Grocers Feel Chill From Millennials

Baby boomers used to bring long grocery lists to supermarkets and club stores. Now shoppers in their 20s and 30s are visiting supermarkets less frequently than their parents, government records and survey data show. They are spreading purchases across new options, including online grocery services such as AmazonFresh, beefed-up convenience stores and stronger food offerings from omnibus retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp.

from the Wall Street Journal

A grocer exclaimed "Woe is me!"

"My shoppers depart gradually"

"My meat and my cukes
are treated like pukes"

"I'll now have to file bankruptcy!"

Eat your bugs!

Investigating the nutrients in insects, scientists at Kings College London and China’s Ningbo University discovered that minerals important to health including calcium, copper and zinc are more readily absorbed from bugs than from beef. They published their research in the current issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

from the Wall Street Journal 

If you want your meal to have zest

just put in some insectoid pest.

The essence of flea

sounds tasty to me.

Or how 'bout a nice beetle breast? 

Executives rarely lose out

Executives of EpiPen maker Mylan NV are unlikely to suffer a reduction in their pay from the company’s recent $465 million settlement of allegations that it improperly overcharged Medicaid for the lifesaving drug.

from the Wall Street Journal 

Executives rarely lose out

for acting like some kind of lout.

Their bonus secure,

they're seldom demure;

in fact honest dealing they flout!

Restaurant Review: Oregano Italian Kitchen. Provo, Utah

Should the local Carabinieri stop you for a pasta check while strolling on West Central in Provo, you can stick out your chin, Mussolini-style, and tell them you are headed to the Oregano Italian Kitchen. They will immediately cease hassling you, for there is good stuff to eat at Oregano, and the service is molto veloce.

 Of course, like most modern Italian joints today, the inside is just this side of pitch dark. This seems to be the trend for stylish restaurants; they don't want you to be able to see what you are eating. Or maybe they are just being stingy on the lighting bill. Luckily, my owl-like vision allowed me to stroll suavely through the welter of tables and chairs with hardly a halt to violently bang my knee on some lurking piece of furniture. I not only see well in the dark, but some folk actually claim that I glow in the dark as well. All that strontium 90 in my pap as a child, no doubt.
My waiter seated me quickly and efficiently, then began jabbering at me in something resembling English but skewed with such a deep and impenetrable accent that I had to ask for a rerun several times before catching the drift of his monologue. Hopefully, he has only been in the United States for a few weeks -- because if he's been interacting with us down home folks for several years and can't shake that gosh dern accent, then by cracky he's in for a sockdolager of a time!

I just had water to drink with my meal. Since this is Utah, getting a license to serve beer and wine is like getting permission to wear a turban and ululate wildly in Arabic -- ain't gonna happen, chum. That's one reason why diners in Utah are a little bit more churlish and less inclined to tip than in other areas of the country -- there's nothing like a couple shots of hooch at lunch to brighten the rest of the day and loosen the purse strings.

I started things off with a calamari fritta -- squid rings. Piping hot, they were great -- but as they started to cool off they lost their will to fight back or exhibit any great flavor. So I had to gobble them fast and burn the roof of my mouth or let them cool and be denied their zest. It's things like this that make restaurant critics prematurely gray around the tonsils.

 Then came the spaghetti carbonara. With a sliver of toast, and I mean a sliver; I could have used it for a toothpick. Only franchises like Olive Garden shower you with bread nowadays; independent joints are more concerned about gluten, I guess. This place is also very chaste when it comes to garlic. The reek of it doesn't hang in the air like a miasma, as it used to in all the Italian places I ever haunted as a young man. But there was plenty of grated Parmesan on both my items. They must grow it in the basement. All in all, this pasta dish was just as rich as you'd want it to be. But I had to ask for red pepper flakes to wake it up a bit. And I am getting smarter as a food critic, folks; instead of gobbling the whole thing down and then lurching home to sit in my recliner for the next three hours feeling like a beached whale, I only ate about a third of it and brought the rest home with me. So if you happen to be in the neighborhood in the next 24 hours you can stop by and ask for the leftovers -- I doubt I'm going to get to them before they spoil. Another cross we cuisine queens have to bear.

One final note before I shut up. Since I liked the food and would gladly bring friends and family I decided to thaw my miserly ways just a bit and leave a big tip. I put it on my debit card and as I walked out of the place, giving it a four-burp rating, I began to wonder if there is any difference between tiping with my debit card and leaving cash on the table as a tip. So I called my daughter Sarah, who waitressed for a while, and asked her. She told me that wait staff always prefer a cash tip left on the table, because they can just pocket that and no questions asked; whereas if it's just added to the debit card it has to be taxed and divided between staff members, etc. 

So I'll be getting some cash out of the ATM before reviewing another one of Provo's hash houses. It'll impress my daughter Sarah and maybe I'll see more of her and the grand kids . . .  

My entire meal, the fritti and the spaghetti carbonara, came to $17.24.

Winter is hard to abide

Winter is hard to abide.
It causes my fears to collide.
The flue my lungs slice.
I slip on the ice.
I'm left all alone at Yuletide. 

Restaurant Review: Pupuseria El Salvador, in Provo, Utah.

Four doors down from the place I ate at yesterday is the Pupuseria El Salvador. The glass front door proclaims: "Authentic El Salvadoran Food!" So who am I to gainsay such assurances? I waltz in the joint, which is even smaller than the Peruvian greasy spoon I was in yesterday. And it's filling up fast for the noon hour.

