I still do love my chains but I'm reintegrating this content back into my main site, Goodies First. The reason is simple: no one reads Chains of Love (god bless the handful of you that do) and at least a couple handfuls more read Goodies First.
Bulking Up For the Winter
Why don’t run-of-the-mill grocery stores in NYC sell bulk food? This was literally keeping me awake last night. I yelled the question repeatedly from my bedroom into the kitchen where James was doing dishes and garnered no response until my third attempt got a ridiculous “It’s not worth answering.” That’s absolutely not true.
A million years ago when I first moved to NYC I was stymied by the Associateds, Key Foods, C Towns and the like packaging everything up for you in Styrofoam and cling film or plastic containers. What if I only wanted a handful of white mushrooms or half a cup of pecans? It seemed so wasteful to force large amounts of perishables on a shopper.
My genius idea would be selling fresh herbs in bulk. Of course, there wouldn’t be much profit in this business model. I can never use 20 thyme sprigs or even a whole cilantro bundle before it starts to go bad.
I’m still not sure if it’s a space and convenience issue; it’s just easier for a store to present you with ready-to-go items, if it’s hygiene like too many hands touching the goods, that people would just take food and not pay or that New Yorkers have a more difficult time than the average consumer with self-service (I tend to believe the latter having seen way too many jams and general cluelessness at the few stores that offer self-checkout).
My big scam when I was a younger teen and candy was enough to make my day, was filling my baggie with bridge mix and writing down the code for chocolate-covered peanuts, which were way cheaper. I only got busted once, which was no big deal because you could just play dumb. People were more trusting. This was during the era when stores would sell kids cigarettes with notes from their parents (I had a neighbor in high school who legitimately did this, the reasoning being that they had had drug problems and were in recovery and their family was happy to see them smoking as long as it meant they weren’t abusing other substances).
I’d forgotten about the lack of bulk food even being problematic until this weekend when I paid a visit to Wegmans in Woodbridge, NJ, a much higher class of grocery store than the already classier-than-NYC garden state supermarkets I normally patronize. The store is mammoth with spacious rows of anything you could think of (except corn tortillas and polenta in a tube it turned out—what’s up with the maize aversion? Maybe someone read The Omnivore's Dilemma one too many times) including a nice row of bulk food dispensers. You don’t even know the joy I derived from meting out the tiniest scoop of pepitas. It’s very satisfying to pay $1 and some change for what you actually need instead of $5 for a container that will just go stale.
I would’ve explored Wegmans further (and possibly found those corn products eventually) but I was running late to meet friends at Cheeseburger in Paradise just minutes away on the other side of Route 1. If you ever want live covers of all your favorite ‘90s hits (think Counting Crows and Extreme) and a signature cocktail composed of pina colada, rum runner, margarita, daiquiri and blue curacao layers, all in the same glass, garnished with a gummy cheeseburger on a toothpick and fruit wearing sunglasses (they’re called “garnimals”) show up at this Jimmy Buffet chain at 9:30pm on a Saturday.
Oh, and why don’t they sell bulk food in NYC?
Mickey Finn Meet Ruby Tuesday
Ack, I’m home sick for the second day in a row (I just spent the week entertaining my sister and her husband who were visiting from England. It was all fun and good, despite their vegetarianism, until I caught the creeping crud or whatever virulent bug they brought with them from Europe. As if it wasn’t enough that our dollars are chump change to them. I can barely hear, breathe or swallow and was convinced I had a deadly fever but my temperature is only 97.1. I hate when people say they have fevers and it’s not true so I wanted to make extra sure before declaring one) and have no typing energy.
But I can’t ignore stories involving chain restaurants, especially ones involving Ruby Tuesday, roofies and vigilant waiters named Colt.
Heavens, I don’t want to live in a world where single women with master’s degrees aren’t even safe in family restaurants.
