I'm in a desperate hurry or if I
don't really care that it comes out with a case of chewy, dried-out
rigor mortis. When I'm making bacon bits for a salad or a baked
potato, I'll nuke up a couple of slices. Otherwise, almost never.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another new-fangled cooking device is
the air fryer, which is actually nothing more than a countertop
convection oven. I wrote fairly recently about using this method to
cook bacon, and I'm in favor of it. The major drawback is that you
can only cook three or four slices at a time. Not too practical if
you're cooking for a lot of people.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, when it comes to mass bacon
cookery, nothing beats the tried and true restaurant method of
putting it on a rack on a sheet pan and sticking it in the oven at
400<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">°</span> for fifteen to
twenty minutes. You get nice, flat, crispy bacon with no turning or
watching or babysitting. Maybe it's just my palate, but I can detect
a slight flavor difference when it's made that way. Nothing that's a
deal breaker, though. It's way better than the microwave
method. Besides, my wife likes
it that way and it's certainly easy. So I'm good with baking your
bacon, too.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But here's my epiphany, and it's
something that's been staring me in the face for years and I don't
know why I didn't think of it before: let George do it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Boxing legend George Foreman first
stuck his name on an electric contact grill back in 1994. His “Lean
Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine” was an instant success and has
gone through many iterations and upgrades since that first model.
Which I still have, by the way. It's been supplanted for everyday use
by one of the newer, bigger, more colorful jobs, but the original
little white one I bought twenty-five or so years ago still works
when I plug it in, a testament to its durability.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">George (the grill, not the boxer) does
all kinds of things in my kitchen, including making great grilled
cheese sandwiches. I had recently put him to work doing just that and
he was still sitting on the counter drying out and waiting to be put
away last night when I got a hankering for some bacon. And I don't
know why it took twenty-five years to occur to me, but it did. I was
kind of tired, kind of in a hurry, and I didn't feel like hauling out
the air fryer or waiting for the oven or cleaning up the griddle. And
I wasn't desperate enough for the microwave. So I thought,“Hmmmm,”
as I stood looking at George's shiny red surface. I did a quick
Google search to see if anybody else had had the same thought.
<i>Caspita! </i>Was I late to the
party! Numerous George Foreman grill bacon recipes and videos immediately popped up in my search.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Armed with the
knowledge that it could be done and how to do it, I preheated my
machine, slipped three slices of bacon on the lower plate, closed the
lid and walked away to do other prep. I went back two minutes later,
lifted the lid, flipped the bacon, closed it up again and walked away
for another two minutes. When I returned, I retrieved three of the
prettiest slices of perfectly cooked bacon I had ever seen. They were
as flat and as evenly cooked as if I had used the oven method, but it
took about a third of the time. I like my bacon a little toward the
crispy side but it was still nice and tender, not at all like the undesirable microwaved results.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Truth be told,
bacon cooked this way still does not have the same.....character, I
guess.....as good ol' pan or griddle-fried bacon. But there's
something else it doesn't have: excessive fat. After all, that's the
point of a “Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine.” The fat was
all rendered out into the nifty little catch tray, making for a much
simpler cleanup. So, while grilling bacon on a contact grill does not
necessarily make it a “health food,” it does offer a nominally
healthier alternative to frying. And it's certainly faster, easier,
and cleaner.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now,
if this is something you've been doing for years and it wasn't really
a big revelation to you, just roll your eyes, say “Duh!” and go
read something else. <i>Mi dispiace. </i>I'm
a little slow sometimes. But if I've opened even one eye to a
delicious, easy, and sorta healthy way to cook that marvelous,
magical meat that is bacon, then I've accomplished my mission.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Oh, man! I don't
have any of my absolute favorite Benton's bacon in the house right now. I see a road trip to
Madisonville, Tennessee coming on. And with a power inverter in my
car, maybe I could plug George in while I'm driving and........nah.
But don't be surprised if my hotel room smells like (sigh) bacon.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-10496267739811375152021-08-03T09:02:00.000-04:002021-08-03T09:02:03.856-04:00Forget the Big Box Stores. Equip Your Kitchen At A Restaurant Supply Store<p><b><i>Want To Cook Like A Pro? Shop Where the
Pros Shop.</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSM-am3cZMwAX47IlvLVGAdH6azgGWCHWJImz-E6JbWAG3Xh3toS53S8PBDWTGpLmSjNud4goIpY6KWD4abgBDjX0x6odJZ2kM01c83zcW-o88qsV4lQgCjMbBZILfnpdQpDDK76rsW4y/s500/stockpot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSM-am3cZMwAX47IlvLVGAdH6azgGWCHWJImz-E6JbWAG3Xh3toS53S8PBDWTGpLmSjNud4goIpY6KWD4abgBDjX0x6odJZ2kM01c83zcW-o88qsV4lQgCjMbBZILfnpdQpDDK76rsW4y/s320/stockpot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A lot of people started doing a lot of
cooking and baking in the last year or so. And most of them made huge
mistakes by going to their local big box and/or discount stores to
buy the equipment needed for all that culinary activity. After all,
where else are you going to go to buy pots and pans and such, right?
Not right. Let me tell you where to go. (Hey, people tell me where to
go all the time) Go to your local restaurant supply store.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You want to cook like a pro? Shop where
the pros shop. Even if you <i>don't </i>want
to cook like a pro, even if you just want to throw together a decent
meal for your family or bake some cookies or a loaf of bread or
something, you should still shop where the pros shop. There are lots
of reasons why. The three that come immediately to mind are quality,
selection, and price.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Let's look first at
quality. Do you know how many times a day the average skillet or
saucepan gets tossed around in a restaurant kitchen? I promise you
there is not a single piece of cookware you can buy at Walmart or
Target that could stand up to that kind of use. Okay, maybe one: a
Lodge cast-iron frying pan. Those things are practically
indestructible. But when it comes to everyday pots and pans, you will
never beat the quality you'll find at a place that serves the food
service industry.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Commercial grade
cookware and bakeware is tough because it has to be. You really need
to spend ten minutes in a restaurant kitchen and you'll see why. I
used to have a cook in one of my restaurants who was notorious for
beating up cookware. With the pace and pressure in a professional
kitchen, nobody expects you to handle your cooking tools like they
were made of some rare fragile element. But this guy was so far
beyond normal wear and tear that I once threatened to take the cost
of the next pan he damaged out of his paycheck. I can't even imagine
what would happen to a set of the stuff most people buy for home use.
Actually, I would have to imagine it because most health department
regulations do not permit non-commercial grade cookware in commercial
kitchens. So if the cookware and utensils I buy at a restaurant
supply will hold up to the.....shall we say “less than
careful”.....handling it gets in a professional kitchen, imagine
how long it will last in yours.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, are all these
pans going to match? Are they all going to be shiny and colorful?
Will they have a celebrity chef's name on them? Hell, no. The stuff
you're going to bring home from a restaurant supply store is going to
be functional and probably a little ugly. But what do you want?
Pretty pans with famous names on them that you'll throw out next year
when they get warped and scratched and beaten to a pulp or sturdy
pans that you'll keep for years and years to come?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Selection is
another thing. Go to Wallyworld and I'll tell you what you're going
to find: fifty different sets of the same four or five pans. There'll
be cheap stainless steel ones and colorful aluminum ones and some
painted with copper paint because it's the latest fad, but they're
all going to be the same combination of a 7” or 8” sauté pan, a
9” or 10” sauté pan, a 1 quart saucepan, a 2 quart saucepan, and
a 4 quart Dutch oven. Throw in lids for all but the smaller sauté pan
and you've got yourself a “nine piece set.” Just choose the color
or the brand name. Some of them will include a bunch of flimsy spoons
and utensils so they can advertise a “twenty piece set” and make
you feel like you're getting a real deal. Eh, not so much.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Now,
at a restaurant supply store, you're going to find a lot of things
you would never in a million years need or use unless you have a <i>very
</i>large family. I mean, most
people are not going to make soup in a 32 quart stock pot. And the
average baker is not going to have much use for a 40” piano whisk.
