TheSnackHound

Alright, I need all you single people to sit down for a second.  The holidays coming up can make one feel like they want to find someone special to spend them with. You can’t just find a man or woman off the street and ask them to come over to your house for Thanksgiving.  You have to get through a few things like the first date.

Many times, people go out to a restaurant on their first date.  Here are a few things to DO and DO NOT:

1.  Never order spaghetti with marinara sauce.  It is too messy for a first date, and you sipping up noodles may stain the garments of your date.

2.  In fact, if its something very messy that you eat with your hands, also perhaps refrain from it for just one night if there are other things on the menu.  You want to eliminate as many awkward moments as possible.

3.  The person who asks is usually the person who should offer to pay.   It is also acceptable to go dutch.  At any rate, if you are not sure that your date won’t insist to pay, make sure you order something that is at lesser, or at most, equal value to what he/she orders.   Do not order lobster when they order a club sandwich.   It could create an embarrassing situation for either party.

4.  Tip generously and accordingly.  Unless you had the most rotten service in your life, tip at least 20%.  For the best service of your life, tip more.   Don’t be a cheapskate.

5. Sometimes you will never meet someone face to face before the date.   Sometimes its a blind date. Other times you might have tried a dating site like True, where you can search for free to find people by distance and interests. Sign up is absolutely free. Since you can search without joining, you can look before you commit to “putting yourself out there” in a profile.   At any rate, if you have not met someone before face to face, it is fully apropriate to offer to meet for lunch at a busy cafe or go for an ice cream to get to know them a bit before meeting for dinner downtown.

6.  If you are the guy, pull out the chair for her. Chivalry isn’t dead.

7.  The holidays can be a vulnerable time, so make sure you don’t move too fast too soon!

Be careful out there, singlefolk, but don’t let that prevent you from trying! Now that you have a few tips, you won’t embarrass yourself from the get go.

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I was musing the other day on how casually large and imposing tikis are used in the hotel and restaurant business.  Didn’t they learn their lesson from the Brady Bunch about messing with them?  Actually, sometimes, a business moves in and “inherits” a large and impossing tiki element to their building as left over from an establishment built somewhere between after WWII and the mid 60s with a polynesian theme that was so wildly popular.  They are forced to tie it in and make sense of it in some way. Maybe they put a tiki bar in the back even though its a Mexican place now.

This was particularly intersting to me. Here is the Best Western Aku Tiki in Daytona Beach. At right is what they show on the Best Western site. Looks like they are trying to minimize something rather than to play up its kitschy, nostalgicness?

If you have ever driven on Route One, you will not be able to miss the giant Tiki looming over the parking lot of Kowloon’s. The building itself is an area landmark and very common feature of driving directions. “If you pass the building with the giant tiki, you have gone way too far.  What is inside, you are greated by autographed photos of every wrestler Killer Kowalski seemed to have trained plus other celebrities who have come to Kowloon over the years. Plus a brain explodingly large menu.

Your brain will be in a whirl over the extensive menu featuring chinese (various regions), thai, polynesian, and Japanese cuisine.  You can indulge in sushi while your friends go for Pad Thai or a Pu Pu platter.   At any other restaurant, the variety would seem like a huge mishmash.  Kind of like “Pizza and Mexican.”  Because their menus of each ethniity are so large and complete, it is like several restaurants in one.  The rooms are slightly themed differently and there is also a comedy club on the premises.While some culinary experts may say the choices at Kowloon’s are way too high in number, patrons clearly don’t mind and it is part of the attraction. In fact they do have a Thai themed room, etc.  Try the famous Scorpion Bowl for two as long as you aren’t the driver. If you go, bring a LOT of cash. There are many economical choices on the menu to be had, but you will want to try everything.  I recommend that those in your party order different items so everyone can share or sample them all in order to try the most dishes.

This restaurant is definitely proud of their tiki.  You won’t see them trying to hide it in brochures like the best western.

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3.5

There are so many restaurants that are just so-so.  The food wasn’t offensive in any way.   No one in my party got sick or anything like that.  It was just not memorable whatsoever.  When you go to a restaurant and can’t remember what you even orders a few days or a few weeks later, it a sign that either you go there everyday and one day flows into the next, or it was just like any other place.

What if you are looking for more than “just adequate.”  Let’s say that you are going out for a special occasion versus being just desperate to find anyplace at all because your blood sugar is low.  When I am in a new town visiting, say near Philadelphia, I may not be able to depend on opening up the phone book and going to whatever Philadelphia restaurants my finger landed on that weekend.   Otherwise I may end up being shuffled into a place where tourists are “supposed to go to.” They may convince me I am supposed to eat under the Liberty Bell and not get arrested. Tourist hazing.

