Tag Food

Bridge for Sale

Michael Leave a comment

Labor Day has come and gone and you know what that means. No more white shoes or Seersucker! Uh, no. It’s the start of a new season. I don’t mean the change from unofficial summer to unofficial fall. What with meteorological autumn and astronomical autumn and autumnal equinox and the fall TVseason the last thing we need is any unofficial season. No, the period after Labor Day is the beginning of a new festival season.

Ok, those of you who have always suspected that I’m closing in on batty it’s probably official – or maybe even unofficial. I’ve been marking the seasons by the changes of festivals for years. Winter heralds holiday festivals, spring brings my beloved maple festivals, summer is the season for arts festivals, and fall is the time for covered bridge festivals. This should be nothing new for regular readers of RRSB. I’ve brought up the local covered bridge festival before. (See “Passages of Fall,” September 15, 2014.) (Come on, give me a little break. I’ve been doing this for almost five years. We’re going to revisit some things every now and then.)bridgeforsale

But let’s digress here for just a moment. Festivals have morphed terribly from the traditional definition. That is, “a day or time of religious or other celebration, marked by feasting, ceremonies, or other observances.” Modern festivals often include feasting, otherwise the corndog and kettle corn industries would be in shambles, but around here they’re known more for jamming as many hand-made and/or ersatz hand-made crafts, foods, clothes, and furniture into any open field and for the greatest concentration of the Square point of sale app per vendor per acre.

And that’s what I love about them! You can buy anything at a festival – and I have. Chain sawn eagle yard ornament? Bought one. Framed, numbered, signed pencil sketch? Bought one. Metal sculpted snowman family. Bought one. Commemorative newspaper front page parodying offspring’s eccentricity? Bought one. Hand-hammered silver jewelry ensemble featuring recycled place settings? Bought one.  Hand-made left-handed wooden kitchen utensil set? Bought one. Full scale carved wooden Jack-o-lantern? Bought two!

Oh sure, you can buy maple syrup at the maple festivals and real art at the arts festivals and traditional Christmas decorations at the holiday festivals. But you can get that stuff at lots of places. But where else can you find a four foot, hand carved, wading flamingo carrying a surfboard under its wing? What can I say? I live for kitsch.

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

Man At Work

Michael Leave a comment

Happy Labor Day America. That wonderful holiday when we celebrate the people who work by making people work so others who aren’t working can take advantage of another day, weekend, or month of sales. A day when the people who aren’t working complain that they might as well be at work because it will be twice as busy on Tuesday when they get back and a day when the people who are working complain that they are working while collecting twice their normal pay. You gotta love those holidays.

There are a handful of people who are working today who aren’t complaining about it. They will get tomorrow off. Actually they’ll get every tomorrow off from their current position. Those are the people at the Bangor, Maine Howard Johnson Restaurant. So why are they special? When they close there will be only one Howard Johnson Restaurant left in the country where once it was the largest hospitality chain with over 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges.

I remember eating in several Howard Johnson’s but one in particular still pops into my head now and then. In 1925, Howard Johnson (yes, there really was a Howard Johnson) borrowed $2,000 and bought a pharmacy in Quincy, Mass. There he installed a soda fountain and brought enough business in to open a sit down restaurant by 1929. In 1940 the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened using the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railway tunnels and rights of way connecting Irwin in the west with Carlisle in central Pennsylvania. Eventually the turnpike mainline was completed from the Ohio to the New Jersey borders through the southern part of the state. Why are these two things related?

Although only 360 miles from east to west (or west to east, even), a distance that can be travelled comfortably in a less than a single workday today (if you felt like working on Labor Day), in the 1960s the trip just halfway across the state was far from a comfortable day’s drive. In the western part of the state the mountains made for slow climbs, challenging twisty downhill runs, and constant stoppages while new tunnels were being blasted through the Allegheny Mountains. I know because I was then a back seat passenger with two sisters while the parents rode up front each summer on our trek from Western PA to Eastern MD. A high point of the turnpike portion of the journey was the Howard Johnson Restaurants at the turnpike service plazas.  After lunch we would be allowed to splurge on dessert and have one of the famous 28 flavors of ice cream. For some reason I always picked chocolate.