That said, such places are also loaded up with “normal” stuff
that the everyday home cook <i>will </i>use:
pots, pans, sheet trays, racks, mixing bowls, cutting boards,
cutlery, utensils, storage containers, etc. You'll find everything
you need to make killer pizza at home. There are baking pans and
bread making tools and cake decorating supplies. Aprons and oven
mitts and pot holders. And it won't be like going to Target or Bed,
Bath and Beyond or Costco where you'll find a whisk or two hanging on
a peg. No, you're local restaurant supply will have an entire
frickin' <i>wall </i>dedicated
to nothing but whisks of every size, shape, and configuration.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You
can even find some small appliances there that will easily out
perform and out last anything you'll buy in the big box stores.
Things like immersion blenders, for instance. But don't try to go in
for the big stuff – stoves and refrigeration units and such –
because they're meant for commercial use and aren't generally
compatible with residential wiring. But for everything else, your
restaurant supply store is your one-stop shop. Just be sure to tie a
pillow to your chin before you walk through the door for the first
time because your jaw will drop when you see the variety of things
available at prices you can afford.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Which brings us to
the last point; you won't beat the prices and/or value you'll find at
a restaurant supply store. I can lay hands on an 8” aluminum frying
pan at my local store for eight bucks. Non-stick is thirteen. Okay, I
see an 8” non-stick pan advertised at Walmart for six dollars. But
you know what the difference is? The one I buy at the restaurant
supply store will still be round after I drop it a couple of times
and I'll still be cooking in it next year and the year after while
you've been back to Walmart twice to replace yours.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">On the other side
of the spectrum, you can drop by someplace like Williams Sonoma and
pick up a nice 8” All-Clad Non-Stick Fry Pan. Just make sure to
stop at the bank first 'cause it's gonna cost you $140. When it comes
to consumer vs commercial quality, All-Clad, like Lodge, is one of
the rare exceptions. Most All-Clad products are tough enough that
they can hold up in a professional kitchen. But unless you're some
big name TV chef, you're not going to spend two or three-hundred
dollars on a single pan. Not when you can buy pans that are equally
functional, if somewhat less pretty, for twenty or thirty bucks.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Not everything is
cheaper at a restaurant supply store. But, by and large, things will
be less expensive simply because you, the retail consumer, are not
their primary customer. They are not retailers. They are there to act
as wholesalers to businesses buying in bulk. That you can walk in off
the street and snag a bargain on one or two individual items is just
icing on the cake.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Most restaurant
supply stores are open to the public. Some are not. Restaurant Depot,
for example, requires you to be a member of the food service industry
in order to shop their stores. US Foods CHEF'STORE does not. A lot of
communities have locally owned and operated supply stores, which are
almost always open to the public. Since it might be something of a
safari to go to one of these merchandise meccas, you might want to
check the store's shopping policy before you head out.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">If all
else fails and your local store turns out to be “members only,”
don't despair. There's always the Internet. WebstaurantStore.com is a
cook's paradise, featuring over 342,000 items in their catalog and
shipping to ninety-six percent of the US within two days. Ka Tom
Restaurant Supply is another good online source. I have furnished
restaurant kitchens from both. Downside: shipping costs. Yeah,
Webstaurant has a “plus” program that nets you free ground
shipping and priority ordering, but it's a hundred bucks a month, so,
no. Check them out at <span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://www.webstaurantstore.com/">www.webstaurantstore.com</a>
and <a href="http://www.katom.com/">www.katom.co</a>m.</u></span></span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm
not saying I buy every single thing in my home kitchen at restaurant
supply stores. The aforementioned Lodge cast-iron cookware is just as
good from Walmart as it is from my local supply store and it's priced
about the same. And let's be real; a wooden spoon is a wooden spoon
no matter where you buy it. But if you've got a restaurant supply
store fairly close by, you really ought to invest the time in
checking it out. If you know somebody in the food service industry,
you might want to take them along as sort of a “native guide” the
first time you go. I promise you'll be overwhelmed and maybe a little
intimidated. And you'll likely say “what the hell is <i>that</i>
for?” quite a bit. But once you get the lay of the land, you'll
never go back to the big box stores for your cooking and baking
tools. And a lot of restaurant supply stores carry bulk foods as
well, so you can often score big savings there, too.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Bottom line: when
it comes to quality, selection, and price, you don't have to be a pro
to shop like one.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-16347449469128296082021-06-25T17:34:00.000-04:002021-06-25T17:34:15.045-04:00Air Fryer Baked Potatoes? Oh, You'd Better Believe It!<p><b><i>Air
Fryer Baked Potatoes Are The New Standard In My Kitchen</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwrx24Gr6QCE381cEmWQyh4KZxrZjxFtOwtztJBAtYHxtY1bq-h0gWxBEcIfdIXVkokh9dGgwCdv7ey-n-YrPGpNfs6a2aXlozusB4lFL3G4rNWEsseUo8Ny-JJov4pOWn957gJiBItxT8/s1000/bakedpotato.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="1000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwrx24Gr6QCE381cEmWQyh4KZxrZjxFtOwtztJBAtYHxtY1bq-h0gWxBEcIfdIXVkokh9dGgwCdv7ey-n-YrPGpNfs6a2aXlozusB4lFL3G4rNWEsseUo8Ny-JJov4pOWn957gJiBItxT8/s320/bakedpotato.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />You know, I jumped on the air fryer
bandwagon when they first became popular a couple of years ago. I
figured I'd find something to do with it. Probably frozen French
fries. That's what everybody else was using it for. But in the
ensuing months I have found <i>so </i>many
other uses for this versatile little appliance that I dismissed at
first as just another fad gadget. My latest “discovery” is baked
potatoes.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Baked
potatoes are an often overlooked and a sometimes vilified side item.
And that's too bad because when done right they can be a great
highlight to a meal or even a meal unto themselves. Yes, yes, I can
hear all the carbo-phobics hyperventilating already, but when you
consider the vitamin C, potassium, B6, and fiber baked potatoes
offer, they're actually fairly healthy, unless, of course, you load
them down with a kitchen sink-load of toppings. Then all bets are
off. Moderation, remember?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What
constitutes the perfect baked potato? Most people would say a crispy
skin on the outside and tender, flaky flesh on the inside. But
achieving that perfection isn't always that easy. Aside from
“outdoorsy” techniques like wrapping them in foil and tossing
them in the coals on a grill or roasting them over an open campfire,
there are two traditional ways to bake a “baked” potato. The
obvious one is in the oven and the other, the one that a lot of fast
food places employ, is the microwave. Both have their shortcomings.
Admit it; you've had gummy spuds at a restaurant or you've pulled a
potato out of the oven at home only to find it half-baked, right? Me,
too.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But
then I read somewhere about baking potatoes in an air fryer. “Why
not?” I thought, and decided to give it a try next time I made
baked potatoes. I did and I'm here to tell you I'm never going back
to the “traditional” methods. Air fryer baked potatoes are the
new standard in my home kitchen.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now,
I'm not really all that surprised by the success of this “new”
technique. After all, the sobriquet “air fryer” is just a
marketing ploy; the devices don't actually “fry” anything. All an
air fryer is is a countertop convection oven and we've been using
convection ovens to bake potatoes in restaurants for decades. But
full-size convection ovens are still fairly uncommon in home kitchens
and the advent of the air fryer brings the power of convection
cooking to a convenient countertop appliance. You just have to
remember you're not “frying” in an air fryer; you're cooking with
superheated circulating air. Once you grasp that concept, your
imagination is pretty much the limit to what you can do with an air
fryer.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So
here's what I did: I prepped two Russet potatoes in the usual way,
i.e. I washed and scrubbed them clean, dried them thoroughly, rubbed
them down with a light coating of oil, salted them lightly, and poked
a few holes in them with the tip of a paring knife. Then, making sure
they weren't touching, I placed them in the basket of my air fryer,
set the temperature to 400<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">°</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">,
and cranked the timer to thirty minutes. Then I moved on to prep
other dinner elements. When the air fryer timer went off, I looked in
on the spuds. Lookin' good. Nice crispy skin developing. I poked a
fork in 'em to see how they were progressing, shook the basket to
wiggle them around a little, and gave them another twenty minutes to
cook while I finished the pork chops and other stuff. Twenty minutes
later, I used tongs to pluck the potatoes out of the basket, plated
them, and then cut in to the most perfectly cooked baked potatoes I
can ever remember cooking. Wow!</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That's
not to say I've ever made “bad” baked potatoes in a conventional
oven. Sometimes variances in time and temperature and potato size can
make them turn out a little uneven. I've never been a big fan of
mushy microwaved “baked” potatoes, but I have resorted to
finishing a slightly underdone oven-baked potato in the microwave
from time to time. The results are almost always less then stellar.
