Category Archives: Tenant Newsletter

Frieda Caplan

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Have you ever heard of Frieda Caplan? Few people have, and yet this remarkable woman has done more to change the way that Americans eat than any other single person in history. Frieda Caplan began selling fruit and mushrooms at the Los Angeles wholesale produce market in the late 1950s. For a long time, she was the only woman to head a wholesale produce company anywhere in the United States. Caplan observed that people would not buy or eat an unfamiliar fruit if they didn’t like the sound of its name, so she started renaming them, and the names she picked stuck.

The first was Chinese gooseberries. When I was a kid, I had heard of Chinese gooseberries, but I had never seen one. The name of this fruit is unappealing, and it is a misnomer. At the time, all commercial Chinese gooseberries were being grown in New Zealand, and they have nothing to do with geese. Plus, during the Cold War, Americans had a very negative view of anything associated with China. In 1962, Frieda Caplan renamed them ‘kiwifruit,’ and sales skyrocketed. Today, the whole world calls them ‘kiwifruit.’ In 1962, Frieda Caplan sold 2,400 pounds of ‘Chinese gooseberries.’ In 1986, she sold 1,000,000 pounds of ‘kiwifruit.’ There are many fruits and vegetables that Frieda Caplan either renamed or introduced to the United States, including: shitake mushrooms, elephant garlic, purple potatoes, jicama, spaghetti squash, Asian apple pears, and habanero chilis. Frieda Caplan is now almost 90 years old and is still running her company, Frieda’s Produce, along with her daughter Karen.

Worst Application Ever.

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When I am showing apartments to prospective tenants, I am always on the lookout for abnormal behavior. As my sister says, when a person is trying to get something from you, like a job or an apartment, you have to assume that he is on his ‘best behavior.’ I know what she means. You probably do too. Whenever I am showing an apartment, I always think about this question when an applicant is acting badly – If this person is acting like this when he is on his best behavior, what will he be like after he has moved into my apartment and is no longer on his best behavior?

Feng Shui This Apartment!  I own a couple of apartments near the Rockridge BART station. During a public showing of one of these apartments, one of the prospective tenants attracted my attention and aroused my curiosity because she was holding a compass in her hand and looking at it frequently as she moved from room to room. In each room, she wrote down notes about the room on a pad of paper. When she was finished, she told me that she was interested in renting my apartment, but before she filled out an application form, she wanted to know if I would make a few ‘accommodations’ for her ‘special needs.’ I assumed that she was disabled from the way she was talking because that’s the way disabled people talk, but I was wrong. She was not disabled. She thought the apartment was disabled. I asked her what sort of ‘accommodations’ she wanted. She told me that my apartment had “bad feng shui.” I had heard of feng shui before, but I know nothing about it. She had a list of the things that she felt needed to be fixed. She said: “The front door to this apartment faces north, and the porch is enclosed. That’s bad.” I asked: “Why?” She said: “Well, the porch cover blocks the ‘chi’, so every time you open the front door, you let negative energy into the apartment. I think we can fix this problem with mirrors.” (By this point, I had already made up my mind that I was not going to rent my apartment to this woman, but I didn’t say so.) She continued with her list. She didn’t like the color of the bathroom paint. She said that green is the “worst possible color” for a bathroom. She wanted me to give her permission to repaint the bathroom  “a healthy color like blue.” However, tops on her list of things wrong with my place was the fact that there is no window in the dining alcove. It only gets indirect sunlight. She said that eating food at a table with no direct sunlight is bad feng shui. She wanted me to install a skylight over the dining area so that direct sunlight would fall on the table. That’s an expensive job, and she expected me to pay for it. There were a few other things on her list, but I don’t remember what they were. I had stopped paying attention. I rented the place to somebody else.

New in the Chocolate Room

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Schweineohren! (pronounced SHVINE-uh-oh-ruhn) Schweineohren means ‘pig ears‘ in German. Schweineohren are made out of strips of puff pastry and chocolate. They are sold in bakeries all over Central Europe. I don’t know who came up with the name ‘pig ears’ for this pastry, but I strongly suspect that it was not a Jewish bakery. Despite its name, Schweineohren is a vegetarian product, but it’s not vegan. The dough is made with sweet butter. Shweineohren are crispy and flaky and melt in your mouth. Sounds good, doesn’t it? I have several German tenants right now, so I have been dusting off my old German recipes.

