Category Archives: Tenant Newsletter

The Best Cocoa.

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There are a lot of variables that go into judging cocoa. First, all cocoa is either natural or dutched. Almost all American-made cocoa is natural. ‘Dutched’ cocoa does not necessarily come from Holland. It can be made anywhere. The term ‘dutched’ means that the cocoa was treated with alkali to reduce its acidity and make it darker. If you have a recipe that calls for dutched cocoa, I recommend Droste or Valrhona. If a recipe doesn’t specifically call for dutched cocoa, use natural cocoa.

From what I can see, there is absolutely no correlation between quality and price when it comes to cocoa. In fact, the best brand of cocoa, in my opinion, is one of the cheapest. Below are my ratings for the best and the worst cocoas. I only included unsweetened cocoa powders, not sweetened hot cocoa mixes, like Godiva or Starbucks. Hot cocoa mix is a different product.

The Best Cocoa: Hershey’s Natural Unsweetened Cocoa. Although this is one of the cheapest brands, it is the best. Everything about Hershey’s cocoa is right. The taste is right. The color is right. And most important, it’s made the right way. Hershey shells their cocoa beans and chops them up into nibs before roasting them. When cooled, the nibs are ground into a fine powder. This is the right way to make cocoa, but unfortunately, not everybody does it this way. It is easier to roast the beans first, but that produces a less flavorful cocoa powder.

Hershey’s cocoa sells for 45 cents a an ounce at Berkeley Bowl. They also sell Valrhona, Dagoba, and Scharffen Berger cocoa. All of these brands cost more than 3 times the price of Hershey’s, but none of them are quite as good. Dagoba was the most expensive at $2 an ounce. In my opinion, no cocoa powder is worth $30 a pound. Scharffen Berger and Dagoba are both owned by Hershey.

The Worst Cocoa: Nestle’s Toll House Cocoa. Small children might like a cup of hot chocolate made with Nestle’s cocoa because the flavor is weak, but few adults will will be impressed by this bland cocoa. Nestle’s cocoa is a little cheaper than Hershey, but it’s no bargain.

My Telephone Policy.

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Before I answer my telephone, I always check the Caller I.D. screen first. If the screen does not show the name of the caller and his phone number, I screen incoming calls, but I will not answer the phone until I know who is calling. If my Caller I.D. says that a call is from: ‘Private Caller’, ‘Out of Area’, ‘Unknown Name’, ‘Incoming Call’, ‘Toll Free Caller’, ‘Name Not Found,’ or ‘Blocked’; I will not answer the call at all. If you are calling me from a telephone that does not identify you as the caller, just leave a message. I check my messages several times a day. I am sorry if this sounds rude or discourteous, but I get a lot of phone robocalls from phony charities andcrooks, and this is the only way I can get control over this problem. When you get a robocall and you answer your phone, the computer that called you will make a note of the fact that you answered the phone. Then they know that your phone number is live and that you answer your calls. That gets your phone number placed on their sucker list, which they then sell to other phony charities and crooks.

My Nibiru Rent Discount

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Remember Nibiru? That’s the phantom planet inhabited by Jewish space reptiles that people thought was going to crash into the Earth on December 21, the date that the Mayan calendar came to an end. In my September tenant newsletter I said that if Nibiru crashed into the Earth in December, all my tenants could take 10% off their January rent. Well, December has come and gone, and alas, the Earth I still here, so there will be no Nibiru rent discount. Too bad. To be honest, I’m not really sorry about this. If Nibiru had crashed into the Earth, the Earth would have been destroyed, which would have significantly reduced the market value of my rental properties. Of course, I have insurance on my properties, but I don’t know if my policies cover the complete destruction of the Earth. Besides, even if my insurance does cover the end of the world, how would I collect?

Were these people serious? Yes. Millions of people around the Earth were anxiously anticipating the arrival of Nibiru on December 21. At last count, there are 300 books on the market about Nibiru. In addition, there are literally millions of web sites about Nibiru. The true believers haven’t given up. Most of them now say that they just got the date wrong, but that Nibiru is still coming, only somewhat later than originally predicted. Even though December 21 has come and gone, companies making Nibiru shelters are still receiving new orders. A fully furnished Nibiru shelter can cost over $100,000, payable in advance.


