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¿What’s Bueno on The Fourth of July? Hot Dogs, What Else!
LIKE MANY OF YOU, I blew off seven fingers lighting illegal fireworks last Fourth of July and until they grow back I can no longer wield a barbecue fork effectively, so for the time being, anyway, my grilling days are over. You don’t want to know how I can still type. Trust me.
Still, on Independence Day, or as it’s known in my neighborhood “¡Día de Independencia!” if you’re a proud, red-blooded American citizen (or, in my neighborhood, otherwise), by Godfrey, you want a delicious hot dog! It’s your goddamn God-given right as an American citizen! Or otherwise!
But don’t worry! No need to contact the ACLU! You’ll get your hot dog, because, friend…? The 99¢ Only Store has got you covered!
Look! Look!
Did I say “you’ll get your hotdog”? I misspoke! You’ll get your hot dogs, plural! Two! For 99¢! Only!
What’s even more amazing is a pal was recently grousing to me over the presumed unavailability of pre-bunned hot dogs! Grouse no more, pal! Grouse no more! Your prayers have been answered! The future is here and it’s in the freezer section of your local 99¢ Only Store!
And here’s something else: No grilling required! So you can save all those matches and lighter fluid to ignite this year’s batch of Hens-Laying-Eggs! Don’t worry, they’re the free-range, cage-free variety of fireworks you can feel good about setting off.
No, instead of toiling outside (yeesh!) over a hot grill forever, you’ll be heating up your pre-bunned hot dogs right there in the microwave – for only about a lousy minute maybe. And then quicker than you can say, or see, “Oh say can you see!” they’re done!
And boy don’t they look good! Come in their own handy hot dog boat, too – saving you the time, trouble and expense of putting them on a plate! And for what? If you’re like me, and you are, you’re just going to eat them over the sink anyway.
Meanwhile poor Johnny Grillmaster next door is still slaving over his brand new Char-Broil Tru-Infrared 5-Burner Gourmet Edition T-47D and trying to make the best of a bad situation by “enjoying” a beer while “chatting” with the rest of the neighbors he’s invited over – the ones that aren’t in the pool, that is. Assholes.
Now, while my hot dogs look fine straight outta the ol’ Radarange, sure, I’m a fellow who likes his fixins – and plenty of them! Bring on the fixins!
Mmmmmmmm-mmm! as the late Andy Griffin would say! Good hot dog, good hot dog!
…Okay, that’s the second time they’ve played “Margaritaville” in three hours. I’m calling the goddamn police.
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To Ted It May Concern! July 3 Edition!
LOOK, everyone!
It’s another one of these delightful mailbag posts!
As my blogging mentor, or as I call her, blogntor, Sylvia Haynes-Darden taught us in her Learning Appendix Class “Making Money In Foreclosures, We’ll Do Some Wine Tasting And Let’s Get You Started on WordPress If There’s Time” (well worth the $185 tuition, $65 materials cost, $25 corking fee, and the $1200+ I ended up paying for DUI-related charges from when I was pulled over on the way home) – eh, as she taught us, “One quick and easy way to come up with content for your blog when it’s getting late and you want to go to bed but you’re worried about not having posted something in a few days is to use emails as posts! Then your readers write your stupid blog for you!”
And she’s right! I sent Sylvia a bunch of information about my failing marriage (I was also enrolled in “Making Twentieth Century Relationships Work In the Upcoming New Millennium” – a terrific online class which Sylvia’s been teaching for a dozen years or so!) and the next day, there it was on her blog – the entire email!
Everything! My problem with the ferret being allowed to sleep in our bed, Karen’s complaints about my “performance,”* the time I got up on the roof (with a bullhorn) and cried like a baby because Karen gave my favorite mint green Old Navy ring-tee (with the salsa stains on the back) to Goodwill. (Goodwill! You know how I feel about them! So does Karen!), whether I should be concerned that it smells like blue cheese behind Karen’s ears or just suck it up and get down to business – everything – even that picture I sent to see if she could diagnose whether I had Pierogie’s Disease.
*I was El Gallo in a local community theatre production of “The Fantasticks” last winter and accidentally sang “Rag Mop” instead of “Try to Remember” – a mistake I think anyone might easily make, Ed “Kookie” Ames being identified with both songs.
