jhlurie

Yes, but I believe that the retailers get into big trouble with the publishers if they jump an "on-sale" date. Even with books that are not expected to be Bestsellers, a lot of the success of the book is judged by first week sales and disrupting that process by shipping (and thus charging for and "selling") a book early screws with that calculation.

The psychological and behavioral aspects of American consumers always fascinates me, and one thing in particular which has sparked my curiosity lately are the very divergent behaviors of people in Supermarkets. Now I'm not talking about behaviors driven by economics. If I were I probably would have used the phrase "economize" instead of "go cheap". We all make choices and for many of us, dollars and cents have to drive a decision. I'm more interested in priorities, and the relative importance we put on some items over others. Part of this, no doubt, will come down to individual taste. If you genuinely can't taste the difference between the cheapest, most generic cheese and expensive cheese, then you probably have a reason even beyond economics to buy the cheap stuff. We all have quirks and I think it might be fun to explore them. I for example, refuse to buy cheap peanut butter. I'll buy the generic store brand, sure, but because I hate the over-sugared reduced fat chemical enhanced versions, I'll always splurge on the "natural" peanut butter. Every time. On the other side of the equation, at least 3/4 of the time when I eat rice I honestly don't care if it's an expensive grain or the cheapest the store has. I'm almost as bad with basic pasta (spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, etc.) although I always have at least one box/bag of the more expensive stuff hidden away for variety. Lately I've begun to buy better bread. I realized that the cheap stuff just doesn't get finished before it goes stale. So one of my "cheap" quirks has been turned around by experience. It happens. So what are your shopping quirks? What items will you always go for the best with, and when do you totally not care? For reference, you might also want to see The store brand / generic label appreciation topic, although in this current discussion I'm not really limiting things to a discussion of generics, but instead to the larger issue of why we prioritize the things that we do.

Wow. I just noticed this today myself and was going to PM you Jason and ask if you'd seen it. I haven't been inside yet, but if it's comparible to the old Paramus location, then the place in Ridgewood is probably slightly better, but not on a totally different scale. And from the apparent size of this place it's probably much easier to get a seat here than that place in Ridgewood, where I know I've spent a lot of time waiting on the sidewalk. Jason is correct. At least based on my memories of the Paramus location, it's far superior to any of those chains. And Ridgewood is more convenient to some of us than others.

Jason has at least a 1-ton weight on it overnight. Thus, the "flat" picture he later took of the sandwich inside of it's plastic.

Gotta love cheese fries where you can hardly see the fries.

I hate to generalize, but I think they are doing it because, with respect, California isn't always part of the same planet as everyone else. (kidding! ) The article reveals that this is a reaction to a certain well known "Proposition 65", which I'm sure must have been originally intended to warn about actually dangers instead of incredibly marginal ones. Part of this also seems to revolve around the fact that the legal system apparently has no balls. There's been a decision pending in a case with McDonald's and Burger King for not labelling their french fries as dangerous for years. This is the same warning, I believe, that also urges people to boil or steam all of their food to avoid carcinogens. Mmmmmmmm! At the very least, there's a spiritual connection to this topic, about scraping all of the good parts away when you grill.

Hey, Steven. It's Amazon sales rank #204,529! Congrats! (actually that's not bad for a non-fiction book a month away from publication) Curiously enough, San Bernardino Fire Department (Images of America), by some guy named "Steven Shaw" (without the middle "A" initial) is ranked #823,540. And his book has been out for a year and a half.

WE may have known that it wasn't likely that Elsie would be booted. Heck, Michael may have felt so too. But I think, honestly, he didn't care who went. The only person he was happy to keep was the idiot boy.

I was just finally relieved to hear the circumstances around that "dog's dinner" comment they've been playing since the earliest commercials. Hey, plus we got a nice commercial showing more of the exploits of that rascal Jack Bourdain.

In theory, heat supposedly changes the taste of Olive Oil. So I suppose the advice to not use finer tasting oil is based on the fact that the "particular taste" Michael is talking about might be lost in many cases anyway. It's purely a marketing concept, and not a real grade, but several brands of Olive Oil have started selling what's called "Light Olive Oil". They are often blends, and tend to have high smoke points--in other words they would tend to be better for high heat cooking. The Olive taste is, of course, weaker so if that's a consideration then you would't want to use them.

That is just beautiful. It looks like it has just the exact right amount of crunchiness on top. Crunchy pasta rules! I have corn holders. They're called "fingers"!

And one has to assume that things have changed (probably to become even more automated, cost effective, idiot-proof, and leaning towards off-site preparation), since the person who reported that information worked at Taco Bell. The general tone of the post sounds a bit older, and the person says the info was from when they were 16. Plus, on top of that, the post I linked to (here it is again) was from 2001. The worst Taco Bells that I've seen, by the way, seem to be the ones which are combined with other chains into one location (most often KFC, from what I've seen). Those places don't do ANY of the food well.

Folks, please... a reminder. Let's try and answer only current questions. This topic doesn't work very well if we keep answering questions from page 1 on page 16. The newer questions get buried too quickly that way. The idea of this topic is that it's kind of a hit and run opportunity for questions "too small" (and sometimes too embarassing ) to support their own topics.

I've actually cleared things up a bit with google and found an interesting Taco Bell testimonial. This page has a lot of info. Among other things, it claims: The whole bit about guns are caulking guns, and that's for the sour cream and guacamole, not beans. The beans apparent come as a dried powder and are reconstituted. Ditto for most of the sauces. Meat and nacho cheese come in pre-portioned boil-in-bags. Lettuce arrived at the store pre-shredded Tomatoes were peeled and sliced on-site. Mind you, this one person was talking about when they were 16, and they don't say how old they are now.

