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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Wegmans

Above is Danny Wegman. Millionaire, Philantropist, Snappy dresser and grocerier. Danny made his fortune the old fashioned way, he inherited it.  I was in his wine store today and in he walks. You would think Paris Hilton just entered the place. Everyone was like "Hey Danny hows it going", "Look its Danny". He was hard to miss, because he was wearing a knee length technicolor coat trimmed with fur. Now if your going to take most of the hard earned money from you employees and buy a 5 million dollar house on a lake why do you have to flaunt it in front of them. Dress like a regular Joe for Christ sake instead of a Pimp (But when you pay your people dirt and take all the profits maybe... I Digress). But Hey, then they wont notice you when you walk in the front door...I think I get the point. Something has gone horribly wrong in our society when the richest guy in town sells you your groceries.

So then I go over to the Grocery store. The place is jammed packed and the isles are barely wide enough to get two grocery carts side by side. They are clearly going for more product space in lieu of any room for people to walk around. I see there are these big wigs walking the floor like peacocks. I knew they were big wigs because they are dressed in business suits embroidered with Santa Clauses and Wegmans logos and Santa and his Sleigh and such. They looked rediculous. Then I caught wind of their conversation. It went something like this "Wegmans is uniquely positioned blah blah blah, to have the highest quality and best shopping experience, blah blah, of any grocery store in the state. And I swear I did not make this up, literally 2 seconds after I heard "the best shopping experience", this lady goes by me saying "I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place". I guess the wigs were too busy blahing to catch it. 

Another very annoying thing about Wegmans is they rebrand everything. Eggs, Milk, Crackers, everything has the Wegmans brand on it. Its less expensive but.. the quality is sub par. Take any Wegmans item and compare to the national brand and the Wegmans item is crap. hey cut corners to get the price down. Probably paying the workers in the factories who make this stuff $8 and hour. I buy national brands, although they are getting harder to find at Wegmans. They even have Wegmans potatoes. The potatoes for god sake have Danny name on them. Why not put the name of the farmer who grew them on the label, he did a hell of a lot more to bring me those potatoes than the person who put them in a bag and resold them to me. The only reason I shop there is because of what Americans fear most, The loss of Convenience.

During the summer I bought my vegetables from the Farmer who grew them, I try to buy my produce and meat from local producers, who have their name on the label, some times they even hand me the item and tell me about how it was produced. We have got to get back to small produced mom and pop culture. I am not really into making some fur trimmed coat wearing dude richer.  

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A poor mans cup

My BF BIL (Thats Best Friend Brother in law. BF are also his initials). He has a knack for over doing it a bit. Pictured above is his home espresso/cappuccino center. Its one step below the full blown restaurant style machine, referred to as ProSumer (Professional Consumer model in case you need me to hit you over the head with it). It makes great I mean knock your socks off great cappuccino and espresso. Its plumbed into the water supply and the motor in the grinder next to it could power a small lawn mower.  He has a tamper which puts exactly 30 lbs of force on the grinds in the filter basket and a thermometer in the milk frothing jug. As well as insulated glass shot glass so you dont burn your hands when lifting an aromatic frothy shot into your mouth. He has his beans delivered express overnight from some far off town in Ohio or somewhere in the middle west. Only certain roasters will do. After visiting him for a week a developed a taste for the aromatic and tasty blends only capable of being brewed by such a contraption. So being the poor guy with 2 kids and a wife in college, I contrapted my own version of the home espresso experience which I will attempt to explain.

First I resurrected my old espresso maker from our dungeon.  The water goes into a little bucket which I fill at the sink. My grinder motor threatens to stall on every grind of the bean. I press the beans into the filter basket with my perscription medicine pill bottle (Lid is the perfect diameter, its also quite interesting as BF's wife is a pharmacist). I froth the milk in the cup I am going to drink out of, using experience and guesswork to know when it is hot enough. I dispense the espresso into these little porcelain cup my wife bought and I buy my beans at a wholesale club. Makes a pretty good cup if you do it right. Took me about 10 cups to get the process down and get that perfect draw of crema every espresso enthusiast craves. There you go a poor mans espresso experience. Next week a poor mans roller skiing experience!