Where was I? Oh yes, the point is, if you need blog content (“blogntent”) quick, just use the emails people send you! I mean, why not, right?
Our first email is from a pal, Danny we’ll call him, who writes,
“TED! I am just checking to make sure you weren’t the stabbing victim in the news story below. I know you recently had mentioned something about commanding down a plague of Morlock Spurlocks upon the chain.”
Ha! I have to say that one just tickled me. Here’s the link ol’ Danny sent along:
“Del Taco Worker Allegedly Stabs Customer Who Complained About His Order.”
First I want to say no, thank God, it was not me.
Second, I want to thank Danny at least for his concern – out of this blog’s, what, six readers, he’s the only one who was thoughtful enough to even consider I might have been bleeding out my life’s blood on the floor of a cheap Mexican fast food chain (and getting salsa on another ring-tee), dying alone.
Third, because of this horrific tragedy – the poor bastard gets stabbed in the gut with a knife! – I’m officially swearing off Del Taco from now on!
It’s back to Taco Bell for me – food I can feel good about eating! Plus they only have sporks there.
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A Most Unusual and Fascinating Prop from the Golden Age of Cartoons!
From the rarely-seen 1958 Warner Bros. animated short “Irritable Fowl Syndrome” where Wile E. Coyote tries to best the Road Runner by exploiting the bird’s unfortunate chronic ulcerative colitis by pouring this over a bowl of FREE! birdseed.
Attention Leonard Maltin: Contact me directly if you want to include this in the next edition of “Of Mice and Magic.”
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Shame On You, Del Taco! ¡Que Lástima!
AS regular readers of this blog know, the other night it got late, I didn’t have anything in the house to eat and so I went to Del Taco for dinner.
For those of you who aren’t from the Southern California area or wherever the hell else they don’t have Del Taco, what happens is that there’s a “quick-serve” chain out here called “Del Taco” and they’re famous for co-opting the Disneyland Haunted Mansion typeface for most of their moronic little catchphrases and stupid logos what they print on cups, window slicks and “tray-liners,” to wit:
Anyway, what sears my carnitas is that when you go in and order one of their “combos” (that is, combinations; literally a “combination” of various foods constituting a meal and consisting of an entreé, a side dish – often French fries – and a beverage – all for a single price, as opposed to purchasing the items à la carte) the fellow, or in some cases, gal, at the register will immediately counter with “Medium or Macho Size?” (“Macho” being large; evidently in the hispanic community, great size is respected and equated with masculinity.)
And not being any sort of glutton, not needing the “Macho” size, not wanting the doctor to tell me I’m going to lose any more toes, my natural reaction, and now yours, would be to respond with “Medium.”
Ah, but that’s where they get you! Because, brother, you don’t even know it yet but you’ve just been up-sold!
Del Taco, literally “of the taco.”
See, what they should be doing (if they should morally be doing this at all!) is saying “Would you like to upgrade your order to medium size or macho size?” but oh no, they conveniently leave out the whole first part of that phrase! So you naturally think that, given the seemingly casual, matter-of-fact way they deliver it, you think that you’re already getting the medium size and the up-sell is merely to the “Macho” size option.
So by replying in good faith, “Oh, good heavens no, but thank you for asking. You see, I’m watching my figure – please, the medium size will be plenty,” bam! they’ve just up-sold you, you poor bastard – and you don’t even realize it!
They ought to be ashamed is what!
And don’t try to tell me that it’s something that happens at just one particular Del Taco – because like you, I regularly eat at no less than five different Del Tacos, and no less than twice a week at each one, and they all pull this same crap every-single-goddamn-time! Shame!
So I’ve decided that this is the month when I pay attention and catch them before they’ve tricked me yet again – or may a plague of Morlock Spurlocks descend upon them like so many goateed locusts!
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Wendy’s New Baked Sweet Potato – A Review!
LONGTIME readers of this blog know that today on a whim I decided to head over to Wendy’s for lunch.
Once there I decided to try one of their new “Signature Sides” – not because I wanted it, but because I knew you’ve been anxious to read my take on it.
