Category Archives: Food

June 11, 2010 · 7:19 am

It’s time

This week I have been spending a fair amount of time in the air. 

I don’t travel as often as George Clooney in Up in the Air but, like George’s character, I am robotic in my process.  I go through security like a zombie—that’s the best way to do it, actually—and seldom get rattled.  I often rent cars on the other end and that too has become rhythmic.

I don’t even travel as often as many of my colleagues.  I have one client who flies out of Philly so often she’s been offered the airport employees’ discount at Auntie Anne’s.

Erma Bombeck wrote a popular book entitled, When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time to Go Home.

While, sadly, I haven’t used my passport in quite some time, Erma’s book title swooshes through my head during some of my busiest domestic travel weeks.  In fact, during time spent recently in a boarding area (no, not that time), I drew up a list of it’s-time-to-go-home triggers.

It’s time to go home when:

  • you check the Departures monitor for your gate and have to look at your boarding pass to remember where you are going
  • you and the US Airways flight attendants recognize each other–and smile fondly
  • you use your travel toiletries more than the ones at home
  • you sit down in a restaurant and look for the seat belt
  • you achieve frequent shopper status at Taxco Sterling and HMS Newsstand (and Auntie Anne’s).  The woman at the Taxco counter at National Airport knows which pieces I already have.
  • you spot the same set of identically dressed adult twins twice (not yet, but it’s bound to happen!)

How about you?  When is it time for you to go home?

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June 5, 2010 · 8:41 am

Root root root

You might have noticed one topic that hasn’t been written about in this place:  sports.

That’s because I am uncomfortable writing about things I don’t know anything about.  When the topic comes up in conversation, I can usually get by with an observational nod or hmmm, then I excuse myself to the ladies room.  My lack of knowledge makes me feel like an outsider and my fear of embarrassment makes me want to run for my life before being asked my opinion on something.

Last night I went to a Washington Nationals game.

My husband rushed to buy tickets for this particular game on a hot rumor that some person named Strasburg was going to be pitching and that the game would sell out within hours.  My husband’s instinct was right.  The game sold out before the end of the day we ordered our tickets.

I don’t know a Strasburg from a Stradivarius but I did know that this rumor was akin to hearing that a rock and roll concert coming to town would feature a surprise appearance by Elvis (I was going to say John Lennon but John Lennon is dead).

Anyway, this Strasburg person didn’t pitch before the crowd of nearly 34,000 fans in the Nats’ shiny new stadium last night.  Rumor has it that he’ll be there later this week.

That’s OK.  I still got what I go to baseball games for—a hot dog and ice cream. 

I do enjoy listening to people talk about baseball.  I am impressed when they can throw around stats that they carry around in their heads and I confess I find it exciting to hear about a diving catch, a clutch hit or a golden sombrero.  What, that’s not a tequila drink?

The problem is, with the exception of the hot dog and ice cream, I find watching baseball exceptionally boring.  The skill and nuance are lost on me.  I don’t see the diving catch even when it happens right in front of me, which, according to this morning’s paper, it did.

Another thing.  I don’t know if it’s Washington fans in general or just a coincidence that I’ve seen this at Nationals and Redskins games alike, but I always seem to be seated among loud, obnoxious twenty-something males, full of Budweiser, who yell insults at the opposing team.  Again, it might just be coincidence.  It’s just that I haven’t seen it in the baseball stadium in the next city over.

So let’s bring out Strasburg already and Go Nats.

Word Nymph returns Monday.  Tomorrow she’ll still be taking flak from her family for this piece.

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May 20, 2010 · 7:41 am

Ambush advertising

The new Kraft mayonnaise commercial is not only entertaining but extremely clever.

Have you seen it?  It’s a takeoff on the Extreme Makeover shows.  The wife was always making tiny finger sandwiches, like the ones you’d have at high tea, and the husband was forlorn.  Kraft bursts in and does an extreme sandwich makeover with its new seasoned mayo and an oversized roll, and the result moves both husband and wife to tears.

Advertising Age ran a story earlier this year on Kraft’s push to step up its marketing strategy following the company’s acquisition of Cadbury.  Kraft has produced some pretty memorable ads over the years.  Remember the famous “And I helped!” for Shake and Bake? Ad Age points out that the company continues to wear a bit of a down-home label when it comes to its commercials.

