Category Archives: Food Products

POKE WARS! In CHICAGO!

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Have you had poke? It’s pronounced “poke-ee’ in Hawaii and is kind of like Hawaiian ceviche,  fish (often ahi, or tuna) marinated in shoyu, sesame oil, green onions and so forth. No luau is complete without it.  Goes well with barbecue and beer. They’re even selling it at Safeway. I’ve seen stores in Hawaii that sell fifteen different kinds.  It’s apparently a thing now on the  mainland too, to the point where lawsuits are flying over who’s got the rights. Read about it HERE.

And HERE’s a recipe;  you can skip the chopped mac nuts.  I’ve never seen them over there and they wouldn’t add a thing.  And if you’re in Honolulu, don’t go to the places  named in the article, go to the Tamashiro Market in Kakaako. Only.

Short Ribs and Random Thoughts Nov 21 2017

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Busy, rainy week. Short column today. 

ANNALS OF CONSUMER DISAPPOINTMENT:  the little avocados at Grocery Outlet are no longer reliable.  At least half of them have rotten spots. You can cut around them, but really…Worse was the surprise that came from a box of Marcelli’s spinach ravioli purchased at Murphy’s.  I buy the  meat ravioli for a quick meal every now and then (quick, not cheap- $5.99 for a hefty serving for one) but I hadn’t bought the spinach variety. I found them to be tasteless and watery and, worse of all, the ravioli  fell apart while being simmered and about a million little pieces  of spinach were floating around. Definitely unappetizing. The meat ones have damn little meat in them  but at least they  stay together. Their meat sauce, on the other hand, is celestial.

JARED AND GOD: the biggest non-event of the  past several weeks was Jared Huffman’s declaration that he is a humanist, or at least a non-Christian. I’m glad he “came out”.  I’m sure nobody cares. I’m sure not-being-Christian is no longer a disqualifier for public office.  I keep wondering,  WHEN WILL RON REAGAN RUN FOR OFFICE??  Our most famous atheist is sharp as a tack, well-spoken, and appears irregularly on MSNBC.  Run, Ron, run!  I’ll donate.

IS THIS TRUE??  According to the New Yorker,  Nov 13, 2017,  “According to a Pew survey…nearly eighty per cent of liberals like the idea of living in a dense neighborhood where you can walk to to shops and schools, while seventy-five  per cent of conservatives would rather live in a larger house with more space around it.”

Which mental illness, of the many demonstrated by our Fake President, causes him to have to belittle everything and everyone who preceded him?  His bragging that everything  he does is “the greatest”,  “the biggest”, or “the best” is putting everyone to sleep.   And I am going back to sleep right  now.  What else do you do on a rainy Monday in November? Have a good holiday.

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Loleta Cheese Is Falling Apart

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Loleta Cheese, beloved by generations of Humboldters, is changing , and not for the better.  As you know,  they were bought last year by a Bay Area chef who immediately introduced THREE lines of cheese.  It apparently hasn’t worked out  too well.

I’ve been in the habit of buying  their cheese for birthday presents for years   Last month I wanted to buy for two birthdays but I couldn’t get their website to work. So I drove to Loleta and picked out two identical piles of cheese to be shipped, one to Florida, one to Minneapolis. The last time I did this was at Christmas. When the nice clerk gave me forms to fill out, I told her, “Just do it like last time  -you have the addresses”.  No, we don’t, she told me.  The new owner DELETED ALL THE CUSTOMER FILES.

What kind of bozo would do that? 

We filled out the forms- this was on Friday, April 28 at 2pm according to my receipt.  As I was leaving she said the cheese would be shipped out on Monday,  It was all picked out and ready to go but,  no,  it had to wait four days to be shipped. Not impressive.

All the next week, I looked forward to hearing from my cheese-starved relatives that they had received their cheese. Hearing nothing, I called Loleta Cheese. on May 8.   I reached the same nice lady.  She said my cheese had just been shipped THAT DAY.  When I asked why it took so long, she said they had been out of one of the selections.  They were not.  I had picked them out myself. All were present. I didn’t argue with The Nice Lady but I will no longer entrust Loleta Cheese to mail anything for me. Just sayin’

I hope Loleta Cheese survives.  Several people rely on it for employment.  But when you lose your customer service, you’re on the way to closing.  When I write anything critical about this business their  friends and relatives spring to their defense. Loyalty is great, but customer service is better.  We should have both.

The ‘new” cheeses are not very good,  The citrus is particularly awful. They are selling a “blue cheese” made by Pt Reyes Cheese that is just okay.  It’s not real blue cheese. Say a little prayer for this company and let’s hope they can survive on the summer trade in grilled cheese sandwiches. Everyone wants to try them once. After that, do they have a real business?

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Happy Easter? Bah, Humbug!