Tidbits: Bauhaus and Mayonnaise
In the mid-‘90s I found a bunch of old dubbed from vinyl cassettes, including a few Bauhaus ones. I tried playing them while driving and it was intolerable, like really nuts and dramatic. In a way, Destroyer is a contemporary non-Goth version of this super theatrical style, and I can listen to it (maybe not driving, though).
2. Remind me to not go to Pret a Manger again. I’ve only gone twice in the past month but I keep forgetting that the not terribly filling sandwiches ring in at $7 on the dot with tax and are overly mayonnaisey (I’m not the first to note this overabundance). I end up hungry in a few hours, grossed out even after wiping excess mayo off with a napkin and annoyed that I’ve used way more than my allotted afternoon calories. Sad. I could deal with the heavy handed condiment application if the price was even a dollar cheaper because they do have interesting flavors. But after looking up the nutritional info on my cranberry, walnut, mesclun and brie version, I almost crapped myself. I might as well have eaten a Wendy’s value menu cheeseburger and saved fat and money. Um, except I don’t think they have Wendy’s down here.
Boiling Point
I wouldn’t normally go to Starbucks, not because it’s inherently evil but because I’m cheap. But my mom has gone on this kick where she sends $25 Starbucks cards for holidays and I have no problem redeeming them. Since college she’s often mailed a twenty dollar bill on such occasions, I don’t know when or why the Starbucks changeover took hold.
I actually liked the “secret Starbucks,” as they’d call it, hidden in the back lobby of the building next to Newscorp with no external signage. It was never crowded and sometimes they’d give me larger coffees than I’d ordered. But the new-to-me Beaver St. location is like the setting for an episode of Boiling Points. I’ve gone about a handful of times and every time except for once I have no received my coffee. I order the simplest thing on the menu: a tall black coffee. That’s it. All they have to do is turn around and pour it from a spout or tell another worker to pour it from a spout. Yet, I pay, move to the side (not the larger area where 98% of people are waiting for fancier complicated beverages) and my coffee never arrives. On my first visit it was a solid five minutes before I realized no one was ever going to get my coffee. Frothy, whipped cream topped behemoths are flying out the door, everyone in line after me leaves, and I’m still waiting for my fucking drip coffee. I paid already, so it’s not like I can leave.
Yesterday, I lost my shit after the four women in line behind me received their drinks while I was standing inches from the gentleman who’d taken my order. I was like, “um, I ordered a coffee before all of these people” and the counter guy as well as three workers who were literally just standing behind the counter doing nothing ignored me. The one other drip coffee lady who’d arrived well after me was less polite than I. She chided everyone in the way only a middle aged woman with nothing to lose can. I would've been scared if she hadn't been on my side. Free or not, I can’t allow myself to step foot in that caffeinated hell again.
Plain black coffee is all that I want so I would be fine with the coffee cart brew. The going rate for a large (and strangely called extra large one block down) around Wall Street is $1.15. I can deal with that despite hating to dig around for the 15 cents. But I was blessed by Au Bon Pain when the other day the cashier gave me one of those plastic commuter cups for no reason whatsoever (I used to frequent the 47th and 6th branch daily and never got such treatment) I always thought their $1.72 large was a rip off since the coffee isn’t really any better than street coffee but for $1.07 with the free cup, it’s the only bargain of my day and had induced irrational loyalty. And I’m not put off by their self-serve approach, at least I have control over how quickly I get my goods. Now if they’d only bring back their half price baked goods after 4pm deal, all would be right with the world.
Where's the (99-Cent) Beef?
The two closest work food options are making me angry. I don’t expect greatness, but I wouldn’t mind a little cheapness. Last year around this time I was on a Wendy’s salad kick. That petered out, which is unfortunate since now there’s a Wendy’s in the concourse below my office building. I really felt like junk food last week and half the staff was still out for the holidays so I didn’t feel so self-conscious about smelly food. I thought I’d order value menu small fries and a jr. bacon cheeseburger. Cheap and not too gluttonous.