“Ted,” so many of you, what, six regulars have written, “Ted, have you had any of Wendy’s new ‘Signature Sides,’ and if so, tell us, what’s the verdict?”
So I decided I’d give one of them a try, presuming as I do that you’ll reimburse me for the cost. (You will reimburse me for the cost, right?)
The verdict is in! Wendy’s new Baked Sweet Potato Signature Side was…okay. But you’ll need more to go on than that. You’ll need to know all about these things, these “Signature Sides: Baked Sweet Potato Edition” and that’s what I’m here for.
What happens is that instead of getting a regular side with your order (fries, or …well, no one ever orders anything but fries), you can instead opt for one of their three new “Signature Sides” – the baked sweet potato, the chili cheese fries, or the macaroni and cheese. Now as these are premium items, you’re going to be asked to go ahead and pay a Signature Sides Surcharge, or SSS, which I think is a dollar. Note that this extra cost is over and above the price of your meal.
I’m betting the Baked Sweet Potato will be the first item to be discontinued from their new “Signature Sides” line: The other two are less healthy and therefore will be more popular in this nation of fat-asses – so try it while you can, brother! Try it while you can!
Now, I joke about no one ordering anything other than fries for their side dish – I joke. Because yours truly – yes, me! – frequently opts for one of their standard, baked non-sweet potatoes. (Can you believe it?!)
In fact, I’ve always been impressed that Wendy’s offers such an item. To me, (and now you), it sets them apart from other “quick serve meal-based hospitality destinations” (their term, not mine!), and I bet its inclusion on the menu has a lot to do with Wendy’s inventor Dave Thompson being adopted and raised by someone other than his birth parents. “Think Different” was not just a Wendy’s ad campaign – it was, and is, a company-wide philosophy. My favorite poster was the one with Mr. Rogers and King Friday.
Back to the sweet potato: its consistency was somewhat mushier and slightly more fibrous than a starchy regular baked potato. Others who have eaten baked sweet potatoes before (I was a baked sweet potato virgin!) tell me this was no anomaly: As a rule, a baked sweet potato is mushier and more fibrous than a standard baked potato, which is starchier. I feel this may have much to do with the sweet potato being adopted and then raised by someone other than its birth farmers.
The topping (No need to bring your own – they provide it!) is some sort of sweet cinnamon-flavored oleo and comes in a wad, or dollop in a little plastic cup. The people at the Wendy’s I went to put a personal touch on my oleo dollop, imprinting part of its surface area with what I take to be a thumbprint. Exquisite! I’m not sure if this is standard across the chain or if it’s just an example of the folks at my particular franchise location “going the extra mile.”
Many of you are wondering aloud, and I can hear you, “What if I’m not interested in an entire meal? Ted, what if I just want the baked sweet potato? Will it be available to me, and if so, at what price?” To that I respond with a resounding “Probably.” And then add emphatically “I don’t know how much it would cost.”
Ordering the new baked sweet potato is just as easy as you please!
Here’s how I did it: I stated my requested meal as usual at the beginning of the ordering process. Then, near the end, right after everything had been added up and I was about to write a check for the total, I told the cast member who was taking my order “And instead of the fries…? I’d like a baked potato.” Then she punched a series of buttons on her electronic console and gave me a total (which I filled out in the amount line of my check), then I mentioned “And instead of a baked potato, I’d like a baked sweet potato.”
That’s how I learned it costs a little more!
I figured by the time I’d gone out to my car and fished out enough change from the ashtray and felt underneath the seats to make up the difference, those in line behind me would have had a chance to chat and rediscover the lost art of conversation with his (or her!) neighbor – but most importantly, my order would be ready.
Sadly, this was not the case – the only conversation (if you can even call it that) which I did hear were the muttered words “asshole” and “ridiculous” (I can’t imagine what happened in there during my seven minute absence to so annoy everyone), and I still had to wait another twenty-five seconds or so for them to give me my tray.
Will I order it again? I’ll try it again, sure. I realize there’s often a learning curve with a new product launch (industry term), so I’m hopeful by the next time I order one of their Baked Sweet Potatoes, Wendy’s will have worked out all the kinks and it won’t be such a goddamn hassle.
But if it is, maybe I’ll “think different” and drive across the street to Long John Silver’s instead!
