food – Page 6 – Life In A Word

Day (After Day) Drinking

In the refrigerator of the beach house where my family and I vacation every summer, you’ll find an extensive collection of aging condiments. With different people in the house almost every week, the mustards, ketchups, salsas and spreads breed at an alarming rate. And the beverages aren’t far behind. Forage past the wine and beer bottles and you encounter all sorts of curious cans and contents. One in particular tempted me this time around but I couldn’t muster the courage to take a sip. I mean, would you try something called “Liquid Death”?

If you’re already familiar with Liquid Death, you know the joke’s on me. Liquid Death (“Murder Your Thirst!”) is nothing but drinking water, carefully sourced, packaged in a can covered with horror-movie graphics. The company believes their distinctive can means a) one less plastic bottle into landfill and b) one more serving of water into you (instead of something less healthy). Liquid Death also cans flavored sparkling waters and iced teas, and – no joke – invites you to sell your soul to the company. The company’s sales are no joke either – $130 million last year alone.

Liquid Death is one of countless examples of “packaged water” available to consumers these days. Since 2017, Americans are quaffing more bottled water than any other drink. 86% of us purchase water regularly, in addition to the H2O we drink from our faucets. Why? Because we’re waking up to the downsides of the sugar/chemical concoction known as the “soft drink”. We’re also subscribing to the belief we’re healthier if we drink more water. Finally, single/double/triple-serving containers appeal to us because we’ve already become so conditioned to them, thanks to… Starbucks.

Here’s a story to prove the statistics hold water. At a volleyball tournament in Atlanta last weekend, I ventured to the nearby snack stand to buy a drink. The cashier invited me to fish around in his giant coolers for whatever I wanted. What I wanted was water, but all I could find were dozens of neglected bottles of soft drinks, “sports drinks”, and energy drinks. So I asked the cashier, “What, no water?”, to which he replied, “Oh, we sold out of the waters hours ago”.

Then I went in search of a drinking fountain and couldn’t find one in the entire arena. Drinking fountains are quickly going the way of pay phones. In their places: dispensers designed to fill your personal bottle. I’m on board with this trend, especially because it reduces the use of plastic. But don’t forget your water bottle like I did or you’ll be forced to settle for one of those more colorful concoctions.

Lest you think otherwise, the bottled waters dominating the marketplace are brought to you by the same companies behind soft drinks. Accordingly, Dasani = Coca-Cola, Aquafina = PepsiCo, and Poland Spring = Nestlé. On the other hand, Arrowhead is only Arrowhead water, as is Evian’s natural spring variety (and whether “Evian” is intentionally “naive” spelled backwards is for you to decide).

We’ve taken water one step further now. Into our personal water bottles, tumblers, and jugs we add “flavor enhancers”, designed to a) give us more of what we lack (ex. electrolytes) or b) encourage us to drink more water by adding flavor. Crystal Light and Gatorade set this tone years ago. Today we choose from a dizzying array of powders, drops, and tablets, all designed to make water more appealing. But if we’re thirsty, shouldn’t water be appealing enough just the way it is?

A final sip of this subject. The average person has thirty-five “beverage occasions” a week. With each occasion you choose the container, contents, and quantity of whatever you’re going to drink. So even if your every day begins with a “Venti half-soy nonfat decaf latte” and ends with a fruit-forward, moderately dry Cabernet Sauvignon, you still have twenty-one other occasions for a tall drink of water. Liquid Death, anyone?

Concourses or Golf Courses?

Whenever flying is a part of my travel plans, I wear my most comfortable pair of walking shoes. Long gone are the days of the coat-and-tie-to-fly dress code, in favor of sneakers (and jeans). My reason for rubber-soled kicks used to be, “What if we’re in some kind of accident and I need to get off in a hurry?” Today I go with a wholly different reason. The long, long walk I can expect from curb to concourse to airplane cabin simply demands something easy on the feet.

Here’s a startling comparison. If you play golf and skip the cart, you’re going to walk over four miles to finish your round. By almost the same token, if you’re connecting through Dallas-Ft. Worth or Atlanta and choose to walk from Terminal B to Terminal E, you’re going to walk over two miles. Add in the inevitable search for food, a stop or two at retail, and a visit to the restroom and you’re closer to three miles. And none of that includes the distance from the curb to the ticket counter, from the counter through security, and from your gate down the jetway to your seat on the plane.

