In Praise of Nuts

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Edit: Just a couple of months ago, I became aware of these – they could be a marketing trial balloon, but I hope they last – they’re pretty close, even though the hazelnuts are finely ground.

snickers
On other days, I might be talking about my friends; today, it’s this:

I first encountered this candy bar in Austria, where I lived from 1975 to 1976. It’s basically a Mars bar with hazelnuts instead of almonds, and I loved them. Nuts Bars were first manufactured in the Netherlands beginning in 1950. When Mars started its own company in 1961, the Nuts Chocolate Factory was born. Subsequently production moved to the Nuts Factory Elst (Gelderland) in 1966. The company was then acquired in 1979 by the British Rowntree Mackintosh, and in 1988 by the Swiss company Nestlé. Today, the Nuts bars are manufactured in the Czech Republic.

At the time, you could walk into Hofer’s and score 3 for öS 8.90, or about 18¢ each. Not distributed in the US, you have to get them from importers who charge $19.00 for a pack of six (shipping included) and screw whole bunches of that. What’s more, I’ve found two blogs thus far that have savaged them, saying they are blah, bland and boring. I wonder if Nestlé has changed the formula in the name of the bottom line?

If nothing else, I still have the memories.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

 

In Search of the Missing Malt

Posted on by The Old Wolf

“Malted Milk.” The phrase used to be as common as “Ice Cream Sundae.” Now, you’re lucky if you can find a place that even knows what that is.

Walk into Wendy’s and ask for a malt, and they’ll probably serve you a blank stare. Explain what it is you want, and they’ll say, “Oh, you mean a Frostie.”

No, I most definitely don’t. If I want a filet mignon, don’t offer me a hot dog, just because they’re both meat. Although in the case of the hot dog, that’s questionable.

No, a Frostie is an artificial abomination concocted in the frozen heart of Satan himself, and that goes for every fast food joint that serves something similar, so don’t think I’m picking on Wendy’s.

Some places still offer them – Dairy Queen is one – but I’ll have to be honest: I have not recently had a malt anywhere that I could distinguish from a shake. They must dispense the malt with a salt shaker.

Malt.

It’s a powdered mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and whole milk, which is evaporated until it forms a powder. It comes in two versions, diastatic (used by bakers to create a good crust on dough) which contains enzymes that convert starch into sugar, and non-diastatic malt which is used for flavoring.

Flavoring, do you hear me? That means you use more than a smidgen.

You know how Peter and Walter Bishop, and Olivia Dunham, and Colonel Broyles1 work? Yeah, their weird shit-o-meter starts at 9.5.

With a good malt, you start with at least a tablespoon and work up from there.

To find a good malt nowadays, you have to find a roadside shop that’s run by old-school people, not a major chain. Their shakes and malts will be made with real ice cream, not that Mogg-accursed soft hqiz that probably has more chemicals in it than your average shampoo. No, real ice cream, scooped from a tub; real whole milk, lovely natural flavorings, whole fruit, perhaps some real whipped cream, and real malt. Lots of it. As much as you ask for. And it will be made in something like this,

not extruded into a cup like the ejecta of some spawn of Tophet.

If you’re fortunate enough to find one of these, check the thickness of the final product. If they’re knights of the old code, the spoon (a metal one, please) will stand up straight.

I know where one or two of these are. One is a tiny ice-cream shack in Broadway, Virginia. Another is Mel’s Drive-in on Lombard Street in San Francisco. The others… well, I’m not saying. You’ll enjoy the hunt more if you find one yourself.

But now you know what to look for.

The Old Wolf has spoken, and now he’s drooling.

1If you’re not familiar with Fringe, you’re missing out. More, I cannot say lest I spoil the fun. Go buy the DVD’s and enjoy the ride. This season (V) is the last, but not because it wasn’t popular with its fans.

Vintage or Elusive Candy

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Love. Gone forever.

Love. Not easy to find in some parts of the country.

Still available, but at $1.00 for 10

Wowee wax whistle. A favorite at Hallowe’en time.  Gone forever.

Teaberry gum. Still available. Long my favorite in high school.

A movie theatre standby, as ubiquitous as Raisinets. Loved these little guys.  Still available.

B-B Bats. A favorite at the penny candy store, often bought in conjunction with Sugar Daddy bars. Still available.

Chunky. Still available, although the original used to be wrapped more tightly, and cost 5¢ back in the day.

So many more, and most are listed elsewhere on the Interwebz.

And now, let us pause for a moment of silence:

Third from the top – Sara Lee All Butter Chocolate Brownies. Came in a frozen tin; you took the cardboard lid off, and there was a little paper cutting guide, which I routinely ignored, cutting myself massive slabs straight from the freezer. I pester Sara Lee to bring these back on a regular basis. Perhaps they will someday – after all,

was successfully resurrected from the dead because enough people clamored for it.

I’ll keep clamoring.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[Edit: Ooh, I forgot one.]

Used to get these when I’d go ice skating in New York. They were my favorite, sort of a cross between a Milky Way and  a Three Musketeers. Gone forever.

The Old Wolf has spoken again.

The Lost Cartoons: Most found, one still elusive.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Edited to reflect the fact that all the lost cartoons but one have been located.

The New Yorker was a constant guest in my home as I was growing up in New York City in the 1950’s. My parents were both actors, and it seemed like it was always there, along with Variety and any number of other publications. Of course, at that age, I was interested in the cartoons most of all, and developed a deep and abiding love for the work of Charles Addams, although there were others I became familiar with as well, including W. Steig, O. Soglow, Jules Feiffer, to name just a few.