Twenty-four years ago, Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death:  Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, in which he discussed how television and other entertainment media spill over into politics and public dialogue.  Even after 24 years, while the entertainment media are vastly transformed, a point Postman made regarding television advertising holds true today, as Kraft proves in its Sandwich Makeover campaign:  “What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.”

What better way is there than an ambush makeover to make a consumer feel bad enough about herself to run right out and buy mayonnaise?

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April 14, 2010 · 6:58 am

Did you want to ask me that again?

Here is another grammatical trend I am betting you haven’t noticed but, once you do, you’ll hear it everywhere.  I hear it in restaurants all the time.

I say, I’d like a cup of coffee, please.”  The server asks, “Did you want cream?”

I reply “yes” but in my head I am sarcastically responding, “Yes, I DID and I still DO.”

When did we move from “Would you like” to “Did you want?”

Yes, I did want fries with that and, once that burger comes off the grill, I am pretty sure I will still want them.

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April 5, 2010 · 7:50 am

A Giant spelling error

Re-branding.  It’s going on all around us.  Giant Food, one of the Mid-Atlantic region’s largest grocery chains, has just completed a massive re-branding.  This year they rolled out new corporate colors and a very cool logo.  My local Giant has transformed the inside and revamped all the signage in accordance with the new brand.  As a consumer, I appreciate the added in-aisle signs pointing specifically to what’s on the shelves. 

Anyone who has worked for a large corporation knows the magnitude of re-branding and the sizeable price tag attached.  I presume there was extensive research leading up to the effort—focus groups, studies of consumer behavior and due diligence on the legal and intellectual property implications.  I suspect a beefy staff of compliance experts oversaw the rollout.  But they omitted an important function—the spellchecker.  

I try not to be too judgmental (most times) but I can’t roll my cart down the frozen food aisle without bristling at the sign pointing to the “Sherbert.”   This word is commonly mispronounced.  It’s tempting to want to make it rhyme with Herbert.  But it’s sherbet, people, not sherbert!  

At least half a dozen times now, I have approached the customer service desk, now cheerfully re-named the Solution Center, at the front of the store, to alert management to the slip, but chickened out as I got close.   If I drew their attention to the error, would I be perceived a snob?  I often operate under the skewed assumption that people are grateful for being made aware of their errors.  But they don’t usually accept this edification as the gift it is intended to be.  Would management be any less offended if I alerted them to an expired sell-by date on a product still on the shelf?  

Likely the signs come from a central warehouse anyway and the store managers have no direct control or concern over what comes down from corporate.  Still, this is a Giant mistake.

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April 3, 2010 · 8:00 am

Easter brisket

Julia Child, if you’re looking down from your celestial kitchen, look away, dear.  I’m making a brisket.

I’ve always wanted to say that, “I’m making a brisket.” 

I am a carniphobe, intimidated by meat.  Roast not, braise not.  Man versus meat?  Not a contender.  I love to eat it, when someone else cooks it.  But I don’t cook it.  Ever. 

So why the brisket?  I love the word.  Brisket.  It’s crisp, it’s fun to say (perhaps because it rhymes with biscuit?).  Brisket is home, it’s comfort, it’s a special occasion.  Women who make brisket are respected. 

When brisket comes up in conversation it is intimate and holy, “my mother’s brisket.”  Whispered at a Shiva, “she made a fabulous brisket.”

Just this week, The Big Bang Theory had the guys stranded in the woods without food.  As they were getting desperate, Howard Wolowitz exclaimed, “my mother put an I-love-you brisket in my backpack!”

The next day, coincidentally the first day of Passover, I was in front of the meat case hearing voices. I think it was Trader Joe himself, dream music in the background, “Brisket!”  “Monica, you can do it, you can be the woman behind the fabulous brisket.”

So I caved and there it sits, on the bottom shelf in the fridge, waiting to be prepared, fearing it will perish.  Better get out the, uh, what kind of pan do you use?

Note:  Word Nymph shalt not blog on Sundays.  Hope to see you Monday.

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