Howard Johnson’s were fixtures on the Pennsylvania Turnpike from its opening in 1940 until the 1980s when the full service restaurants began to be replaced by fast food chains and their familiar counter service. The PA turnpike restaurant was the first restaurant the Howard Johnson Company would open on its way to becoming the largest restaurant chain along American toll roads.  In 1979 the Howard Johnson Company was sold and eventually many of the familiar orange roofed restaurants on and off the turnpikes were converted into other brands. By 1986 all of the former company owned Howard Johnson Restaurants were closed or rebranded and only the franchised restaurants remained open. The motor lodge business was divested entirely in 1990.

Today, where I once was served my hamburger on a plate at a Howard Johnson Restaurant along the Pennsylvania Turnpike I have a choice of picking up a pizza or a Whopper and carrying it back to a plastic table in a reconstructed service plaza holding two fast-food restaurants, an ice cream stand, a coffee counter, a gift shop, and a dirty bathroom. Elsewhere there are only two Howard Johnson Restaurants serving comfort food and comfortable memories. Tomorrow there will be only one.

Labor Day had already been celebrated for 3 years before Howard Deering Johnson was born in 1897. When Howard opened that first store in 1925 the Mount Rushmore site was dedicated before construction began on the mountain which would be completed in 1941. That was just in time for Howard Johnson to start opening restaurants along highways that would be packed with hungry families on holiday weekends.

That must be why I always manage to have a quart of chocolate ice cream in the freezer on Labor Day.

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

(If you want to see the last remaining Howard Johnson Restaurant you have to get to Lake George, New York. You should hurry. It already closed once in 2012 and reopened just last year. Rumor has it that Rachel Ray worked there as a teenager. No word on if she still stops in.)

 

Caution, Fall(ing) Pumpkin Ahead

Michael 2 Comments

Another week and it will be Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. Sigh. But wait! The end of summer means Halloween will soon be upon us. In fact, Halloween candy is already filling supermarket shelves. Oh, Halloween is cool and all, but the best part of Halloween is the candy. Specifically, peanut butter pumpkins.

Summer is great, but something summer doesn’t have is its own Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Think about it. There are Reese’s Christmas Tree Peanut Butter Cups, Reese’s Valentine Heart Peanut Butter Cups, Reese’s Easter Egg  Peanut PBminiButter Cups, and the soon to be here Reese’s Pumpkin  Peanut Butter Cups. That covers fall, winter, and spring a few times over. What happened to summer? It’s a long time from Easter egg to Halloween pumpkin and I can’t wait.

I know some of you are wondering what the big deal is. It’s only chocolate and peanut butter for Heaven’s sake already. I say, for Heaven’s sake, it’s chocolate and peanut butter already! That’s a big deal! That’s like two of the four basic food groups in one bite. If we could add bourbon and bacon we could make it four for four! But I digress. It’s chocolate and peanut butter and if ever there was meant to be a match made in heaven, it’s those two.

(If you’re allergic to peanuts, please accept my apologies for being so excited about this. This well could be a greater vice for me than my otherwise reported secret vice (see Can You Keep a Secret, Aug. 3, 2015) only not kept behind closed doors.) (Sorry, digressing again.)

Now that the long hot summer is winding down, chocolate-and-peanut-butter-aholics can breathe a sigh of relief knowing those oval pillows of peanuttery chocolateness are close by. In the meantime, I think we need to check in with those people at Hershey and see what the deal is with summer. What’s wrong with a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Beach Ball?

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

 

 

Crème de la Crème

Michael 1 Comment

It took me most of my adult life, which is to say most of my life, to perfect scrambled eggs. It’s easy to make good scrambled eggs, not that hard to make very good scrambled eggs, but damn near impossible to make perfect scrambled eggs. Perfect little pillows of bright, yellow deliciousness light enough to float off the plate into your mouth where they melt over your tongue into a symphony of wonderful. That kind of perfect.

When you get down to it, scrambled eggs require only three things – eggs, fat, and heat. It is the combination of those three things that make the difference between meh and perfect. About a year ago I found the perfect combination for perfect scrambled eggs and I’ve been making them the same way ever since. Two eggs, a half ounce of half-and-half, beat until my arm is tired, then rest (the eggs, not the arm) while a half tablespoonful of butter melts in a seven inch omelet pan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted and fragrant, pour in the eggs then start moving them around the pan with a heat proof spatula, turning down the heat to low. Keep turning the eggs until they are almost set then pull them off the heat. Add any desired herbs, salt, and pepper; give them one final turn around the pan and transfer them to a nearby plate allowing them to rest just long enough to carry them to the table where coffee, juice, toast, and the morning paper wait. Alternately you can just stand over the kitchen counter and eat them right from the skillet but you will miss out on the daily crossword puzzle.