I have this picture in my mind. I can see it as clearly as if it were on the desk in front of me. It’s done in that pen-and-ink with grey wash style so popularized by Addams, and it shows the interior of a warehouse at the Heinz factory. A worker on a ladder way, way up at the top of a rack finds a single lonely can, the shelf lovingly labeled “58.” I don’t think I’m making this up, but I have never, ever, been able to find that cartoon anywhere – even with the miracle of the Internet.

I came close, though. Gluyas Williams, a wonderful cartoonist in his own right, depicted the scene in his series of industrial crises, but it’s just not the picture I had in mind.

Click the image for a larger size.

Closeup of the offending product!

Yes, this was funny. But it’s not what I had in mind. If anyone out there knows what I am talking about, or has seen or has a copy of the panel I have described, drop me a comment here. I’ve already had success with one or two other “lost” cartoons, including this gem by Howard Shoemaker (thanks to Mark Breeding for the awesome find):

My favorite Jerry Amerongen of all time (thanks to Mark Stanley for knowing the artist and the collection it was found in):

(I love the old lady strung up by her thumbs, it cracks me up ever time I look at it. Banks are really like this…)

And the iconic “retching jackal” by Al Jaffee, recently found in his wonderful biography after decades of wishing I could find a copy.

Yeah, it’s twisted – but then so is MAD Magazine, and I loved it as a kid.

There’s one more. This one I know exists, because I used to have it in my collection, but what happened to it I’ll never know. It would have been in Datamation, or one of the other comparable trade pulps, in the mid-1980’s. (See edit below)

This is a Xerox series 2700 laser printer, but when attached to a Wang OIS word processor, it was OEM’ed as an LPS-12 or an LPS-24, depending on the engine speed.

EDIT: On February 2, 2018, the Internet finally disgorged the cartoon I had been chasing for decades. Found in PC Magazine, November 15, 1988:

Laser Printer Mr. Bond

EDIT: This one surfaced thanks to reddit. It’s not really off-color, but perhaps just a bit risqué: another one that I had remembered for decades and never been able to find again, located for me by redditor /u/Haze793:

Tulane or Yale found by Haze793

Know what you’re eating

Posted on by The Old Wolf

According to an article at Nation of Change, in three months, Californians will vote on Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, and the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association is teaming up with Monsanto (in my opinion, the most evil company on earth) to block its passage. Now, I’m not one for hyper-regulation and nanny-state laws, but this is one I can get behind. One of my Facebook friends pointed me to justlabelit.org, and there I expressed my support for a GMO-food labeling effort. Here’s what I wrote to the FDA:

“Dear Commissioner Hamburg,

Europe has long been ahead of us in labeling, and rejecting, genetically modified foods. I’m personally not sure whether I trust GMO’s or not – the bottom line is that they haven’t been around long enough, and sufficient research on long-term effects of human and animal consumption of GMO’s has not been done. That said, I want a choice. I want to know if the food I am eating has been genetically tweaked, or if animal products were raised with GMO feeds. Please require foods to be so labelled. Yes, it’s a complex issue. Yes, it will cause administrative headaches, and probably result in increased prices in some areas. To me, it would be worth it for the opportunity to protect my health. Thank you.”

Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a knee-jerk, technology-is-bad, save-Mother-Gaia response. I love science, it amazes me and blinds me on a regular basis. Scientists worldwide are examining the issues of using genetic manipulation to increase food yields, and asking all the right questions about long-term effects. In my case, it’s just a gut-level sense of hesitation about injecting GMO’s into the food supply before all the data are in. The human genome is just so mind-blowingly complex, and for all the amazing progress that’s been made in the area of genetic manipulation, we’ve barely scratched the surface. At this point it seems the pinnacle of incautiousness to be injecting unknown factors into the human system, where one wrong change could possibly cause an unforeseen cascade reaction thousands of times more complex than an elaborate domino fall.

So yeah – let’s keep doing the science. Let’s see what we can do to feed the world and raise the human condition. But in the meantime, let’s also have the courtesy to let consumers know what they’re eating, so that they have a choice. The fact that food producers and distributors are putting their economic interests before the health of those who consume their products is mightily disturbing, and I join my voice with those who oppose their callous greed.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Incredible Increasing Traffic Ticket

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Found at Divine Caroline

That’s right, you’re not seeing things. A basic $200 fine for not having proof of insurance almost quadruples in Sacramento County, with much of California using the same tactics to fill empty coffers, and other states doing likewise. And you thought King Einon’s road tax was bad.

The Orange County Register explains in detail where the fees go, but that’s not likely to make you feel any better.

“Soaking traffic violators for the cost of state programs has a long history in California.

The first penalty assessment was set in 1953 at a rate of $1 for every $20 of base fine. In those days, for example, a $60 fine would be subject to a $3 penalty assessment, for a total due of $63. The extra $3 went to pay for drivers’ education programs in schools.

The legislature apparently found this funding source irresistible. Over the years, penalty assessments have grown to $26 for every $10 of base fine. Today, a $20 fine is increased by $52 in penalty assessments.

But wait – there’s more. After the penalty assessments are tacked on, there is a 20 percent surcharge, or another $4 on a $20 base fine. On top of that, there is a court security fee of $30, plus the conviction assessment of $35. And don’t forget the $1 night court fee, which you pay whether you go to night court or not.

All together, the penalty assessments, fees and surcharge jack up the cost of a $20 ticket to $142.”

So for the love of Mogg’s holy grandfather, be careful out there. The law of averages states that you’ll probably get pulled over by a revenue-hungry officer for something at some point, whether you did anything wrong or not, but be careful and don’t give them the excuse they’re looking for.

The Old Wolf has spoken.