No more. No more conventional oven and no more microwave. The air
fryer produced absolutely textbook baked potatoes. The skin was
crackling crisp and the interior was pillow soft and flaky. My
wife was an instant convert to the improved method and I'll be
happily baking potatoes in the air fryer from now on.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of
course, there are limits. For instance, you can only fit so many
potatoes in an air fryer basket. For a crowd, it's back to the old
conventional oven, I guess. Unless you shell out five-hundred bucks
for a big honkin' air fryer like the Breville Smart Oven Air. You
could probably get a couple more in there, but even that top of the
culinary food chain device doesn't have the capacity of a standard
thirty-inch oven, which, theoretically, can turn out a crop of
forty-eight to fifty average-sized potatoes or thirty-four to
thirty-eight Russet bakers if you're baking spudzillas. But if dinner
on the fly for two or three or four is your objective, a regular
fifty-to-a-hundred-dollar air fryer is all you'll need.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And
the usual basics apply. Choose uniform shaped and sized potatoes; if
you try to cook one big one and two little ones, somebody's gonna be
under or overcooked. Dry your potatoes after you wash them – and DO
wash them under cold running water – or you'll get soggy skins.
Another way to get soggy skins is to use that old “wrap 'em in
foil” trick. Not only will you get soggy skins, but because the
foil holds in moisture and steam, you'll wind up with more of a
boiled “baked” potato. I don't care how your mama did it, no
foil. Poke holes to vent moisture and steam. I've never actually seen
a potato pop, but they can do it and you don't want to be on the cleanup end. When it's done, don't let your
potato “rest” before you cut into it. It's not a steak. The
longer you let it sit the gummier and stickier it's gonna get inside.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Try
air fryer baked potatoes tonight. Or tomorrow if you don't have any
potatoes or if you don't have an air fryer yet. That'll give you time
to stock up. Once you do, you'll never bake potatoes any other way.</span></p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-50638924660378399052021-05-19T16:07:00.000-04:002021-05-19T16:07:44.996-04:00You Don't Really Want to Dine “Al Fresco” in Italy<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>Just Hope There's Not A Prison Nearby</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQgKCOJGvoXg3j-3IO3XP5xHgGyAb4MyfS5nBVeGuPwPFu9iXpZ_Wf08FqZfEnPOwd1jvalvnRlpsPn1zA1cSSR5eucASvunyo6f6Yib5BgOq1wAx5yc8TEvxD0VCvoBuRjM2mTg3CprhR/s225/prison.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQgKCOJGvoXg3j-3IO3XP5xHgGyAb4MyfS5nBVeGuPwPFu9iXpZ_Wf08FqZfEnPOwd1jvalvnRlpsPn1zA1cSSR5eucASvunyo6f6Yib5BgOq1wAx5yc8TEvxD0VCvoBuRjM2mTg3CprhR/s0/prison.png" /></a></div><br />A lot of people like to toss around
foreign words and phrases they've picked up as a means of making
themselves sound more worldly, cultured, well-traveled, or whatever.
And frequently they wind up sounding just the opposite. Take “al
fresco” for example.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“We'll be dining <i>al fresco </i>today,”
is a fancy way of saying that you plan to eat outdoors. Whether it be
on the patio of an upscale restaurant or at a picnic table in the
backyard, <i>“al fresco” </i>just
seems to carry a certain....<i>catchet, </i>another
often misused word. I mean, would you rather sit outside to eat or
would you prefer to “dine <i>al fresco?</i>”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Perhaps
because the phrase starts with “al” and ends in a vowel,
everybody thinks it's Italian. There are even a number of
Italian-American restaurants around the country that bear the name
“Al Fresco.” So who can blame someone for visiting their favorite
Italian eatery and asking to dine “<i>al fresco?</i>”
At most Italian-American places, you'd be shown to a lovely seat
outdoors. In Italy, however, such a request would get you a shocked
or bemused response from the waitstaff and you'd likely be laughed at
or at least given a look that says <i>“pazzo turista.”</i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You
see, while<i>“al fresco” </i>is
indeed a correct and legitimate term in particular cases, most people
aren't very particular in the way they use it. While it is commonly
believed that the term is a universal reference to dining in the
fresh air, that's technically only the case in Spain, from whence the
phrase originated and where it is still properly used to mean sitting
outside in the cool open air.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But
isn't it also an Italian term for the same thing? Not so much. Yes,
<i>fresco </i>is the Italian
word for “fresh.” It can also be used to refer to keeping
something in the cool or chilled. And <i>al </i>does
usually translate loosely to “of the” or “in the manner of.”
So it's reasonable to assume that <i>al fresco </i>would
mean “in the cool fresh air” like it does in Spanish. But that's
where that old linguistic bugaboo idiom comes in.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Most
languages are chock full of weird idioms. Believe me, if you tell an
Italian you're sitting on the fence over a certain issue, he's gonna
look at you real funny. But then that same Italian might tell you
that the issue is <i>farsene un baffo. </i>What
he's saying is that it's like a mustache; it's there, so don't make a
big deal out of it. I'm an actor and it's common for me to say “break
a leg” when wishing someone good luck. The Italian equivalent would
be <i>“in bocca al lupo,” </i>which
translates to “in the mouth of the wolf.” See, you don't ever
wish someone “good luck” (<i>buono fortuna) </i>because
that means something bad will probably happen. No, you should refer
to the legend of Romulus and Remus who were saved from certain doom
by being carried away in the mouth of a she-wolf who suckled and
raised them to become the founders of Rome. And, for goodness' sake,
don't respond to “<i>in bocca al lupo”</i>
with <i>“grazie” </i>(thank
you). That would be awful. Say instead, “<i>crepi il lupo.”
</i>That means “may the wolf die.”
Or you can just say “<i>crepi.” </i>Don't
ask me why; it's an Italian thing.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But it's also why
you don't use the phrase <i>“al fresco” </i>in reference to
dining outdoors in Italy. If you want to do that, it would be <i>“al
fuori” </i> or <i>“all'aperto. </i>Both mean “outdoors” or
“outside.”<i> </i>If you tell an Italian waiter you want to dine
<i>“al fresco,” </i>he's gonna look at you funny because you just
said you want to eat in prison. Yep. Prison. Aren't
idioms fun?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So all you
Italian-American restaurateurs who are putting the name “Al Fresco”
above your door might want to rethink that moniker. Not many <i>veri
italiani </i>are going to want to enter your establishment. And all
you would-be Italian diners who want to employ the phrase to sound
more Italian should hope there isn't a jail or prison nearby.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Ciao e in bocca al lupo!</i> </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-38765753212025901612021-04-30T13:57:00.000-04:002021-04-30T13:57:41.866-04:00Confessions Of An ALDI Snob<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>It's All My Mother's Fault</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74AQd4Wli0CC4-XYr1KxFbNyD5FXE258NUSgJw0ucwMKYhyWOQni10mFU_f0Ykuk-J89pNx-2u9hi4oBDeTm4n5S_pmL9LEjQMiegxYsORrU-YIA3en9NNALBCcvE3_B6RISnR-Mjq5Ol/s300/aldi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74AQd4Wli0CC4-XYr1KxFbNyD5FXE258NUSgJw0ucwMKYhyWOQni10mFU_f0Ykuk-J89pNx-2u9hi4oBDeTm4n5S_pmL9LEjQMiegxYsORrU-YIA3en9NNALBCcvE3_B6RISnR-Mjq5Ol/s0/aldi.jpg" /></a></div><br />I grew up an extremely brand-conscious
kid. It's all my mother's fault. I shopped with her every week from
the earliest time I can remember right up through my adult years.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My mother never learned how to drive,
so when I was growing up in the 1950s, my Dad, who knew little and
cared less about grocery shopping, dutifully drove her to the big new
“supermarket” on Saturdays. Where I came in to the picture was if
she needed something in the middle of the week or in the middle of
the day when Dad wasn't home. In that case she would call the little
neighborhood grocer about five blocks down the street and have him
pack up her order. (Yes, grocery stores did that sort of thing in
those days.) Then she would dispatch five-year-old me and my little
red wagon to go to the store and pick it up. Today that would be
called child endangerment or something. Back then it was called
“normal.” The grocer always knew what brands to pack in my mom's
order. Her well-deserved reputation as the queen of picky shoppers
preceded her.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, Dad died soon after I turned six
and unless we could beg a ride to the grocery store with a friend or
relative, it was just Mom and me and the wagon. I later traded the
wagon for a bicycle and eventually for a car, but, one way or
another, I went grocery shopping with my mother nearly every week for
the rest of her life. And along the way I picked up all her shopping
quirks and eccentricities, including her most notorious foible; brand
consciousness.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm not exaggerating when I say that
Mom would have sooner starved than let a store-branded or off-branded
product pass her lips. Those canned peas had better be Green Giant Le
Sueur peas or straight back to the store they went. Boxed macaroni
and cheese was okay, but only if it was Kraft. Nothing else ever even
made it into the cart. It was Land o' Lakes butter or nothing.
