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The names change…

Michael Leave a comment

You all know that I am not fond of Black Friday. I don’t mind the crowds or the sales or the bustling hustle. I really don’t even care that stores open on Thanksgiving. For many families that is their together time. What I don’t like is that the marketers have turned the whole thing into a, a, a thing!

There is no Black Friday. It’s Black November. Those sales started 3 weeks ago. And they aren’t all that great anyway. And now we get to start Cyber Monday, which many stores are calling Cyber Week including a couple of stores that don’t have any on-line presence. Which is fine because all of the ones that do, including those who are exclusively on-line had Black Friday for all of last week and/or this month.

Last Saturday among the many e-mails that graced my in-box were more than one proclaiming that they were entering the “last days” of their Black Friday sales so be sure to order now, soon, and often because at 11:59 on Sunday night those deals will disappear. Then on Sunday I got the “sneak preview” e-mails of the Cyber Monday deals starting at 6pm that very Sunday and available only for the next five days. From the same retailers. For the same products. The same ad with a different header. I should have ordered something between 6pm and midnight to see if I would have gotten a double discount.

See, that’s why I don’t like Black Friday. It’s insulting. But I did get a good deal on some silk poinsettias.

Happy Thanksgetting.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Pump(kin) Up Those Leftovers

Michael Leave a comment

Welcome to a special edition of the RRSB.

If you did it right you should be sitting on oodles of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. Some say that the leftovers are the best part of the meal. But there’s no reason to repeat exactly the same dinner over and over this weekend.  Here are two ways to add some spice – pumpkin pie spice – to your leftovers.

Nothing is better than a turkey sandwich Friday afternoon. Hot turkey with stuffing and gravy between two spongy pieces of store bought white bread. That’s lunch! But you can make a satisfying lunch with a cold turkey sandwich also. Add some pumpkin soup. You can make this soup literally in the time it would take you to make a hot turkey sandwich.

Chopped up a small onion and cook it in butter, vegetable, or olive oil until just translucent in a 2 or 3 quart saucepan. Add enough flour to make a roux (1 to 1 flour to fat) and let it cook out for about 5 minutes. Whisk in 3 cups of chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add one can of pureed pumpkin and bring the whole thing back to a simmer and keep it there for 10 minutes. Ladle into bowls, top with a fresh grating of nutmeg, and serve with that cold turkey sandwich that you made while the soup was simmering. You just made a warm and comfy lunch, perfect for taking a break from putting up the Christmas decorations.

For dinner you have the turkey and you have the veggies (nobody ever finishes all of the green bean casserole) left over from the main meal but the potatoes were long gone. Here’s a way to turn that leftover bird into something airworthy – pumpkin risotto.

This isn’t going to be a fifteen minute preparation like the soup was. Risotto takes time, but it’s worth it. Figure on using about the same amount of pumpkin as you will Arborio rice. For 4 side servings use 1/2 cup of rice and 1/2 cup of finely chopped fresh pumpkin. Two cups rice or enough to feed most of the neighborhood needs two cups pumpkin. You get the idea. If you don’t have a fresh pumpkin leftover from Thanksgiving’s tablescape you can use canned pumpkin. Change the directions below to add it to the mix after with the first addition of stock.

In your pan, heat olive oil until shimmering, add a medium onion, finely chopped, and the finely chopped pumpkin. Cook until the onion is tender. In another pot, bring 4 cups of chicken or vegetable stock to just below a simmer. Measure the rice into the pan and allow to cook for a minute or two. Add a cup of dry white wine and stir until the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. Then begin your additions of the hot stock, stirring after each addition until all of the liquid is absorbed and continue until the risotto is silky and creamy and just right. You’ll know. Top with nutmeg and allspice before serving.

It’s work making risotto but it’s worth it to see their faces when the tuck into it after a day of Black Friday shopping (which the way stores are plugging it means you can make this dish anytime over the next week or two).