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***Here’s an oldie but a goodie in the holiday spirit.***

Easter is my least-favorite holiday.  At Christmas you get good chocolate and lots of presents.  At Easter you get Peeps. No comparison.

As a kid growing up in Eureka, I was subjected to all kinds of barbaric treatment by well-meaning family members. I HAD to have a new coat, made from scratch by a lady on “A” Street, Audrey Hansen and her mother. Anyone remember them? Every coat involved two or three fittings all of which involved repeatedly being stuck with pins. These days we’d call it child abuse. The ladies were still in business when I was in sixth grade and had to have a Tiger Lily costume for the Christmas Pageant. More pins.

My normal hair wouldn’t do for Easter, either. My grandmother would march me down to Daly’s to have my hair permed. Remember that salon on the mezzanine level?  The sulphurous fumes from the frying hair filled the whole store.  Ah, the good old days.

Like it or not, Easter is a big holiday for retail spending. The National Retail Federation tells us each of us will spend $140 on Easter this year.  I’m not even close. I bought some Reese’s and a Paas egg coloring kit.  Don’t ask.  Our Easter Dinner will be a pork roast rescued from the freezer. I like to slow-cook them so that the house smells good for hours.  

That NRF article includes some fascinating data on how people plan to spend the holiday. almost half of you will be in church.  Which is good.  I don’t go myself, but I definitely  approve of church. Almost a third of you will be surfing the web on Easter, maybe doing some online buying. I asked the friendly staff at Partrick’s the other day about their holiday sales and they reported that while their big days are Christmas and Valentine’s,  Easter comes in a close third,  representing maybe 15% of yearly revenues. That’s pretty much the same as on the national level.  

So Happy Easter, everyone.  Support your local candy store and don’t make your kids get their hair fried. And go to the Zoo. It’ll make you feel good.

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Do You Pick Your Own Crab??

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Or are you one of the one-percenters who pay the $40 per pound for picked crab?

I cannot pick crab to save my life.  I fool with it for an hour and end up with my hands mangled, every fingernail broken, pieces of crab leg all over.  I ran into a guy once who had worked at Pacific Choice or Lazio’s  or somewhere and he claimed  that if you had the right wrist action and knew what you were doing you could sort of shake the crab out of the shell.  I’m just passing this on; I have no idea if it’s true.

At these prices, you try to stretch things.  I have a recipe for crab spread that is good for us peasants.  This was not created for dungeness but works just fine.  It’s from the late lamented Trawler Restaurant  on Shem Creek in Charleston. Here it is:

COMBINE:  One cup of that precious crabmeat with  one 8-oz package  of cream cheese, softened, 1/2 cup mayo, 4 T (start with 2) worcestershire sauce, 2 T horseradish (start with one), 2 T melted butter, 1/2 tsp garlic salt. Seriously good.

Okay, you twisted my arm so here’s another.  This is from Joe’s Stone Crabs and is a dipping sauce that- I think-  goes better with shrimp than with crab.  I keep it around all the time now. You can thank me later.

COMBINE;  One cup mayo, 4 T half&half, 4 tsp dry mustard, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp A-1, salt and pepper.

I have a recipe for  mac’n’cheese with crab  that also stretches a cup of crabmeat to feed four.  When it comes to crab, there is no shame. Eat the whole thing yourself!  Support our local crabbers! And if you hear of anyone giving crab-picking lessons, let me know.

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MURPHY’S Anniversary Sale Features Bargains

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The Murphy’s flyer this morning features sale prices at all their stores honoring their 45th Anniversary. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs @$1.45/lb.  Also those chicken spinach feta burgers @$3.45/lb,  pork shoulder roast @ $2.45/lb and cantaloupe @ $.45/lb.

They are having in-store drawings every day too although at the Cutten store yesterday it was hard to figure out what the prize was.  45 years is a long time to prosper on †he Redwood Coast so stop by and  say “hi”.

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SHOPPING MYSTERIES: Loleta Cheese Version

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You’ve heard of Mystery Shoppers? This is our new feature, Shopping Mysteries, wherein we will point out various incongruities and contradictions in our local retail scene.  To wit:

The Loleta Cheese Factory is always a great place to take visitors.  Surely they can pick up an edible souvenir at the very cheapest price because they’re right there at the source, right?  Wrong.  The cheese at the store is confusingly packaged in 11-oz chunks, but the bottom line is you pay 53¢ per ounce or $8.48 a pound. 

Loleta Cheese at Murphy’s Market (we shop in Cutten) is $7.99 a pound. 

Loleta Cheese at Winco is, apparently, $6.99 a pound but there were several more cheaply marked packages that were close to their expiration date. 

So there you have it.  The “close-to-the source” mythology doesn’t work with cheese factories any better than it does at our outrageously expensive farmers’ markets. The laws of supply and demand  are not subject to strict enforcement.

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