Generic cereals? Perish the thought! Only Kellogg's, Post, or General
Mills cereals needed apply for residence in my mother's pantry.
Birdseye, Swanson and Stouffer's were all acceptable frozen choices,
but don't you dare drop some cheap, off-brand TV dinner in there.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Intellectually I knew there was nothing
whatsoever “wrong” with store brands. In fact, in most cases
store brands are processed and packaged by the same companies that
produce the ones with the famous labels. But functionally I was my
mother's son and so I avoided “cheap” store/generic brands like
the plague. And stores that specialized in “discount” foods were
also shunned. I only shopped at high-end stores and I only bought
high-end brands.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And then ALDI came to town.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Founded in Germany in 1961 by the
Albrecht family, ALDI – short for Albrecht-Diskont – bills itself
as the world's first grocery discounter. It opened its first US store
in Iowa in 1976, built on the company's core premise that “great
quality shouldn’t come at a high price; rather, great quality
should come with everyday low prices.” And to achieve and maintain
those everyday low prices, you won't find hardly a familiar “name
brand” in any ALDI store. Oh, there might be a smattering of “real”
Coca-Cola or actual Cheerios rather than some knockoffs, but such are
the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, up until quite
recently, <i>my</i> rule was that you would never find <i>me </i>in
an ALDI store. In fact, years ago I frequently wrote articles in this
space denigrating “cheap,” “low-quality” food products in
general and ALDI stores in specific. I looked down my nose at friends
and relatives who shopped there and actually pitied them for not
knowing any better. I was, you might say, an ALDI snob.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I
guess you <i>can </i>teach an
old dog new tricks and overcome a lifetime of learned prejudice.
After at least twenty-five years of sneering at ALDI I now find
myself shopping there whenever I'm in the neighborhood. And that
neighborhood is expanding: ALDI expects to have around 2,500 stores
in the US by 2022.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now,
that's not to say that I no longer shop at Publix or Kroger or
Harris-Teeter. No, those are still my go-to stores for most things
because I still believe that quality counts and high-end stores still
provide the most consistently high-quality products. Unlike my
ultra-finicky mother, though, I have at least <i>tried</i>
store brands and off brands from time to time and I have frequently
found them lacking. Usually it's a funky texture or too much sugar or
not enough salt or something that affects the taste and overall
quality. Just because they come off the same production lines as the
fancy brands doesn't mean they're always the same grade. There <i>is
</i>a reason why they're so much
cheaper, you know.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It's
not always true: for instance, I have found very few Publix-branded
products that I don't like. But by and large I still tend to stick
with the familiar brands I grew up with. And I definitely didn't grow
up with any of the brands that populate ALDI shelves, so I still
generally shy away from them. Again, not that I haven't tried them. I
recently took a chance on a bag of their “Clancy's” brand
knockoff of Baked Lays potato chips. Meh. Not so much.
They're....okay, but they'll never replace the original in my pantry.
And I was equally underwhelmed by some of their other snack
offerings. On the other hand, their “Millville” replica of
Kellogg's Rice Krispies is dead on. My wife actually <i>prefers
</i>some of their cereals, and they
carry a thin mint cookie that would make a Girl Scout weep. So it's
kind of a crap shoot.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">ALDI
has this to say about its “exclusive” brands: “More than
90 percent of what you find in our stores is exclusive brand product.
Tested in the ALDI Test Kitchen, these products taste the same or
better than national brands and are backed by our Double Guarantee.
If you’re not 100 percent satisfied, bring it back. We’ll replace
the product AND refund your money.” Okay, if you say so. Maybe I'll
be swayed someday. But not quite yet.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">No, what I really
shop for at ALDI are the “perimeter products.” These are the
things you find around the perimeter walls of most grocery stores:
the produce, the meats, the dairy products, and the frozen foods.
This is where ALDI really shines. When it comes to milk, butter,
eggs, cheese, etc. nobody can touch ALDI for either price or quality.
Same goes for their meat. They have absolutely unbelievable prices on
some of the best quality cuts of meat I've seen anywhere outside a
butcher shop. The seafood selection is equally good and I've picked
up some killer frozen entrees and ice creams at killer prices. They
don't have the biggest produce section in the world but what they
carry is good stuff and their breads are surprisingly good for
store-bought product, which I usually eschew in favor of my own
home-baked fare.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And I
love the little hidden jewels I occasionally find. Since ALDI is
European-based, there are a boatload of European products lining the
shelves. The European chocolates you'll find at ALDI are to die for
at a price that won't kill you. A particular favorite of mine is a
DOP Sicilian olive oil that easily rivals the best “high-end”
product I've ever used, and it's <i>dirt </i>cheap.
Less than half of what the brand name stuff costs and every bit as
good if not better. In fact, ALDI carries lots of DOP/PDO
(Denominazione di Origine Protetta/Protected Designation of
Origin) products that are rarely found outside expensive specialty
shops, a real bonus for any Italian cook.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And one other plus: ALDI has <i>so </i>much
good junk to plunder through. They have an aisle devoted to “home
goods” and apparel and such. I bought some socks for my wife at a
price Walmart couldn't touch. It's really nuts some of the things you
can find there. But stock rotates quickly, so buy it when you see it
'cause it probably won't be there tomorrow.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alright,
I'll admit it; I was wrong about ALDI. And their German cousin, Lidl,
too. You may not want to do <i>all </i>of
your shopping there, because the stores are deliberately small and
the selection purposely limited. It's part of the chain's
cost-cutting business model. It's a bare-bones, no-frills shopping
experience right down to bagging your own groceries in your own bags.
And you've probably heard about the quarter for a shopping cart
thing, right? The shopping carts are all chain-locked together and
you have to insert a quarter into a slot to unlock a cart. Of
course, you get your money back when you return the cart to the chain
gang. That's the way the store saves by not having to pay some kid to
constantly round up carts in the parking lot. It's all very austere
and functional, but if you're the kind of shopper who doesn't mind
looking around a bit for good finds at good prices, ALDI is a must
stop.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Excuse me, now. I
have to go prepare a dish of crow and some humble pie. I wonder if I
can get the ingredients at ALDI? </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-21266632474820402402021-04-21T21:57:00.000-04:002021-04-21T21:57:47.228-04:00Restaurant Review: First Watch, Winston-Salem, NC<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>First Watch or Last Choice?</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7izxrCEoAq79nyWvdAHdRrALrSiq1xZ2c7BECAqMf1ZNbsfyCUrlp4ZGu9VhB-Y415ojSqOXVTFP_fZYP9PlyIOL65brqax83hlREL9PMWxR4SX3nThiHKgH0j5U30bZX1O7Zitz-5HzD/s500/ThumbsDownEmoji.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7izxrCEoAq79nyWvdAHdRrALrSiq1xZ2c7BECAqMf1ZNbsfyCUrlp4ZGu9VhB-Y415ojSqOXVTFP_fZYP9PlyIOL65brqax83hlREL9PMWxR4SX3nThiHKgH0j5U30bZX1O7Zitz-5HzD/s320/ThumbsDownEmoji.jpg" /></a></div><br />We were in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina for some weekend shopping and business when we got a little
hungry for a midday brunch. We did a Google search for such places
and got a list of three that looked interesting. Based on the
reviews, we chose a place called First Watch. I wish we had chosen
one of the other two.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In all my many years of dining on the
road, from diners in Georgia to themed restaurants in Tennessee to
high-dollar eateries in New Orleans and Las Vegas, I have seldom
walked away from a place regretting having gone there. So First Watch
was a first for me. I actually came away with buyers' remorse, except
there was no viable way to return the product for a refund.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Oh, sure, I've eaten at places I didn't
like and to which I've said “never again,” but this is the first
place I've ever gone where I actively wished I had never wasted my
time and money. Especially the money.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This experience also reinforces my
long-held opinion that most of the people who write restaurant
“reviews” on Google are friends and relatives of the restaurant
owners and employees. That certainly must have been the case here
because the reviews were overwhelmingly glowing and positive. Even
the one where a member of the dining party apparently got food
poisoning from a salad and wound up in the hospital. The enthusiastic
“reviewer” cited the fact that nobody <i>else </i>got
sick as validation for the positive write-up. <i>Uffa!</i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">When we walked into
the place on a Saturday afternoon, it was, in spite of COVID
protocols, buzzing. In fact, it was buzzing so loudly that we opted
to sit outside, even though the weather looked a little dicey. I
mean, you couldn't hear yourself think in there. Typical “modern”
design: all open spaces and hard surfaces with nothing to absorb or
redirect sound. Every noise, from clattering dishes to loud music to
even louder conversation just bounces off walls and floors and
ceilings and tables and goes right through your head. Thank you, no.