There you have them, to ways to pump up the pumpkin in your leftovers. Take the day off, enjoy those leftovers for as long as you can before you have to start baking the Christmas cookies.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(Don’t forget, tomorrow is Small Saturday. Patronize small business because all businesses started as small businesses.)

Training for Turkey

Michael Leave a comment

The onslaught is coming and it is past time to prepare for it – it is Thanksgiving dinner! You don’t train for a marathon by sitting on the couch. You don’t prepare yourself for a presentation at work by going dancing. And you can’t call yourself ready for Thanksgiving unless you get those eating muscles in shape!

Yes, it is time to work on your feasting strength and stamina. You have to work that jaw, sharpen those taste buds, and most importantly, stretch those stomach muscles or you’ll be like the punt returner who failed to stretch his hamstrings before the big game – and that is, on the sidelines nursing unnecessary cramps while reduced to watching the action from the bench, or sofa.

I started my warm up routine a week ago by going to Sunday brunch. (Ok, it was my daughter’s birthday and brunch was her idea. But, hey, it got things headed in the right direction, culinarily speaking.) If you are just getting started you missed out on the opportunity to break in with a brunch buffet. Not to worry. Any all you can eat buffet will do. Breakfast buffets at your local casual restaurant are perfect to get things rolling. Just remember when you’re loading up your plates to concentrate on the three main Thanksgiving tummy stretchers. Those are turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. These are easily simulated at breakfast by eggs, potatoes, and pancakes. Be sure to increase your return trips to the buffet so that by Wednesday’s session you are testing the limits of “all you can eat” pricing.

Breakfast is a good start but don’t ease up on lunch and supper training. No small salad with dressing on the side for lunch this week. Indeed you should be lunching on double-decker sandwiches with meats, cheese, and gooey dressings. I recommend keeping to the holiday spirit with turkey pastrami and swiss with cranberry/jalapeno dressing on marble rye.  For dinner, increase your eating power each day progressing through stuffed salmon to stuffed chicken breast to stuffed double cut pork chops. With gravy.

Follow these tips and those turkeys, stuffing, potatoes, veggies, salads, relishes, cakes, and pies, will have met their match this Thursday. When you push back from the table ad retire to the sofa or head out to the sales you’ll do so with the knowledge that once again, you have proven your power over poultry!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Out to Pasture

Michael Leave a comment

2015 is an historic year in the world of horse racing. If you owned a television or a computer or a newspaper subscription you couldn’t have missed the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. That’s not historic. It happened before. It was 37 years ago but still it had happened. No history was made.  History was made when American Pharoah (yes, that really is spelled wrong but that’s part of his charm) won horse racing’s Grand Slam – the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, and The Breeders’ Cup Classic. He is the first horse to win all four races. Ever. That’s history.

It is also a fitting end to his active racing career. It is now time to for this stud to, ah, retire and go stand stud. The breeding company who handles American Pharoah’s breeding business has set a price of $200,000 per, umm, coupling. If he stands for 160 mares a year, a not unrealistic number, he stands to make $32 million a year. A thoroughbred’s average lifespan is 25 to 30 years, he is 3 years old, so he has 22 to 27 years to, uh, horse around. Just to make math a little easier, in twenty years he gets to make about $640 million with a couple years left over to relax, travel, maybe visit the grandkids, and have a bronze statue of him cast for posterity.

I too retired this year. Figuring the lifespan of my immediate predecessors I also could have about 22 to 27 years to go. I figure my retirement plan is worth about $32,000 a year and I further figure I will probably stand in the grocery store checkout lane about 160 times a year. In twenty years I’ll have made the princely sum of $640,000 and will still have a couple of years to sit around on my posterior.

I wonder if in my next life I can come back as a racehorse.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

None of the Above. Really.

