Category Archives: Food and Drink

10

My New Love is Warm but Not Very Fuzzy

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Actually, it’s not fuzzy at all. And that’s probably a good thing, since it’s a slow cooker (crock-pot). The fuzzy things live in the back of the refrigerator.

Until recently, I was very spoiled. My husband was working part-time (through no fault of his own – the economy still stinks here) and did the cooking and grocery shopping. Now he has a full-time job with regular hours, the same as I do.

While he is still interested in the shopping, there had been a significant decrease in the joy of cooking for quite some time. We seemed to be eating a lot of macaroni & cheese and tacos (not at the same time). Fairly regularly, we would get fish he caught (very yummy), burgers (not so much, I really don’t like beef), or pork chops. He also made soup (it always tasted really good, but sometimes I couldn’t quite identify all the ingredients).

I felt a sense of impending doom with the arrival of the new job. We might be the first family to starve because the man had gotten a job. Our 17-year-old son was not amused.

So I decided it was my turn. I am a very good baker. I just finished making a cheesecake for tomorrow. (My husband makes the pumpkin pie. I detest pumpkin pie. Besides, who eats vegetables/gourds for dessert?) We generally have home-made cookies or brownies for dessert and cakes for special occasions.

However, I am not allowed to touch beef (and I am not particularly interested in cooking hunks of other types of meat). I like beef well-done. Apparently that is like desecrating a work of art, so I don’t touch it. I think my husband got the idea on one of our earliest dates when I tried to make hamburgers. I guess you need to flatten them so they’re not raw in the middle and crispy on the outside.

Oddly enough, the one time I am allowed to cook beef is the standing rib roast on Christmas. It’s been a family tradition for generations, along with Yorkshire Pudding (guess where my family comes from). I don’t think it’s any comment on my ability to cook beef though. I set the temperature, season the roast, and let it cook until it no longer moos. The male members of the family are happy, and I don’t eat it.

I really couldn’t see myself coming home every night and making dinner. Generally, I would rather take a nap. So I looked around and discovered the slow cooker that has been sitting in the corner of our kitchen since my brother-in-law gave it to us about ten years ago.

It seems that slow cooker is the high-end name for a crock-pot. I would guess that’s because of people like me who put crock-pots in the same category as fondue pots. They have their place, but not in my kitchen. Most of what I have seen come out of them are kielbasa & sauerkraut, variations on baked beans, and chili/soups. All fine foods, but not the perfect long-term menu. The other option, as my son said, was to put in a hunk of meat and some liquid.

However, once again I went to the Internet (the decent cookbooks were in the $25 range, and I wasn’t sure my family would even like me cooking with it). Lo and behold, there are thousands of recipes out there. There are an alarming number of recipes for pork loins; pigs may want to band together for protection.

Today I made tortellini. There was a recipe for lasagna, but I make that from scratch and wasn’t sure I was ready to risk my reputation. However, the tortellini was very good. Crock-pots are excellent for slow-cooking pasta sauce. I have also made chicken and dumplings. Soups and chili were successes. My attempt at a hunk of meat was a ham cooked in Vernor’s (the only real ginger ale), with potatoes and onions. I made a beef stew-sort of thing (well-done beef is acceptable in stew).

So, I think we may be a match made in heaven. There’s very little work involved (although I do seem to be chopping a lot of onions); and with spices, the dreaded blands have been been avoided to this point. Of course, the test in any relationship is the holidays. So we’ll see what it gives me for Christmas. Or if it sulks when I yell at it.

I wonder if it cooks hamburgers.

8

The De-Snarkification of Cat

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I received some feedback that I may have been a little hard on the (lack of) thought process employed by some of our customers. While I would like to remind everyone that my thoughts are not expressed to the customer (that’s why they’re thoughts not words), I do understand that some people are concerned with the lack of civility in today’s world. Ensuring that I don’t inadvertently insult someone is a valid concern. We never know when the filter between my brain and my mouth might become clogged and not work anymore. (I have met several people with this unfortunate condition.) So I am trying to come up with some more polite ways to address some issues.

Current: Why on earth do you keep ordering chickens when we have forty cases in my cooler? It’s the cheese cooler not the “I still don’t understand how to order” cooler. Improved: I know it’s really hard to gauge how much food to order, being fairly new in the position. Maybe you should see how much was used last year and increase it by 10% rather than 200%.