Now for the bad news. Airports are only getting bigger, and not for the reasons you might think. Sure, more people fly than ever before, which adds more planes, more gates, and even more airports. But behind the scenes a couple of stronger forces are at work. One, airlines are shifting to larger aircraft, which translates to more space between parked planes. Two, airport parking revenue is down (thanks to Uber, Lyft, and more mass transit), which translates to the airport’s need to find revenue elsewhere. Where? Retail, bars, and restaurants.

From recent trips through airports, I’ve noticed the following. In Denver International, remodeled Concourse B is already labeled “Gates 1-100”, even though there aren’t a hundred gates. It’s a straight-line concourse and it’s only going to get longer. In Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, the concourses are so long and narrow (and so crowded), that last gate is farther than you can see without binoculars. And in San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, when you’re processed into Terminal 2 from security, you can’t see a single gate, because you have to pass through a veritable shopping mall first.

In the ultimate insult to long walks to planes, some airports have left the moving walkways out of their concourse remodels. Those walkways discourage you from passing directly in front of the food and retail the airport so desperately needs you to patronize. And intentional or not, the airlines encourage these purchases by offering less food onboard. You, weary traveler, are a captive audience to more than one performer.

Let’s not forget the rental cars. Avis’s slogan is “We try harder”. Maybe it should be, “We try harder… to take more of your money“. I just reviewed my receipt from a recent San Diego rental for a full-size standard Kia sedan. Right there below the actual daily rate: “11.11% Concession Recovery Fee”; essentially the cost of doing business at the airport. Add in Vehicle License Recoup fee, Customer Facility Charge (another airport fee), California Tourism Fee, and a final flourish of “tax”, and the rate increased by 32%. All so I can walk further to get to my rental car?

An early chapter of my career was in airport planning. We’re the people who figure out how to get the planes from the runways to the taxiways to the gates without hitting each other. We also design the terminal buildings to include enough gates, concessions and restrooms (yeah, yeah, bring on the heat with that last item). Concourse design used to be “spoke and hub”, meaning you walked down the spoke to a circular boarding hub of several gates. It made the airplane taxiing a little trickier outside, but it significantly reduced a passenger’s walk to the gate. Today, airports no longer favor the design (er, traveler) because it reduces the square footage for concessions.

For those of you who live and die by your 10,000 steps, take heart; airports are helping you accomplish your daily goal. Phoenix Sky Harbor even disguised the long walk through the concourses by calling it a “Fitness Trail”. Be sure to allow enough time to get in a (seriously overpriced) shopping trip at all those concessions. But don’t forget, the airlines only allow one reasonably sized carry-on these days. Any others will cost you a checked bag fee… because the airport isn’t making enough money already.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Why you have to walk so far to your gate at the airport”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Oliver Twist

Because of the numbering system I use to save photos for my blog, I know last week’s dish on ice cream (ha) was my four-hundredth WordPress post. I’m not one to track statistics but unexpectedly, reaching this milestone begs the question: Will I make it to #500? Mind you, it’s not about staying in the game. Topics worth my exploration are endless and creative writing is a welcome escape. No, today begs a much more relevant question: What about artificial intelligence (AI)?

If I could meet you readers face-to-face in the Amazon rain forest I’d whisper a secret password for all to hear. Then when I use that password in a post, you’d know it’s actually me, Dave, the human, and not some updated version of HAL 9000 doing the typing. Surely you wonder, as I do, when will AI get so good at authoring documents, so genuine, you won’t even realize you’re reading something untouched by human hands?

Before we go any further, I think “AI” sounds awfully impersonal. I suppose impersonal is appropriate for a silicone wafer and a pile of circuit boards. I just think we need a friendlier word for it; something we humans can better identify with. How about “Oliver”? Oliver is the third most popular boy name of 2023. Oliver Twist was one of Charles Dickens’ most beloved characters (and AI will certainly be a twist on the way we ask for and receive information moving forward). Let’s nickname it (him?) Ollie.

Wikipedia’s article on artificial intelligence (yes, there’s already an article) says one of Ollie’s primary goals is problem-solving. Okay, that digests well. But then you see goals like reasoning, learning, perception, and social intelligence and your stomach flips a flop. My reasoning and perception are tools I use for this blog. If Ollie develops those same tools, it’s only a matter of time before Dave 1.0 (me) is replaced by Dave 2.0 (machine).