Now, I swear the Wendy’s near my old job had a 99-cent menu and I know for a fact there are ads currently running that are hyping up the 99-cent menu (heck, 99 is in the URL). So why did my jr. bacon cheeseburger on the value menu cost $1.99? Baked potatoes, chili, frosty--none of it was 99 cents. What kind of Rockefeller Center bullshit is this?
I know they used to (and probably still do) have tiny print at the bottom of fast food commercials where they’d say “prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii” and I’d feel bad for the statehood latecomers, but last time I checked NYC was still part of the continental United States. Ok, the website does say, “prices available at participating Wendy’s.” What’s the point of a promotion of no one participates?
Au Bon Pain has been causing similar pain. One of their only redeeming qualities was the 50% off baked goods after 4pm deal, which isn’t followed in the branch that’s in the ground floor of this same building. We get some sort of discount with our work IDs (which I only figured out a few weeks ago when I saw someone flashing their badge) but that’s not the same as a half off brownie. Whatever, I’m supposed to be cutting sweet junk out of my diet as of today, anyway.
Eating (Not So) Good in the Neighborhood
I know, I know, you get what’s coming to you by not only dining in the epicenter of Manhattan evil (no feeling eating good in this neighborhood) but choosing to do so at a tourist-gouging venue. I thought I was woman enough to handle it. And I did emotionally, but I paid a price, literally. (You thought I was cheap with my $5/day lunch budget before, but now I’m trying to cap it at three pathetic bucks. Lately, I’ve been subsisting Kashi TLC bars, green apples and baby carrots brought from home sometimes supplemented by $3.19 medium Au Bon Pain soup.)
What would you imagine one might pay for a cheeseburger and two margaritas at Applebee’s? If you guessed $47, then you’re a Rain Man and I'd like to punch you in your calculator craw. And the cruel part is that you can view their menus by location on the website so it’s no secret that most Manhattan items are $6 more than their NJ versions. I would like to somehow hold Tyler Florence and his Huge Flavors responsible for this travesty.
I have a friend who was very disappointed that we never got to take advantage of Olive Garden’s $7.95 Never Ending Pasta Bowl promotion, which ended two Sundays ago and only lasted for about two weeks. Clearly, I was fool for passing up such well-priced carbs.
Photo of the other Times Square Applebee's (yes, there are two) from someone named Dawn Westlake.
When You're Here, You're Family
Perhaps god has taken pity on me because after six months of dread and doom, we’re finally pitching a client that’s fun (to me—I’m sure this would be torture to many). A good deal of my time is spent getting up to speed on topics I know nothing about and/or have no interest in, so I can pass along the info to someone who actually does something with it. Like I’ll research pharmaceuticals that are totally unnecessary (you know, things for dry eye and restless leg syndromes), see how CEO’s in certain industries are being quoted so we can “position” our client strategically, find background on the steel industry in the Balkans. Stuff that makes you want to scratch your eyes out. (And that’s just the work, which I don’t really have a problem with—it’s the people around me that make me wish I was blind and deaf.)
So, we have a major chain restaurant conglomerate to pitch (I can’t say who, though it’s not like corporate spies read my blog). That means I’ll spend the next week studying the competition, i.e. what’s on their menu, what’s the pricing structure like, who their target audience is, what kinds of promotions are they doing, etc. Oh, and we’re supposed to try out the restaurants and one of our client’s brands isn’t in NYC so it would involve a daytrip. Unfortunately, I’ll be in Barcelona while my coworkers are eating cheese slathered coconut shrimp or some nonsense. It’s for the best because the company you’re with greatly affects the chain dining experience, and I’d just end up miffed and traumatized.
Luckily, a friend is having a birthday dinner at Olive Garden next Monday so I’ll be able to indulge in a little mass produced fare with people I like. My birthday is Tuesday and I suspect I’ll be taken out to dinner someplace since I usually am, but I’m never informed until the last minute.
