Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett's reviews, news, theories and quibbles.
Who came up with the bright idea for our President to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving?
(New York Times columnist Gail Collins writes about it here.)
And as weird as that is, imagine if pork or tofu became the national main dish for this holiday. Pardoning a ham? Letting a vat of that slimy soybean-sourced protein off the hook?
Giving food a stay of execution is just plain weird, let’s face it.
New York restaurateur Bruce Buschel is this week’s hero.
His blog in The New York Times, in which he’s chronicling the planning and opening of his new eatery, does every diner in America a personal favor.
Buschel posted a two-part list titled “100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do.” True, by the time he gets to the last 40 or so, a reader is wondering where on earth he will find enough qualified servers. But a little overkill is fine with me.
Here’s why: I live in an excellent restaurant town–lots of good places, always new cuisines to try, original interpretations of old favorites, decent prices. And terrible server etiquette.
Servers here have a high need to interrupt table conversation to ask a question, and it is almost always a question that can wait. I have yet to try this, but I am quite confident that if I staged a weeping exchange with my tablemate at almost any restaurant in Portland, the server would still butt in and ask if I needed hot sauce.
Servers also routinely try to take my plate when I’m done, despite the fact that my husband has eaten only one-third of his meal. (Why don’t they just hang a sign around my neck that says SHE EATS TOO FAST?)
They touch the rim of the water glasses. They stack every plate in a towering, precarious pile instead of clearing quietly or using a tray.
There are exceptions, of course. Places with good, professional servers. Interestingly, they are often very modest establishments. (See here and here for two such places.)
I’m tempted to print out the “100 tips” and start slipping it under the other tip…the 20 percent I leave even when the service is rotten.
Some big dogs can learn new tricks, to wit: Costco has agreed to accept food stamps at most of its locations.
This is very good news. At first the giant warehouse store (headquartered in Issaquah, Washington) said no to the idea, assuming the $50 annual fee was too much of a deterrent to people getting government aid. (Store execs were probably also wary of dealing with the government paperwork involved, and it’s hard to blame them for that.)
It’s true that membership fees and big-discount sizes of stuff are tricky for thinner wallets. When broke, you often spend more to get less. You buy small sizes of things because the sticker price is lower. The fact that the $3 bottle of ketchup is half the size of the bottle that sells for $4 doesn’t matter. You have $3 today, not $4, and you need ketchup today, not the promise of cheaper condiments all month.
But this is not a hard-and-fast rule for poor people any more than it is for folks of means. Costco pilot programs showed a level of nuance in shopper trends that’s been overlooked. It seems that people on food stamps are indeed willing and organized enough (imagine!) to plan ahead, spend more upfront, and save money. People gladly get away from the $3 ketchup behavior if it is really worth their while.
The success of the Costco food-stamp pilots may also be helped by the fact that a $50 membership can be shared with another “household member” and Costco doesn’t check to see if that person with the extra card is really, truly your sister who lives in the attic. This benefit is already widely claimed by people not on food stamps, trust me.
It also helps that the visuals of giant-sized products are so enticing. There is something about the sight of 4 pounds of Rice Krispies and a half-gallon of shampoo that makes one feel somewhat more secure, as do the vats of red licorice and hunks of Tillamook cheddar cheese. If I have clean hair and snacks, all is not lost.
Given the huge amount of taxpayers’ money that has been handed over to banks and automakers to little positive effect, perhaps the feds should subsidize warehouse-shopping memberships and local-transit routes that serve Costco locations. (The stores are usually a long walk from the nearest bus stop, and you still see people climbing aboard with a shrink-wrapped raft-size cargo of toilet paper.)
Costco’s long check-out lines are full of well-dressed people pushing carts of fine wines, gourmet cheeses and premium meats. It’s a good thing to open the doors to people who actually need cheaper food.
Coffee, as you know, is no longer a beverage, it’s more like a drug cocktail. That sweet latte is two parts caffeine, heavy Vitamin D, high enough glycemic index to rocket it into your needy system.