Thankfully there are no Halloween decorations put up to mar the simple Grandma Moses-like paintings of rural life that hang on the walls. That leaves me with a good first impression, even though I have to sit in a folding chair. Me and folding chairs parted ways long years ago; they remind me of Amway conventions and pointless power points.
Once again there is only one overworked waitress on duty, who can't keep up with the modest crowd. And once again the menu seems to feature more items that they don't have than that they do have. My first four attempts at ordering something native to drink meet with failure. "We don't have any". I guess I had better learn how to say that in Spanish: "no tenemos ninguna".

For an appetizer I order one tamal de puerco -- a pork tamale. It comes with a bowl of shredded cabbage. In fact, all the meals in this place come with shredded cabbage. Which just seems wrong to me, like waffles and chicken. It may be popular; it may be a cultural thing; but damned if I'm going to let it go unremarked upon!

But the tamale is very good; moist and with a good amount of pork in it. It tastes so good I even eat some of the shredded cabbage with it. Just to be accommodating. 

My main dish is lengua guisada -- cow tongue stew. I have to wait a long time for it, almost a half hour. This normally would have me stewing more than my order, but I am on a writing assignment, so I maintain a Buddha-like sang-froid. Then I realize something about the American dinning landscape: Nobody cares how long it takes to get their order anymore, because everyone is busy on their smartphone or tablet, so they wouldn't know if ten minutes or an hour had passed between their order and its delivery.  This makes for a better and more pleasant dinning experience for everyone today -- except for me, since I don't have a mobile device and quickly grow tired of drawing on the napkins with crayons. 

When my stew finally comes I find it unpretentious but very good. The onion sauce is robust and the sides of beans and rice go well with the pieces of tongue, which are very rich and chew well. And I even get 2 plump pupusas, which I have to admit are not as welcome as some chips or tortillas would be. I know it's the national dish, but to me they're like dispirited pancakes that have given up half way through the process. Better to eat them than throw them out; but as National Dishes go, I think El Salvador needs an upgrade . . . 

For my single pork tamale and a plate of lengua guisada I paid a total of $10.46. 

William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe

Although the arguments about his authorship have raged for two centuries, Shakespeare's plays have been printed and reprinted and reprinted again, bearing his name. Now, for the first time and with a bit of help from computers and big data, the Oxford University Press will add Christopher Marlowe as a co-author in all three “Henry VI” plays (Parts 1, 2 and 3).

from the Washington Post

It's hard to believe that the Bard

used Marlowe as play writing pard.

It's like Santa Claus

used the Wizard of Oz

when driving the sleigh got too hard. 

Restaurant Review: Se Llama Peru, of Provo, Utah.

Should you be ambling down West Center Street in Provo, Utah, some day, and suddenly stop to slap your forehead and say "By gadfrey, I'm in the mood for some fried guinea pig!", you will undoubtedly start looking for a Peruvian restaurant where such delicacies are to be had. And, being on West Center Street, you will immediately spot Se Llama Peru, give a screech of joy, and dive into the place like gangbusters.

It is a homey little place, about the size of a suburban living room. The tables and chairs are mismatched, and there's a soccer game narrated in Spanish on the big screen TV in the back.

The name of the restaurant, Se Llama Peru, roughly translated, means "We don't have it". They didn't have the first three items I asked for on their menu. And needless to say there was no guinea pig on their menu at all -- kind-hearted Provovians would never allow the execution of such cute little rascals just to satisfy their baser appetites.

So I started with their Sopa del Dia: Aguadito Sopa -- which is a heavily salted chicken soup with rice and some frozen peas,carrots,greenbeans, poured straight from the bag into the soup. The chicken pieces had some life to them. No bread or chips or tortillas are served with the soup, or with any of the meals. Must be an old Peruvian custom.

As the lunch time crowd moved in, the one lone waitress had to scramble to keep up with the orders. But she just kept on smiling -- which was more than I could do when I asked for a glass of water to soak out some of my soup's saltiness and didn't get it until fifteen minutes later. 

I'm afraid I can't comment on the ambiance of the decor, since it was all covered up with Halloween cutouts of skeletons, witches, and vampires -- unless that's how the place looks all year round. Maybe Peruvians have a ghoulish streak, I don't know . . . 

But I digress. Next on the menu was a plate of  Lomo Saltado

This is steak strips fried with tomatoes, onions, and french fried potatoes. Rice on the side. It's basic and hearty; the kind of dish that sticks to your ribs like a lamprey eel. As an ensemble dish it was decent, except for the potatoes. I'm afraid they were soggy and bland and tended to make the whole concoction sullen. Left out and replaced with a few carrot slices, the dish would be well-received anywhere. But I'm afraid the potatoes make this dish demi monde.

Will I be recommending this place to my friends Jim, Larry, Rob, Robert, and Nathan?

No, I will not.

My bill for a glass of passion fruit juice, bowl of soup, and the Lomo Saltado, came to $22.00.

GoFundMe Fraud

“Less than one-tenth of one percent of all GoFundMe campaigns are fraudulent,” the company said. “With that said, there are unfortunate instances where people create campaigns with the intention to take advantage of others’ generosity.

from the Washington Post  

There may be a generous God,

but does He protect against fraud?

The cynic says no;

the suckers just grow

like tourists who visit Cape Cod. 

Iceland’s No. 1 Dating Rule: Make Sure You’re Not Cousins

In Iceland it's easy to spark
a kinsman or two in the dark.
But if you are buzzin'
a second cousin,
you might want to move to Denmark.