Is Barack Obama a Shape-Shifting Space Lizard? Yes! At least according to the ‘experts’ on Nibiru. According to David Icke,  the world’s best-known ‘expert’ on space reptiles, Queen Elizabeth II and George W. Bush are among the many politically powerful space reptiles who secretly control the world. Who knew? David Icke has written many books on the subject of space reptiles, most of which can be purchased from Amazon. Numerous web sites now also claim that Pope Benedict recently unveiled a ‘reptilian Jesus sculpture’ at the Vatican for devout Catholics to worship. These people believe that the pope secretly controls the space reptiles on Nibiru by means of his ‘pope scope’. For more information about this whacky theory, go to You Tube and type in ‘Vatican reptilian Jesus.’

Why did the Mayans get it wrong? They didn’t! The Mayans did not predict that the Earth would end in 2012. There are over 3,000,000 Mayans living in Mexico and Guatemala right now, and none of them were getting ready for the world to end. December 21, 2012 was just the ending date of their calendar. Nothing more. All calendars have a starting and ending date. For example, the calendar on my office wall has an ending date of December 31, 2013. The calendar on your wall probably has the same ending date. That doesn’t mean that the company that made my wall calendar expects the world to end on December 31, 2013.

Why didn’t Nibiru crash into the Earth? I have always been a firm believer in Occam’s Razor, which states that the most obvious solution to any problem is usually the correct one. The most obvious explanation for why Nibiru didn’t crash into the Earth and why nobody has ever seen Nibiru is that Nibiru doesn’t exist. If a planet was actually heading towards the Earth, you wouldn’t need a ‘pope scope’ to see it.  It would be plainly visible, not just to astronomers, but to everyone. For at least a month before its arrival, a planet headed towards the Earth would be the brightest object in the sky after the sun and the moon.

Protecting Yourself From Text Message Fraud

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Back in the 1970s, the 2 features that turned an ordinary apartment into a ‘luxury apartment’ were a microwave oven in the kitchen and a phone jack in every room. In 1975, a microwave oven cost $500 and weighed almost 100 pounds. They were so big and heavy that when you bought one, you also had to buy a microwave cart to go with it. Cell phones were also very expensive. The only cellphone on the market was the Motorola Dynatac, commonly known as the ‘brick’ or ‘Zack Morris phone.’ It weighed 4 pounds. A Zack Morris phone cost $4,000, and you had to pay 50 cents a minute to make or receive calls. Only rich people had cellphones. Today, nobody cares if an apartment has a phone jack. I can’t remember the last time I had a tenant with a land line. Everybody has a cell phone.

Text Message Fraud. Every day, over 50 million spam text messages are sent to cellphones in the U.S., and most of them are attempted fraud. Cellphone criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and they now have the technology to personalize their spam messages to make them appear to come from people you know and businesses you trust. Here are some things you can do to protect yourself from becoming a victim of cellphone fraud:

  1. When you get a spam text message, ignore the instructions on how to prevent receiving future text messages by texting them back. This is a common ploy by crooks to confirm that they have a live, active phone number. Ironically, by instructing a spammer to stop sending you text messages, you will get more of them instead.
  2. Forward spam texts to 7726 (SPAM on most keypads.) This will alert your carrier to block future text messages from these numbers.
  3. Anti-malware is available for most cellphones; however, installing anti-malware on your cellphone can reduce your battery life, so if you get spam text messages infrequently, this is probably not worthwhile.
  4. Never store your credit card numbers, log-in information, or passwords in e-mails or notes on your cellphone.
  5. Be suspicious. When you get a text message offering you a free $500 Amazon gift card or an all-expensive paid vacation to Disneyland for $100, you should be hear an alarm bell going off in your head.
  6. Remember that banks and other legitimate businesses do not send spam text messages.

