The Rage Diaries

Aww! Nostalgia! For pots and pans, even

Does that pattern at the left look familiar to you? Then you may have grown up eating off Corelle's "spring blossom green/ crazy daisy" pattern back in the 1970s, like I did. A post over on Apartment Therapy today fondly recalled the pattern and asked what today's equivalent might be.

Although I'm interested to see if there is an analogue to that pattern today, I'm more interested in talking Corelle and Corning ware. We had the white plates with the green pattern, but Mom also had green mixing bowls and casserole dishes, plus white serving platters ... the whole nine yards. When I moved out on my own, Mom passed along three of her old Corning ware pots (like the ones at right) -- with the blue cornflower pattern. They're square, with a black detachable handle and glass lids. I love them so much -- they're saucepans! They're steamers! They're casserole dishes! They're serving dishes! They're dishwasher- and microwave-friendly!

And, sadly, they appear not to be made anymore. This is a tremendous pity, because it's not often you find something so versatile and compact. And because the biggest of them (2 quarts) broke in one of my many moves since 1993, so I only have the one and one-and-a-half quart models. It looks like I'll have to haunt Ebay, resale shops, and yard sales for any replacements, huh?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: How are you doing this month?

Our porch project is temporarily in limbo, so we have been loath to tackle the debris left, but I want to thank everyone who gave me suggestions for recycling all that damn concrete. At least a little of it went into the bottom of flower pots; 'tis the season for repotting my mint and seeing what survives the process.

Anyway, I have been remiss in asking if anyone else is doing a reduce/reuse/recyle this month. Well? Tell me.

Also, have any of y'all found some habits sticking? We have turned into some tote bag-carrying, water-saving, soil-reviving, Tupperware sandwich box-using, O-mop swabbing, xeriscaping people. We're still low on corn-type products -- no more new groceries with high fructose corn syrup have made it into the house since June 1, and on the nights we eat meat, it's usually poultry or fish. (Also, I cannot remember the last time I had a Dorito, which is not really a bad thing, is it?) I am pleasantly surprised at how easy it's been to tweak the way we buy and use things.

But enough about me -- what about you?

High tech, skepticism and the nation under God

When I read "Worship Goes Big-Screen and Hi-Fi, With Direct-Deposit Tithing" (WaPo, Sep 25, 07), I have to admit my first reaction after this:

[A]t McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia, fancy lighting, rock music and occasional applause spice up spirited sermons.

was to sigh a little and think fondly to the folk choir in my childhood parish of St. Jerome's.

But then, I recalled the Easter mass where the folk choir came down the aisle while singing Godspell's "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" -- and how my dad, who grew up in the pre-Vatican II church would roll his eyes at hippie nonsense like strumming guitars to the psalms or saying the Mass in English. And really, what stands out about this piece is how new ways of delivering a message demonstrate the fluidity of a religion that many often wield as justification for "traditional" practices and mores.

Right after that, I read the Barna Group's press release "A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity." Of note:

Even among young Christians, many of the negative images generated significant traction. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

[...]

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was "Christianity is changed from what it used to be" and "Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus." These comments were the most frequent unprompted images that young people called to mind, mentioned by one-quarter of both young non-Christians (23%) and born again Christians (22%).

Kinnaman explained, "That’s where the term 'unChristian' came from. Young people are very candid. In our interviews, we kept encountering young people - both those inside the church and outside of it - who said that something was broken in the present-day expression of Christianity. Their perceptions about Christianity were not always accurate, but what surprised me was not only the severity of their frustration with Christians, but also how frequently young born again Christians expressed some of the very same comments as young non-Christians."

The entire release is worth cogitating on; I feel as though it reflects much of the rhetoric coming out of evangelical publications like Christianity Today, and will likely cause more.

But the larger point here is that again, we're looking at a religion that's proven to be very adaptable to social shifts (despite often positioning itself as being direct opposition to them), so I am curious to see whether the changing nature of face-to-face worship and congregant outreach will be part of the next big shift in Christianity's social focus.

 

"Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."

This is one of the best pieces I've seen on why people stop blogging: "The Death of Blogs" (Christianity Today, Sep 25, 07). Then again, the guy who wrote it does the CT's blog, so he's more than familiar with the reasons people start and stop weblogging.

