Magic Jewball

Ever since I did my rugelach bake sale for charity, several people have asked me if I would do the same thing with Hamantaschen, those filled triangular cookies of awesomeness. And so, I have decided to do it! Here is my post from last year describing the process of cookie-creating, should you not be 100% sure what I’m talking about. Hamantaschen are named for the villain of the Purim story, Haman (he wanted to kill the Jews, so trendy!) and Purim is this Friday. Another important thing to do on Purim is to give gifts to those in need so check out how well that works out!

This time we have two exciting charities to choose from as well as two flavors of Hamantaschen. You can see all the details and the method to acquire these tasty treats on my new Bake Sale page. The picture is not of my own cookies, but you get the idea. So get your orders in and we’ll celebrate giving to good causes with tasty treats.

Edited to add: for those who didn’t order last time, it is a medium-sized (4 cup) Gladware container.

Edited again to add: last day to order is Saturday 3/22.

Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

Well, not a restaurant, really, a fast-food place. That’s a kind of restaurant. The kind of restaurant where you are your own waiter and your service to yourself begins when the guy behind the counter yells, “#2312!” There aren’t many fast-food places I can frequent, being liberally Kosher as I am. But this month, my favorite vegetarian mini-chain, Zen Palate, opened a Faux McDonald’s in East Midtown and as soon as I had an easyish day that enabled a two subway trek to food-gather, I went for it.

The funny thing is, it’s near Grand Central, which has so many fine food choices (including a Kosher deli) that I nearly didn’t even leave it to get my Zen Burger. But I kept my eyes on the prize and finally found it in all its orangey glory. I would post pictures except for the small fact that I don’t have any. But I’ll link you to some at the bottom! Anyway, the line was out the door, even though I take a somewhat late lunch. I kind of wish I had polled people to ask them why they were there. Were they vegetarians? Bored with real meat? Thought it was healthier? Who knows! They were a mix of normal business people, hipsters, and average joes. There was one Muslim lady and a woman who was clearly a frum Jew (word to the frum, there is no hechsher that I know of). I guess the concept was supposed to be strange because there were two people stationed along the line to answer questions. I’m not often at McDonald’s, but I’m pretty sure they don’t do that. The frum lady, who was a few people in front of me, asked a lot of questions, like “is there real beef in the ZenBeef Burger?” I wanted to say, “Listen, the word Zen is like that slash through the equal sign. It means not. It’s beef, not.” When he approached me, I did have a question, “When are you coming to the West side?” He was very enthusiastic and told me they were opening 1500 locations in the next decade, including one imminently in Hollywood. Perhaps he thought I said West coast.

They had all kinds of combos of NotBurgers or NotChicken or NotShrimp and fries and drinks, and I understand their iced tea is fab, but I wanted the most FauxDonald’s I could get. So I got a Southwest burger (it had chipotle mayo and the word chipotle is just magical - it’s like the sun dried tomato of the new millennium) and Chicken FakeNuggets. By the way, these are my names, they’re all called ZenThis or ZenThat. Mine are more descriptive, though. And then I waited in a crowd of people for my number to be called. They were all glowing - it was kind of like the Apple Store for food. Which sounds strange because something called the Apple Store really should sell food.

And then I got my lunch and hauled ass back to my office. Total time, one hour. And it was great! Which is terrible. Now I’m going to be addicted to fast food like the rest of America. But maybe they will come to your town! I hear there’s a good chance of that if you live in Hollywood.

I heard about this place from a blog I subscribe to called Midtown Lunch. Which is pretty much what it’s about. He never describes anything near me, I guess I’m only on the fringe of Midtown. But it’s a fun read! And you can see Loud Orange pictures there.

Hey, instead of a song, let’s have a look at how McDonald’s is selling burgers abroad, shall we? “Rediscover the taste of liberty with the Big Tasty.” Also, stereotypes of the old West. And mullets.

Yes, according to this article, Pret a Manger, the fab British chain that has a few tasty outlets in Manhattan, had to make their sandwiches over 25% larger to sell any in the US.

The company ran into trouble in America, however, underestimating quite how large New Yorkers liked their sandwiches. After altering the sizes, and cutting back on the mayonnaise, it slowly turned the business around.

Fantastic! After all the talk about how McDonald’s (which owns a share of Pret, as it happens) pushes large sizes on the masses, it turns out that we actually can’t eat a simple 450 calorie sandwich for lunch (that’s before the chips and the soda, etc…. Pret has nice cake too, FYI). We don’t want to get hungry before the 4pm Starbucks run or anything!

But at least we don’t eat as much mayo as the Brits do. I’m going to try to find some comfort in that.