Are Marshmallows Made Out of Horse Hooves?

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No, they are not. Gelatin is a principle ingredient in marshmallows. A lot of people believe that the gelatin in marshmallows is made from from horse hooves, but that isn’t true. You can’t make marshmallows out of horse hooves; however, you can make glue out of horse hooves. Hoof glue was invented in ancient times and has been in continuous use for over 5,000 years. Horse hoof glue is still made. It is used in fine woodworking and violin making, among other things.

All of the major brands of marshmallows manufactured in the United States are made out of gelatin extracted from pig parts. Kraft marshmallows are made from gelatin extracted from pig skin. Most of the other brands get their gelatin from pig snouts or lard. That’s why none of them are certified kosher or halal. At a wholesale food trade show, a marshmallow salesman proudly told me: “Our gelatin is made from fresh pig snouts. Most of our competitors use frozen snouts.” Hmmm. Is that really a big deal? Would you really be more inclined to buy a bag of marshmallows if it said on the label: “Made from the snouts of freshly killed pigs!” I don’t think that line is going to sell a lot of marshmallows.

If you want to buy pig-free marshmallows, go to Whole Foods. They sell Eleyon marshmallows from Israel. They are made with fish gelatin. If you want to buy vegan marshmallows, good luck. They are hard to find in stores, expensive, and usually have a very short shelf life. Vegan marshmallows are made with carregeenan, a gelling agent extracted from seaweed.

New Voter I.D. Laws Target College Students.

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It is getting harder for college students to vote. In Tennessee, a recently enacted law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls explicitly states that ID cards issued by colleges and universities cannot be used to identify a voter. That means that if the only photo ID you have is a student ID card issued by the University of Tennessee, for example, you cannot vote in Tennessee. In Wisconsin, a provision in the newly enacted voter ID law prohibits college students from using university-issued housing lists as evidence that they live in the state. In Pennsylvania, the new voter identification law disallows most college-issued ID cards and out-of-state driver’s licenses from being used to identify a voter. Many universities in Pennsylvania are redesigning their student ID cards in an effort to comply with the new law; however, it is not clear whether any college-issued ID card, no matter how it is designed, would be accepted as valid identification under the Pennsylvania law. Several other states are also considering voter ID laws with provisions that would make it more difficult for college students to vote. In California, you do not have to produce photo identification at the polls in order to vote.

Wash Your Sheets!

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Did you know that sleeping in a bed with sheets that have not been washed in a long time can make you sick? The biggest problem is mites. As you sleep, dead skin cells are constantly falling off your body, into your sheets and pillowcases. Dead skin cells are food for dust mites. Mites and their feces accumulate in your bedding. You can’t see mites without a microscope, but everybody’s got them. As much as 10% of the weight of a pillowcase that has not been washed in a year could be mite feces. (Disgusting, isn’t it?) A lot of other unhealthy things accumulate in unwashed sheets and pillowcases: fungal mold and spores, dander, bodily secretions, bacteria, dust, lint, insect parts, pollen, soil, and cosmetics. Plus, there’s your own sweat. A person can perspire as much as one quart a night, even more in hot weather or if you have a thick blanket over you. All this stuff in your sheets can lead to infections and cause respiratory problems.

The solution to all this is very simple – wash your sheets and pillowcases frequently, at least once a month. All of my rentals have a free-operation washing machine and dryer in the unit, so what’s your excuse? How long has it been since you last washed your sheets, pillowcases, and towels?

Why Football Is Doomed.