Current: It’s called a cheese cooler because it’s supposed to be used for cheese, not whatever you can’t find room for. Improved: If you are going to keep getting too much stock, we should probably find someplace to hide it so your boss will quit yelling at you about it. Or maybe you could arrange to clean out your own space so it looks like you have the correct amount.

Current: Stop being so lazy and clean up the messes you make in my cooler. If you spill boxes all over the place moving a cart, pick them up. Improved: It would really make things a lot easier for me if I didn’t walk into the cooler to find it full of boxes that have fallen off one of the carts. I try very hard to load them safely and would really appreciate you helping me with this. You know you can get hurt tripping on things you don’t see.

Current: Why do you think it’s OK to step in front of me to use the time-clock? Is your time more important than mine? Improved: Excuse me. I guess you didn’t see that I was in line to punch in. Just so you know, you would have clocked in at the same time if you had waited for me.

Current: Why do you think I should come to your department and help you? It’s not like you ever do anything to help me. I’m tired of hearing about how important what you do is. I assume you have no idea how much money my area actually makes. Improved: I’m sorry. I really don’t have time to help. I’m the only one in my section and don’t have anyone I can ask to help.

Current: I know it’s a load of ‘whatever’ when you don’t put a cart in my cooler because you don’t do it as well as I do. It’s insulting how stupid you think I am. Improved: Actually, the way I got to be this good was by practicing. If you spend a little time today working on it, it will be easier the next time you try to put something in.

Current: I know you’re the one who made the mess although you’re playing innocent so I have to clean it up. I’m not working with anything that could spill. Improved: I hate the way those containers of olives sometimes spill over when you take off the top. It looks like that one got some olive oil on the floor.

Current: It’s really stupid to order extra sandwich turkey less than a week before Thanksgiving. That’s the same stuff that’s in those big birds they keep selling across the aisle. Improved: Perhaps it would have been better to wait until some of the stuffed feeling from Thanksgiving goes away before asking people to buy a less substantial version of the same meat.

Current: Yes I am using the hand-held inventory controller. That’s why it’s in my hand and I’m putting numbers into it. You can quit standing there trying to intimidate me into giving it to you. Improved: I’m probably going to need this for another few minutes. I can let you know when I’m finished so you don’t have to keep standing there letting your other work pile up. I’m sure there’s time for both of us to do what we need to do.

I could go on, but there’s really no point. I just hope the brain/mouth filter stays functional.

 

 

0

Give the Gift of Love…Give Bacon

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I love looking at catalogs, particularly the ones that come at Christmas. Some of them are beautiful, like the ones that come from art museums. But those ones aren’t any fun; I might actually buy that stuff for someone. The better ones are the catalogs with items whose recipients I can only imagine. What’s a little scary is that several of those catalogs have the same items. Are there really that many people out there who want Poop Soap? (rhetorical question, I don’t want to know.)

Every year, there are a couple of trends in these catalogs. Squirrels, cows, and rabbits have each had their time. But if you want to give a cutting edge gift this year, it seems you will have to go to the pig. The deceased, cut-up, and smoked pig. Everywhere I looked, there was bacon. Not the low-fat, low-salt semi-healthy type. We are celebrating the artery-clogging, fat-laden real thing you may remember from years past.

We can start with Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages. They are advertised, “These bandages look like real bacon strips.” It comes with 15 bandages and “a prize to help take your mind off your boo-boo.” Nothing screams sterility and healing like bacon fat on your finger.

If your loved one is a fashion follower, he’s sure to want a bacon Sticky Tie. “Peel, stick, wear and re-wear these outrageous sticky ties.” They are promised not to tear, being fabric rather than paper. Just the thing for the next big presentation. You can also get ties that look like duct tape and beer. (No price break for a set.)

Tie not a bold enough statement? Get your loved one a bacon t-shirt. “Printed using a sublimated (?) ink process, resulting in crisp detail and vivid colors that look good enough to eat.” Actually, it is pretty realistic. There seems to be an emphasis on the fat in a slice of bacon and the grease will remind you of why it is healthier to put the bacon on the outside of your body.