Three, four, maybe five times a week I start my day like that. The days I don’t are there just to make the scrambled egg days even more special. Yesterday was a scrambled egg day. Yesterday sucked. When I ended up with watery clumps of yuckiness my first thought was that I had a sudden brain fart severe enough to make me forgot how to cook. I almost convinced myself of that except everything else – coffee, juice, toast, newspaper – came out just fine. And my socks matched. Then I spotted the culprit. On the counter, waiting to go back into the refrigerator was the carton of half-and-half (or half-cream as the Europeans might call it). Except it wasn’t. Apparently I indeed had suffered some brain issue but it was when I was at the supermarket the day before. Apparently, that’s when I picked up a carton of fat-free half-and-half.

Who the hell makes fat-free half-and-half? What the hell is fat-free half-and-half? Half-and-half is half milk, half cream. That’s two components whose defining ingredient is fat. Real half-and-half is about 12 percent fat. I took a look at the ingredient label on the imposter. “Skim milk, corn syrup, cream*.” I looked for the asterisk and found “* Not a significant source of fat.” In other words, so little cream compared to the skim milk and corn syrup that it might have been in the same county as a cow for a short while. American skim milk is less than 0.2% fat or essentially white water.I had unwittingly tried to make my fluffy yellow clouds not with thick, rich, creamy half-and-half but with thickened water.

My shopping blunder resulted in me making scrambled eggs (which you recall require eggs, fat, and heat) with two out of three ingredients. When it comes to scrambled eggs, two out of three is bad. I’ll be going to the store again in a couple of days and I’ll replace my ersatz half-and-half with the real deal. As for the remainder of the fake stuff, I suppose I can use it on oatmeal. That’s supposed to be good for you, too.

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

 

A Matter of Opinion

Michael Leave a comment

Last night I was reading when this feeling came over me. Hunger! Not just any hunger. Something specific. Something a little chewy, a little crunchy, a little sweet. Cookies!!!

There must be cookies somewhere. Checking the kitchen cabinets I found no cookies, no Twinkies, no cakes, Danishes, donuts, ice cream sandwiches, or overly sweet chocolate flavored breakfast cereal. I did find an empty PopTart box and that is so not like me. Must have been a previous Cookies!!! craving.

I did however find brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, eggs, butter, flour, and oatmeal – aka Cookies!!! the DIY version. Unfortunately the butter was frozen, all the measuring devices, bowls, and baking doodads were in the dishwasher for their semi-annual “good” cleaning, and I had graciously donated my stand mixer to my daughter’s kitchen. Roughly an hour later the butter was softened by sitting under the grow lamps in the seed starter that had been sitting empty in the corner of the dining room since the herbs got transplanted to the patio pots, the bowls and other necessary doodads were dry
ing in the rack (and would be redeposited into the dishwasher upon completion of their appointed tasks), and I found a hand mixer buried in the bottom cabinet behind the counter top fryer that someday I have to find counter toCookiep space for.

I spare you the measuring, mixing, dropping, b
aking, cooling details. Suffice it to say that roughly another hour later I
was reading when I dribbled cookie crumbs into the book’s gutter when this feeling came over me. I never had dinner. No wonder I was hungry before. That’s ok. I just marked the food diary that indeed I had dinner – oatmeal with a splash of honey and a few raisins. Sounds healthier than the burger and fries I probably would have had.

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

 

Do You Believe In Chocolate?

Michael Leave a comment

Happy World Chocolate Day all you chocolate lovers! The appropriate method of celebration is, naturally, eating chocolate. So don’t just sit there. Go grab a chocolate bar while I regale you with tales from the dark side of chocolate.

The first tale to be told is yes, today is indeed World Chocolate Day, aka International Chocolate Day.  True chocolate lovers, and there have to be at least 7 billion cChocNuggetshoco-locos out of the 7.4 billion generally assumed to be wandering the earth about now, are certain that we had a chocolate day of some sort already, or not yet, or both. And all three are right!

Pay attention here. Things might get a little crazy. February 9, April 22, July 7, September 12, October 27, and October 28 all lay claim to Chocolate Day. Want some crazier? Bittersweet Chocolate gets its own day on January 10, Milk Chocolate Day is July 28, and September 22 is White Chocolate Day.  And let’s not forget special days for Chocolate Souffle (Feb. 28), Chocolate Mousse (May 2), Chocolate Chips (May 15), Chocolate Eclairs (June 22), and Chocolate Cup Cakes (Oct. 18). And those are only the ones that I’ve ever been able to track down. Yes, I’ll look high and low for any reason to add chocolate to my diet even if for just a day. (or two) (or thirty)

Oddly enough, none of the aforementioned days are sponsored by any chocolate or confection company. A couple are the brainchildren of a trade group or another and the September date does correspond with Milton Hershey’s birthday, but none are blatantly commercial.