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I believe that football has become a gladiatorial sport, like boxing. All boxers, if they fight long enough, will suffer brain damage. The reason is CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE is a degenerative disease caused by repeated head concussions. CTE is very common among professional boxers. It is also common among professional football players, and it will become even more common in the future. That’s because football players are getting bigger, a lot bigger. In 1980, there were 3 professional football players who weighed 300 pounds or more. Back in the 1980s, a 300 pound football player was so unusual that everybody knew their names, like William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry, and crowds cheered when one of them came onto the field. Today, there are over 400 professional football players who weigh 300 pounds or more. On many teams, 300 pounds is just the average weight of the line. The size of players on college football teams is also growing. I just checked the roster of this year’s U.C. Berkeley football team and found 10 players who weigh 300 pounds or more, and remember, these are college students, many of whom are still putting on muscle and weight. I don’t think it’s possible for 300 pound men to head butt each other hundreds of times every season without inevitably suffering brain damage. In TV interviews, retired football players often show obvious signs of CTE: slurred speech, confusion, and memory loss. I don’t think that this trend will be reversed. It is in the nature of football that size and weight are advantages to a team, and team owners and coaches are not likely to throw away advantages that win games. As Vince Lombardi put it: “If winning isn’t everything, then why do they keep score?”

How to Bribe Chinese Government Officials.

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Cigarettes have been used as money for a long time. At the end of World War 1 and World War 2, cigarettes were used as currency in Germany and throughout central Europe. Stores and restaurants priced things in cigarettes. People paid their rent in cigarettes.

Cigarettes have also been a common method of bribing government officials in countries where bribery is the normal way of doing business. In the later days of the Soviet Union, every foreign businessman in Moscow understood that if he wanted a permit or a license, he needed to bring cartons of American cigarettes with him when he met with government officials. In Russia, they wanted Marlboros. In Romania, it was Kent. For some reason, Kent was the only brand that many Romanian communist apparatchiks would accept.

In China today, if you want to get a permit for a big deal, when you meet with a government official, bring Good Cat cigarettes with you. Giving cash to a government official in China in exchange for a permit is bribery, a crime punishable by imprisonment and sometimes death; however, it is legal for a Chinese government official to accept a business gift, providing its value is considered ‘reasonable’. Good Cat cigarettes have become the standard ‘business gift’ for powerful government officials. These cigarettes are incredibly expensive. Good Cat cigarettes cost $700 to $900 a carton, depending on what part of the country you are in. Why do they cost so much? To some degree, the price is inflated to give them snob appeal, but even without that, Good Cat cigarettes would still be very expensive. Every cigarette is handmade, and every shred of tobacco that goes into a Good Cat cigarette is individually inspected. Every tobacco plant and every tobacco leaf is inspected daily while it is growing. Good Cat cigarettes are not sold in the United States, but even if they were, at $900 a carton, who would buy them?

Suffragettes at Sather Gate

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Here is a photo taken at the entrance to the U.C. Berkeley campus around 1910. All of the buildings and railings in the background are still there. The Suffragettes are gone. There is a widely held misconception about women’s suffrage. Most people assume that women could not vote prior to passage of the 19th Amendment, but that isn’t true. Prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, women’s suffrage was a state’s rights issue. That meant that the laws varied from state to state. In most Southern states, women could not vote at all. In many mid-western states, women had partial voting rights, which meant that they couldn’t vote in presidential elections, but they could vote on local matters, such as electing school boards, municipal judges, and town councils. In western states, women had full voting rights. In every state from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, women had full voting rights long before before the passage of the 19th Amendment. In some of the western territories, including Montana, Wyoming, and Washington; women had full voting rights before they obtained statehood. This was because the West was settled by frontier families. Women had more freedom and opportunities in the Old West than they had in the East. Women could do a lot of things in the west that only men were allowed to do back east, and that included the right to vote.

New In The Chocolate Room.

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Biscotti. I’ve got Italian almond-anise biscotti in the chocolate room. The bottoms and sides of the biscotti are dipped in semisweet and milk chocolate. I don’t make the biscotti myself. They are made by the La Dolce Vita Bakery. I just do the chocolate dipping.

Stroopwafels. A stroopwafel (pronounced ‘strop-vafel’) is made by taking a thin waffle cookie, cutting it in half, and filling the space between the two halves with soft caramel. I bottom dip stroopwafels in semisweet and milk chocolate. Everybody in Holland and Belgium eats stroopies!