Do you mean properly refrigerated bottles or those little packets? Don't ask me how I managed to stumble on this, but this guy says that Heinz has told him that the "lifetime" of those packets is supposedly a mere 15 months. But overall, ketchup, being vinegar based and somewhat acidy, is on the hearty side. And I imagine that as with a lot of other foods, refrigeration helps--even sealed packets would probably benefit. Your other two questions? I'll leave those to someone smarter than me.

Taco Bell? Shudder. Sorry. It's just that many of the worst food experiences I've ever had were at Taco Bells. Including 2 cases of food poisoning. And beans from a gun (or is it a hose?) scare me. Is your evaluation that it's passable based on liking most of their menu items, an observation of consistent quality between locations, both, or something else entirely?

Really the only bad colors for garlic are black and brown (although lets differentiate that last from "browned", which is okay).

I can easily agree with Steak'n Shake--at least from my four or five exposures to them. Jack In The Box? Not so sure about that. I'm not quite as enamored of everything at WC. The hamburger variants are always great, but I've rarely liked anything chickeny there. And the sides? Honestly... I don't think White Castle has ever had a really decent side item. I can understand this objection. I was speaking more of the "food science" aspect behind their new menu items than quality control issues. But even on that score, they are still far better than average, I think. I couldn't agree more. Nathan's has totally betrayed their roots. And it's NOT just the quality control, it's also the menu. Rather than concentrating on what they are good at, they have crap like Cheese Steaks and badly made chicken sandwiches on their menu. Why? Just concentrate on the hot dogs, damnit! Back to McDonald's for a second. My point with them is that unlike Nathan's, their menu expansions actually seem to work more often than not. While it's true that ultimately I'd probably prefer a better burger, at least with McDonald's if they don't do that, what they are doing seems to be consistently well thought out, marketed, and yes, at least passably tasty, if not excellent. And again, unlike Nathan's, I don't think the presense of other items at McDonald's is actually making the core product worse--at most it's just maintaining a status quo that's less than optimal for improving that core product.

I decided to dredge up this ancient topic, because it just sort of popped up during an unrelated search and well... I'm still interested. eGullet, historically, has been very split on the issue of fast food. But I maintain to this day that fast food--while it may overwhelmingly be junk--is rife with exceptions. There are other threads where we've talked about specific menu items which are exceptions (you know... the "one good item at The Olive Garden" or the "three things at Taco Bell which don't make you hurl" kind of situations), but I think it's even more enlightening to talk about the chains which buck the trend totally and manage to actually mass produce a consistently across-the-board decent menu--where their record is good enough that you are at least willing to TRY almost anything there, because you know that, at a minimum, it will be eatable. Do those chains exist? I thought so 3 years ago, and I still do now. And yes, I still think McDonald's tops the list. We aren't talking about excellence here as much as consistency. McDonald's is nothing if not consistent.

Just tried some Pepsi One Version 2. My conclusion is that it's really more of a competitor for Diet Coke with Splenda than Coke Zero, despite the similarity in names between "Coke Zero" and "Pepsi One". Coke Zero is, undeniably better than Pepsi One v2. But Pepsi One v2 is probably slightly better than Diet Coke with Splenda. By the way, as with the last Pepsi One, it is totally confusing what the deal is with the single calorie. I mean Splenda is zero calories and there's no other obvious ingredient taking up that calorie. My impression is that the single calorie is just a rounded up figure from whatever fraction slightly above zero than ANY diet soda is, and that the idea of proclaiming it is to give the impression that the "sacrifice" of having to consume that one calorie is somehow delivering far more taste than a mere "zero cal" drink.

FINALLY ate here today, for lunch (amazing it took me so long, since both my sister and nieces, and my brother, ALL live in Montclair so I'm in that town several times a month). I'm wondering how much worse the service USED to be, because it STILL wasn't great. The problem, for me at least, was that the server barely spoke English (he was hispanic though, not Vietnamese). This manifested itself most annoyingly when we had to point to the menu to get him to understand our order, and later on with two failed attempts to get him to understand we wanted him to bring us some mustard (don't ask... let's just say one of my nieces is an insane fan of mustard). The server also absented himself from the table completely between courses. We weren't drinking a lot of water, but if we had been those absenses would have been cause for real annoyance. But the food was really really good--at least the things I tried. The spicy beef with lemongrass (my order) was top notch, and had a nice kick as well. The vegetable soup (a kind of mixed greens soup) was fantasticly subtle. Please note: if you are there for lunch with children, and they offer you a kids lunch plate, refuse it. It's the same price as the "regular" lunch, and its less food. The "chicken burger" it comes with is a bit bland, although it also comes with a pair of really excellent shrimp and beef skewers, as well as a monster load of surprisingly decent french fries, and a soda. But the normal lunch order is STILL more food, even if a good part of it is rice.

Coke has that. It's called "Kosher for Passover Coke". Alternately, "Mexican Coke".

I'm going to buck the trend here, along with Genny, and state that I believe that no more perfect Jellybean has been made than the Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn Bean. To this day I'm amazed they got that flavor successfully into a Jellybean.

It's not as good as a restaurant in Manhattan, but I've seen Native American food at the Orange County fair.

So come on Perlow. Thanks to this silly website you are a powerful man now! Get on the phone to the CEO of Coke and demand they actually give Coke Zero some publicity! I've seen five Diet Coke with Splenda ads in the past few days and not a single Coke Zero ad. Actually the big thing is distribution. I remember least year how bad the distribution was for Pepsi Edge, and I think that helped kill it (C2 on the other hand killed itself mostly because it sucked).