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Are These Sardines For Real?
Or were they shooting a movie in my local grocery store?
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What Is And What Was Bueno At The 99¢ Only Store! And Dollar Tree!
AS my blogging mentor, or blogntor, Sylvia Haynes Darden often says “A good blogger is a frequent and timely blogger.” Well, she didn’t so much say that as write it on her blog in May of 2007. And the reference is easy to find; it’s her most recent entry – the one that’s mostly about the fall of the Berlin Wall.
So it got me thinking: I find a lot of What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store and What’s Bueno at Dollar Tree items, but due to my busy schedule and my heavy drinking, it seems I never get around to posting most of them! And then when I realize I’ve pissed away all this potential blog content, or blogntent, because these items are no longer available I get depressed and I end up drinking more.
So you know what we’re going to do, you and I? We’re going to jam through a whole mess of these things and finally get them the hell off my computer and into your hearts! Despite the fact that a number of these items are no longer be available!
…And then we are going to get shit-faced drunk! What happens after that depends entirely on you, but I’m always open to new experiences!
First up!
Pearson’s King Size Mint Patties
Bought at: Dollar Tree
Availability: Haven’t seen ‘em in months and the last time I did, they was only one left, in a box with a bunch of other miscellaneous candy on the bottom shelf. And it was all smooshed.
Why they were bueno: You won’t find anything in the way of bargains for regular sized, name brand candy bars at Dollar Tree – those are all priced at 79¢ each now. Pearson’s King Size Mint Patties, while not a big name brand, were also 79¢ – but you got two big patties while those others only gave you one for more money. I’m looking at you, York Peppermint Patty. The taste? Fine! How can you screw up a peppermint patty? These were great and I miss them. What I’d do is I’d have one, and then save the other for later, i.e., after I finished chewing and swallowing the first one.
New York Pretzel
Bought at: Dollar Tree
Availability: Only saw these for about two weeks back in November
Why they were bueno: As the box says, you’re getting 60% more frozen pretzel than the other leading frozen pretzel. These babies were nice an’ big. I suspect they might have ended up at Dollar Tree because every single box was open, and it looks like this was the result of poor package design or a lack of glue rather than someone opening them. (The pretzels inside were safely sealed in a bag.) The New York Pretzel website indicates that they do a lot of wholesale / food service industry business, so maybe these pretzels were an unsuccessful attempt to break into the retail frozen pretzel business. A shame, too, they were good.Interestingly, Dollar Tree still offers their retail competitor, Bakers Best. And there’s nothing wrong with a box of those frozen pretzels for a buck; they, too are bueno. It’s just that New York Pretzel was significantly bueno-er.
Quaker Chewy Granola Bars
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store
Availability: Last saw the second week of December
Why they were bueno: The 99¢ Only Store offers a lot of Quaker granola bar-type stuff. (You might remember my little love affair with Smash Bar…?) With these, you’re not getting the usual eight granola bars, no – you’re getting two extra bars, still for 99¢ only. And perhaps some of you might appreciate the, eugh, “green” aspect of the packaging: No big cardboard box for these to rattle around in. They’re just cleverly bound together by a perforated adhesive sticker and you just tear them off as you eat them at home – or if you’re like most of the thieving shoppers in my neighborhood – in the store without paying for them.Personally, for someone like myself who takes great pride in generating enormous amounts of trash each day (My neighbor and I are having a contest!) and can’t be bothered to recycle or try to minimize my household waste footprint, I’d prefer they go back to the box. Still, the plastic each individual bar is wrapped in will no doubt add to that enormous floating pile of garbage in the Pacific, so at least that’s something. Even without the cardboard boxes, I presume they’re still cutting down plenty of trees. Where else are they getting the sawdust and wood chips these granola bars are made from?
I’m kidding! I’m kidding, of course, as my attorney insists. They really are delicious!
Dairy Fresh Dessert Topping
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store and Dollar Tree!
