Not A Mystery

No trip to NYC would be complete without a Bagel Schmear.

When I was a kid growing up in the Bronx, my Dad would take me to what he called “The Bagel Factory” early on Saturday mornings. I was too young to remember where exactly it was, but I do recall the noise of the ‘elevated’ train up above. And yeah, the taste of those bagels. Killer. Fresh, soft and hot. Mmmm.

So of course we had to find a bagel shop for Leslie.

Here is Murray’s on Sixth Avenue.

And it’s nice to report that there was one guy on Wall Street with some soul.

More than ten years ago, when he was putting in long hours as a Vice President at Merrill Lynch, Adam Pomerantz had a dream.  A dream of someday running his own business – not a business on Wall Street, but something much closer to his heart, and his stomach.

He followed his heart and his stomach, and when it was right he just knew it.  He found a small storefront in Greenwich Village, which he renovated on a shoestring budget, opening Murray’s Bagels in November 1996.  Adam named Murray’s Bagels for his father, from whom he learned his love of bagels and appetizing.

Murray's On Sixth

And here’s a Schmear you can believe in.

Screaming For Lipitor, Before It's Too Late

Just to prove that Murray’s retains some of it’s Wall Street Heritage, here’s the tab. Two bagels, with Lox, and Schmear. Total price, just shy of $20.00.

If The Cream Cheese Didn't Get You, This Will

It’s a good thing my Dad isn’t still alive, because this bill would put him in his grave.

“It’s good though.”  – Utah Philips

I revel in a good day every so often, as an attempt to avoid morphing into a grumpy old man.

Recently I went to Lowe’s home Improvement Center with the goal of purchasing a “Shrub Rake”. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a shrub rake before I got there, I was just looking for a smallish rake to be consistent in my desire to perform only smallish yard tasks.

The beauty of our capitalist system is a multitude of choices. In this case, big rakes, medium rakes and little rakes. Tons of rakes. I didn’t know there could be so many rakes. I was standing there scratching my head when another shopper pointed to a particular rake and said, “Don’t buy that rake, it doesn’t work.”

Now in spite of the name of our blog, I have to admit that how a rake could not work was a mystery to me.

In any case, after what seemed like an unduly long time I finally managed to pick out what was the ultimate rake on offer. It was the lightest, longest, prettiest and surprisingly cheapest of all the rakes on this wall display. I was honestly chuffed with my selection.

Now imagine my absolute gob-smaked surprise when I examined the label and discovered that this rake was Made In The USA.

The USA is getting our rake back, which may be even better than getting our groove back.

No Assembly Required

But wait, it gets better.

When I grasped the adhesived-on label and pulled, instead of ripping in tiny pieces that would take hours to remove, it peeled right off and left no residue!

Look Ma, It Didn't Stick!

And that’s all it takes, these days, to have a good day.

I have an acquaintance  in the packaging industry whose products utilize a super-strong cardboard. You can stand automobiles on boxes made of his cardboard; we are talking here about serious robustness.

Their shipping containers are  used to transport auto engines and heavy machinery.

Sit in your car, raise your hand up to touch the ‘head-liner’ on the inside of the roof, and you are probably touching another of their products.

Because their business was dependent on the (cyclical) auto industry, my acquaintance decided to look into other applications for their product that would be less cyclical.

He came up with the idea of making coffins for people who were planning to be cremated.

Brilliantly non-cyclical.

This was many years ago, and people were still purchasing expensive conventional caskets for their departed relatives despite the fact that they were going to be cremated, casket and all.

Unfortunately (at that time) the funeral industry was not receptive to new, cost-saving, ideas. And it’s not like consumers were demanding cardboard caskets.

His idea died a quiet death.

But times have changed. Cardboard is the New Green.

Google ‘Cardboard Caskets’ if you don’t believe me.

With Better Timing, It Could Have Been 'From Roads To Riches'

Next will be promotions that include casket offsets for people attending the funeral.

And remember, timing is everything.

You probably thought this was going to be a post about our dysfunctional political system.

You can relax, it’s not.

Voltaire He's Not

Voltaire’s quote has got a lot of mileage lately, mostly by proponents of Health Care Reform.

The original quote in French is “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.”, from Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764) Literally translated as “The best is the enemy of good.”, but is more commonly cited as “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

In other words, pursuing the “best” solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective. One could also infer that the best makes that which is good seem to be worth less than it is.

So it’s always inspiring to find a nice, simple, example of real people not letting perfection get in the way of their actions.

Case in point, we have a report in the Wall Street Journal that Bernie Madoff was “physically assaulted by another inmate in December, according to three people familiar with the matter”. Being a reputable news outlet the WSJ article takes pains to gather multiple sources and attempts to disect the reasons behind the beating. [I prefer to think of the incident as a beating as opposed to a physical assault.]