Let’s go back to ice cream for a second. Let’s say you want to read an opinion piece on ice cream. If you have AI at your disposal, you could say, “Hey Ollie, write me a post about ice cream, 600 words or so, with arguments in favor of plain old ice cream over sundaes, bars, and other frozen treats. Reference a few commercial ice cream brands, a few local brands, and finish by talking about the most expensive ice cream in the world. Oh, and speak the page back to me in James Earl Jones’s voice.” Then you’d hit the ENTER button and who knows? Your screen might light up with something remarkably similar to my last post in Life In A Word.

Also consider, Ollie will have his own opinions on what you read. After you ask about ice cream, he may spam you with posts on healthy lifestyle. He also may counsel you about spending your time on more important topics. Like world peace. Newsflash, Ollie. We’re all trying to figure out world peace. How about you put your circuit boards together and come up with a post on that?

Here’s my point. If you have Ollie you don’t need me. In fact, you don’t even need the WordPress platform. You could simply slip on a VR headset and ask for a post with just the right topic, tone, reading level, length, and restrictions. It’s like placing an order at the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant. Seconds later, what you asked for is right there in front of you (no paper bag necessary). And if Ollie “reads” all four hundred of my posts, he’ll write it pretty much the same way I would.

At the rate I’m posting, I’ll publish blog #500 in about two years. Two years. Considering all we’ve covered today, how advanced will Ollie be in two years? Enough to put WordPress out of business? Enough to where you can generate your own Life In A Word posts by simply entering a handful of carefully chosen criteria? I hope not. I’m having a good time with you people (especially those of you who also write blogs). Maybe all of us should pick up and move to the rain forest. Then we could pass our handwritten pages around and keep this ~~artificial~~ intelligent party going. Someone make sure Ollie doesn’t get an invite.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Cream of the (Dessert) Crop

A week ago last Tuesday, Salt Lake City hosted its first ever drone show of “fireworks”, replacing the traditional explosives residents have come to expect over the downtown park. The drones create colorful shapes and animations in the sky – even giant words – as well as a pretty good impression of the blooms and starbursts of fireworks. But let’s be honest: drones don’t replace fireworks. The same can be said for the frozen treats aiming to be more popular than, say, a simple serving of ice cream.

On the heels of Independence Day, America has another celebration coming up. National Ice Cream Day is the third Sunday of July in our country (and July itself National Ice Cream Month!) The “holiday” was signed into public law in the mid-1980s when Congress apparently had nothing better to do. So how do you and I “celebrate” ice cream? No clue, other than a Google search to figure out where to get a free scoop. And if you think ice cream is a poor excuse for a holiday, consider, the first Saturday in February is Ice Cream for Breakfast Day… which pretty much confirms every day of the year is some sort of “Day”.

A stroll past the freezers of ice cream in any grocery store boasts an impressive variety of spins, including cones, sandwiches, pies, and bites. Ice cream is split by bananas, cherry-topped into sundaes, blended into shakes, cloaked as “gelato”, and even fried into crispy-covered bites. I ask you, who buys all this stuff? Sure, as a kid I had a thing for Eskimo Pies (because my mom bought them) and later on I ate my share of Dove Bars (because my dad loved them). But feet to the fire, I’d rather spend my pennies on the best version of plain ol’ ice cream. I have my favorite brand (and you have yours) and time and again it ends up in my grocery cart instead of any of those other treats.

For a few years there I got caught up in the Cold Stone Creamery concept, where your serving of ice cream is placed on a marble slab and combined with “mix-in’s”. It was (still is) a trendy take on ice cream. But after just a few visits I realized the draw was the mix-in’s more than the ice cream. Safe to say Cold Stone doesn’t use a brand of ice cream anyone would consider “gourmet”. They know what brings people through the doors: marble slabs and mix-in’s. Cold Stone’s rival is even named Marble Slab.

For anyone growing up on the West Coast in the 1970s, the one-on-every-corner ice cream parlor was Baskin-Robbins. Their ever-changing selection of thirty-one flavors guaranteed slow perusing, even if the final choice was vanilla or rocky road nine times out of ten (okay, I’ll grant you peanut-butter-and-chocolate too). Today, Baskin-Robbins is still going strong, but I think most people prefer the flavors of whatever local parlor is closest to their house. And let it be said for the millionth time: Vanilla is and will always be the king of ice cream flavors. Simple, delicious, and versatile.