Availability: Still available at both chains
Why it’s bueno: You go into a regular grocery store and try buying a can of aerosol whipped topping for a buck. Go ahead, try. You’ll be arrested is what! Sure, your precious $2.99-a-can “Reddi Wip” may crow about containing “no hydrogenated oils” but for God’s sake, you’re having pie, who the hell cares? Live a little!Also, if you’re lucky enough to have a partner who’s as active and creative in the bedroom as my Reymundo is, you’d go broke buying name brand aerosol whipped topping. (Now if you’ll excuse me, he and I need to get to this tub of Chubby Hubby before it melts all over our new Wythe blue Egyptian cotton sheets – 1,200 thread count, baby!)
Chunky Chips Ahoy!
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store
Availability: They were around for about a week or so back in February. Long gone now, pal! Long gone!
Why it was bueno: If someone needs to tell you why getting a full-size package of Chunky Chips Ahoy! for ninety-nine cents only is bueno, then get the hell off my blog right now! No, no, wait, don’t go! I was kidding! God almighty, with, what?, six regulars coming here, I can’t afford to turn anyone away, even the stupid readers!Anyway, these Chunky Chips Ahoy! cookies, like other Nabisco products I’ve seen at 99¢ Only, are nearing the end of their shelf-life as stamped on the package, but hell, they weren’t actually expired and they were just as delicious as the day they were baked – presumably by pirates who like unnecessary punctuation as much as I enjoy italicizing.
V8 Splash Tropical Blend
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store
Availability: Around for about a month circa March
Why it was bueno: This stuff was really delicious. Add vodka, and it’s good for you, too!I mentioned the availability of V8 Splash Tropical Blend to two different pals and I heard the same exact thing from both of them, “Jesus Christ! V8 mixed with fruit juice?! It sounds disgusting! No wonder it’s at the 99¢ Only store! Why the hell do you shop there?!” No you morons! It’s not regular V8 juice, it’s just carrot juice, which you can’t even taste (thank God) and then a bunch of tropical stuff on top of that.
And it seems it ended up at the 99¢ Only Store not because it bombed but because these were 32-ounce bottles which have since been discontinued. They do sell this flavor in 64-ounce jugs at your local grocer, but I’m betting you’ll pay a hell of a lot more than two bucks, which is what two of these would have run you. It matters not, however – these babies are all gone!
Ah, that I had purchased an entire pallet of this nectar of the gods (once you add the booze, anyway) when I had the chance. Seriously, this stuff was so good, there’s even been reports of me drinking it without first properly diluting it 50% with Schmirnoff.
Country Crock Pumpkin Spice Vegetable Oil Spread
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store
Availability: Still around, but as you can see above, the supply is dwindling.
Why it’s bueno: Like you, I love pumpkin pie, and this stuff tastes like if a homemade pumpkin pie and a stick of butter had a baby together – it’s that good. A seasonal product that was in regular supermarkets from Thanksgiving to Christmas, countless thousands of the unsold little tubs of Country Crock then made their way to 99¢ Only after the holidays. Some had already hit the dollar chain by the end of December, so I was able to work my magic in the kitchen and bring the resulting creation to a party we went to on New Year’s Eve.Ted’s Country Crock Pumpkin Spice Pie
Serves four.
1 – 8-inch refrigerated pie crust (available at the 99¢ Only store)
5 – 6-oz. tubs of Shedd’s Spread Country Crock Pumpkin Spice Vegetable Oil Spread
4 – 7-ounce cans of Dairy Fresh Whipped Topping (available at the 99¢ Only store)1. Allow Country Crock to soften at room temperature
2. Using a spatula, slather contents of five margarine tubs into the pie crust, into a sort of mound
3. Refrigerate for at least two hours
4. Slice into fourths, and serve with a full can Dairy Fresh Whipped Topping alongside each sliceWe brought enough pies for all the other guests and just about everyone was surprised when I told them, at the exact moment everyone had a great big mouthful, that this wasn’t regular pumpkin pie filling (though it could pass for it in color and texture), but rather flavored margarine. Finally, a New Year’s Eve party when I’m not the only one vomiting!
Topsy Turvy Planters
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store and Dollar Tree
Availability: As of this writing, you can’t enter either chain without tripping over a display of them.