We'll take our chances with the thunder and lightning.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, the menu
ballyhoos the virtues of fresh, local food, and you know those are
often buzzwords for “overpriced,” right? I expected that. And,
sure, I could've gotten bacon and eggs at the Waffle House down the
street for about a third of what I paid here, but this place is
“trendy,” you know, and they've got all that atmosphere and fresh
food and clever advertising and everything. Okay. Even so, I was
shocked at the shekels I had to shovel out for the quality of the
food and service I got.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm not gonna do
the whole menu here because it's full of kitschy names like “Bacado”
and “Veg'd Out” and “Key West Crepeggs.” My wife ordered what
she thought was a traditional eggs Benedict and I got two eggs,
scrambled, with bacon, hash browns and toast. Pretty straightforward
fare.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Once we were
seated, our server did a creditable imitation of the Invisible Woman.
Maybe she was afraid of the impending and aforementioned lightning
and thunder, I don't know. When she finally returned some twenty-five
or thirty minutes later, she was bearing our feast. And what a feast
it was.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've been in the
food service business, okay, and I'm pretty understanding and easy to
please and you have to do something fairly egregious to get me to
complain about food. When our server set my plate before me and I got
one look at the absolutely <i>hammered </i>eggs thereupon, it was one
of those egregious occasions. Had I been on the line or on expo duty,
I wouldn't have even let such a travesty leave the kitchen. Some poor
hen somewhere – somewhere “local,” I'm sure – produced two
eggs that were subsequently presented to me in the form of burnt
offerings. It's not hard to scramble eggs, it's really not. Whip 'em
up with a whisk, maybe with a little milk and some salt if that's
your preference, add them to a buttered pan over medium heat and stir
them until you get nice, fluffy curds. Or you can do it the way the
so-called “cook” at First Watch obviously did it: whisk the eggs
up and then dump them into a dry, screaming hot pan and cook them
until any semblance of moisture has been driven out and they have
been rendered brown and crispy on top and around the edges. Needless
to say, I sent them back.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The bacon – which
they call “million dollar bacon” – was wafer thin and so laden
with grease that I could have let it slide down without chewing it.
Maybe I misunderstood and the “million dollar” part was a
reference to the price and not the quality.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The hash browns
came out as home fries, which is fine. I like home fries. Except when
I make them, I remember culinary school 101: if you want something to
cook evenly, you have to cut it evenly. When you chop up potatoes so
that some of the pieces are big and some are small and some are even
smaller, they may look exceedingly “rustic” and “homey,” but
they are going to cook exactly the way these did: the big pieces are
going to be borderline raw, the smaller pieces are going to be about
right, and the teeny pieces are going to be charred mush.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Top it off with a
single slice of <i>very </i>dry toast, and you've definitely got a
memorable meal. One I wish I could forget.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My wife didn't fare
much better with her fare. The poach on her eggs was good. Not
“ohmygod” good, but acceptable. But her “traditional” eggs
Benedict was anything but. Instead of an English muffin, it was
served on some sort of ciabatta roll and it was sliced deli ham
rather than Canadian bacon. There were tomatoes on it for some
inexplicable reason and it was topped –drowned? – in a
Hollandaise that was so loaded with lemon you could have made
lemonade with it. And she had the same "three bears-style" potatoes on the
side that I had. You know, a mix of undercooked, overcooked, and just
right?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And because my
mother taught me that if I couldn't say something nice I shouldn't
say anything at all, let me say this: Mom, the fresh-squeezed orange
juice was delicious.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And then it rained.
But we were both finished and done by then; finished with our meal
and done with First Watch.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">First Watch is a
chain, so your experience may vary. But if you happen to find
yourself on South Stratford Road in Winston-Salem and are tempted to
visit the location there, resist the temptation. Unless you like
greasy bacon, overcooked eggs, half-raw potatoes, and lemonade
Hollandaise, all served up by an invisible server who will present
you with a bill that will make you say, “Why the f**ck did I do
that?” Then First Watch should be your first choice. For me, it's
the last.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Find First Watch –
if you dare – at 1602 S Stratford Rd, Ste 140 in Winston-Salem, NC.
Strip mall parking. They're open daily from 7 am until 2:30 pm. Call
(336) 773-8440 or go to firstwatch.com. Staff is masked and temp
checked and masks for diners are required during COVID protocols. </p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-58478979031737667302021-04-21T12:26:00.000-04:002021-04-21T12:26:49.158-04:00Thoughts On McDonald's Perennially Broken Ice Cream Machines<p><b><i>A Strange Irony</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxNMSiaGLZYn3LFeOcYdYP9AYvjuXuqQ3DhZFe-KMCfHTWyADyEWURnGC-IIOwPwObKpOlhL5AWdAolu5MqG0kQaYh-vmv1E3Pf0nahBlfJZU2pi0QpXZTJ3n89F3LPVNU2ryaczgUpSzq/s1136/mcd+ice+cream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxNMSiaGLZYn3LFeOcYdYP9AYvjuXuqQ3DhZFe-KMCfHTWyADyEWURnGC-IIOwPwObKpOlhL5AWdAolu5MqG0kQaYh-vmv1E3Pf0nahBlfJZU2pi0QpXZTJ3n89F3LPVNU2ryaczgUpSzq/s320/mcd+ice+cream.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />When I was young and so was McDonald's
(we were both born the same year), my go-to order at the home of the
Golden Arches was some of their life-changing French fries and an
icy-cold, creamy chocolate milkshake. Later, after Ronald McDonald
started selling soft-serve ice cream at his establishments,
McDonald's became a great place to stop for a quick cone. Mickey Ds
locations were a heck of a lot easier to find than Dairy Queen's and
the product they served was almost as good. Almost.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Alas, somewhere around 1990, McDonald's
caved in to the activist campaign to eliminate fat and cholesterol in
the American diet and stopped frying its exquisite shoestring spuds
in beef tallow, opting instead for bland, flavorless vegetable oil.
This switch from animal renderings to vegetable squeezings
immediately “rendered” McDonald's fries inert, dull, and
lifeless. They became nothing more than a run-of-the-mill vehicle to
deliver salt and a modicum of texture to your palate.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But, hey! At least we still had ice
cream, right? And delicious, fresh, creamy shakes? Eh, not so much.
The ice cream formula changed, too. In fact, it literally became a
“formula” instead of a fresh dairy product.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And now we don't even have that last
vestige of so many youthful memories. Have you tried to order any ice
cream products from McDonald's lately? Good luck finding one with an
operating ice cream machine. It's actually become an Internet thing:
you can go online and find dozens of sites dedicated to tracking and
cataloging McDonald's non-operating ice cream machines. There's even
an app for it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">However you look at it, it's
frustrating as hell. You get your mouth all set for something and
<i>whammo! </i><span style="font-style: normal;">“I'm sorry. Our ice
cream machine is out of order.” That's what I heard the other day
when, after a warm afternoon of yard work, my wife said, “Hey, why
don't you run over to McDonald's and get us some fries and shakes?”
