Actually Reusing the Reusable Bags

Very interesting article here about re-usable bags from the grocery store, and how the large stores are starting to invest money in helping the customer to remember to bring them into the store. I actually like this idea. If you forget your bags in the car, and it is raining or cold or you have the baby, you just are NOT going to go back.

Thoughts, anyone? Or is the 5-cent discount more valuable to folks?

Hinged Easter Eggs? Where's the fun in that?

This week is all about Easter Eggs. Making Jell-o Eggs. Dying Hard-boiled eggs with Paas. And getting a fresh batch of plastic eggs to fill with all sorts of wonderful treasure.

hinges and toys? what about loose halves and candy?

Usually, I just walk into any store and buy them. But not this year. This year the new fad seems to be hinged eggs. What? Hinges? Yuck. They were everywhere. I went to Giant. Hinges. Family Dollar. Hinges. A different Giant. Hinges. Finally, I got what I wanted at a CVS drugstore. Plastic eggs with no hinges. Leaving me free to mix & match as I please.

Why all of the hinges? They are a totally inferior product.

Ah, the power of the split halves

• Once the hinge snaps, what can you do with it but recycle it? If one half of a non-hinged egg breaks, you save it and pair it up with another one that had a broken half.
• How can you create eggs with each half a different color when they are hinged? Why stifle creativity like that?
• You need unhinged eggs in order to create a Sorting Eggs game for your preschooler
• And in case you were wondering, apparently the hinged eggs are a different type of plastic, so they can't be repainted to improve their infrared opacity, either. Who knew?

But whether you're using hinged or split eggs, real or Jell-o eggs, have a very Happy Easter.

Campbell's Soup and Salt: Mmmm-Mmmmmm Good

Just about two years ago, I carefully compared several brands of Chicken & Stars and then complained loudly that there was too much salt in them. Apparently, I am not the only one who is comparing salt content between products. And four New Jersey women have decided to do a lot more than complain about the salt; they are suing Campbell's over salt content and deceptive advertising.

My official Campbell's Mug

This is a very interesting case. Campbell's is technically correct: their claims are accurate when put into context. i.e., When you add a few more words to the claim, to clarify what is being compared, it is correct.  But what the NJ gals are saying is also correct: a reasonable consumer when faced with two Campbell's Tomato soups -- side by side -- are going to make the assumptive leap that the 25% is comparing Tomato Soup A (Regular Tomato Soup) to Tomato Soup B (25% Less Sodium Tomato Soup).

I am not a fan of lawsuits -- they are a giant money pit that usually don't accomplish anything more than give people more reason to go to law school and raise prices for everyone.  I find myself wondering if the women contacted Campbell's first. Did they write letters? Call? Ask nicely for a change? Or did they jump right to litigation with claims of Consumer Fraud? It's very interesting to me that the four women are from New Jersey, and that is where Campbell's Headquarters is located.  I'd like more background about this case, but after numerous web searches today I can not find anything more than about 20 different spins on the same basic headline. If anyone has more background, I'd love a comment or link.

In search of the Rare and Elusive Salmon Bean Soup

My husband is allergic to shellfish. And so is his sister. And so was his grandmother. So you can imagine that not much shellfish is served in our house. The frustrating part is that all of them developed the allergy in their teen years, so they remember the awesome taste of lobster and crab and in particular a hearty bowl of clam chowder.

So, I am on a constant mission to find substitutes for clam chowder.

After a stop to the Chowder House in Portland, Maine, for example, I worked tirelessly to perfect my own version of a shellfish-free, cream-based fish chowder.

We had also fallen in love with a White Bean Salmon Chowder the Whole Foods Market made and sold back near the fish counter. However, we noticed a year or so ago that we never saw it anymore. Finally, I asked some folks at our store. No one really knew what I was talking about; no one seemed to remember the chowder. Then finally one guy thought he remembered them getting it pre-made from a company called 'Sea Bear'.


So, armed with this information, I sat down to type.

First, I wrote to Whole Foods, asking them about the chowder.

• I received confirmation almost immediately via email from Nadeem that their Commissary used to make 'Salmon & White Bean Soup' but that it was no longer made. She noted that it was hard to share a recipe when you make batches so large, but that she'd see what she could do.
• Within a day I then received an email from Jay at the Springfield Seafood Department. He noted that the recipe contained the following ingredients and hoped this would help me: 
  Northern bean cooked, traditional hummus (whoa, really? I would never have guessed this!), water, Canned tomato, salmon wild coho, onion, celery, Base fish, Food starch, garlic, salt, parsley, seafood seasoning, dill herb, & black pepper 

At the same time, I located Sea Bear's website and also wrote to them:

• Within a day, I heard from Charly who noted that she would be checking with her manager about my question.
• About a day later, she wrote me back with another response:
  
  
  
  I checked with my manager regarding your question. She says that it is possible they may have used one of our soup bases that we have from Gerard and Dominique, but most likely added their own ingredients to the soup.
  
  
  We do offer Smoked Salmon Chowder and our Spicy White Bean soup. Both are very delicious. You are welcome to try them free of the shipping charge. You would need to call and place the order over the phone and speak with me or place your order online and call us with the order number so we may remove your shipping charges. All of our products are backed by our Fisherman’s Guarantee. If for any reason you are not thrilled with our products, we will either refund you or send you something else.
   
• I decided to take them up on their offer, so I called and we walked over the ingredients together. As it turned out, the Spicy White Bean soup had a clam rather than a fish base, and there were big flags on their records saying to point this out to customers requesting fish rather than shellfish products. She noted that they were working to reformulate the recipe to drop the clam. So I decided to try the Salmon Chowder.
• I now have 2 paks of the Chowder on my shelf, waiting for a cold, rainy day.

In a world of rotten customer service, I wanted to give a shout-out to both Whole Foods and Sea Bear. They both went above and beyond to help me on my quest, even though it was not at all certain that such help would result in any type of sale. I'm left with a nice warm feeling -- not unlike that feeling that a good, hot, chowder leaves behind -- after my interactions with both of them. Can't wait to do business with them, again.

Hey, Congresspeople! This isn't kindergarten

It's like a big, festive carnival up there on the Hill. Whee!

I'm going to digress to politics for a week. (I'm in DC; I can't help it.)  But it's not as much of a digression as you might think. When it comes to our elected officials, we're all the customers. We elect them, and we pay for their salaries and their utterly fabulous benefits. So, I expect and demand a little service in return.

And what I'm getting now is a cross between a soap opera and a circus, with as much nuance as a kindergarten recess.  I just read the current status: Principal Obama has invited the kids to come have snacks and juice in his office so that they can all work it out. I only hope that all the snacks are locally grown so that I can have some kind of positive feeling about the whole thing, because otherwise it's just a giant mess.

Seriously, this is how Paul Kane and Jon Cohen of the Washington Post described it today:

As the deadline neared, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) exchanged insults, each side blaming the other for the stalemate.

Swell. Did they fire their Nerf guns at each other, too?

You've got a job to do folks. Stop the drama, and start behaving like the educated negotiators that you all claim to be.