Why they’re bueno: They were selling these for anywhere from $8 to $18 (or more if you bought them off the informercial – like an idiot) just a year or so ago. So at just a dollar, you’re saving all kinds of money on these now! They were even slightly higher than a buck at Big Lots just a few months ago! Sure, these are nothing you would buy otherwise, but that’s besides the point. I bought one each, like an idiot, of the Hummingbird Hangout planter and the Hot Pepper planter (not shown). With any luck, you just might read all about my luck with them in an upcoming post. And that luck refers more to me having any of you actually visiting this blog again than you having an opportunity to read about it.
SuperPretzel Poppers
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store
Availability: I think they’re still around. They’re in the frozen section.
Why it’s bueno: These things microwave up in mere seconds – thirty-five, to be exact – but then comes the agonizing two-minute wait for them to cool. The only kind they had were these sort of “sweet cream cheese”-filled ones with “graham cracker topping.” So they did not resemble pretzels at all in form nor flavor. In fact, after heating them…
…some of their cheese oozed out and they reminded me almost of little steamer clams with their siphon muscle extended, and just the sight of these brought me back to my youth when as a boy I’d harvest clams by the hundreds in the tidal mudflats at Tod’s Point in Greenwich (near the nude section of the beach). Once I’d filled my little red Radio Flyer wagon I’d sell them by the sand pail-full for a quarter on the side of the Post Road across from Caldors. Of course the price went down as the sun got hotter and they (and I) began stinking.
Where was I?
Ah, yes – they may look sort of like rounded steamer clams, or not, I guess, but that’s where the similarities end. Because these things were delicious. If steamer clams tasted as sweet as these SuperPretzel Poppers, I’d have eaten them all myself and not sold a one. And then where would we be? Those steamer clams paid my way through blogging school.
And finally…
Marani Vodka
Bought at: The 99¢ Only Store
Availability: Saw ’em a month ago at only one location – Washington Blvd in West Los Angeles, and I haven’t been back there since. Knowing of this location’s proximity to Venice and Santa Monica – the twin homeless capitals of the world – I bet the supply was quickly exhausted; each bottle having been sucked dry under the Santa Monica Pier by one of the colorful (and pungent) “locals” who then stumbled over to the Hot Dog On A Stick stand by the beach volleyball courts to ogle the girls making lemonade. Hell, I know I would. (Don’t tell Reymundo.)
Why it was bueno: It’s just a wee little bottle of vodka – Armenian vodka – but if there’s one thing those Armenians know, it’s how to grow more body hair than us Slovaks and chain smoke cigarettes while doing it. Oh, and make vodka, presumably.Or do they? The bottle actually listed powdered skim milk as an ingredient. Regardless, these are your little airline cocktail-size bottles – just a coupla ounces. But who can say no for a buck? Plus that’s real cork in the stopper. Hell, if my people were responsible for a vodka packaged in a classy frosted glass bottle with real cork in the stopper, I guess I’d be pushy and rude, too. I’m kidding, I’m kidding; I love all people – especially a people who can make a vodka as delicious as this.
Anyway, we did it, you and I! We got through a whole bunch of these things; now you know what is bueno and what was bueno at both the 99¢ Only Store and Dollar Tree, and most importantly, I’m able to finally get all these stupid photos off my desktop.
And as promised, to celebrate, we’ll pop open a couple dozen mini bottles of Marani and see where the night takes us. But first I’m going to disable the camera function on our phones. Just in case.
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Awed By Nature’s Beauty!
EVER SINCE I CAN REMEMBER, I’ve always been fascinated with patterns in nature – the delicate, symmetrical lacework of a fleeting snowflake, the infinite spirals of a nautilus shell, the so-called “golden ratio” describing the precise arrangement of the seeds in the head of a beautiful sunflower tilted proudly heavenward at its namesake.
So imagine my thrill when I opened a little plastic canister I was using to store some of those cheap wafer cookies that odd-smelling ethnic grocery stores all seem to dedicate entire aisles to – and saw this:
Breathtaking. Stunning. Absolutely stunning.
One look at that and I don’t think anyone can deny that there’s a higher power at work here, on earth, in our universe – some grand architect responsible for all the beauty we find in such things – call him what you will – God, Jehovah, Allah, Gazoo, Oprah.