Sorry, honey. Settle for a nice cup of water with those fries? At
least I didn't go to the extreme that three women went to in Daytona
Beach. When they ordered ice cream at the drive-thru and were told
the machine was down, they went into the restaurant and proceeded to
beat up the kid behind the counter. Or the guy in Delray Beach who
pulled a gun on the drive-thru worker when he was told the ice cream
machine wasn't working. Obviously, people in Florida take their ice
cream very seriously.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, I was going to try to do some
in-depth research into the phenomenon in order to find some
explanation that I could pass on to you desperate, ice cream-starved
readers. But, lo and behold, one Andy Greenberg over at <i>Wired </i><span style="font-style: normal;">has
already done way, way more legwork than I'd ever dreamed possible and
has detailed everything you've ever wanted to know about McDonald's
ice cream machine woes right <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/">here</a>.</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> Read it and.....weep.</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Speaking of
weeping, I'll bet Ray Kroc is weeping in his grave as he spins like
one of the five spindles on his iconic “Multimixer 9B.” Isn't it
a bit of strange irony that a burger chain founded by a guy who sold
milkshake machines for a living should be in such straits today?
Totally at the mercy of wonky digital technology?</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">C'mon, McDonald's!
It's the twenty-first century. We have personal computers in our
pockets and helicopters on Mars. Don't ya think you could come up
with an ice cream machine that works at least fifty percent of the
time? Surely somebody's got a cache of the old manual clunkers in the
basement somewhere. Drag 'em out! At least they were dependable.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As I said before,
McDonald's and I have a long history. I actually went to Store #1
when I was a kid. Located in west suburban Chicago, just off US Hwy
12 in Des Plaines, Ray Kroc always said it was his favorite store
before they tore it down and rebuilt it as a museum. Even as a
museum, you could see a mannequin in a paper hat standing by what I'm
sure was a <i>working </i>shake machine. Ah, for the good old days.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Bah dah bah bah
bah, McDonald's, when it comes to your perennially malfunctioning ice
cream machines, I'm not lovin' it.</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-66809881305328150672021-02-08T17:35:00.003-05:002021-04-17T12:08:32.640-04:00Just Ignore The Latest Lunatic “Hack” For Cooking Pasta<p><b><i>“Every Time This Technique Is
Replicated, An Italian Dies”</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1xRFhLwo-2vL8n7Us1gaOTvQGxr2AxcM90wmWlJXG4ONHGUF8Lli6DbhK1oGKlhN1nCcoj_mcEy-z8rQA06JWgzS4TKeW-1IOg2PcmzZWBFibjIqkDnt81dSVWop6h2YhYS18HnX1cUpL/s514/badspaghetti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="412" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1xRFhLwo-2vL8n7Us1gaOTvQGxr2AxcM90wmWlJXG4ONHGUF8Lli6DbhK1oGKlhN1nCcoj_mcEy-z8rQA06JWgzS4TKeW-1IOg2PcmzZWBFibjIqkDnt81dSVWop6h2YhYS18HnX1cUpL/s320/badspaghetti.jpg" /></a></div><br />I thought I'd seen it all. I thought
I'd experienced every crackpot “time-saving” and/or
“labor-saving” technique and device out there for the simple
task of cooking pasta. I've gaped in amazement at all the so-called
“hacks” (I really <i>hate </i>that
term) that espouse cooking pasta in cold water or that proclaim pasta
can be successfully prepared using cups of water rather than quarts.
I've shaken my head in bemusement at the rubbery, silicone gizmos
that claim to produce “perfect” pasta in the microwave. I've
heaved sighs of frustration at American “old wives” who dump oil
in pasta cooking water or who don't liberally salt said water. As I
said, I thought I'd seen it all: then I saw this.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Some
benighted woman in the pasta cooking capital that is northeastern
England has gone on record – via TikTok, of course – with the
ignominious idea of cooking pasta in its sauce. Sort of.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now
wait! Before you remind me that that is, indeed, the proper Italian
way to <i>finish </i>cooking
pasta, let me explain this culinary genius's complete method. The
woman, named Jasmine, claims that she got the idea from an
Italian-American restaurant chain called Frankie & Benny's.
Founded in London in 1995 by one Kevin Bacon, (probably not <i>that
</i>one), the fact that it is a
<i>British</i>
Italian-<i>American</i>
outfit means it's already at least two degrees separated from
anything remotely authentic.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Anyway,
according to Jasmine, the best way to prepare your pasta in one pot
with a minimum of muss and fuss is as follows: you boil some water in
a teakettle. Then you pour a jar of spaghetti sauce directly into a
pot and add some of the boiling water from the kettle. Toss your
dried spaghetti into the sauce and water mixture and boil it up. Once
you reach the desired degree of doneness (and I shudder to think what
that might be) you throw in a few meatballs and declare the insipid
result to be a delicious Italian dish.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">According
to the website wantedinmilan.com, one person commenting on this
travesty summed up the reaction of Italians everywhere with the
statement, “Every time this technique is replicated, an Italian
dies.” Let me expand on that. Not only does an Italian die, they
die screaming and are joined in their death throes by the spinning of
generations of <i>nonne </i>in
their graves.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">With
admittedly facetious apologies to Jasmine and other “experts,”
there is one and only <i>one</i>
proper way to prepare pasta. Uno. Un. Um. En. Een. Ett. Ein. <span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">É</span>νας.
Moja. You get the idea? ONE! And it most assuredly does <i>not
</i> involve tossing uncooked pasta
into a pot of diluted tomato sauce. <i>Uffa!!! </i>And
that's the mildest word I can conjure at the moment.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You
gotta have water. Lotsa, lotsa water. The water's gotta be boiling.
Lotsa, lotsa bubbles. And it's gotta be salted. Lotsa, lotsa salt.
Did you notice that Jasmine didn't include any salt anywhere in her
“recipe?” Those are the only ways you can coax desiccated bits of
durum wheat flour to give up their starches, achieve perfect <i>al
dente </i>tenderness, and absorb
flavor. Otherwise, what's the point? Any other method or technique or
“hack” (the word reminds me of what a cat does to a hairball) is
going to produce an unsatisfying mush.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now,
as I said, <i>finishing </i>the
cooked pasta in a pot of sauce is not only a good idea, it's an
essential and quintessential Italian technique. Only in
Italian-American restaurants, greasy spoon diners, or church
“spaghetti dinners” do they actually serve piles of naked
spaghetti on a plate doused in cups if not quarts of red sauce. You
will not find an Italian anywhere in Italy or elsewhere on the planet
who cooks pasta that way. Unless they own one of the aforesaid
Italian-American joints, in which case they do so under protest
because that's what their palate-less customers expect and demand.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I took
over running the kitchen in one of those diners once. The place
offered “spaghetti specials” on the weekends and the very first
thing I did was to change the method of preparing the spaghetti.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My
cook had already prepared a big pot of pasta when I got in one day. I
tasted it. Horrible. Bland. Devoid of any semblance of flavor. I
asked him how he had cooked it. He looked at me as though I had grown
a third eye and and told me that he had boiled the water, added some
salt, and cooked the spaghetti. I asked, “how much salt and for how
long?” “I don't know. A couple of teaspoons, I guess, and for
about fifteen minutes.” <i>Dio mio! </i>He
had produced the equivalent of canned spaghetti <i>alla</i>
Chef Boyardee.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“Throw
it out,” I said, “We're starting over.” We boiled some more
water and his eyes bugged out as he watched me pour in the salt.
We're talking a restaurant stock pot here, okay? Forty quarts. Ten
gallons. Probably eight gallons of water. Allowing two or three
tablespoons of salt per gallon, that's about a cup and a half of
salt. I thought he was gonna choke. “Taste the water,” I told him.
“What does it taste like?” “Kinda salty,” he replied. “Like
seawater,” I asked? “Yeah,” he said. I exclaimed, “Perfect!”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I
added the pasta and cooked it at a rolling boil for a generous eight
or nine minutes. I pulled out a strand and told my cook to try it.