Instead of that, Restaurantica features over 400,000 restaurants in North America.  I was surprised to see even the little donut shop on the corner listed.  It has amassed this list of names, addresses, and phone numbers in its only five years of existence.  You have an opportunity to post your restaurant reviews to give other visitors a better indication of where to go in town. There is a number rating system for quality that appears to be weighted by number of reviewers and the rating they give. In otherwords, it is very balanced. That one cranky neighbor that is never pleased with anything and just likes to complain can’t tank a restaurant with their single vote, nor can the only guy in town to like a restaurant put it at the top of the list because he is the only one reviewing it.

Check it out, weigh in, and have fun searching. You may even find a place around the corner that you never tried before.

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3.5

I’ve long known that some seals and endorsements on products were a little invented.  Sometimes a product’s maker concocts it or actually creates a meager nonprofit group just to impart the seal.   I think a particular sunscreen as an endorsement from the Sundamage Institute that I have never heard of before.

Did you know that the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval doesn’t really have a judging panel who deems one product superior to others?  Did you know that the Seal doesnt mean something is a good deal?   It is public perception that a product displaying the seal in their ad or their packaging was a sign of higher quality.

In fact, the Seal an be bought.  A company or product gets the Seal if they spend  or agree to spend per contract a certain percentage of their advertising budget with Good Housekeeping.   Of course, companies who have a very meager budget couldn’t afford an ad in Good Housekeeping, but for those with more substantial budgets, it goes by percentage.  The company must agree to accept a return of a defective product for a period of time, but that is just good business practice across the board.  Allowing returns itself does not qualify you for the seal.   I found this out from some folks who used to run an ad agency who had been aware of the stipulations of the seal.

What is intriguing to me is Vick’s VapoRub is listed as a recipient of the Seal.  How does that qualify for a return “if defective up to two years.”  Is that for people who got sick using it, but kept the rest of he contents of the container in the cabinet for another year and a half?  The whole incident escapes their mind until they clean out the cabinet and find it again, then the whole bad memory comes rushing back?  They notice the Seal and say, “oh, I can return this. I could use the refund to buy some cocktail sauce.”

So, for the product makers out there who are hoping that their pickles or ketchup or tableware will win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval someday, the secret is out.

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3.5

Oh No!

Oh yes!

it is almost here. Just one month and it will be Black Friday again. You know what that means: Time to get ready to wait in line at five A.M. to wrestle someone down to the ground for one of the five televisions they are selling to the first three people for a dollar. Time to get stuck in the sale at Macy’s basement and only finding three mugs of the four you wanted to buy someone as a set, and by the time you locate the fourth one, someone grabbed one of the others you had put down on the counter for a second.

If you are sick of all that, check out the action going on the cyber monday ads instead. The biggest online shopping day of the year is the day everyone returns to work after Thanksgiving weekend. Everyone has awakened from their tryptophan induced slumber by then and can work those keys. iBlackFriday.com has a list of all the advertisements as soon as they are published, so you can plan your attack at the store or online a week in advance!

I wonder if Linens N Things is going to have any special sale this year. Since they are liquidating their stores, maybe or maybe not, but of course I am going to check.   Might be a good time to stock up on items as a personal present to me.

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3.5

You are probably beginning to think that after my nostalgia over Charlie’s Shake Shop (Click Here to Read) and my horror over a baby cone costume (See That HERE), it may lead you to believe I am somewhat ice cream obsessed. Maybe that is because I was somehow psychologically damaged in connection to ice cream.

When I was in fifth grade, our teacher told us that the main ingredient in McDonald’s softserve ice cream was also the main ingredient in plastic.  Nowadays, we know that fast food, but McDonald’s food in particular, is no good for us nutritionally. However, back then we were no less horrified to hear that implied.  In fact, the entire class was shocked and thought Mrs. Anderson was lying or being mean to us on the very first day of school, no less.  I mean, accusing us of eating plastic was something only our siblings would do and certainly would have never come out of the mouth of an authority figure like a teacher.  In fifth grade, also, you were almost in junior high so you thought your teachers were going to treat you a little bit more like grown ups.

Of course, later on, we recapitulated the shocking news and realized that it wasn’t so bad after all.  The key ingredient in producing both soft serve ice cream and plastic is………………water.