It’s like I’m gazing upon an M.C. Escher sketch come to life: Each “dulce de leche” (caramel, apparently, in Farsi) creme-filled wafer-stick has been placed just so by an unseen, unearthly hand, in a perfectly circumscribed composition that the greatest mortal draftsman or confectioner would be unable to duplicate in a thousand thousand millennia. Each of the eleven identical bars is precisely equidistant from its neighbors, forming a Fibonacci sequence by the resulting series of angles when divided by the layers of creme.
Anyway, I already sent it in to National Geographic so don’t bother trying to steal it and take credit for it!!!!!!!!!!!!
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National Thrift Store Throw-These-Things-Out Week: April 16-20!
ABOUT A DECADE AGO, I started noticing a disturbing trend around the holidays. You’re smart; you probably did too.
Numerous retailers – I’ve seen this everywhere from Target to J.C. Pennys, Kohls to Walmart, and then eventually closeout places like Ross and Big Lots – began offering a particular type of item which apparently carried the caché of class and sophistication yet was mass-marketed in stores’ last-minute holiday gift sections alongside shelves of shrink-wrapped samplers of cheese, sausage and jam, the perennial Chia Pets and strange, oversized Scrabble- and Oreo-themed ceramic mugs with packets of gourmet hot chocolate and/or sundae “fixin’s.” Whew! That was one torturously long sentence but it had to be said!
Of course what I’m referring to are those decorative bottles of olive oil and/or vinegar packed with artfully arranged peas, lemon slices, beans, onions and of course peppers – whole or sliced.
Curiously, the gift-buying public embraced these things. Each year, at Christmas, more and more recipients added them to their kitchen counters. Oh, perhaps you didn’t have a high-end granite or marble counter top, maybe you were living in some crappy one-bedroom apartment in Mar Vista with a chipped and scratched Formica counter, but put one of these babies next to your George Foreman Grill and suddenly you’re a gourmet chef and your kitchen belongs in “Martha Stewart Living.”
After half a dozen years of wiping the dust off these vessels that were supposed to be decorative as well as consumable, their owners started realizing that they’re never actually going to use something that’s sat out on their counter for so long and is starting to show its age – the ring of peperoncini strips just starting to disintegrate adding to that layer of sediment and mystery twigs, leaves and other flotsam at the bottom.
Thus began the steady exodus of these glass jugs from folks’ homes which continues to this day. Since these full bottles were still arguably decorative, since the layered vegetables are still mostly intact, because the classy red wax seal at the top has never been broken and the contents are completely unused and since it had been received as a gift, few have felt comfortable doing what they should be doing: throwing them the hell out. In the trash!
And so they started appearing on the shelves of our nations’ thrift stores. Disturbing? Oh, my, yes.
Even more disturbing, more frightening is the realization that when thrift stores receive these as donations, they don’t refuse them or throw them out, either! The thrifts put them on the shelves despite the fact that they wouldn’t (or in some cases couldn’t legally) offer other donated food items.
There these things sit, and each month, more and more and more appear…and nobody buys them. Not only are they up to a decade (or more) old, in addition to their contents beginning a slow deterioration towards cloudy amorphousness like a jar of unopened pork tidbits recovered from the wreck of the Andrea Doria, on top of all that, most of these bottles of vinegar and olive oil are products of China!
If that’s not enough of a reason to throw them out, nothing is! I don’t know about you, but since that whole baby formula debacle in China a few years ago, I haven’t exactly felt all that comfortable feeding my baby China-grown olives and jalapeños suspended in garlic-infused vinegar. Attention Child Protective Services: Don’t worry, only nourishing American-made vinegar goes in our little Blythe’s Evenflo.
So while this does of course function as one of our delightfully informative “Overpriced Goodwill Item of the Week” posts…
…Goodwill is not alone in their poor judgment here. Like you, I’m finding these in every thrift store I go to.
See, these glass receptacles of flavored cooking fluids aren’t likely to be purchased on the secondary market by anyone – not even by the irritating Etsy and Retro-vation set. You can’t “repurpose” bottles of rancid olive oil into something jackasses in thick-framed nerd glasses and Betty Page bangs will embrace. These aren’t old vinyl LPs, brother!
