jhlurie

This topic was inspired by several things: 1.) the topic about looking in other people's baskets 2.) general comments we've made before about self-service checkout lines 3.) an experience in a supermarket checkout line I had yesterday I figure we can talk about all kinds of "Express checkout" issues here, but let's start with this one: What, do you suppose, is a reasonable limit beyond the marked number of items for an express line when you can justifiably get upset at some bonehead ahead of you? Yesterday, at that temple of self-involved yuppy pretentiousness personified, Whole Foods, I ran into... surprise... an oblivious self-involved yuppie lunkhead. Jason Perlow had asked me to pick up a few extra packages of hot dogs for his little experiment, and with a grand total of two items in my basket I headed straight for the "10 items or less" Express checkout line. In front of me is an orphaned shopping cart. You know what I'm talking about, right? Full of stuff, but with no human being in back of it. Just as I'm about to walk around this orphan cart--filled with what looks like about 25 items--it's owner shows up slips back in front of me and the crowd already gathering in back of me and drops two more items in the cart. Then he proceeds to wait. Presumably he's on the "10 items or less" Express line with his very full shopping cart because he's in a hurry. But instead of loading up the conveyor belt behind the woman finishing up in front of him he waits for her to walk away before deigning to bend his knees and start pulling items from his cart. He loads the belt slowly, and completely ignores the comment from the hapless checkout girl than he's apparently got almost 3 times the number of allowed items. And these aren't "repeat" items which some people justify exceeding the number with. Every one of the items in his cart appears to be unique (I know the exact number before he leaves by listening to how many times the scanner beeped when the checkout girl scanned his order--27 items at a total cost of $104.97). Almost contemptuously he swipes his credit card in the little credit/debit slot, but takes his time standing there in line reading the long receipt before he signs the credit slip. Because he's in a hurry, you know. Now I have no idea why I didn't pipe up and say anything to this fine example of humanity. Maybe I was too filled with holiday spirit. Maybe it's that meditation I've started doing while brushing my teeth. The question is... while this is an extreme example what do you suppose is a reasonable point to pipe up to someone and ask them to get their asses off the Express line? Is it ever ANY of our business, or only some cashier who's afraid of offending a customer? How does a Supermarket enforce rules anyway? And haven't we ALL slipped an extra item or two in at times or left an empty cart in line for a minute or two? And yet... it's irritating to be on the other side of it. My next rant will be about how much the automated checkout lines now located in many of my local stores irritate me.

Gee, I notice a distinct lack of people answering "Suzanne Somers" or "Marilu Henner". Could it be... (gasp) that these two don't know anything about food? Ditto. It would be priceless--beyond calculatable value. Really, once more I have to send out an appeal that if anyone here actually knows the man, that they try and pester him to agree to contact us about doing a food-related-only Q&A session. Maybe we'd let through a single question about his dancing too--just to totally frustrate people who want to ask him about "The Dead Zone" instead.