Michael Leave a comment

Last week I had the opportunity to do something I hadn’t done in years – and years and years and years. I filled out a job application.  I’ve been quite out of sorts lately and I figured out that I was missing some structure. So either I had to start taking retirement more seriously and do some determined vacationing, hobbying, recreationing, and/or memoir writing, or I need to find a part time job and get back into the swing of things. There was a part-time faculty appointment and my alma mater that I was absolutely the best qualified for (just in case someone from the selection committee is reading this), so I said to myself, “Self, give a whirl.” And whirled I did.

I hate to admit it but the last time I seriously needed to fill out a job application it was still on paper. Actually I don’t think I actually filled out an application for the last job I had until after I had the job. That’s a post for a different time. And boy was that a different time. But I digress.

There was a time a while ago when I thought about a career move and quickly gave up on that idea when I saw that the on-line application process was, for me, a multi-day affair. I figured by now that even HR had to have caught up with technology. And they had. Applying was a simple process. Upload a resume, upload a cover letter, upload a reference list, and that was it. Done. All that remained was the EEOC survey. The what?

If an employer agrees to accept federal money for any reason – payment for services, research, tuition reimbursement, anything – the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wants to make certain that the employer is providing equal opportunities to all applicants. Thus, all those questions that one is not allowed to ask in an interview are required answers on the survey.  They are, sex, race, disability, and veteran status. So far no questions about religion or pet preference.

Now, this post is not a commentary on the survey itself. The survey answers are kept separate from an applicant’s application and are used just for tracking purposes. As a former hiring manager I can tell you that is the case. I never knew how anybody who applied for my department answered any of those questions. When I saw them last week it was the first time I was seeing them. And one really caught my eye.

As I said, these are to determine that people are getting opportunities to apply for any jobs they are qualified for. No prejudging. Everyone gets a fair shake. So I was surprised when I saw the first question and its answer choices:

Sex:
[] Male
[] Female
[] Other
[] Prefer not to answer

Really?

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Happy More Than Veterans’ DAY

Michael Leave a comment

Yesterday across the U.S., Americans celebrated Veterans’ Day. There were parades and memorials, and free coffee for veterans and future veterans (AKA current service men and women), and Veterans’ Day sales and clearances, and special graphics on TV thanking veterans for their service.

It was a spectacular day for so many who have given so much.

Now, what are you going to do for them today?

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

There’s No Business Like Shoe Business

Michael Leave a comment

I was looking for shoes last week. I don’t really need them, I have more shoes than I really need but since I was shopping anyway, why not? I found out why not.

I was at the local mall with the basic department stores, a shoe “warehouse,” and some discount department stores (you know, the ones that end in “Mart”).  No real shoe stores. For them you have to go into town, to a high end shopping area, or to an outlet mall. And that’s the shame of it. You see, for a man, unless you want athletic shoes or work boots, the only places to buy shoes are the real shoe stores.

I haven’t figured it out. These same modestly priced shoe stores and departments have plenty of women’s shoes in various styles – casual shoes, sports shoes, dressy shoes, sandals, boots, clogs, mules, pumps, flats, and yes, even athletic and work shoes. Women can buy shoes to work in, play in, go gardening ,shopping or boating, can go to the beach or to the mountains, go riding motorcycles, bicycles or horses, go to church, go to a marathon as either spectator or runner, or even go shopping. Men can buy shoes to play hoops or go to the worksite. Actually, men can buy athletic shoes with steel toes so he can go the work and stop off at the basketball court after without even having to change shoes. How convenient.

Anything more than that, anything like a Scotch grain loafer, a natty cap toe, a conservative wingtip, a plain toe slip on, a basic oxford, or a canvas moccasin aren’t going to be easy to find. For them you have to clear a day, plan a trip, pack your lunch, and check your bank balance.

And you look at us and wonder, often out loud, “are you really going to wear those shoes to church?”

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Prior Performance

Michael Leave a comment

Lately I’ve been sitting closer to the television so I’ve been reading the small print on television ads. Just another of the benefits of getting older.