Plus there’s no reason to stockpile this crap for thirty years in the hope that hipsters of the future will pay high prices for them to create a vintage 2010s kitchen in 2050 – these low-grade vegetables marinated in what amounts to Chinese formaldehyde will be nothing but discolored mush by then. Mush I tell you!
That’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to declare this week National Thrift Store Throw These Things The Hell Out Week.
And so I’m trusting that all my, what?, six regulars will help make this a reality, even if you personally have to go into every Goodwill, every Salvation Army, every little-old-lady-run church thrift store within a few hundred miles of your house, and heave these demon bottles off the shelves and down onto the floor yourself, in a coast-to-coast explosion of broken glass, capers, garlic cloves and extra-slippery Grade 有unrefined olive oil! Also, my attorney has immediately cautioned me to tell you to not under any circumstances do what I just wrote!
So I guess I’m left to appeal directly to the people taking donations at these secondhand stores: For the love of God, good cooking, uncluttered counter tops and non-tacky kitchen décor, please, thrift stores of America – throw these things the hell out as they come in! And throw out the ones your store already has now!
And while you’re at it, throw out these absurd amalgams of popcorn, rice and dried beans…
…and the bath oils…
…all the bath oils!
And get rid of the artisan spice blends in economy quantities…
…and the bottled sugar, cinnamon and syrups…
…Away with the dried pasta…
…and for the love of Christ, whatever unholy thing this is…? Burn it!
Get rid of it all!
Thank you.
Well, I think I’ve done my part here for thrift store shoppers and employees alike. And what better way to reward myself for a job well done than by finally cracking open that old store stock jar of Koogle I scored on eBay a few weeks ago and treating myself to a true epicurean delight – a taste sensation I last enjoyed before Kraft discontinued making it back when I was in kindergarten. Like you, I’ve been dreaming about it ever since.
And between you and me, I’m not even going to bother with bread. A rare treat like this should be enjoyed straight from the jar by spoon or finger so that no other conflicting tastes might taint its delicate flavor.
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什麼是良好的只有99美分商店: Nature’s Turn Pickles!
As regular readers of this blog know, I’m always on the lookout for a good, traditional pickle.
You know the kind – good and dilly and garlicky. Tangy – and not without some snap! The kind you’d expect to find on the plate next to your corned beef sandwich at your favorite Jewish delicatessen (in my case Feldman’s On Reseda).
So imagine my surprise when I was at my local 99¢ Only Store some weeks ago and I came across these babies:
Hm, thought I, aloud, worrying the other shoppers, Hm, these so-called “Nature’s Turn All Natural Pickle Spears” are all natural, and they’re from a brand I can trust – Nature’s Turn – not a brand I’ve ever heard of before, but it sounds like a brand I can trust, right? I mean, just that name alone and the slightly awkward logo – a sprouting lima bean (?) – seems trustworthy. And there’s chunks of garlic and seeds and stuff that looks like dill weed at the bottom of the jar – just like you see in those expensive brands in your grocer’s refrigerated deli case.
So I decided sure, I’m game, I’ll gamble 99¢ only on a jar of pickles – why not? What could possibly go wrong?
“Feldman’s On Reseda”…?
I got them home, open them up, fish around in the jar with two fingers (knowing me, probably without washing my hands!) and pull out a pickle spear – and I proceeded to eat it. And then I dove right in with my filthy digits and pulled out another – and I ate that one, too. And another! And another after that! And my father’s father before him! What?!
The point is, these things are great! They’ve all the dillness, all the garlicosity of your higher-priced refrigerated, deli-case and/or Feldman’s On Reseda pickles – without the higher-priced part! Or the refrigerated part! And as the label says there’s no corn syrup in these pickles! As regular readers of this blog know, I’m always on the lookout for a corn syrup-free pickle! …”Feldman’s?”
Right then and there – right then and there, brother, I decided I would declare Nature’s Turn All Natural Pickle Spears this week’s
item!
Ah, but then! Then I read on the back of the label: PRODUCT OF CHINA.
Oh no. Oh no no no no no. I’m so sorry – but despite how delicious they are, I can’t in good conscience endorse these pickles as this week’s What’s Bueno at the 99¢ Only Store item. There’s just no way.
No.
They are however this week’s 什麼是良好的只有99美分商店 item.
Mazel tov!
Ted Parsnips
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