Still looking? How about a bacon scarf? “A delish fashion accent for guys or gals, with everyone’s favorite rich marbled pork product knit in soft 100% acrylic.” Guess Spam isn’t considered marbled pork. Living in Michigan, I know it’s not going to be of any use in the cold weather coming up. I’d recommend it for someone who want’s to dress down that overly formal outfit they plan to wear on New Year’s Eve.

Even less formal? An “I’d Wrap that in Bacon” t-shirt. The write-up pretty much says it all: “You could fry it in butter. or smother it with gravy. But if you really want to go all nine yards, there’s only one thing for it. Bacon.” In other words, we know it’s unhealthy. We know it could kill you. But let’s celebrate it because we really, really like it. (Note to catalog editor: the phrase is ‘the whole nine yards.”. An early sign of too much bacon fat in the brain?)

Loved one more of the artsy type than fashionista? How about a couple of bacon ornaments for the tree? They are made of hand-blown glass, so don’t hold them after indulging in your favorite snack. The catalog says that it “makes a great gift for fellow members of the “Brotherhood of the Bacon”. There’s a great “fat” joke in there, but I can’t find it; insert your own.

This next gift could be used as a sign that you want to take your relationship to the next level. Nothing says I want to be close to you more than a matching bacon throw and pillow. “There’s nothing a little salt-cured pork can’t cure. And that includes the trauma of having a dull, drab, un-bacon-ified living space.” How the recipient responds will give you a good indicator whether you want to be on any level with this person.

Finally, for the purists among you, there is hand-dipped Marini’s Chocolate Bacon. “Premium thick-cut bacon is oven-baked until golden and crispy, then expertly hand dipped in Marini’s 34% cocoa Dutch milk chocolate or 54% French vanilla semisweet dark chocolate, creating a sweet, savory taste sensation unlike any other.” They say dark chocolate is good for you, so you can brag about the healthy gift you gave if you go with the French vanilla semisweet dark chocolate. (I wonder if being semisweet takes away the healthy. Maybe you should skip the healthy and go with the extravagance of the gift.)

I know you want to get on with your shopping. So, to do comparison shopping, you can find these items in the catalogs from Spilsbury, The Lighter Side, Wireless, and Hammacher Schlemmer (guess which one came from there?) There is also a huge selection on Amazon (you can even get a set of bacon and eggs for you and your bed-mate).

And if you find yourself on Christmas Eve with no present, just go down to the corner market and get a pound of bacon. If you really love them, get hickory smoked.

5

Peeps are Not Christmas Candy

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I blame red “licorice”. At one time, licorice was black. It was made from licorice extract (a legume).  They added extra flavoring, beeswax for a shiny surface, and molasses to make it black. Some licorice candy was flavored with anise oil instead of or in combination with licorice root extract. Note that it contained molasses to make it black (and add sweetness). Then someone decided that the licorice extract wasn’t necessary and started making it in raspberry, cherry, strawberry, and cinnamon. Now you can even get it in apple, mango, black currant, and watermelon. Pretty much all I can find are Red Vines and  Red Twizzlers. But I digress.

In the Dark Ages when I was young (don’t you hate things that start like that), we had sugar plums and marzipan. Just kidding. But candy canes were peppermint, and came with red and white stripes. If you added a green stripe, it signified spearmint.

I went to the dollar store with my daughter this afternoon (I love the dollar store). While she was shopping for supplies to send to a child overseas she adopted for the holidays (you’d swear the holiday had something to do with love and charity), I looked around. The only full-size candy canes I found were blueberry and cherry. I’ve also seen sour candy canes (seems like an oxymoron), Jolly Rancher candy canes, and lime candy canes. They are candy, and they are cane-shaped. But it just doesn’t seem right.

I have also noticed that a lot of candy bars now come in Christmas versions. A Christmas Snickers bar is a regular Snickers bar with a special wrapper. If I dress a dog as a sheep for Halloween, it does not become a sheep. The only difference I can see is that the manufacturer needs to throw away all the candy that didn’t sell because it won’t last til the next holiday season (it probably would, but it would be embarrassing if they got caught changing the wrappers to pastel for Easter). You can buy Christmas Butterfingers, Almond Joy, Kit Kat, etc.