Small print is hard enough to read. On television it’s monumentally hard to read. It’s usually in white and on a light or nearly white background, small enough to qualify as fine print in a print ad, and verbose enough to be a politician while remaining on the screen for a bit less than the heartbeat of an out of shape stair climber.

If your efforts with the on-line speed reading course were successful, you actually may get the opportunity to read televised fine print. And if you do, you will find it’s not at all very informative.

Extensive research (and not at all scientific let me tell you) says that the third most popular phrase in that fine print is “past performance does not guarantee future results” or similar. (The second most common phrase is “Limited time offer, expires [sometime 8 months from now].” The most common phrase is “dramatization” and/or “actor portrayal” so you can separate fact from fiction without straining your brain while separating them.)

Past performance does not guarantee future results? Excuse me, isn’t that what you are advertising, your past performance? This is especially popular among lawyers, bankers, stock brokers, trade school placement offices, and purveyors of commemorative plates. It’s the advertising fine print equivalent of saying “not responsible for lost or stolen luggage.” Feel free to substitute “your hard earned money” for “luggage.”

Imagine what those lawyers and bankers and others would say if other advertisers blithely asked for you to buy from them while at the same time reminding you that what they are selling may or may not actually do what you are buying. For examples:

….. Orange Juice: Translation = You know us as the brand that uses nothing but fresh oranges to make our juice but your next bottle might have some juiced brussel sprouts.

…..Tires: Translation = Our tires have long been known for their ability to grip the road, resist punctures, and last thousands and thousands of miles. Unfortunately the ones we just shipped to the stores are really old retreads and bald ones at that.

…..Dishwashing liquid: Translation = You may need to use most of the bottle if you expect clean dishes.

….. Luxury SUV: Translation = Can you say Family Truckster?

….. Toilet paper: Let’s not even go there.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. You never hear airlines say that when they are talking about on-time performance. Hmmm.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

See the Movie, Read the Book

Michael Leave a comment

I do a lot of reading. I always did. Sometimes I go through a book in a day. Sometimes I’ll wait for the movie. Most times I’ll do both.

Sometime over the past week among the books I read was an oldie but goodie, Hopscotch by Brian Garfield. You might remember this international thriller from the 70s. Or you might remember the movie with Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson from the 80s.  If you saw one or read the other without reading the one or seeing the other then you really don’t know both stories. Even though they have the same characters, the same general plot, and the book and the screenplay were both written by the same man, they aren’t the same story. Not that one was better than the other, just different.

A more recent example is Silver Linings Playbook, a 2008 New York Times best seller and debut novel from Matthew Quick, and an Academy Award winning movie from 2012 (Best Actress, Jennifer Lawrence). Again, if you just read the book you missed a great movie and if you just saw the movie you missed a terrific story. Both really good. And both really different.

Sometimes the differences between book and movie are very small, except they stop partway through. Sort of like the movie is an abridged version of the book. I first noticed it when Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford was released in 1975. A nifty spy thriller based on James Grady’s book, Six Days of the Condor. What happened to the other three days?

Redford pops up again in my list of movies that “follow the book closely enough but not necessarily enough of the book” when he starred in this year’s “Walk in the Woods” movie adaptation of Bill Bryson’s 1998 book of the same name. Just like the condor’s missing three days, this movie is missing half of his trek along the Appalachian Trail. What’s there is fairly close to the book (even though the characters on the screen seem to have aged the 17 years between book and movie release), it’s just that the whole book isn’t represented on the screen.

People or studios buy rights and get to do what they will with them. Most often they end up with a pretty good visual representation of the book or play or whatever it is that they bought. There are times when there’s nothing in common but fortunately those aren’t all that common. And every now and then they end up with a really great story that seems familiar but might be more of a sequel to the native version than an adaptation. And that’s not so bad. That way you can still read the book, or see the movie, and not always know how it ends.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?