Mr. Madoff was treated for a broken nose, fractured ribs and cuts to his head and face, according to a felon currently at Butner serving time on drug charges who was familiar with his condition at the time.

In any case it never becomes quite clear why the assailant attacked Mr. Madoff, although several theories are offered.

My own theory is that the assailant was familiar with Voltaire, and decided to beat the s–t out of Bernie not because of a perfect reason, but just because he felt like it.

Bravo.

On the other hand, all is not lost for Bernie while he is behind bars. It turns out that in some cases life allows you a form of redemtion,

Fellow prisoners say Mr. Madoff, who is Inmate No. 61727-054 at Butner, has garnered some respect from inmates because of the breadth of his Ponzi scheme. The fraud caused about $20 billion in net losses by thousands of investors.

Hey, nothing is perfect.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I’ll share my Irish drinking (what else) story.

A few years ago Leslie and I spent a month driving around Ireland. We had a fine time. Beautiful place, wonderful people.

Having spent more than a considerable amount of time in English pubs over the years I felt I should even things up in Ireland. Especially as I enjoy a pint of Guinness just as much as a pint of English Bitter.

Three Great Irish Beers ... Kidding, Only Two

And no matter how old you are there are still things to learn, as I did when ordering my first pint of Guinness that first night in Ireland. Turns out they don’t just ‘pull’ the pint, because you need to let the beer and foam settle. So proper form is to pull about 3/4′s of the glass, let it settle for 3 to 4 minutes, and then top it up.

So far so good. But now comes the etiquette.

What do you do with yourself while the publican is preparing your pint? And keep in mind that in a normal pub there is more than one Guinness that’s being prepared at any one time, so there are a number of pints lined up in various stages of preparedness and customers in various stages of inebriation.

You can just stand there like a moron and wait. You can step back a few paces and let someone else get up to the bar. You can go sit down and wait for the bartender to yell at you or even bring the pint over to you.

So many choices, so little time.

Well as you can probably guess, what you do depends mostly on the local pub and their customs. It will also depend on how crowded the pub is and how many pints are up and coming. The list goes on, but hey, this really isn’t rocket science.

And it always has a happy ending.

Anyway, after a few weeks spent in towns large and small, and pubs large and small I got to where I could enter a new pub and look around and pretty much figure out if they were serving fast (stay very near the bar) or slow (go sit down and don’t be pushy).

On the minor occasion that I got the etiquette wrong someone who had heard my accent would assume the reason I committed the faux pas was because I’m from America and don’t know any better. (No, the reason that I got it wrong is that every pub has a different system!)

Trying to be helpful they would take pains to explain how things worked. But it was frustrating being talked to like I was a dummy.

More to the point, they already were drinking their Guinness, while I was still waiting for mine.

And now back to the picture of those three beers up at the top of this post. As you can see they are all Irish brews … kidding!

In point of fact, and full disclosure, I have to admit that I came to enjoy Murphy’s even more than Guinness. It looks the same, but to my taste it’s a little better.

Just between us.

Rome has seven famous hills, and an eighth that should be equally famous as a monument to product packaging, Mt. Testaccio. I learned about this when reading Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. I also learned to be grateful that I never had to raise twins, but that’s another story.

Mt. Testaccio is composed almost entirely of  broken amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire. Amphorae are containers with thin necks, pointed bottoms, two handles and weigh in at about 66 pounds.

Amphorae first appeared on the Syrian coast around the 15th century BC and spread around the ancient world, being used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as the principal means for transporting and storing grapes, olive oil, wine, oil, olives, grain, fish, and other commodities. They were produced on an industrial scale from Greek times and used around the Mediterranean until about the 7th century … Amphorae were too cheap and plentiful to return to their origin-point and so, when empty, they were broken up at their destination. The vast majority of those vessels had a capacity of some 70 litres (15 imp gal; 18 U.S. gal) …

All this history reminded me of a modern equivalent.

Ancient Romans may have been the first, but they were not the last to Supersize Product delivery. We’ve taken a good idea and run with it; brighter colors and pour spouts.

The Amphorae Would Be The Ones On The Right

On the other hand, we have to give the Romans credit.

They had a lot more class.

It’s now been a week since Valentine’s Day, which is a reasonable ‘cooling off’ period. So I shouldn’t get in trouble with the Valentine Police over this item.

This breaking news story from The Onion News Network is hysterical. Make sure to listen to the words, since the images are a tad distracting.

The subject is a Slut Spill on an Los Angeles Freeway.