I won’t talk about chocolate except to say that some of what is masquerading as chocolate candy better make sure no one ever asks for its family tree. You can get chocolate-flavored and vanilla-flavored stuff for covering your Christmas goodies, like dipping your Rice Krispie treat in fake vanilla candy coating

All of this was traumatizing enough. Then I saw the Peeps boxes. You know what Peeps are – those bright yellow, pink, and blue (?) pseudo-marshmallow candies they sell at Easter in the shape of bunnies and chicks (peeps – get it?). Well now you can get brown peeps in the shape of Christmas trees. They are chocolate-mint flavored. There are probably others out there but I don’t have the heart to go over to the display. It was bad enough when they were stealing good candy ideas. Now we can get bad seasonal candy at all holidays.

So if you’re a traditionalist, you’ll want to look into the real barley candy at the Vermont Country Store. Of course, you’ll have to buy it on-line. There is no actual store.

4

Everyone’s Confused; It Must be the Holidays

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Something strange happens every year about this time. It’s the migration of the once-a-year shopper. Either that or the beginning of cold weather affects our brains more than scientists have admitted to us. All of a sudden I start getting a lot more questions about where to find things in the store. Way more than could be accounted for by the increased number of shoppers.

For example, a woman is looking at a display of cheese, “Where are the spices to use in a crock pot?” I explain to her that she needs to be looking in the spice aisle. She looks a little relieved and says thank you. I’m not sure why she thought she would find spices at the end of an aisle that says cheese.

“Where are the frozen vegetables?” I assume they want to know which aisle. I start out with, “They’re with the frozen foods, in…” As I fumble for the aisle number, she says, “Oh, that makes sense! Thank you.” I’m left to wonder whether she really didn’t understand that frozen vegetables would be with frozen food.

“Do you sell red hots? They come in a jar.” I look puzzled. The only red hots I know are hot dogs at the ball park and cinnamon candy. He says, “They come in a jar. They sell them at other stores.” I ask him whether they are meat, vaguely remembering something rather odd looking in a jar in the meat department. “Yes, that’s them.” So I send him to the meat department. Hopefully I hadn’t been looking at pickled eel or something.

“Where are the drain covers? For a kitchen sink.” I’m holding a box of cheese. I go across the aisle to look at kitchen implements, pretty sure it’s not the right spot. I said that I thought he would need to go to plumbing (the other side of the store). He asked if I could call someone who knew. So I called the manager who said they were in the plumbing aisle. And I took him to the same place we had been headed five minutes earlier.

“Where are the large slices of cheese? They used to hang on this wall.” She’s on one side of me while I kneel, stocking. I point to my other side. “Oh that’s right! I knew they were here somewhere.”

“Where are the large packages of processed cheddar cheese?” I tell her that we only sell the one size. “No you don’t. They go right here.” She points at a spot at the bottom of the cooler. I tell her that we don’t have cheddar cheese in those spots, just American cheese. “Then you just got rid of it. You always had it there.” I don’t know what to say. It hasn’t been there for the past two years I’ve been in the department.

“Where’s the gravy?” I tell her which aisle it’s in; two aisles past where we’re talking. “I’ve looked everywhere. It’s in a jar.” (What’s with the jars – do people think we keep them all together?) So I get up, and see a manager at the end of the that aisle. I walk toward him, and she follows. About halfway down the aisle. “Oh, here it is! Thank you!”

“Where’s the canned pumpkin? I’ve looked in fresh vegetables and fresh fruit and can’t find it. Do you have it on an end-cap?” I take her to the pie fillings and she gets what she wants. If she had told me that she had searched canned vegetables and couldn’t find it, I probably would have been a little less surprised by the question.

It’s not just the customers. A cashier wanted to know if she could give a rain check to a woman who wanted cheese slices that were out-of-stock. Her manager explained that since the item was not on sale, there was no need for a rain check. The woman could come back at any time and get it for that price. At least it was a new cashier.

