Monthly Archives: September 2017

NEW IN MY CHOCOLATE ROOM. Chocolate Covered HYDROX COKIES.

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What is a Hydrox? Hydrox was the original sandwich cookie. In 1908, the Sunshine Biscuit Company began selling Hydrox cookies, and they were an immediate success. Hydrox was so successful that in 1912 the much larger National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) starting making Oreos, a copycat of Hydrox. Oreos quickly began outselling Hydrox. In 1999, Sunshine stopped making Hydrox cookies after the company was purchased by Keebler. Hydrox cookies looked like Oreos, but they didn’t taste the same. Hydrox cookies were not as sweet as Oreos. I think that is because Hydrox cookies were made with sugar, and Oreos were and are made with corn syrup.  Hydrox cookies are back on the market, but they can be very hard to find in stores or online. Hydrox cookies are still made with real sugar and contain no corn syrup.

Jews & Hydrox. When I was a kid, Jews who kept kosher ate Hydrox cookies, never Oreos. Oreos were made with lard, and therefore, were not kosher. Hydrox cookies were always made with vegetable oil and were always kosher.  In the 1990s, American consumers began shifting away from products made with lard as part of a general interest in eating healthier food. As a result, many products, like Bisquick, replaced the lard in their products with vegetable oil. In 1997, Nabisco stopped putting lard in Oreos and replaced it with vegetable oil as well. As a result, Oreos are now kosher.

Kosher Hot Dogs. Surprisingly, the great majority of American buyers of kosher foods are Christians. A lot of people will pay extra for kosher certified processed foods because they know that if there is a kosher seal on a product, that means that it doesn’t contain pig snouts, mechanically separated cow butts, or a long list of other unappetizing animal parts and also that a rabbi is regularly inspecting the factory looking for unsanitary conditions, and inspecting it more frequently than government food inspectors. I sometimes see 1 pound packages of hot dogs at dollar stores and wonder: ‘What are all-meat hot dogs that sell for $1.00 a pound made out of?’ Perhaps it is best not to think too much about such questions. You sure can’t buy kosher hot dogs for $1.00 a pound!

Donald Trump vs. Oreos. President Trump has urged Americans to boycott products that used to be made in the U.S. but that are now made in Mexico. In 2015, Nabisco moved the production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico. Then-candidate Trump said: “I’m never eating another Oreo again!” and told his supporters to boycott Oreos as well. Donald Trump talked about Oreos frequently during the presidential campaign. Hydrox cookies were always made in the U.S., and they still are. So what do you think?  Will eating Hydrox cookies ‘make America great again’?

DEFECTIVE SMOKE ALARMS.

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If you have a defective smoke alarm, contact me, and I will replace it. Do not try to open it up the smoke alarm and replace the batteries yourself. Smoke detectors with replaceable batteries are now illegal in California. The batteries inside the smoke alarms in your apartment are in a sealed chamber and cannot be replaced or removed without damaging or destroying the smoke alarm. About nuisance false alarms…..If you have a smoke alarm in or near your kitchen that goes off when you are cooking, let me know about it. I may be able to change the alarm with a different type of smoke alarm, a photoelectric smoke alarm. This type of smoke alarm is less likely to go off when you are frying onions or broiling a steak.

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND. The worst state song in the U.S.

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‘Maryland, My Maryland’ is the official state song of Maryland. The tune is that of ‘O Tannenbaum’ (O Christmas Tree). The lyrics are just nasty Confederate propaganda. The song was written in 1861 by a Maryland native serving in the Confederate navy. Maryland was a border state, that is, a slave state that stayed in the Union. Maryland never joined the Confederacy. The majority of people in Maryland were Unionists. About 75% of Marylanders who fought in the Civil War fought for the North. The other 25% fought for the South. When I was a kid growing up in Baltimore, I was sometimes required to sing “Maryland, My Maryland”, but I never liked it. I was never sympathetic to the Confederacy. Most people in Maryland have never actually read or thought about the words to this song, but they should! ‘Maryland, My Maryland’ refers to Abraham Lincoln as a despot, a tyrant, and ‘the vandal’, which seemed odd to me since Maryland was a Union state.  However, the nastiest line in this song refers to the United States Army as ‘Northern scum.’ Northern scum. Really? Northern scum? The United States Army is just Northern scum? I don’t think a line like that belongs in any state’s official state song. It’s an insult to everyone who has ever served in the United States Army. There have been many efforts to revise or replace this song, but all efforts have failed. In 2016, some Maryland state legislators tried to get just the words ‘Northern scum’ removed from the official version of ‘Maryland, My Maryland’, but that too was voted down. In 2017, the University of Maryland marching band announced that they will no longer play ‘Maryland, My Maryland’, something that I think was long, long overdue.

The official state song of California is ‘I Love You, California.’  I don’t think that even 1 in a 1,000 Californians has ever heard it sung, including me. Every state has an official state song except New Jersey. Many state songs have nothing to do specifically with that state and do not mention the state in their state song. For example, the official state song of Connecticut is ‘Yankee Doodle’ and in Kansas, it is ‘Home On The Range.’ My personal favorite official state song is ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’, the state song of West Virginia, written and sung by John Denver.

PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA.

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What U.S. President Ate Cottage Cheese Covered With Ketchup For Breakfast?
That was Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon did not have a sophisticated palette. Nixon usually started his day with a big plate of cottage cheese covered with Heinz ketchup. If for some reason he ate something else for breakfast, he would have cottage cheese over canned fruit for lunch. Here is a photo of Nixon’s last meal in the White House – a scoop of cottage cheese over canned pineapple slices with a glass of milk. It looks like a very sad meal to me. The White House has a well-paid celebrity chef, but many presidents preferred junk food to the high class stuff the White House chef is paid to prepare. Bill Clinton was famous for jogging to McDonalds in the early morning with Secret Service agents jogging behind him and then loading up on Sausage McMuffins. George H.W. Bush was famous for his love of fried pork rinds. Sales of fried pork rinds skyrocketed during his presidency. Pig skinners ran out of inventory and had to import the stuff. Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite meal was a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread. Warren Harding served knockwurst, sauerkraut, and bootleg beer at White House dinners. He was president during Prohibition. Donald Trump’s favorite restaurants include McDonalds, KFC, and Wendy’s; although he doesn’t serve that kind of food to guests at the White House.