Notice to family viewers, this video is rated R.

Remember, It's Very Green

We can’t embed this video, but that’s OK, we wouldn’t want it resident on the blog since we are G-Rated.

But you can click here to go to Onion’s site and watch.

I have to wonder when they will come up with a technique to Recycle Sluts.

Hard as it may be to believe, I had never heard of David Blaine before today.

Well, I had seen some of his stunts reported in the press, but didn’t have a name or personality to go with the news stories.

But now I do.

Blaine talked about endurance at the TedMed conference that was held a few months ago.

Click Here To See What An Endurance Artist Does For Fun

You can find out what an Endurance Artist is by watching his talk at the TedMed conference that was held a few months ago, but just made available to the general public this week.

Amazing is all I can say. He received a standing ovation, so I’m not alone in my evaluation.

Keep in mind that his lecture goes for exactly the same time that he held his breath.

Last night I made Pasta.

And whenever I make Pasta I thank Ron Popeil, Pitchman Extraordinaire who perfected the Infomercial and made pasta a part of my life.

There's More! Click Picture to Play Video

I knew I loved Ron Popeil, but I didn’t know how much until I read the first chapter in “What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures” by Malcolm Gladwell. The title of that chapter says it all; “The Pitchman – Ron Popeil and the Conquest of the American Kitchen”.

Gladwell begins by describing one of the world’s oldest professions:

You can take a pitchman and make a great actor out of him, but you cannot take an actor and always make a great pitchman out of him. The pitchman must make you applaud and take out your money. He must be able to  to execute what in pitchman’s parlance is called “the turn” – the perilous, crucial moment when he goes from entertainer to businessman. If, out of a crowd of fifty, twenty-five people come forward to buy, the true pitchman sells to only twenty of them. To the remaining five, he says, “Wait! There’s something else I want to show you!” Then he starts his pitch again, with slight variations, and the remaining four or five become the inner core of the next crowd, hemmed in by the people around them, and so eager to pay their money and be on their way that they start the selling frenzy all over again.

He then gives a bit of background to let you know Popeil didn’t just stumble upon success:

Ron Popeil started pitching his father’s kitchen gadgets at the Maxwell Street flea market in Chicago,in the midfifties. He was thirteen. Every morning, he would arrive at the market at five and prepare fifty pounds each of onions, cabbages, and carrots, and a hundred pounds of potatoes. He sold from six in the morning until four in the afternoon, bringing in as much as $500 a day. In his late teens, he started doing the state and county-fair circuit, and then he scored a prime spot in the Woolworth’s at State and Washington, in the Loop, which at the time was the top-grossing Woolworth’s store in the country. He was making more than the manager of the store, selling the Chop-O-Matic and the Dial-O-Matic. … “He was mesmerizing, … there were secretaries who would take their lunch break at Woolworth’s to watch him because he was so good-looking. He would go into the turn, and people would just come running.”

Ron Popeil’s success came from hard work, and the design of unique and compelling products. When coupled with his unmatched ability to “pitch” them to TV audiences the resulting sales were staggering. His crowning achievement, The Showtime Rotisserie is set to soon surpass $1 Billion in sales! Unbelievable.

But I’m much more interested in the Ronco Popeil Automatic Pasta Maker. I mean anyone can Rotisserie a chicken, but when you have your peeps over and make fresh pasta for them right before their eyes, you are a hero! And Ron made me a hero many times over.

After serving faithfully for many years, my own Ronco Popeil Automatic Pasta Maker finally gave up the ghost a while back. When I tried to purchase another I was stunned to find out that Ronco was out of business and there was no joy to be had in my personal Pasta World. Drats.

So I tried to replace it with an Italian machine whose brand I won’t mention. Disaster. It didn’t hold a candle to my beloved Pasta Shooter. As fate would have it some friends had purchased a Takka Pasta Maker from Macy’s about 20 years ago and had never opened the box. They were gracious enough to pass it along to me and when I opened it I discovered that it has a virtually identical mechanism to Popeil’s version. The only difference is that my Takka is built like a Russian Tank with lots of heavy metal where the Popeil used plastic. This baby will be with me until the end!

Here is the video I filmed last night. Bob The Pasta Maker is back! I think of it as my homage to Ron Popeil. The first section shows the ‘mixing’ part of the process. Add oil olive and eggs to 50/50 semolina /white flour.  Then next the breath-taking extrusion phase where the pasta is actually ‘shot’.

And although I make this look easy in the video, knowing how quickly to add the liquid and exactly when to extrude the pasta really does take some skill. It’s me and Ron on this one; but while I can mix with the best, I know I can’t pitch like the Master.