“Oh, wow! That's good! I'm gonna make that way at home from now
on.” Flavor! What a concept!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Okay,
so now the par-cooked pasta goes in the fridge. We kept a big pot of
sauce simmering on a back burner of the stove. When an order came in
for the special, instead of throwing a portion of the pasta back in
some hot water to heat it up (called “double-cooking”) and then
plopping it on a plate and pouring a big glug of sauce over it, I
insisted that the cooks ladle some sauce into a smaller pot and add
the pasta to that pot of sauce to finish cooking for maybe two
minutes. Then you plate it up on a warm serving plate and present it
to your happy customer. Not only were the patrons amazed at the
difference – especially the regulars – but the cooks were, too,
and so I achieved what I set out to achieve.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You
can do the same thing at home. Cook your pasta in plenty of
generously salted water until it's just shy of done, then finish it
in your sauce before serving. It's that simple, it's that easy. It's
the way generations of Italians have done it. No “hacks”
required. And no dead Italians or spinning grandmothers, either.
Win-win, right?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Good
work is seldom fast and fast work is seldom good. Remember that rule
next time you see a “hack” that promises to make things
quick and easy. (Remember, too, that one
of the definitions of “hack” is “someone who produces
banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success.”)
'Nuff said.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><i>Buon appetito!</i></p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-52273559543231951122020-11-11T13:31:00.002-05:002020-11-20T08:48:01.080-05:00Air Fryer Bacon? Yes! (But With Conditions)<p><b><i>Bacon is the Duct Tape of the Kitchen</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-8A63TaQABMgdWd6eW0C9Vn-rbUfs6IZ65nrhUM3c00Hf1fk3hIbx2l-5p3ZTWk_5LRHH_KrqcD4SllqpfaQpimCcR53GeHHXddDrcFRqU2yIrQnKk_9nYp52gTCi2VTM2vclxnYosJaP/s2000/baked-bacon-Lead-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-8A63TaQABMgdWd6eW0C9Vn-rbUfs6IZ65nrhUM3c00Hf1fk3hIbx2l-5p3ZTWk_5LRHH_KrqcD4SllqpfaQpimCcR53GeHHXddDrcFRqU2yIrQnKk_9nYp52gTCi2VTM2vclxnYosJaP/s320/baked-bacon-Lead-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A couple of weeks ago, a fellow
bacon-loving friend and I were discussing our favorite porcine
ambrosia and she asked if it were possible to cook bacon in an air
fryer. My immediate response was an emphatic “no.” I said this
based on what I had previously read about numerous air fryer
drawbacks, one of which is that foods with high fat content do not do
well in an air fryer.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">According to various manufacturer's
troubleshooting guides, cooking high fat foods can result in white
smoke emanating from your appliance. This is because fat splatters
around in the enclosed environment and gets on the heating element. I
had even heard rumors about air fryers catching fire due to high fat
content cooking. And since bacon is definitely a high fat food, I
just said no, don't do it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But then I got to thinking. I've never
actually tried it myself, so maybe I was being a bit hasty. I Googled
the subject and was rather surprised to find scads of recipes for
perfect air fryer bacon. Hmmmm. Could I be missing something?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, to be sure, not everybody had a
wonderful experience with bacon in the air fryer. One correspondent
even entitled her piece, “Why You Should NEVER Cook Bacon in Your
Air Fryer.” She went on to detail the nightmare scenario of thick
white smoke billowing from her fryer and of pools of piping-hot bacon
grease and ultimately ruined bacon.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And hers was not the only negative I
found. The folks in Food Network's test kitchen, for instance,
weren't sold on the process either for basically the same reasons:
lots of grease and lots of smoke.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But still, there were more positive
than negative responses, so I thought I'd give it a try.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Following the most common directions, I
laid a couple of slices of bacon in the basket of my air fryer, set
the temperature to 400 degrees and the timer to ten minutes. And I
started it up. I took a peek in the basket at about the halfway mark
and everything was going well. Lo and behold, in ten minutes, I had
two slices of crispy, moist, tender, perfectly cooked bacon. My mind
was officially blown!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I'm a traditionalist, okay? You cook
bacon the way I learned to do it at my mother's knee some fifty-eight
years ago. We had a griddle plate in the center of our gas stove and
that's how you cooked bacon. You slapped it on there and turned on
the heat. You stood over it with a turner and flipped it a couple of
times, and when it was done, you drained it on paper towels and
served it up. If you didn't have a griddle, a skillet would do. Yeah,
it was gonna splatter and be a little messy to clean up, but that was
the nature of the beast. It's just what you did.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Later, when I started doing volume
restaurant-type cooking, I learned about the advantages of cooking
big batches of bacon on a tray in the oven. I still prefer pan or
griddle frying, but I'm not averse to baking my bacon when necessary.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One method I only use when there is
simply no choice – or when I don't especially care about taste or
texture – is the microwave. I'm sorry, the only thing <i>rigor
mortis</i> bacon is good for is crumbling into bits for salads or
baked potatoes or something. It is otherwise generally unfit for
consumption.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But when you think about it, an “air
fryer” is not really a “fryer” at all; it's a mini convection
oven. It works by circulating hot air around the food being cooked.
Not a lot different than my big wall-mounted convection oven, except
it sits on my counter.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A couple of caveats, though, some
things to be aware of. Many of the bad experiences I read about
involved people trying to make a lot of bacon at one time. They were
basically covering the basket of their fryer with bacon. Bad idea.
That will definitely produce a lot of smoky grease. If you're going
to use your air fryer for bacon, you aren't going to feed a large
family. Two or three slices at a time will work. Anything more will
likely lead to the smoky, greasy nightmares I cited earlier.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Time and temperature are also factors.
My experiment/experience worked well with ten minutes at four
hundred. Your results may vary.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of the variants involves the bacon
itself. I don't buy cheap supermarket bacon. There's lots of fat in
that stuff and even more water. Supermarket bacon is brine cured:
they inject it with water. So when you start to cook it, all that
water has got to go somewhere and that somewhere is into your pan
where it mixes with the hot fat rendering from the meat and turns it
all into a spattering, smoky mess.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Dry cured bacon, like that produced by
bacon-whisperer Allan Benton at his Madisonville, Tennessee
smokehouse, is much less likely to spatter and smoke because there's
no added water in it to negatively interact with the hot fat during
cooking. That's true whether you're cooking it on a griddle, in a
pan, in the oven, or in an air fryer.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Unfortunately (sigh) I don't always
have Benton's bacon on hand. Sometimes I have to go with the product
I get from my local butcher or from my restaurant supply house. It's
not Benton's but it is several cuts above the thin, watery, fatty
stuff you buy in the grocery store. And I almost always opt for
thicker slices. On average, a good thick-sliced bacon (1/8 inch)
will yield ten to twelve slices per pound. The higher-end grocery
store bacon runs sixteen to eighteen slices per pound and the really
cheap, paper thin, “bargain” stuff can contain as many as thirty
slices in a pound.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So, obviously, if you cook six slices
of cheap bacon in your air fryer at four hundred degrees for ten
minutes.........you're not going to like the results. The solution,
of course, is to buy higher quality bacon, use less of it, and
experiment a bit with the cooking time and temperature. Depending on
your machine and your product, you might have to go with three-fifty
or three-seventy-five. And maybe it will take twelve minutes. Or if
your bacon is thinner, maybe as little as eight. You just have to
play with it until you get the results you want. The beauty part is
that once you do that, you're set forever. Use the same settings and
more or less the same product every time and you'll always get the
same perfect results.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Are you gonna get some smoke? Yeah,
probably. I did at first. In fact, after a couple of minutes my
kitchen smoke detector started squalling at me. “Ooops! Dummy! You
forgot to turn on the fan.” Once I flipped the switch on the hood,
no more smoke and no more squealing detector.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Cleanup was easy. Because I don't use
cheap, fatty bacon, there was very little grease collected in the pan
of my air fryer. Maybe a couple of tablespoons. I let it cool and
solidify and wiped it out with a paper towel. Same for the bottom of
the basket. Then it was a touch of Dawn dish liquid and some hot
water in the sink and the whole shebang was clean in about two
minutes.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So bottom line: yes, you can cook bacon
in your air fryer. Experiment a little to see what settings work best