As for the commercial brands in grocery store freezers, Dreyer’s “Grand Ice Cream” is trying very hard to make its offerings your favorite. They smartly purchased www.icecream.com and dressed up the website as a tribute to ice cream, but let’s be real: they’re just pushing their own products here. My favorite brand is still Haagen-Dazs but get this: Haagen-Dazs is now a subsidiary of Dreyer’s. Whoa. Give it a few more years and Dreyer’s may turn into the Amazon of ice cream.

If you like to spend big on ice cream like I do (Haagen-Dazs is not inexpensive!) you might consider Cellato, a brand from Japan. Cellato makes particularly fragrant gelatos, mixing in white and black truffles from Italy, champagne, and caviar. Their “white night” flavor is topped with an edible gold leaf, two exquisite cheeses, and a sake-like paste. The price of a single serving? $6,380 USD, making it the most expensive ice cream in the world. Might as well make the airplane seat to Japan first-class for a dessert like that.

In closing, a very happy National Ice Cream Day to you! However you choose to celebrate this Sunday, you don’t need Cellato. You don’t need Coldstone Creamery either. For me, the entire ice cream aisle at the grocery store might as well be reduced to the Haagen-Dazs flavors. Those, and the choices at my local ice cream parlor satisfy my craving. In other words, forget about the drones. Traditional fireworks will always be better.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Don’t drop it: World’s most expensive ice cream costs $6,400”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Crescents and Con Artists

Every Christmas without fail, my family enjoys croissants as part of the morning meal. We pop them into the oven after seeing what Santa left in our stockings (but before unwrapping anything under the tree). So last week, as I loaded our Easter ham into the garage frig, a tantalizing thought occurred to me: the leftover Christmas croissants are parked right next door in the freezer. Could they possibly be as light and flaky as they once were, four months after their initial rise-and-shine?

If you know anything about authentic croissants, “rise and shine” is a fitting description. Thanks to some seriously active yeast, croissants rise to a soft, pillow-y consistency. Thanks to a whole lot of butter (and a little egg yolk), croissants finish with a pleasing sheen on their delicate, crispy crust. If there’s a more decadent baked good on the planet, my crescent-shaped ears are open and listening.

Croissants have been around a long time. They got their start centuries ago in ~~France~~ Austria as the more pedestrian kipferi yeast bread roll. Eventually the French stepped up the game using leavened laminated dough and butter, ending up as the light, flaky, many-layered version you know and love today.

Croissant means “crescent” of course (which is why I get hunger pangs whenever I gaze at the moon). Croissant also has an elegant pronunciation. Turn the “roi” into a “weh”, drop the final “t”, and keep the sound a little inside the nose. Cweh-saw. Congratulations! You speak French.

Even “crescent” has a dignified definition: a shape resembling a segment of a ring, tapering to points at the ends. Can you picture it? Sure you can, because now you’re thinking of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. They’re so “American”, aren’t they? We take a centuries-old, meticulously refined shoo-in for the Baked Goods Hall of Fame and reduce it to sticky, doughy, fast food; vacuum-packed into a can you open with a spoon.

[Speaking of Pillsbury, here’s something you didn’t know about the Dough Boy, otherwise known as “Poppin’ Fresh”. He has a family! His wife is Poppie Fresh, his kids are Popper and Bun-Bun, his grandparents Granpopper and Granmommer, and his Uncle Rollie. Don’t forget the dog (Flapjack) and the cat (Biscuit). In the 1970s you could purchase the entire clan as a set of dolls.]

Pillsbury isn’t the only crescent con artist out there. Burger King made a name for itself with its popular Croissan’wich breakfast entrees. And Galaxy, the Williams-Sonoma mail-order croissants my family and I enjoy at Christmas, start out as frozen minis, rise impressively overnight on the kitchen counter, and bake to an excellent knock-off of the bakery-made originals.

The preparation of authentic croissants requires time and attention we Americans don’t have the patience for. Watch the following video (which is thirteen minutes long so… maybe not) and you’ll learn what it takes. At the least, you’ll understand why I pay almost $4.50 for a single croissant from Galaxy/Williams-Sonoma.