Well, that was fun. I’m not sure I’ll ever have that many comments again, but that’s OK. It was good while it lasted! And it came at the perfect time because I’ve been quite busy lately, coming off vacation, and it gave me an excuse not to write anything. And this week I’ve basically had a free dinner out each night and you know I can’t turn those down. Luckily for me, Okies seem to make the best ROTM’s.

But that gives me a moment to meditate on the fact that I really haven’t cooked anything at all in the last four months. The nadir is probably this evening, where my cousin and loyal reader Pious B is coming to dinner and I ran out this morning in a panic to Kosher Marketplace (one of the five cramped local kosher shops near me) to buy apricot chicken for $10 that I could have cooked myself for $3. But the sabbath starts at 6, I’m leaving work at 5, it takes me 25 minutes to get home, chicken takes an hour to cook, etc. You do the math!

I feel like a failure. I like to cook. I’m OK at it. It’s healthier. But I get home late, I’m surrounded by excellent food of every variety and I am, as always, truly lazyass. And this week I calculated that it’s actually cheaper to buy prepared food than cook my own! Except for that chicken. Whoops.

I think what I really hate is conforming to the idea that most of you already have from Sex & the City that New Yorkers use their kitchens merely to open Chinese food containers. OK, I do this. But not all the time, I swear. It’s just that in order to afford my teeny-tiny kitchen I have to work 12 hours a day and then there’s all that nightlife. Who has time to cook? Isn’t that what people come to America for? To open delightful ethnic restaurants and bring me dinner on a bicycle?

No, no, I kid. I know the American dream is to actually receive dinner on a bicycle. But not me, I actually walked two blocks and bought mine. See? I’m not as lazyass as I thought.

Title comes from:
Crowded House – Weather With You

Hungry?

Yes, this is the sight that usually greets me on any given evening. Isn’t it nice to be so beloved by the fine restaurants of my neighborhood? Fans of New York who don’t live here often say envious things about all our take-out places. The wide variety of cheap and easy food (forget cheap and easy people). The food from countries that you’ve never even heard of. But then, they don’t have to contend with the nightly detritus that shows up, unwanted and unasked for, like the cold you got from touching the wrong subway pole. Or any subway pole.

I keep my recycling pile right near the door so I can just drop the menus right in but sometimes I forget and slip on them. Luckily, although I have good insurance, I’ve never sued myself.

The funny thing about these menus is they give you a clue as to what the people on your floor are having for dinner. “Oh, someone’s having Obento Delight. Good choice.” Sometimes, the menus show up while I’m actually at home and they make a kind of swooshy sound sliding under the door. They startle me and I immediately wonder if I have a rodent problem. I used to want to chase after the delivery guy, shaking my fist and telling him where he could stuff his menus. (It’s always a “him;” there are no delivery women, for whatever reason). But then I realized that if you came all the way to America and the life from which you were escaping was actually worse than riding around on a little bicycle, dodging NY traffic in all weathers at all hours, risking your life with every doorbell buzz, all for meager tips, well then that life had to suck really, really bad. Do you need me running after you yelling, waving my comfortable life and fat, fat wallet?

Speaking of other countries (how’d you like that smooth segue?) I tried. I really really tried to figure out soccer and this whole World Cup thing. I watched a bit. All I saw was people running frantically around a field. One guy kicks to the second guy. The second guy kicks to the third guy. The third guy kicks back to the first guy. Oh, it was a real blast. I later found out that it was a “breathtaking match” in which one team “trounced” the other, 1-0. Or as my friend Neil Finn would say, “one-nil.” Shut up, Neil Finn is my friend.

Now, I am so not a xenophobe. You will remember my love of all that is English. Plus, I love sports and my favorite athlete is Argentinean. Am I not the perfect candidate to get into this? But sorry, it’s a non-starter. As a matter of fact, I never felt so American as when I sat, slack-jawed, watching men in knee socks dashing madly around a large field accomplishing not much of anything. God bless America and our complete non-interest in this thing that obsesses every single other corner of the globe!

Supertramp - Breakfast In America

It seems sacrilegious to include Neil Finn in on this anti-soccer post, but hey, I’ll use any excuse. Neil Finn is, to me, the best songwriter who ever lived. Sorry, John Lennon. Sorry, Gershwin. Sorry, the rest of you. Sure, you’ve heard:
Crowded House - Don’t Dream It’s Over

But he’s way better than that song. Did you wonder where all the cool songs for grown-ups were? Look no further. It was hard to narrow down, but here are two favorites:
Neil Finn - She Will Have Her Way (Sorry, his solo stuff only gets 30 seconds)

Crowded House - Four Seasons In One Day