Airborne Pills

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I was at Costco last week. In the medicine section, there was a stand-alone display of Airborne tablets. Costco sells a lot of this stuff. There are full-page ads for Airborne in Costco’s monthly magazine. But whenever I see this product, I always wonder: “What do these pill do?” The picture on the box shows a worried passenger on an airplane with people around him sneezing. That might give you the impression that these pills will protect you from catching a cold from a fellow passenger. Besides, the name of the product is ‘Airborne,’ and it says on the box: “Sick of catching colds?”, “Sick of getting sick while traveling?”, and “for use in airplanes.” OK, that all sounds good, but then it says in small print on the label and in their ads: “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.” Well then – what does this product do? They don’t actually claim that Airborne cures anything or that it will reduce your chances of getting air sick or catching a cold. It says on the box that ‘Airborne boosts your immune system.’ Well, big deal. So does an orange or anything else that contains Vitamin C. I wondered, who invented this product and for what purpose? On the company’s web site, they state with pride that: ‘Airborne was developed by a schoolteacher!’ Well, so what? Personally, I think that most people would be more impressed if these pills were invented by a doctor or a pharmaceutical company rather than a schoolteacher. This product is a mystery to me. I don’t get it. If anybody knows what Airborne pills do, please let me know. I’m not being facetious. I really don’t know.

Civet Absolute and Castoreum

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CIVET ABSOLUTE. I regularly go to industrial food shows. A big one is coming up in January. That’s where I get to meet chocolate processors and their technical experts. When I come back from these shows, people sometimes ask me: “What was the most disgusting thing you saw at the show?” Well, there are a lot of terrible ingredients in commercially processed foods, but for me, the most repulsive food additive is an artificial flavoring called civet absolute. It is used to give candy a caramel, butter, or rum flavor. Civet absolute is a secretion produced by African civet cats to scent mark their territory. Civet absolute is scraped out of the anuses of civet cats. (Yes, you read that right.) This oily secretion is collected twice a week. The cats have to be sedated first because the scraping is so painful. Civet absolute has a very powerful odor. In full strength, civet absolute just smells like cat urine, but when diluted to 1/10 of 1% or less, it smells wonderful! I once smelled it myself at a food trade show. It smelled like sweet butter with a slight scent of lily. I felt ashamed of myself afterward, thinking about the suffering of those poor, miserable cats.

Several years ago, I saw an orthodox rabbi at one of these wholesale food shows working at the booth of a kosher certifying organization. I asked him if civet absolute is kosher. The rabbi gave me a stern look. I never forgot his answer. He said: “You can’t make kosher food out of something that came out of a cat’s rear end.” He looked angry, as though he was mad with me for asking the question. Because civet absolute is very expensive, most candy makers now use civetone instead. It’s synthetic version of the real thing. Today, most civet absolute is purchased by cosmetic companies. Some of the world’s most expensive perfume contains civet absolute. Under pressure from animal rights groups, some department stores are now refusing to sell perfume containing civet absolute.

CASTOREUM. Sadly, there are quite a few other food additives for sale at industrial food shows that are as repulsive as civet absolute, products like castoreum. Have you ever seen ‘The Angry Beavers’ TV show? Well, castoreum is probably what the beavers are angry about. Castoreum is used to make artificial strawberry and raspberry flavoring. It is a secretion produced by beavers to scent mark their territory. I like beavers. I think it’s fascinating to watch these small, industrious animals building enormous dams. I never get tired of watching busy beavers at work. At food trade shows, I sometimes look at the salesmen selling products like castoreum and civet absolute and wonder: “What kind of person would sell something like this for a living?” And – just in case you were wondering – No, I do not use civet absolute or castoreum! In fact, I never use artificial flavors or colors.

‘NATURALLY FLAVORED’ STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM.

Before I leave the subject of castoreum, I would like to say something about the term ‘naturally flavored.’ You can find the words ‘naturally flavored’ on the labels of thousands of food products, but this term does not mean what most people think it means. ‘Naturally flavored’ just means that the flavor came from an organic source. If you buy cheap strawberry ice cream or raspberry sorbet, the odds are pretty high that it is flavored with castoreum. Don’t bother looking for the word ‘castoreum’ on the label. You won’t find it there. The government does not require food processors to tell you if a product contains castoreum, so none of them do. If you want real strawberries in your strawberry ice cream, beware of the words ‘naturally flavored’ on the label. Instead, look for the words ‘strawberry’ or ‘strawberry puree’ on the ingredients list. It’s usually the expensive brands, like Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs, that are made with real strawberries. So the next time you see cheap strawberry ice cream for sale in a supermarket, before you put it in your cart, ask yourself: “I do really want to eat ice cream that is flavored with beaver urine? Beaver urine!”