Most of us wouldn’t make it past the initial “pre-dough” step in the video, let alone the labor-intensive lamination (folding/flattening), forming, fermentation, baking, cooling, and storage. We’re talking hours and hours in the kitchen here, and that’s assuming you have the right equipment. No wonder we’d rather just whack a Pillsbury tube on the counter edge and produce “crescent rolls” hot out of the oven 9-11 minutes later.

Still, I implore you to watch the cweh-saw video. The star of the show is Frédéric from Boulangerie Roy Le Capitole, narrating the process in his beautiful native language. This man could be saying … and then we drag the smelly garbage out to the back alley for the cats to dig through and I’d still be glued the sound of his words. Or, listen to our lovely video host and her delightful French accent (with the occasional incorrect word sprinkled in).

I was so mesmerized by the French voices I really don’t remember much about the croissant-making itself. But it’s hard to forget the facts. Making an authentic batch takes three days. A croissant is 30% butter and can have as many as fifty layers. French bakeries have “bread laws” to protect their artisan products. Finally, you can “hear” the sound of an authentic croissant by pushing through the crispy crust to the softer layers inside.

To the matter of my Christmas… er, Easter croissants, I’m happy (and satisfied) to report they tasted just as good last week as their holly, jolly predecessors a while ago. Apparently four months isn’t too long to wait for good croissants. But three days is too long to make them from scratch so I’ll keep buying from con artists.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Doorstop Topper

The word nerd in me thinks it’s cool when one can be modified to make four others simply by changing the same vowel. Batter will be in abundance the next several weeks with all of the baking. The holidays are always better when shared with others. Colorado’s bitter cold winters are a thing of our past now that we’ve moved to the South. The chaos of the holiday season doesn’t really “bott_er” me (okay, that one’s reaching). But finally, we have butter. Ah, there’s nothing better than (or bitter about) butter, is there?

The topic of butter is brought to you today by an utterly ridiculous here-today-gone-tomorrow suggestion to make your holiday hosting more glam than your neighbor’s: butter boards. When I saw this picture I didn’t even understand what I was looking at. Even more insulting to this word nerd: the opinion piece I found describes a butter board as “charcuterie”. No, it’s not. Charcuterie is meats, not dairy. This unappetizing appetizer is nothing but butter, spread on a board, with toppings designed to take your attention away from the fact that it’s, well, butter on a board. I mean, if you’re gonna do faux-fancy at least go with peanut butter on a board, right?

Butter boards are an insult to butter. I think we can all agree, butter stands alone. You don’t need nuts or roasted garlic or dried fruit to ~~hide~~ dress it up. As long as your butter comes from fresh, quality ingredients, it makes anything it pairs with better. Except a board.

Can you tell I’m “bott_ered” by butter boards? It’s because my wife and I take our butter so seriously. Ever since a trip to Ireland, we learned the best butter is not only about quality, but quantity. At dinner in a quaint hotel in the Connemara region north of Galway, the waiter brought us a big serving of bread with an even bigger serving of butter. Seriously, the butter was more “brick” than “stick” (and certainly not “pat”). Ever since, our go-to butter is a brick. It also makes a great doorstop straight from the freezer.

Our butter dish is even designed for a brick, see? A stick would be lost in this Irish pottery; a pat even more so.

Speaking of butter pats, I must make mention of the device in the photo below. I wrote a whole post about it once called Sentimental Utensil. Who knew this petit guillotine was a timesaver to make butter pats? It showed up mysteriously in one of our kitchen drawers one day and I can only assume I inherited it from my mother. But inherited it shall stay. I can never get enough memories of my mother, as I alluded to in this paragraph from the past post:

And thinking about it even more, I can picture my mother using her butter cutter when I was a kid, leaving a perfect little pat beside the crescent roll that was positioned carefully on the bread plate beside each place setting at the dinner table. Because that was my mother. She was all about the dinner table. Everything had its place, even the pats of butter.

If you read the article on butter boards (please don’t) there are several dead giveaways on how forced this holiday trend feels. The first is right up there in the teaser subtitle: “Butter boards have gone viral…”. No, they haven’t, else this topic wouldn’t be worth ~~warning you~~ posting about. “… because of their novelty and shock value.” Their novelty? Shock value? Is one of your guests going to look at your butter board and say, “Well now, isn’t that novel?” And just what about a butter board causes “shock” other than the writer’s excuse to use (part of) the overused phrase “shock and awe”? It’s just butter, people.