with your machine, don't overcrowd the basket with too much bacon,
and always use good bacon to begin with. That much is true no matter
how you cook it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And remember two things, both of which
I have inscribed in my kitchen: “bacon is the duct tape of the
kitchen” and “either you like bacon or you're wrong.”</p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498827268565630489.post-19160013519222045192020-07-06T17:19:00.004-04:002020-07-07T08:53:18.473-04:00Remembering Charlie Daniels<p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i>A Truly Nice Man</i></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRdujpi0nv72J557Bt4XrFd94hpEejBvmtQpPFbj-2eYUdNtO37IUP_AdF1GBvX8SVCTqrBprNgP3g03zhmvTT0F6oge58N3MSrDBsfbgd9wPW_RflI1_bTxFU728rCGlnS0582h4q9Pz/s2000/Charlie.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRdujpi0nv72J557Bt4XrFd94hpEejBvmtQpPFbj-2eYUdNtO37IUP_AdF1GBvX8SVCTqrBprNgP3g03zhmvTT0F6oge58N3MSrDBsfbgd9wPW_RflI1_bTxFU728rCGlnS0582h4q9Pz/s320/Charlie.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I was shocked to my soul a few minutes
ago by the news of the sudden passing of an old friend, the
incomparable Charlie Daniels.<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I use the term “friend” somewhat
advisedly because I don't want to give the impression that we were
lifelong buddies or anything. As an entertainer and a broadcaster, my
relationship with Charlie was mostly professional. Mostly. But
Charlie was the kind of person who could make even a professional
association feel like a true friendship. He was open, honest,
generous, friendly, and, above all, real. In the opening line to one
of his many hits he says, “I ain't nothin' but a simple man.” Yes
and no.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Charles Edward Daniels was born in
Wilmington, North Carolina in 1936. Already skilled on guitar, banjo,
mandolin, and fiddle by the time he graduated from
high school in 1955, Charlie formed a rock 'n' roll band and took to
the road, where he spent the rest of his life. He moved to Nashville in the '60s, married “Miss Hazel” in 1964, and worked as a session
musician for just about everybody. His first major hit was the quirky
“Uneasy Rider,” released in 1973, but it was 1979's “The Devil
Went Down To Georgia” that really hung his star in the country
music firmament. The tune reached number three on the Billboard Hot
100 that year and achieved even greater success the following year after being featured in John Travolta's hit
movie, “Urban Cowboy.” From there Charlie never looked back as he
charted one Top Ten hit after another, eventually joining the
membership of the Grand Ole Opry in 2008 and being inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I first saw Charlie perform with his
eponymous “Charlie Daniels Band” sometime in the early 1980s when
he was the opening act for the then-mega star group, Alabama. While I
was quite impressed by the show Randy Owen, Teddy Gentry, Jeff Cook,
and Mark Herndon put on for an enthusiastic audience, I was
completely floored by Charlie Daniels. I was immediately struck by
one thing: energy. After watching Charlie perform and then seeing
Alabama take the stage, I came away marveling at Charlie's ability to
command the whole stage from within about a two-foot circle. Randy
and company spent nearly two hours running from one end of the stage
to the other. They jumped and clapped and raced around and used every
inch of space available to them. Charlie, on the other hand, barely
moved from his center stage spot. He danced in place a little and he
twirled around a bit. His fingers flew and his bow arm moved like a
churning piston until the rosin-coated horsehair of that bow began to
fray and fly. But I don't think he moved more than a few inches off
the mark during his entire set. And yet he absolutely electrified the
audience. For all Randy's athletic antics, Charlie outperformed him
practically standing still. His understated energy and innate
showmanship flat blew Alabama off the stage. Sure, I had seen the big movie and I had heard Charlie's songs on the radio, but after one
look live and in person, I was a Charlie Daniels fan for life.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It wasn't long after that I got to meet
Charlie in person. I interviewed him for my radio show and after
about five minutes, I felt like I had known him for years. The
interview quickly turned into a conversation and the conversation
became one of many more that Charlie and I would have over the
course of the next twenty years. Most often, we would meet at various
venues where he was performing. He was easily one of the most
accessible “stars” with whom I ever worked. One call to his
longtime publicist and right-hand, Paula Szeigis, and I was backstage
with Charlie wherever he was.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Knowing that I was in Nashville on
business one time, he invited me to visit him at his home and office
in Mount Juliet. As if you couldn't tell by the huge hat he always
wore, Charlie was a big-time Western and cowboy fan. In fact, he was
close friends with one of the all-time great Western writers, Louis
L'Amour, who dedicated his 1985 book, “Jubal Sackett;” <i>“To
Hazel and Charlie Daniels – His fiddle-playing would bring the
Sacketts right down from the hills.”</i> Charlie, in turn, titled one
of his albums “High Lonesome” after a L'Amour book of the same
name. So it was no surprise that Charlie's log-cabin office was a
Western shrine/museum filled with amazing art and artifacts.
Unfortunately, schedules and circumstances prevented me from going
over to his house, but after a brief tour of the office facility,
Paula showed me in to Charlie's personal office. The big man stood to
shake hands and all I could say was, “Darn, Charlie. Never mind the
house. Just let me live in your office.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Charlie was performing at a state fair
somewhere. I had watched the show from the sidelines and had headed
back afterward to meet him at his dressing room trailer. When I
got there, there were a couple of people standing at the door; a
young boy and his mother. Apparently, the boy had a
chronic ailment of some kind that severely limited many of his
activities. But he was a huge Charlie Daniels fan and had somehow
been afforded the opportunity to meet his idol on this occasion.
Charlie came out to meet the boy and his mom and I could tell he was
pretty much all in. He had performed outdoors in unrelenting heat
with his usual high wattage and he was still red-faced and perspiring
when he opened the trailer door to his young fan. But you never would
have known he was the least bit fatigued as he chatted with the boy
and then stepped back inside for a moment, returning with the
tattered and frayed bow with which he had hammered through the show. As Charlie handed him this treasure, the boy started to cry and I wasn't far behind. Such a generous man.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of my favorite memories of Charlie
is one I share with my wife. Early in our relationship, I discovered
that she was a big fan of his. I was skimming the newspapers at my
desk doing some show prep one day when I saw a notice that Charlie
was appearing in town the following night. I made a quick call to
Paula and got set up to meet him backstage. I didn't tell my wife who
we were going to see; I just said we were going out to a local club.
She badgered me all the way there, but I kept up the premise as best
I could until we arrived and there was a big banner shouting “Welcome
Charlie Daniels” over the door. I think I made a few brownie points
as we breezed past the long, long line that stretched deep into the
parking lot and picked up our all-access passes at the box office. Then we
headed backstage, her feet barely touching the floor, and waited for
Charlie to appear. The bus had just pulled in and, of course, my
other favorite member of Charlie's entourage, Joel “Taz”
DiGregorio, was the first person off. He saw me and approached with
his customary warm greeting and then shook hands with my still
slightly shocked wife. Charlie got mobbed as soon as he stepped off
the bus, so I waited until the crowd dissipated a bit before taking
her over to meet him. He was seated behind a table, but he took
her hand and pulled her down onto his lap by way of greeting. I will
never forget the look on her face. It's actually pretty easy to
remember because I have a great picture of it. I kidded her for weeks
about not washing either her hand or her butt after that experience.
When the band assembled onstage to begin the show, I escorted my
fangirl wife to the stage left wing, pulled up an empty equipment
crate, and said, “There you go, honey. A box seat.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We hung out with Charlie and the band
at fairs and festivals and concert halls many times over the ensuing
years and every occasion was just as special as the first and the
last thanks to the warm, welcoming presence of the head man, who, for
all his bewhiskered long-haired country boy looks and attitude, was a
big teddy bear.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I was distressed when I heard that Taz
was killed in a car accident a few years ago while on his way to a
gig. But the news today is far worse. Charlie had his share of health
issues. He almost lost an arm when an auger caught his shirtsleeve
back in 1980. A brush with prostate cancer, a case of pneumonia, and
the implanting of a pacemaker didn't slow him down much. He even
survived a mild stroke about ten years ago. But this one got him. A
hemorrhagic stroke at age 83 has forever silenced that phenomenal
musical talent and has taken from among us something that we can
scarce afford to lose in these trying days: a truly nice man.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Goodbye, Charlie. I hope you and Taz
have a great time regaling the angels with the story of how “The
Devil Went Down To Georgia.”</p><br /><p></p>Ron Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14889299300426900456noreply@blogger.com0