Would you like to know more or less about what is in the commercially processed foods that you buy? Would you like to know more so you make better choices, or is this information just too depressing to read about?

Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

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This is not a new item. I’ve had them in my chocolate room for several years. I bottom dip these cookies with milk and/or dark couverture chocolate. The distinctive flavor in my oatmeal cookies is allspice. Allspice is the only major spice native to the Western Hemisphere. Christopher Columbus brought allspice back to Europe from Jamaica on his second voyage to the New World. People in Europe called it ‘allspice’ because it tastes and smells like a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. When freshly ground, allspice has a wonderful, pungent aroma. I grind allspice with a pepper mill, which works very well. Unfortunately, not many commercial baked goods contain allspice simply because it is relatively expensive. If you haven’t tried my oatmeal raisin cookies with allspice yet, perhaps you should give them a try! (Now tell the truth. Even if you’re not a ‘cat person’, doesn’t allspice sound nicer than civet absolute?)

Closed To Serve You Better.

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On of my pet peeves is businesses that claim to be closed in order to ‘serve you better.’ Bank of America used to have a branch one block from my house. They closed it and put a sign on the door that said: ‘In order to serve you better, this branch is now permanently closed.’ Some businesses also use this line in their voice mail messages. I recently called a hardware store here in Berkeley on Sunday and got a recorded message that said ‘In order to serve you better, we are now closed.’ Why do so many businesses use this infuriating, stupid line!?

Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #4: A Resume is Not an Autobiography

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A tenant of mine, a Cal student, asked me to look over his resume. He was having a hard time getting a job and wanted my advice. His resume began with an interesting story about his family history. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. When he was 2 years old, his parents moved to the United States to escape from the civil war then raging in Northern Ireland. Just before his family left Belfast, a house on their block was destroyed by a firebomb. After reading his resume, I told him: “This is a very interesting story, but this is not a resume. This is an autobiography.” I have told other people the same thing after reading their resumes.

The purpose of a job resume is to get a job. That sounds rather obvious, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, a lot of people seem to forget this simple fact when writing their resumes. A good job resume is not simply a list of all the interesting things that you have done in your life. A prospective employer is not interested in where you went to summer camp when you were 14. He is also not interested in your dog, your girlfriend, your malicious stepmother, or your sister’s peanut allergy. He is not interviewing you because he is lonely and looking for a new best friend. When an employer is interviewing an applicant for a job, he wants to know how hiring you could benefit him and his company. Look over your resume and try to view it from the perspective of an employer who does not know or care about you. Take out the stuff that would be of no interest to a stranger. And never forget that a job interviewer is not trying to get something from you. You are trying to get something from him, namely a paycheck!

Here are my previous job hunting tips.
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #1: ‘Today’ And ‘Tomorrow’ Are Dangerous Words In E-Mails. June, 2011
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #2: Clean Up Your Facebook Page. July, 2011.
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #3: Don’t Get A Conspicuous Tattoo. July, 2012

For-Profit Colleges in Rapid Decline

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A few weeks ago, the University of Phoenix, America’s largest for-profit college, announced that they will be closing 115 of their locations, over half the total number. Other for-profit schools are also shrinking. This industry has been getting a lot of bad publicity and straining under the weight of tighter government regulations due to their high student loan default rates. Nationally, 7% of students at 4-year colleges wind up defaulting on their federal student loans. At for-profit schools, it’s 26%. In addition, because of the weak economy, people are more reluctant to invest money in the kind of education that for-profit schools offer at a time when it is unclear that the education will help them get better jobs. But perhaps the most significant factor in the decline of for-profit colleges is the tremendous increase in the number of online courses and degrees being offered by large, well-respected public universities. U.C. Berkeley Extension offers many online certificate programs, and their courses are usually cheaper than similar courses offered by for-profit schools. Now – if you were working in a corporate or government hierarchy and trying to advance your career, would you rather have a professional certificate from U.C. Berkeley or the University of Phoenix? Which do you think would look better on your resume? To me, that seems like a no-brainer.