I have to remind myself, this is the price of accepting an invitation to the Perlows... getting roped into these weird food experiments. Frankly, I'm more amazed than ever by the Hot Dog eating champs like Mr. Takeru. I ate the equivalent of only 5 hot dogs (tossing a lot of the bun as I went), taking over an hour to do so, and can't quite imagine eating almost 11 times that in 1/5th of the time. A few other oddities. Although 2 of the 14 samples were Nitrate free, 2 were "reduced sodium" (although likely still high compared to most foods) and 1 was also "reduced fat" (likely still pretty high), comparing notes we all realized afterwards that we were feeling a bit strange. Not necessarily full (10 ounces of meat or so each is not really that much), but kind of odd and floaty. Not quite with headaches, or with a buzz, but... something. Sitting down and thinking about it I realized that I've probably never had more than 2 hotdogs in a single seating in my life. Ever. Yes, I've often had 2 dogs, 2 burgers, a steak, a chicken breast, etc. etc., but never more than 2 dogs. 2 dogs, plus fries and drink is the standard "big meal" at Nathan's... but I don't think I've ever seen anyone get three dogs instead, and I've certainly never done so myself. I've also remember having the equivalent to I think... 6 sausages... last time Jason had one of these experimental things (search for Arthur Avenue Sausage tasting or something like that), but somehow this was worse. Well, I shouldn't complain--I mean some of these dogs were pretty good--but obviously the sausages are a different mass-eating experience. Was it the nitrates? The sodium? The fat? The soda we drank between rounds (that was a dumb idea--water would have made more sense than Coca Cola)? All of the above? I'm pretty sure it didn't bias us against later products (we ate alphabetically), but let's just say... Jason will have to be very persuasive to talk me into "Round 2: Pork Yer Dog". I also noticed we all had to take bathroom breaks with the same increased frequency after consuming all of this, and that also could have been caused by any or all of the above. Most of the sarcasm in the "summary" is my influence, perhaps from feeling so spacey. Except that "girth" reference--I disavow that one. But Consumer Reports is not going to be hiring someone who turns a phrase like "words like 'slimy, 'mushy' and 'nightmare' were thrown around the eating area" either, so Jason and I may be even for sillyness. General spaceyness might also be my excuse for not doing my usual no-doubt annoying nitpicking on stuff Jason writes with my input, but then again we'd likely still be there. I suppose all's well that ends well. Except that I'm only barely getting over the spacyness, and I'd really appreciate it if you all stop speaking in magenta and glob-farbing my dinosaur.

Yeah, it's great they have ads. Does a lot since they can't get stock in any of my local stores. C2 is everywhere, but Pepsi Edge seems to be pretty scarce in these parts. A whopping 25 miles from Pepsi World HQ. Not that I see any evidence that people are buying C2 even though it's there. Those stacks of 8 packs always seem untouched, especially compared to the 12 packs of the other varieties which are right next to them and on sale.

Watch things go boom. Eat grilled food. Watch more things go boom. Eat more grilled food.

The thing about an ice cream sandwich is, it goes through two stages during it's lifetime. When you catch them really fresh from the factory, the cookie wafer is actually quite crisp. As they age a bit, some of the moisture from the ice cream type substance gets into the wafer, making it the soft, almost gooey consistency. I like both. Somewhere there must be a government grant to study this vital phenomenon.

Edamame rule! Really, I have problems sometimes believing the amazing variance of soybeans. I mean... all of those stupid farmers being bribed by the U.S. Government to grow corn in order to get corn syrup to put into all of the U.S.'s crappy mass-produced food should really be growing soybeans instead. If you go to Kansas and look around at the endless miles of corn stalks, you'll even spot the occasional soybean field. Does Japan grow all of it's own soybean supply?

They are multipacked in multiple, not single flavors, like Luigi's. They are all pretty damn good. Actually, the flavors seem to change occasionally--something I didn't know 'till I just looked at the website. The "cups" used to be the same flavors as the Original "Stix" mix of pops, but now they have other Stix flavors as well (Fruit & Cream assortment and "Phudge and Cream" assortment--all new to me), and the cups seem to have changed slightly too. Pretty easy when you selll ices. Then again, the Atkins crowd likely hates them. The texture is a bit "creamier" than most ices (especially Luigi's), although I'm sure that breaks down a bit if they get melted and refrozen.

With respect... YOU SUCK! Man, a box of those would be gone in like... a day... in my freezer though. As for the Luigi's... even better I can walk about a block and get REAL ices from a local Pizza place, although for store bought I really have to give props to Philly Swirl, which supposedly is in all Costco and Walmart Superstores... so that's nearly everywhere if you are willing to drive.