The fact that most of us know so much about where our coffee originates tells you something. Usually we’re the sort of people who wear sneakers made in a Chinese sweatshop, while standing in line for a union rally.
Actually, the “Fair-trade” coffee label smacks a bit of the “Pro-life” label — both are marketing genius. You can proclaim where you stand AND cast the opposing side as evil — “Unfair trade” and “Anti-Life.”
We bean-Philistines have our conceits too. I take that self-delusional pride in drinking plain coffee, pleased to be the only one in the cafe who can order in two words: “Medium drip.”
I’m guessing that some time in the future I will be asking for “Hot, soy-free coffee in a cup” because the norm will be cold, soy-infused stuff that they pour into a vessel you bring in. If you leave your cup in the car, they’ll grudgingly give you one, just the way that stern checker does at Whole Foods, the one who acts like that paper bag is made from the flesh of newborns.
I do love the stuff though. I started drinking coffee as a kid. The story goes that at age 3, I threw my bottle across the room and refused to touch another drop of milk unless it was completely disguised. I don’t remember ever drinking it; even a whiff of straight milk makes me gag. Today such infant behavior would be cause for medical and psychiatric alarm; in my childhood home it was written off as a sign of a discerning palate.
My mother, a Southerner who thought Coke was a food group and wouldn’t allow me to eat anything with mayo during the summer because Yankees didn’t understand refrigeration, came up with the brilliant solution of allowing me coffee, heavily laced with whole milk.
I didn’t like it on an empty stomach, delicate flower that I was. So, coffee was usually a dinner beverage. No one ever remarked on its stimulant properties, but they might have something to do with my witnessing so much of Johnny Carson’s TV heyday.
A favorite memory:
Age 11 or so, sitting at a Howard Johnson’s lunch counter with my mother. I order a well-done hamburger, politely adding: “Coffee, regular, please.” (Back then in Massachusetts, “regular” meant a lot of cream added.)
The waitress does a double take and coos: “Wouldn’t you like a nice glass of milk?”
My mother, glaring, says in the firmest of voices: “She said coffee.”
Like most daily-newspaper journalists (or in my case, former), I can rustle up a small layer of expertise about a large number of subjects. There are a few fascinating subjects on which I am personally expert. (“Mile wide, inch deep” is the less flattering way to characterize this trait.)
When I see articles on “my” subjects, I always wish the reporter had called me first. To wit:
The New York Times piece headlined “The Little Voice Inside Your Twinge.” This article, in the “Personal Best” health section commiserates with active folks who don’t know how to evaluate pain:
“MAYBE the problem is that it is hard to understand what your body is saying.’Listen to your body’ is always a tough one,’ said Keith Hanson, a coach who directs the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, which recruits talented distance runners and supports them while they train full time…’There are several aches and pains that you can run through,” Mr. Hanson said, “and others that need some down time.”
In all due respect, Coach, you’re off base. There is one simple rule here, and you can quote me:
“Any twinge can be the start of something very dangerous,” warned Hartnett. “Best to repair to the couch with a book until you’re sure it’s gone.”
Another one I spotted, also in the NYT, is “The 10-Ingredient Shopping Trip,” in which Tara Parker-Pope ably chronicled foodie Mark Bittman’s plan to get five days of meals out of a 10-item list. Here’s his 10:
Parker-Pope isn’t at fault here. Bittman means well, but this list is simply not accurate. It should read:
1. Loaf of “Dave’s Killer Bread”
2. Case of caffeine-free Diet Pepsi
3. Case of kid-size chocolate-brownie Clif bars
4. Quart of almond butter
5. Package of Laughing Cow Lite Cheese wedges
6. Bag of apples
7. Package of frozen Morningstar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Burgers
8. Package of Trader Joe’s dark-chocolate covered raisins
9. One enormous garnet yam
10. One enormous can of albacore tuna in water
Anything else? Just give me a call. Glad to help.
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Email me at kimberly@typelikethewind.com
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