What a let down that was.  Even though there could have been a little bit of relief there, we no longer had one more gross or disgusting thing to hold over or scare our younger siblings with.  Certainly, even if it was no longer poisonous or disgusting, it is all mental.  As long as we could keep them going for a little while, we could get some satisfaction out of it until we felt just a little bad about pulling their leg.  Of course, the other alternative was when they found out for themselves and then we were no longer the older brother or sister who “knew everything” and were knocked off our pedestal until the next time.

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3.5

I was visiting my mother and while I was there, I started filling the dishwasher. Little did I know it was another situation where no good deed would go unpunished.  She abruptly bounded through the living room and dining room, and swung the kitchen door open and practically shouted: “No!  No”

I must have given her a befuddled look, as she went about pulling knives out of the dishwasher with the same fervor as if she was trying to pull out kitties that had fallen into a storm drain.  ”No.  You can’t put THOSE knives together. These knives are nice knives and these knives aren’t so if they touch, you’ll get rust spots.”  Of course, she didn’t mean I individually would get rust spots on myself, but meant the “royal you” as in “one” would experience the tragedy o getting rust spots on one’s knives.

I know sometimes when you let a brillo pad sit in a stainless steel sink all wet and runny, you may somehow ruin your sink, but I wasn’t aware of that a flatware Capulet and Montague scneario existed.  In otherwords, I wasn’t aware that beyond the questionable aesthetic of two patterns being intermingled that there was something innately “wrong” about why knives from the other side of the drawer couldn’t mix.  Apparently, the silverware with the lines and fluer de lys were the “good” silverware that were given to my parents as a wedding gift.  The ones with the roses on them were the “not as good” silverware that apparently did not have a high silver or stainless steel content.  In fact no one was sure what metal they were, but I do remember bending a spoon trying to hoist up a clump of cereal once.

This got my thinking: “Why do we even call it silverware if there is no silver in it?”

Brides and grooms received real silverware throughout the ages up until now, but with our throwaway society we just are so stuck on entertaining inferior models because they are cheap.  In fact, we don’t even store them properly anymore.  How many empty wood and velvet cutlery boxes do you see at yard sales in comparison to how many plastic drawer caddys?

Thank goodness, real sterling silver cutlery can still be obtained.  There is some gorgeous pieces that Arthur of England produces.  The Grecian style is pictured here.   It is so simple and elegant and timeless.  What’s more, they won’t bend in your cereal.   Many people may think that they shouldn’t splurge because they aren’t getting married, or have been married for years.   To me, I go with the old philosophy of buy once and buy good, and you will never have to replace it or waste money on the five sets you buy because you didn’t buy right the first time.

The site has cleaning products for caring for your pieces, too.  I can imagine myself polishing each individual piece. Polishing the silver every so once in awhile is such a meditative process that gives one time to smell the roses, or more properly the delicate scent of silver polish, rather than the rude clunk and clang of dumping things into the dishwasher.   Maybe I wouldn’t use every spoon in the house all day long and would be satisfied with caring for and washing just one.

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3.5

I recently reported that the new Fiesta color from the Homer Laughlin Company is Ivory.   HLC is also releasing a decaled edition for the holidays with a festive Christmas tree motif.  It appears to come in red, evergreen, and ivory.  The pieces available are the dinner and luncheon plate, bread and butter plate, bread tray, the one quart bowl, the 12 oz mug, the 24 oz gusto, and a holiday ornament, all available seperately.

These items are shipping now. If you are interested in the 2008 Christmas dishes, check out your favorite online or brick and mortar retailer now while supplies last.

There are some bits of pieces of information that I have as to the release of a brand new Fiesta color without the decals.  Chocolate is supposed to be releasing next month, but I will have further details as I uncover them.   Pherhaps those of you who have decorated in a chocolate and turquoise theme will be elated.

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I was surprised to find out that there is actually something called the Stress Institute, comprised of a team of experts. It is not a fake, made up organization like some phony seals on various drug store products.

Dr. Kathleen Hall, expert on work-stress balance issues, appears on the website in a video message stating that “stress fascinates” her. If she were to come live with me for a short time, would she be to me what Jane Goodall was to the chimpanzee? I would be studied for my unique responses to stress? What would she think about my bag of Newman-O sandwich cookies that rapidly disappear as a barometer of my stress level?

One of her suggestions for me would probably be exercise for stress reduction instead of dipping into the cookie stash.  More so, instead of offering individual consultation, The Stress Institute strives to work with businesses to make changes in mindful living, as well as launching the Mindful Living Network to educate people about balance.

Take a look at the site.  It has some worthwhile information to consider.

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3.5