You have the official apology of the forum staff for that, Helen--it wasn't Boris' fault. Even without knowing about the new method being implemented for blogger selection, he was already thinking about you as a possibility. We had to get our "ducks in a row", because the guidelines have never been "in print" before, and somewhat stupidly left him (and you, by proxy) hanging. I want to interrupt this blog once and hopefully only once, to let people know that if they have interest in doing a Foodblog, they should be PMing SobaAddict70 to express that. Because we are at the beginning of the "gathering names" stage, it may be a bit rocky initially until we build up a nice list of interested parties. After that, we hope it will go pretty smoothly, and a blogger looking for a successor will always have a nice resource provided to them by Soba to work from--no more trying to guess who might really be interested, who may or may not have gone before, how to get a diverse regional spread, etc. So please, please... all of you let Soba know about your interest, and Soba in turn will be his usual efficient self, maintain an ongoing resource which allows the next blogger to have possibilities right on hand, but as many have expressed to us "doesn't ruin the mystery" here in the blogging threads themselves. To get back on topic (yes, that is important, even for an administrative message, right?) I'm looking forward to this one. Even "ordinary" Japanese food can be interesting. And the contents of that breadtruck look very familiar to me, even if the delivery mechanism isn't. I live in the Fort Lee, NJ area, which is kind of like the "Little Japan" of the NY Metro area and those particuar baked goods are not unknown to me, but may seem quite strange to many others in the U.S. Even familiar seeming stuff like a "custard bun" isn't done anything like how you'd expect if all you grew up with was Italian bakeries. But get to the bean paste filled stuff, the hot dog buns with hot dogs already inside, the curry buns, and the corn-covered pizza and well... what seems natural in Japan just looks weird (but often very good) to us.

Pan. that was just horribly written! Whoops. Now back to constructive photo criticism. On Ellen's last posted shot, I really like the way the blue border of the plate guides your eyes. I'm not sure if her role in that situation allowed her to choose the plate, but to steal a phrase we've used elsewhere here... it makes it pop. I'm trying to decide what I think of the soft focus on the plates in the background. I'm not sure yet, but somehow it's making me a bit too curious about what's actually back there.

The restrictions in the U.S. are largely gone now too, except for the need for a basic heat treatment. Details on this, and other non-region specific talk about Sichuan Peppercorns (yeah, I know... yet another spelling--it's the one we found used most often) are in this long running eGullet topic. Look at the posts from late April and early May--that's when we start talking about the revision of the ban.

Okay, now I'm massively confused. While dinner at Jason's house, or hanging out with Ellen at a restaurant, are indeed very exclusive invites, they are hardly the results of privledge which imposes on the eGullet membership. Using Jason as an example, since I'm less aware of the circumstances of Ellen's photos, the shots you took the most aesthetic exception to were his dinner. Earlier shots, of the BABBP, were pretty crisp--almost definitely within whatever silent criteria most of us would impose--and while they benefitted from the post-processing suggestions of a member hardly broke any kind of trust barrier between the eG team and our user base. Not to mention the fact that the purpose of the eG team at exclusive events, on the occasions when they occur, are not usually based on us being there as photographers. Sometimes the intent is to report, sometimes it's merely to be a representative of a forum where many of the participants have used our resources in various ways. Straight constructive criticism is fine, but you seem to be digging deeper. You can say something is blurry without questioning someone's motives or obligations, or invoking creative adjectives.

Well, if you look at the studio photography section for Ms. Sheffer you notice something right away. Her distinct style on most of them is to turn the angle of the camera a few degrees (look especailly at photos number 4,8,9,11 & 12 in her "Studio" section). She also uses the anchoring technique already discussed here quite often (1,2,4,5,6,8,11,12).

I think even home cooks can sometimes make those choices. Okay... Red Holland peppers probably DO taste somewhat better than good old ordinary Green, but haven't you ever caught yourself using them to make something look a bit better? Ground up Basil leaves might distribute better, but occasionally you present them as an intact garnish and not a spice. Tonight, quite by accident, I had a meal that might have photographed really well if I'd had a digital camera around, or thought of it. I had to make due with ingredients lying around and it just worked out that way. I had frozen ground turkey burgers, but no rolls. So I looked around and noticed I had tortillas--blue corn in this case. I had red peppers, but no green, because the red were on sale in a place I shopped recently. I had basil leaves up the wazoo, because the basil plant in my window hadn't been harvested in a while. I had cheddar cheese. Cooking the burgers and breaking them up among the tortillas (which I fried a bit) made sense, but I also used what else was on hand. So I had blue, red, a mid-range tan and brown, orange, and green on one plate. Much more colorful than 90% of my meals. Who knew fate had such a good eye for color?

Cooked food, I think, often loses color, and softens or blends texture. Even in the best of these photos, I think The greens, reds and especially yellows start to become more brown, tan, or black. Except on the raw (or mostly raw) parts you add on top. The textures get runny, or melty, or shiny. It's not really a surprise, is it?