The article should’ve gone with just the title so we could draw our own conclusions. Instead, you’ll find phrases like “… how fun the concept is…”, “… what’s fascinating about butter boards…”, and “… extremely versatile as an appetizer…”; none of which are true. The writing takes itself way too seriously and goes on way too long about something I will way never prepare. Unless it were frosting, of course. A “frosting board” would get my attention for sure. Put out a plate of cookies with a frosting board and I’m all hands.

But enough of the butter boards. You’d have to be blind as a bat to fall for this faux-fancy offering. I’ll bet you’ve already stopped reading. If you did make it this far, thanks for sparing a bit of your time. Comment so I know you’re not a bot.

Some content sourced from the Food Network article, “How to Make the Perfect Butter Board for the Holidays”.

Feast of Family

The turkey reminds me of my father-in-law, who always assumed the carving duties and insisted all dinners begin precisely at the top of the hour.
The dressing reminds me of my mother-in-law, who insists you taste-test as you go to make her meal-in-itself recipe just right.
The whipped cream reminds me of my son, who would top off his pie and then tip the can directly into his mouth for a second helping.
The crescent rolls remind me of my other son, who never lets the meal go forward without them.
The sweet potatoes (in scooped-out oranges) remind me of my daughter, whose version is best described as a work in progress.
The Waldorf salad reminds me of my dear mother, whose recipe – as I discovered years later – is notably different than the one served at the famous New York City hotel.
The mincemeat pie reminds me of my dear father, with whom I was the only family member to indulge in this carb-laden throwback treat.
… and finally, the pumpkin pie reminds me of my beautiful wife, who always doubles the spices to make the dessert (and everything else about the meal) twice as nice.

Today reminds me of the bounty of family and friends; a Thursday best spent with those you love (instead of reading blog posts).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Decades to Decadence

Waiting in line for the bank teller, as I did last Monday, is decidedly old-school. It’s a face-to-face experience so much more inefficient than the drive-thru lane or smartphone options. But sometimes we still go brick-and-mortar, don’t we? Stopping into the bank is either convenient in the moment or perhaps the transaction demands a real, live person. And so we wait. But at least cashing a check doesn’t take thirty years. It just seems that long sometimes.

Every now and then you see a headline and say, “Wait a minute… WHAT?” And then, even with no interest whatsoever you still read the article. Such was the case this week with a story about Kobe beef. I’ve never eaten Kobe beef. I’m too cheap to even give it a try. I’ll concede the price is justified by the high quality, high demand, and low supply. But what if you had to wait until Thanksgiving of 2052 to be able to enjoy it?

Here’s the gist of the story. A small, family-run butcher shop in Japan makes a beef croquette so popular it’ll take you thirty years to get one. Asahiya, about to celebrate a century in the meat business, began producing its croquettes shortly after World War II. The deep-fried meat-and-potato dumplings were designed as a tease; a mere taste to draw customers to its larger, more expensive products. The strategy didn’t pan out so well but the croquettes themselves became an Internet sensation, and the inevitable hype that followed created a line of customers thirty years long.

[Note: If a Kobe beef croquette sounds “decadent” you’re probably right, but you’re using the wrong word to describe it. Decadent actually means “excessively self-indulgent”. Instead of the food itself perhaps you’re talking about a customer willing to wait thirty years.]

I hear what you’re saying. I wouldn’t pay big bucks for something like this Dave, let alone wait thirty years for it. But go figure; an Asahiya beef croquette costs only $3.40 USD. You could buy a box of ten for less than you probably paid for your Thanksgiving turkey. You just need a very comfortable chair as well. Asahiya makes only two hundred croquettes a day (or twenty customers’ worth) so it’s no wonder you have to wait so long.

Technology being what it is today, we’re not patient waiters anymore. Amazon and others are getting close to same-day delivery on the items we consume regularly. Many amusement parks and tourist attractions have adopted Disney’s approach, where you can pay more to “jump the line”. Want tickets to the next Taylor Swift concert? Pay a “line-stander” to buy them for you. Want season tickets to the Green Bay Packers? Okay, sorry, there’s no way around that one. The seats at sold-out Lambeau Field simply pass down the line from generation to generation. But you can still join the list for this impossible get, just to say you’re on it.