A lot of it resonates with me personally, especially these parts:

What tired bloggers are increasingly discovering, however, is that it's not necessarily the quality of their blog posts that matter. It's matching their quality with frequency.

[...]

When Catholic blogger Amy Welborn shut down Open Book in August to focus on writing books, she wrote: "I want to do good, and I want to do lasting good — the kind of good that people carry around, share, put on their bookshelves and reflect on — rather than the kind of good that sparks a momentary flash until we surf to the next website and the next and the next."

I don't view this weblog as doing good, per se (I feature occasional fixations on chocolate and monkeys, for cry-yi) but I do meditate on how to use a weblog as a means to a more lasting end, instead of making the blog the end in itself.

Perspective

I just finished reading "A Dishonorable Affair" (NYT mag, Sep 22, 07) which recounts the murder of 16-year-old Zahra al-Azzo and includes such details like:

Under Syrian law, an honor killing is not murder, and the man who commits it is not a murderer. As in many other Arab countries, even if the killer is convicted on the lesser charge of a “crime of honor,” he is usually set free within months. Mentioning the killing — or even the name of the victim — generally becomes taboo.

and:

"It turned out that his uncle had given him the phone so that he could call and tell the family that he’d killed his sister. We learned later that they had a party that night to celebrate the cleansing of their honor. The whole village was invited."

and:

"It’s an Islamic law to kill your relative if she errs," said the man, who gave his name as Ahmed and said that he learned of Zahra’s story on Syrian television. "If the sheik tries to fight this, the people will rise up and slit his throat."

And I think, there is a lot of scary, anti-woman foolishness that takes place in America, but holy cow, at least our relatives can't invent reasons to murder us and get away with it under law.

Mixed with love and making the world taste good

When we were in Costo last weekend, we picked up our Halloween candy. As we vowed, we will be awarding candies based on effort. Our choices are not what you'd call "exciting" -- chocolate bars or hard candies. What is interesting is looking at the new candy products that are coming out now, per "Sweet 15: The Hottest Candies for Kids and Adults Alike" (Marketwatch, Sep 19, 07). They are:

• Melted Ice Cream, a spray candy that really does taste like ice cream but without the sugar and the calories. It also claims to be diabetic friendly
• Sharkies Kids Sports Chews, organic fruit chews
• Chewy Atomic Fireballs and Chewy Lemonheads.
• Sour Patch Xploderz that start out tasting sour and then go sweet
• Betty Boop Candy Lip Gloss
• Bratz Candy Start Dust
• Café Select Chocolate Coffee Trios flavored as espresso, latte and cappuccino
• Mike and Ike fruit-flavored spray
• Cherry and passion fruit Tic Tacs
• Dark chocolate, peanut M&Ms
• Pink vanilla and blueberry flavored Ringling cotton candy
• GoNaturally organic hard candies
• Chocolate Pop Rocks
• Mega Mallows Big Burgers, Jumbo Hot Dogs and Giant Pizza slices that look like the real thing but are made of soft strawberry-flavored marshmallow
• Dove Origins dark-chocolate bars to "experience the taste" of Ghana or the Dominican Republic.

The spray candy trend is intriguing, if only because I imagine the potential for messes. I suspect I don't get the allure, the same way I don't get the foam trend in haute cusine.

Oh, foodbloggers, a lucrative niche market awaits

Every Saturday, Phil and I head to the farmer's market and plan our menu for the week ahead. I use the word "plan" very loosely -- it's pretty much limited to conversations like "Look! Bok choy! Let's have that Thai beef salad we both like" or "I'm in a cauliflower frame of mind. How about that with some chicken? It'll be like the White Album, only on a plate." Then we head home with our produce and I feel like we're running an actual household like actual adults, and that feeling lasts through the inevitable mid-week working day when we drag in the door after 7 p.m. and realize, Oh, crap. Phil still has to make dinner.

I imagine it's this realization, multiplied times a few thousand -- that dinner must be made, not that Phil has to do it -- that has fueled a few interesting new business markets. Someone has to make dinner, so someone has to figure out what we're having, then prep and cook it. And it would be nice if said dinner was based in some part on ingredients that are not actively trying to kill you.