I got the Thanksgiving shipment of cream cheese today. Two pallets of it. Due to space considerations, I put it on two (very heavy) carts which an extremely strong person from the grocery section helped me get into the cooler. These carts are intended to be used as storage so we can take out cases as we need them (not move the entire cart). I placed signs on each one saying that they should not be moved unless there were two people doing it. A while later, a guy from the deli comes up and asks if I can help him clean up the cream cheese in the cooler. “I needed to move it to get the chickens out. I barely moved it and it all fell over.” There was no way for one person to move it without jerking the cart to get it to move.

I asked him whether he had read the sign.

2

The Return of Roka Blue

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If I can get raspberries in February in Michigan, why can’t I get Kraft Roka Blue Cheese spread? Or pumpkin-flavored cream cheese spread? Or eggnog? If everybody hates fruitcake, why do we still sell all of that candied fruit? If there are still people out there who like it, why are they only allowed to like it at the end of the year?

A true indicator of the holiday season at Ralph’s is the arrival of the Roka Blue spread. It comes in one of those little 7 oz. glass jars that are so small in diameter that getting out anything past the first inch is a major accomplishment. I usually give those projects to my husband who has much more patience at it than I do. Don’t suggest that I just break the jar. I have dropped it from various heights at work, and the jar is indestructible. It’s easier to break a cream-cheese tub. Trust me.

Anyway, I digress. These spreads come in three flavors: Pimento, Old English, and Roka Blue (oddly, I couldn’t find pimento on the Kraft site). The Pimento and Old English are available year-round. We carry the Roka Blue for about four months around the holidays. Why the difference? Because people like to make blue cheese balls for the holidays. Huh? They also like to make cheddar balls for the holidays, but that doesn’t mean we only carry that part of the year. I can’t remember the last time someone offered me something with pimento as the main ingredient (but I think I was still in grade school). Pimento sells more poorly than either of the other two flavors. The Kraft website carries 20 recipes for Roka Blue and only 8 for Old English. I figure there must be a conspiracy against the blue cheese, keeping it off the shelf. Or parochialism. The “real” bleu cheese gets to stay all year.

The customers who are upset about the absence of blue cheese spread in the summer have kindred spirits with the people who like pumpkin cream cheese. It is an eagerly anticipated October arrival each year. I don’t really understand the attraction. But I don’t understand the attraction of vegetable cream cheese either. If I’m going to eat something as decadent as cream cheese, I don’t want it to taste healthy. It isn’t like the pumpkin industry isn’t doing it’s part to keep it on the shelves. There are recipes for pumpkin pancakes, soups, chili, and lasagne. Canned pumpkin is available all year. But pumpkin can’t seem to break out of the “seasonal food” category.

The one food that appears this time of year to the most fanfare is eggnog. You can’t go anywhere social without someone offering a glass of it. There are recipes for pancakes, cookies, cakes, and other treats. However, if there was ever a product that is associated with Christmas, it’s eggnog. Probably some leftover tradition from the days when people could only afford something that extravagant once a year (back when they actually used eggs and cream to make it – the alcohol continues to be authentic). You never see anyone being kissed under mistletoe in July either. Or having a cup of wassail.

We can’t have chestnuts roasting on an open fire anymore. Most of us don’t have open fires. And most of the chestnut trees were killed by a fungus at the beginning of the 20th century. But that’s OK with me. When I was little, my mother bought some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. I don’t know whether it was the vendor or the chestnuts, but they were soggy and bitter.

I think marzipan has suffered a similar decline in popularity. My mother’s mother and aunts used to make mountains of marzipan oranges, strawberries, and other fruits. They were absolutely gorgeous. And tasted like bitter almonds. I do not have the time or patience to make something I don’t want to eat. Besides, who would want to eat something that looked like a fur-ball (which is as close as I’d get to making an orange)?

As I’ve been writing this, I realized that I don’t like most of these foods. I love bleu cheese, but think that cheese spread is mutant. I have tried eating various treats over the years and always gagged at the taste of pumpkin even when it wasn’t identified (a major surprise since I love squash and am addicted to sweets). Eggnog contains two of my least favorite food (eggs and milk/cream). I love almonds as a nut, but find them overwhelming in a lot of recipes.

So I’m wondering. Is there a way to make horseradish seasonal and get it out of my coleslaw (where it makes my tongue swell)? How about arugula? Of all the greens in the world, who decided that bitter was needed in salads for diversity? Maybe chocolate-tasting (not chocolate) foods?