Can there be truly one official Chocolate Day. Well, today actually commemorates the introduction of chocolate to Europe in 1550 by the explorers to Central and South America. So they say.

Good enough for me. Have a bar!

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

 

Sandwiched In

Michael 1 Comment

Sometime over the past several years you have seen a news story, read an on-line article, or seen a magazine article on fast food advertising. Two things are always stressed in these reports – that the advertisers must use the same ingredients that the restaurant uses to make the sandwiches in the ads, and the sandwiches in the ads never look like what you get squished into that bag that you exchanged a bunch of dollar bills for.

There are always lots of excuses. They use special angles and shoot with optimal lighting. Their toppings might be a bit fresher than what the restaurants are using. And my favorite excuse, they don’t cook the food. Apparently when you cook meat it shrinks and when you wrap lettuce in aluminum foil on top of a hot sandwich it wilts. Quel surpise! Here’s an idea. How about not putting the toppings on until the sandwich is ordered? By I’m just talking to the wind.

When advertisers photograph a shirt or a blouse they have to get one from the production line for the picture. The model can be as fresh or as manipulated as you please but the product has to be what you can reasonably expect to find in the store. Why would expect the same requirements for the food we eat? But as I said, I’m just talking to the wind. Or am I?

Take a look at this. This is a sandwich from a local restaurant that has earned its reputation from its sandwiches.

20160601_165010

This particular sandwich was bought, bagged, tossed in the car, sat there while I stopped for gas, finally arrived home, plopped on the table, unwrapped, and picked up to be heartily devoured. That’s when I stopped and snapped off a shot. It probably isn’t that great of a picture because I don’t belong to the “take a picture of your food before you eat it” generation and it still looks like a pretty good sandwich to me. The funny thing about this local chain. They don’t advertise.

Imagine that picture handled by the food stylists responsible for making your McBurger look appetizing. That might be better than porn.

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

 

Saying What You Mean

Michael 1 Comment

My television is on its last one. It is one of the first high def sets from way back when. I don’t remember exactly when way back but it was back enough that they still were stamping “HD” right on the plastic case. That was to remind you why you paid so much for it every time you looked at it, even when it is off. But I like it. Crisp picture, good sound. What more could I want in a TV? Unfortunately it has developed a bad habit of turning itself on and off and I just can’t have a household appliance with a mind of its own. So, its time has come.

Since it was raining and I had nothing else to do I thought I’d do some Internet window shopping. Once I narrowed down things to the price and size ranges both in my comfy zone I turned to the finalists’ specifications pages. I soon discovered that I apparently know little about today’s TV specifications. In fact, I’m not even sure what some of the specifications specify. VE SA (As opposed to MasterCard?) EPEAT Qualified (One-peat, Two-peat, Three-peat, E-peat?) Optical Audio (A measure of how well you can see what you hear?) Color Category (Isn’t that against EEOC rules?)

So the specs didn’t help. How about user reviews? Well…  I’ll let you decide. Mind you, these are actual statements by actual reviewers.

“In one month of ownership, we’ve gotten good image quality and sound.” Stay tuned for results from Month 2.
“I have not had the chance to familiarize myself with the many features of my new TV but hope to in the future.” But I just had to submit a review now because the world is waiting for my opinion.
“Nice appearance” I know that’s number one on my ‘Things I’m Looking For in a Television’ list.
“I ended up buying two of them for my man cave.” Maybe it’s a real cave.
“Multitasking issue notice bcoz lack of quad core processor.” Huh???
“You have to turn the sound up to here (sic) the audio.” Ah, hence the volume control.
“This product replaced an old tube square flatscreen in our bedroom.” My kind of buyer! If the old one ain’t broke, don’t fix it (yet).
“Still learning it as it’s still learning me.” And love grows.

I think I’ll just go down to the TV store and check out what’s on the wall till I find a picture that looks good with audio that sounds good. I know it’s a ridiculously old-fashioned way to buy something but, if it ain’t broke…

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

 

The Case of the Missing Drive Thru (sic)

Michael Leave a comment

Last night I wanted Chinese for dinner. When it comes to Chinese I’m flexible. It can be General Tso Chicken, Orange Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, Lemon Chicken, Hunan Crispy Chicken. I’ll even make it myself. I can make a chili-based sweet hot sauce, I always have some spicy orange glaze in the fridge (don’t ask, I’ll write about that some other time), I can do a lemon sauce. I even have rice and lo mein noodles on hand so the side is just a flip of the coin. I even have a couple of fortune cookies somewhere in a cupboard. If I only had chicken.