One attempt to meet this demand is the bulk prepare-ahead franchise. (See "Cooking Out, Eating In," CSM, Aug 19, 05; "Meals That Moms Can Almost Call Their Own," NYT, Mar 26, 06;  "Some Assembly Required," SF Chronicle, Jul 12, 06; "Make It and Take It," WaPo, Jul 20, 06;  "Putting a Trend to the Test," WaPo, Aug 30, 06) You still do most of the work, but you do it ahead, you see. And someone else has done much of the tedious zen-like prep work for you. Then you just defrost and cook things as needed. What you're paying for is someone else to come up with the recipe, do the ingredients shopping and knock off some of the tedious zen-like prep work.

I haven't been to one of these places, but it seems like the real allure is that these centers turn cooking prep into a social exercise: you can grab a few girlfriends, go make chicken casserole and gab, and a few hours later, you've managed to get some me-time in without an accompanying side order of guilt. The efficient Teuton in me thrills to the multitasking, even while the third-wave feminist wants to make sure that everyone's clear on how assembling meals with your girlfriends doesn't cancel the need for independent social activity outside the domestic sphere.

Anyway, the second market approach to time-crunched hungry people -- which I am simply fascinated by -- is the online meal-planning service.

According to what I just read in "Taking the Fuss Out of Meal Planning" (WSJ, Sep 20, 07), you can subscribe to a site and they'll send you menus and shopping lists for the week. You still have to do the ingredients shopping, the tedious zen-like prep work and the actual cooking. 

I can see where this would come in handy for someone who likes food but doesn't have the time or inclination to leaf through cookbooks to compile their own weekly recipe round-up and attendant shopping list. For the curious, the sites reviewed are: Relish!; Dinner Times; The Six O'Clock Scramble;  Dine Without Whine; and Meal Mixer.

What I'm wondering about -- mostly because I haven't looked -- is whether food bloggers have begun launching more tightly targeted meal-subscription services. You could do local-eating menus by region (or in cahoots with CSAs), or meals aimed at families dealing with different food allergies, or meals for vegetarian families, or slow-cooker meals, or ... well, you get the idea.

Rough and tumble-drying

The clothesline was once a ubiquitous part of the residential landscape. But as postwar Americans embraced labor-saving appliances, clotheslines came to be associated with people who couldn't afford a dryer. Now they are a rarity, purged from the suburban landscape by legally enforceable development restrictions.

Nationwide, about 60 million people now live in about 300,000 "association governed" communities, most of which restrict outdoor laundry hanging, says Frank Rathbun, spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, an Alexandria, Va., group that lobbies on behalf of homeowners associations.

But the rules are costly to the environment -- and to consumers -- clothesline advocates argue. Clothes dryers account for 6% of total electricity consumed by U.S. households, third behind refrigerators and lighting, according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey by the federal Energy Information Administration. It costs the typical household $80 a year to run a standard electric dryer, according to a calculation by E Source Cos., in Boulder, Colo., which advises businesses on reducing energy consumption.

Alexander Lee, founder of clothesline advocacy group Project Laundry List in Concord, N.H., says the clothesline movement is "an outgrowth of interest in what-can-I-do environmentalism." Mr. Lee says he gets more and more email seeking advice on how to hang a clothesline despite neighborhood covenants restricting them.

-- "The Right to Dry: A Green Movement is Roiling America," WSJ, Sep 18, 07

The clothesline revolt has begun. The harsh reality of global warming is setting in and motivating people to forsake their energy-consuming dryers.

Laura Shafer was an early convert. She lost her dryer in a divorce and started to use a clothesline and photographed laundry while still living in Santa Cruz. About 10 years ago, she was living in a trailer park in Encinitas with a new husband and was told she couldn't have a clothesline.

"It was illegal to hang out my clothes, so I built a guerrilla line," she said. "We told the management it was a hammock stand."

-- "Green Laundry," SF Chron, Sep 19, 07

Personally speaking: I am ambivalent about things like line-drying laundry. On the one hand, it may be lower-impact than tumble-drying laundry. On the other: I see a lot of emphasis on resurrecting time-intensive domestic tasks like line-drying clothing and canning locally-procured produce. Where is the corresponding fervor for slowing down the pace of public and corporate life?

I get that doing something domestically may feel more rewarding and manageable than writing a company or lobbying your legislator does. But I don't think green living and progress are necessarily in opposition. Maybe instead of exhorting people to line-dry clothing, we could work on finding a more efficient dryer? Or making sure our electricity comes from renewable energy resources?

