More roundups?

[Jason Perlow]

Jeffrey:

I was a huge fan of the ill-fated show on the Metro channel that you did with Ed Levine. My favorite segment of that show was when you did various roundups and tried to find the best example of something -- Rye bread, bagels, pastrami, etc.

Have you considered perhaps starting your own web site and doing that again? Maybe with Ed?

I found it to be very educational as well as extremely entertaining.

[Jeffrey Steingarten]

Jason,

I couldn't agree with you more. But I feel that TV is the best forum, and nobody who owns a TV camera wants to put us on. Our frankness was so much fun because it was on TV! And Metro could let us do that because they had almost no advertizing. The Internet contains endless dissing of various commercial products. But being able to say that Mott Apple Juice looks like pee-pee and tastes like a sugary IV in intensive care--then people understood. I hope.

I learned lots. We'd ask the staff to buy a whole range of, say, apple juices. By the last six months of the show, we were up to 16 or 20 possibilities. And even then we'd get calls or e-mails after the show, telling us we had missed the most perfect apple juice made by some kosher bakery in Brooklyn.

There was no way we could show all 16, and so we had to eliminate half before the show. To do this, we obviously had to list criteria as soon as wel got to the studio, and argue about it with each other. And get to the studio at least a half hour earlier. And we couldn't do the retasting of the best eight on camera because it might be so long and boring. So we switched all the tasting to before the show.

The wonderful part of it was that Ed Levine and I, who have different tastes in food, almost never disagreed in the final tasting--and it was frightening close with apple juice. We wanted Windfall Farms to win, but of course we didn't know which it was. And then finally, at the end, both of tasted slight traces of skin and core in one of the two finalists, and that made it more complex and more rustic. So we agreed and asked which it was and....the winner was Windfall Farms.

Have I mentioned that Mott's looked like pee-pee and tasted like sugar?

[GG Mora]

Have I mentioned that Mott's looked like pee-pee and tasted like sugar?

There's a silly old joke – it was one of my mother's favorites – about a guy in the hospital who is presented with a tray containing a cup of apple juice for him to drink and an empty jar for a urine sample. As soon as the nurse leaves the room, he pours the apple juice into the jar. When the nurse comes back, she holds the sample up to the light and says "Hmmm...looks a little cloudy". So the patient says "Here, gimme that – I'll run it through again" before tossing it back.

[fifi]

Have I mentioned that Mott's looked like pee-pee and tasted like sugar?

There's a silly old joke – it was one of my mother's favorites – about a guy in the hospital who is presented with a tray containing a cup of apple juice for him to drink and an empty jar for a urine sample. As soon as the nurse leaves the room, he pours the apple juice into the jar. When the nurse comes back, she holds the sample up to the light and says "Hmmm...looks a little cloudy". So the patient says "Here, gimme that – I'll run it through again" before tossing it back.

That is an old joke that "may" have originated with one of the original astronauts. I actually heard him tell about it. We were hanging out in one of the local bars here and the guy came over to our table since one of us was a nurse at the space center and knew them. They were getting pretty sick of NASA's obsessive medical testing. I think it was written up in one of the books. Maybe one called The Right Stuff?

[Jeffrey Steingarten]

Hey, Jason, I hadn't noticed your use of "ill-fated." The show lasted for about 2 1/2 years, though not all of them in Manhattan. How long was it supposed to last? I'd say that fate was kind, but not for long enough.

Yours,

Jeffrey

[Jason Perlow]

Hey, Jason, I hadn't noticed your use of "ill-fated."  The show lasted for about 2 1/2 years, though not all of them in Manhattan.  How long was it supposed to last?  I'd say that fate was kind, but not for long enough.

Yours,

Jeffrey

Really? I didn't realize it lasted that long. I only saw about a dozen episodes or so. I must have caught it on the tail end. I only saw the ones that concentrated on the NYC restaurants and stuff.

I was kind of hoping it would go on for say 10 or 15 years. You know, sort of like MASH.