Finally as an extra credit bonus, if you want to see a typical Ron Popeil price countdown (and you should), here’s your YouTube link.

One of the Interweb’s most recently developed art forms is the Unboxing.

This is defined by the Urban Dictionary as:

The Internet trend of showing photos or video from the unpacking of a retail box of some desirable product, such as the latest laptop or portable music player.

Since we try to remain fashion forward, it’s time to hold our very first Not A Mystery Unboxing.

And don’t be intimidated.

Remember what Sarah Palin said, “I may not know as much about Unboxing as the East Coast elites, but I sure as heck know what I like when I see it!”

Thanks for that Sarah. We will now proceed to Field Dress a Box before your very eyes.

For this Unboxing we’ve chosen a recent purchase from Amazon; Kettle’s Lightly Salted Chips (Crisps to you Brits), 4-Ounce Bags 15-Pack.

We chose this product because (a) it was recent, (b) it was large. Plus, the fact that it consists of Chips makes it sound Hi-Tech.

Here we go:

Unboxing Is The New Field Dressing, Take Note Sarah!

1. The outer package as delivered by UPS 2nd Day Air from Amazon (free with our Amazon Prime membership). Note the Fragile sticker, which is a bit of a head scratcher for a box of Potato Chips, but I guess you can never be too careful.
2. Poping open the outer Amazon shipping box, we see brown butcher paper. No plastic air bags or bubbles in this box. Very Green; shout-out to Amazon for sustainable packing!
3. Opening the outer box a bit more we see that in fact we have an inner package.
4. And now we can see the original Kettle’s master pack box. Shipping specialists will note that although there is no cushioning between the outer and inner box on the sides, that the boxes have maintained their good alignment. Perhaps the Fragile notice induced UPS to play nice during shipment?
5. We’ve now taken the outer Amazon shipper away and what remains is the Kettle master pack. Note the white tape seal across the top says “Lightly Salted” to avoid confusion and add authenticity. Well done, Kettle!
6. And finally, we open the Kettle shipper and see our individual packs of Chips or Crisps, standing straight up at attention, like pert Little Rogues. Bravo.

Product Shot, Front:

"Made From REAL Potatoes"

Product Shot, Back:

"Absolutely Nothing Artificial"

And Finally the Chips/Crisps themselves:

Kettle Baked and Lightly Salted, Delicious

To sum up. Great product, met all our expectations with no surprises. Quality of Chips/Crisps and packing excellent. Amazon and Kettle doing a good job of producing and delivering a sustainable, REAL, Chip/Crisp.

Having gained some confidence in this our first Unboxing, the plan is to next take on a product with moving parts.

Happy New Year!

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in the Bronx during the 50′s.

We had all the modern conveniences. Like Good Humor Ice Cream delivered daily in the summer down at the corner. Served up by the Good Humor Man himself.  Otherwise known as some kid with a summer job, but at the time he looked pretty big to me.

If you got an ice cream cup instead of something on a stick, it came with a little flat wooden spoon. If you chose the ‘ice’ on a stick there was work to be done to peel the paper off before you could take that first cold bite which froze your mouth and throat in a wave of pain when you swallowed.  Which tasted really, really good in the midst of that summer heat and killer humidity.

But I digress.

Up in our apartment we didn’t have air conditioning, but we did have Seltzer every night with dinner. It was delivered every week by, wait for it, The Seltzer Man.

Again, no surprises in the 50′s

The Seltzer came in wooden cases filled with 10 or so big green, blue or clear bottles with embossed logos and lettering on the surface. On top was a silver colored valve, sporting a hair trigger. I think the bottles in this picture are a bit vintage, but it gives you an idea.

The first time you opened the value on a new bottle the pressure would invariably shoot seltzer all over the kitchen. It was absolutely, positively impossible to open the value slow enough to avoid that first spritz. Kind of like when you first learned to drive with a stick and were letting out the clutch with your Dad telling you to go slow.

But I digress, again.

This was all brought back to me recently by an article in the NY Times about Ronny Beberman, one of the last Seltzer Men.

Remember kids, we are not talking about some pansy Perrier with a twist of lemon.

We have a product we are real proud of, that starts with New York City water which “comes right outta the pipes, right outta the ground” and  then beaten (literally) into Seltzer. Watch the video if you don’t believe me.

This is Manly Seltzer, delivered by a Man’s Man.

Great stuff.

[Full Disclosure Note: At one point back in the 50's we learned that these bottles had a disconcerting habit of blowing up once in a while if there was a defect or chip created during the re-cycle process. After that discovery my Dad wouldn't put the Big Bad Boy right up on the dinner table. They hadn't invented Class Action Lawsuits yet, otherwise it would really have been all over.]