Or perhaps putting the electricity use into perspective: according to the U.S. Energy Dept, 3.5% of the nation's electricity goes to powering secondary freezers. That is not that much less than the 5.8% slice of the pie that dryers take up. Once again, it seems to come down to deciding which is a smarter use of resources for you and your household.

Fight that good fight, Mars!

As you may remember from previous posts, the FDA is entertaining a proposal to let food manufacturers produce confections that are called "chocolate" ... yet have no actual cocoa butter. The proposal is backed by the  Chocolate Manufacturers Association, which apparently feels that the current requirements for chocolate -- "chocolate in its purest state - the "liquor" made from ground, processed cacao beans - must contain 50 percent to 60 percent cocoa butter, also known as cocoa fat" -- are too rigid. ("In the United States, a Bittersweet Battle Over the Future of Chocolate," IHT, Aug 7, 07) In this case, "rigid" means "expensive," as the proposed substitutes in chocolate cost only 1/4 to 1/3 of what cocoa butter costs.

Now, CMA member company Mars has come out and said it's not planning on swapping out its cocoa butter for vegetable oils and milk protein concentrate. ("Mars Vows Not to Water Down Its Chocolate," LAT, Sep 18, 07)

As the story points out, this is notable because the company's setting itself apart from, say, Hershey's with this move. And it's a fine time to make said move as more and more Americans are paying up for so-called premium chocolate ("California Chocolatiers Boost Premium Boom," Associated Press, Feb 13, 07; "Chocolatiers on Gourmet Bandwagon," MSNBC, Mar 28, 07). I will be curious to see how Scharffen Berger's parent company chooses to respond. I wonder if we're about to see a tiered system, where the "good" stuff gets cocoa butter and the cheap candy bars in grocery store checkout aisles are filled with all manner of ertsatz ingredients.

Ann Taylor, what is up with you?

Is it just me, or there a whiff of the same throw-it-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mindset that we Gap-watchers know and, um, know? First there was this:

[Ann Taylor], known for its prim clothing for career women in their 30s and 40s, is developing a new casual apparel chain for the older, baby-boomer generation, according to people briefed on the matter.

-- "Ann Taylor Said to Plan Boomer Unit," NYT, Aug 13, 07

And today there is this:

Even as chains offering more expensive goods are thriving, Ann Taylor and other midlevel women's apparel retailers have been struggling. To grab more affluent working women who aren't feeling pinched in the pocketbook, the company is introducing a line in its Ann Taylor stores that's a big step up -- 40% more expensive than its usual merchandise. The line, called Collection, includes about 50 items, and it's built around the work-appropriate suits and dresses that created Ann Taylor's reputation. Suit jackets will sell for $295 to $365, and pants for $175 to $195. Collection also includes silk tops for $120 to $195, $165 cashmere sweaters and handbags priced from $295 to $350. Most of the fabrics used in Collection, such as Loro Piana cashmere, come from Italy, and some are used in high-end designer lines.

-- "Ann Taylor's Loftier Goal: A More Upscale Shopper" (WSJ, Sep 14, 07)

I will be curious to see how well the luxury line plays out. As one of the interview subjects noted, if she's going to pay fat dollars for a swanky handbag, she does not want the Ann Taylor label on it. Also, I wonder if this attempt to branch out will be hurt by a backlash against obvious luxury spending. Although I don't quite buy the premise that we're at the cusp of of a designer down-cycle like CNN recently posited ("Brand Backlash," Sep 6, 07), I wonder if customers who consider Ann Taylor their "nice" clothes will feel miffy about having them positioned as the poor sisters to the good stuff.

It may not even be a problem, though. J. Crew has their own pricey Collection area, and it doesn't seem to have cost them goodwill. In fact, if you look at how the clothes are styled, they're seamlessly integrated with the lower-priced staples like chino jackets and cashmere tees. This is so smart: it presents the "upscale" stuff as available with just a leeeeetle bit of budgetary stretching. I notice the Gap is doing something similar with its limited-edition European collection, which pairs its three-figure wool coats with sawbuck t-shirts; this must be the iteration after its white designer shirts this spring.

It will be interesting to see if Ann Taylor takes a similar tack of mixing high and low. After all, attracting moneyed customers is only one tack to push sales. Another is to push your regulars into believing they can spend more.