This week’s visit to the bank felt like an impossible get. I made it to within one customer of the front of the line before things came to a grinding halt. Only two tellers were open out of the four. One was preoccupied by a woman who wanted cash and a money order, with terms so specific you knew she was going to be awhile. The other was completely preoccupied by an older gent, carrying on a personal conversation while constantly losing track of whatever he was asking for in the first place. Meanwhile, the back window drive-thru teller was cranking out transaction after transaction after transaction. Shoulda, coulda… I know, I know.

I thought the beef croquette story was timely, not because I went to the bank but because next Thursday is Thanksgiving, when Americans wait all day long. We wake up early, get the oven going, prep the bird, and spend a long time putting the rest of the meal together. We eat earlier than most dinners (does that make it “supper”?) but it’s still a waiting game. Hours and hours of anticipation before the food is finally brought to the table.

If there’s any good news about Asahiya’s Kobe products, it’s that they have options besides the “Extreme” beef croquettes. There’s a more accessible variety called the “Premiere”. You only have to wait four years for those. When you consider how fast we’re going through U.S. Presidents lately, four years doesn’t seem like a long time at all.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “These Japanese beef croquettes are so popular there’s a 30-year waiting list”.

Big Shoes to Fill-y

Last Sunday, the day before Halloween, our neighborhood hosted a lively parade. Kids of all ages dressed in adorable to “a-horror-full” costumes, to trick-or-treat past each driveway… on horseback. In a bit of a role reversal, we residents walked treats out to the horses and riders (because trust me, a stallion trotting up your front walk is not recommended). Candy for the kids, cookies for the parents who walked beside them, and carrots for the hardworking horses. As you would expect, a steady “clip-clop” filled the air for hours. Yet it could’ve been a lot quieter.

Here’s an idea I never ever would’ve thought of. Take a pair of sneakers, break them down into their component parts, and reassemble them to fit a horse’s hoof. Making a statement of purely fashion (vs. function), Horse Kicks allow your equine to sport two pairs of your favorite New Balance, Adidas, or Nikes. These giant “tennis shoes” are built on top of a pre-made protective boot so they really do support an animal weighing a thousand pounds or more. Order yours today for only $1,200.

Sorry, I’m not buying. I don’t think sneakers are a good look on horses, any more than when paired with formalwear on a human. If a filly could talk, she would say, “Get those ridiculous things off of me!”, even though ladies love shoes. Sneakers are best left to walkers and athletes, while steel horseshoes, as they have for thousands of years, fill a horse’s bill as comfortably as a couple of pairs of flip-flops (er, “clip-clops?”)

I can’t imagine the effort it takes for Horse Kicks to create their shoes (besides the seventeen hours of assembly time) but they don’t work nearly as hard as a traditional horseshoer. That person, a farrier, might as well be an ironworker. Watch one in action sometime as he/she trims a horse’s hoof or hammers the steel shoes to achieve the perfect fit. It’s the kind of backbreaking work that can lead to early retirement.

Occasionally a horse throws a shoe, which is probably the origin of horseshoes as a game. The first time I “threw a shoe”- besides getting it nowhere near the stake – I remember thinking, “Man, these are kind of heavy”. (A horse wouldn’t agree.) And weight matters in the game because the shoe needs to fly a long way, like forty feet, for the chance for a “ringer”. Yes, horseshoes is basic (and predates similar games like ring toss, cornhole, and bocce) but it has its finer points. You flip a shoe to determine who goes first. After players throw two shoes each you’ve completed an “inning”. And a “dead ringer” really is a horseshoes term (too complicated to explain here), not just someone who looks like someone else.

[Snack break. Speaking of horseshoes, if you’re looking for “the best darn donuts in Colorado” you should check out Horseshoe Donuts, where we used to live just north of Colorado Springs. You’ll pay upwards of $25/dozen but trust me, these shoes… er, doughnuts are huge and worthy of expensive tastes. Most are shaped like traditional rings but the raised, glazed variety are giant horseshoes.]

Even if I never buy a pair of Horse Kicks, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. You’ll probably see several on display this weekend at the Breeder’s Cup races in Lexington, KY (close to where they’re created). Part of the company’s initiative is to “bring awareness to the Bluegrass State”. And 10% of the proceeds go to central Kentucky charities. All of which makes Horse Kicks a worthy product. Not that I expect to see any in next year’s neigh-h-h-h-borhood trick-or-treat parade. It’ll be, as usual, clip-clops in steel flip-flops.