That scuttled the whole Chinese thing. See, in addition to me not having chicken, it was raining. If it wasn’t raining I’d have been happy to drive to the nearest Chinese restaurant and pick up dinner. But since there are no drive through Chinese restaurants I was forced to eat leftover pork chops, assemble and bake a pizza, or get a Quarter Pounder. Why are there no drive through Chinese restaurants?

If you look at what we have driven through, drive thru General Tso shouldn’t be that hard to pull off. Just in the food category we have burgers, tacos, gyros, donuts, deli sandwiches, and hot dogs. We can get chicken sandwiches, chicken nuggets, chicken wings, and chicken eggs scrambled or poached. What’s so different between a chicken nugget with your choice of sauce and fried chicken pieces tossed in a spicy glaze to commemorate some long forgotten military leader from the nineteenth century.

We have drive through pharmacies, drive through banking, drive through coffee houses. There are drive in movies, drive in oil change places and drive in car washes. We live in a time that we can eat, drink, bank, be cured, and get our cars serviced and washed without ever getting wet. (You know what I mean.) It wasn’t that long ago before photography went the way of digital that we had drive through photo processing. But when it’s raining and we’re hungry for what we don’t have on hand we better not have Chinese on hand. Where’s the outrage here!? (or here?!) Am I the only one who feels it!? (it ?!)

So that’s my rant for today. Sorry it’s not as conscience raising as transgender restrooms, American presidential candidates’ lies and mis-speakings, or international internet censoring but I still haven’t gotten my General Tso.

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

 

A Sticky Situation

Michael Leave a comment

I finally got my syrup last weekend. Regular readers know that I’ve been without my local syrup for the past few months having missed the 2015 sugaring season. But last week I was able to get to one of the local maple festivals and replenish my supply. In fact, I might have overplenished it but I’ve always said you can’t have enough pure maple syrup. I’m sure I’ve said it sometime. At least once.

Anyway, to make a short story long, I picked up a couple of jugs of some freshly prepared syrup for all my maple needs and discovered somebody changed the grading system for my syrup. You may have heard this before and if you had feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs and go straight to the bit about food that comes right after them. Of course you do know I’ll feel horrible about it if you do.

What once was a fairly straightforward grading system has been turned into a jumble of color and taste. Some say it more appropriately describes the product. I say the big sugarers have finally gotten their way. There are still four grades of syrup. But where there used to be Fancy, Grade A Amber/Dark Amber, Grade B, and Grade C, there are now Grade A, Grade A, Grade A, and Grade A. Really, four grades all A. I can see it now – “Major Mega Marketer Maple Syrup, Now New and Improved with only Grade A Syrup!”

Really, there are now four (4!) Grade A syrups – Grade A: Golden Color and Delicate Taste (formerly Fancy), Grade A: Amber Color and Rich Flavor (Formerly Grade A Amber and Grade A Dark Amber), Grade A: Dark Color and Robust Flavor (Formerly Grade B), and Grade A: Very Dark and Strong Flavor (Formerly Grade C or Commercial (not routinely sold as is (or was) but sold to factories and confectioners for use in other products)).

Whatever you call it, I picked up some dark colored, robustly flavored former Grade B syrup (because I use it in cooking as much as over pancakes) and celebrated with a great maple dinner. You make it too.

In a small sauce pan sweat one coarsely chopped small onion, add a small can baked beans and stir in one ounce (2 tablespoonsful) syrup, a couple of dashes of hot sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. While that’s going on, brown 1 tablespoonsful of butter in a small pan, add an one-half ounce syrup. Add a single portion ham steak to the pan and baste with the butter/syrup mixture until the ham is warm through.  Remove the ham and toss a handful or spring peas in the remaining butter/syrup glaze. Serves one.

You can be a maple nut too. Replace the sugar in almost any recipe with former Grade B maple syrup substituting ¾ cup syrup for each cup sugar and reduce the liquid in your recipe by about 75%.

Four Grade A classifications. By an official department of the United States of America. Of course that department is the Department of Agriculture, the same department that keeps reshaping the food pyramid. And they are some people who worry that the next president might be Hillary or The Donald.

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