Yes. Yes. I've been waiting for someone else to say that. Sadly, if camera shake is a big problem that's a tough angle to photograph from, but it's usually the most arresting shot. As for the issue of something more "official" based around single subjects, lets hold off for a short while on that and let the eG staff try and figure out the best way to produce and manage something like that. I can't make any promises. It's something which has been discussed before, but finding the right (available, authoritative and willing) teaching staff is an issue. Ellen, for example, is an excellent and skilled photographer, who knows bucket-loads of stuff, but is not primarily a food photographer. Do we have anyone here willing to fess up to professional credits in that direction?

Linda, the only problem I can see with that photo is glare, off several surfaces. The composition certainly looks fine to me.

I can verify that Jason's camera has a real big problem with camera shake. It's almost a miracle that he got the shots at the BABBP that he did. (stop pouting, Jason!) Now whether or not he sees the focus problem AFTER the fact in the finished product is different. He's got fully corrective lenses on then, he's not holding his head away from the camera to compensate for glasses--it could just be a natural perceptual thing as I implied before. With the texture of those beans, for example, how COULD you be sure of the focus? Skipping on over to the berries shots... the last one really is an interesting study in NOT being afraid of "blurriness". It's a neat focus trick--a similar kind to what you might see in a movie where they switch up a foucs to imply movement with a still camera. That's not exactly what's happening here with a single frame, but there's definitely a sense that you are somehow "peeking" in at something. There's more of a sense of... I don't know... intimacy?

Hey, you gotta take the knocks with the praise. You've got to be pretty happy with the comments on the previous pictures. The non-closeup of the Mexican meal is better than the extreme-close-up, it just could be even better yet the next time. Part of the problem, may in fact not even be how the picture was taken but the subject. Can you take a good picture of beans like that? I'm not sure it's possible. Perhaps that can be a future eG photo challenge, if we hold contests (and maybe we should).

The extreme close-up works for some foods and not others. For Black Beans... no. For the BBQ Beans in the previous series... yes. Ditto for the miscellaneous pulled pork pictures. I think the question is whether or not it's a texture we actually want to see close up. As for the focus, it's mostly an issue with the beans because I don't think there was a distinct element to focus ON. The Mole Poblano? I think a straight shot from above might have worked, perhaps back enough to see the plate in the frame, but not beyond it. EDIT - Okay, uncropped that was almost what you did, but from an angle I don't think was right. As for the plate? Maybe a different color plate? Black perhaps?

You should PM Jason. He might want to change out your tweaked versions for those he has posted in the BABBP topic, without the size reductions I mean. The pulled pork pile picture (wow that's a lot of Ps) is the only one I originally looked at, other than the beans, that I didn't think needed any changes. But Jason was only here for a few minutes, and we spent most of them applying and unapplying various filters on Ed's picture and hating them all.

Ah yes....orange drink arnge drank. Good lord. I have such strong memories of often visiting people in Florida, surrounded by cheap fresh squeezed orange juice, opening their fridges and seeing... Donald Duck Orange Juice. I recall it being horrid. I always wondered, if they were sick of OJ, why they didn't just switch fruits entirely rather than drink "The Duck". Why was Donald smiling (if a Duck can be said to smile) on the package? Was it some evil plot by Disney?

I had to crop it (because Jason cheated and didn't use imageGullet for the original photo--which is a bit too "long" for what iG allows), but here's the pic. of Ed where I upped the contrast on purpose. Is it better because it brings out those shadows on his face, or worse because it looks more like a still frame from an independant film rather than real life? You decide...

I frequently find it boring (even annoying) when people take these "flat" looking shots where there are no apparent differences in focus. So I like your shot, at the very least as an experiment. To me, the only thing which disturbs it is that one branch that reaches up right under that berry with the yellow bit on it. I don't know... in a "natural" environment is it okay to do something like reach out and break a twig off, or does the photographer have to be totally passive? Ed's photo was, I think, the only one to have anything extensive done on it. I myself, after Jason left, managed to make one where there was a pretty interesting play between light and dark, but it started to look "artistic" and not natural.