Some content sourced from the CNN Style article, “You can now buy $1,200 sneakers — for horses”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Drinkin’ Problem

Thanks to social media, product advertising is a complex challenge these days. Hiring an “agency” no longer suffices, at least not for major corporations. They depend on “brand builders” instead – Interbrand, for example. Interbrand boasts “…a global team of thinkers and makers [encouraging] bold moves to leap ahead of customers and competitors.” Interbrand also values the companies they help build. On their list, well inside the top ten: Coca-Cola.

My brothers and I gathered in Atlanta last week for a semi-annual reunion. Our initial stop wasn’t Coca-Cola’s world headquarters but rather, its popular “World of Coca-Cola” tour. If you haven’t walked through these doors, Coke has turned an impressive three-story building into a glittery three-ring circus to promote its products, with a side of historical context. As if Coke needs more promotion. The genius of this soft drink, as we learn on the tour, is the relentless, boundless effort to put Coke’s brand everywhere imaginable. Cans, clothing, and cars, just to name a few. But pixels?

Here’s a weird suggestion. Go into your home laboratory, create a flavor, and label it something that doesn’t have a flavor. This is Coke’s latest go-to gimmick to retain market share. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar “Byte” has come and gone (limited-edition products are another way to retain market share) and you probably didn’t have a taste. And what does “data” taste like? According to drinkers it’s pretty much the same as Coke Zero, adding in the sensation of the old “Pop Rocks” candy.

Coca-Cola also developed “Coke Starlight”, somehow determining the taste of “outer space”. Drinkers said it tasted like Coke with an aftertaste of cereal milk (ewwwww). Go to the store today and you can purchase the latest of these curiosities: “Coke Dreamworld”, which has been described as “Coke soaked in sour peach rings” (ewwwww again). As the saying goes, there’s no accounting for taste… or should I say, with Coca-Cola there’s no caring for taste. Instead, the bottles and cans promote music, videos, and other products through a QR code. And there’s the branding concept in a nutshell. You’re attracted to the purchase because it’s a Coca-Cola product, but the draw is anything but the drink itself.

I shouldn’t be surprised how far the taste of Coke has, uh, evolved in the one hundred and thirty years since its market debut. The variations on the original formula are myriad, including Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Diet Coke, and “Coke Zero” (no added sugar but plenty of artificial sweeteners). Let’s not pretend any of these drinks are actually good for your consumption. But at least vanilla and cherry are tastes we understand. Dreams? Not so much.

“Dreamworld” and the other recent flavors target “gamers and younger audiences”. My brothers and I saw a lot of kids on the “World of Coca-Cola” tour so maybe the advertising is working. Regardless, Coca-Cola has a bigger challenge to confront. Sales of soft drinks are on a serious decline, in favor of bottled water and healthier options. Coke recently cut its portfolio of soft drinks by fifty percent (bye-bye Tab) in an effort to improve its bottom line. To me, that’s a sound business strategy. But flavors that aren’t really flavors? That’s desperate.

Coca-Cola had a big red flag in the 1980s (appropriate color, no?), one that should’ve discouraged future dabbling with their products. Who among you doesn’t remember the debacle of “New Coke”? The flavor variation – the first in Coca-Cola’s long history – debuted to rave reviews, with claims it was better than Coke or Pepsi. But here’s what Coca-Cola didn’t see coming: consumers immediately defended the original flavor. Instead of buying New Coke, they cleared the shelves of the original flavor for fear it would go away forever. Begrudgingly (and very quickly), Coca-Cola returned the original flavor to stores under the name “Coke Classic”. But New Coke never found legs and eventually disappeared from the shelves altogether, while “Coke Classic” returned as simply “Coke”.

” Coke Dreamworld”, as you would expect, features prominently in the “World of Coca-Cola” tour. The flavor that isn’t a flavor, along with a silly 3-D movie and a giant retail store, targets the youngest of consumers. But let’s be honest, most people go on the tour for the tasting room, where they can sample Coca-Cola’s products to their heart’s content. “New Coke” is not among those choices. Pretty soon I don’t expect to see any flavors-that-aren’t flavors either.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Coke’s latest bizarre flavor is here”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.