Welcome to another edition of Odds & Ends

I regularly accumulate a number of “Odds and Ends” ideas for the blog that I never get around to developing into full-blown posts. That process seems to be accelerating now that I’m retired. My ideas inbox is getting full, so it’s time to clean house and present another edition of Odds & Ends.

The Wells Fargo Wagon

Does anyone remember “The Music Man,” the 1962 musical starring Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, and the very young Ron “Opie” Howard? I was never much of a fan of musicals, but even at 6-years-old, I thought Shirley Jones was swell. One particular memory from the film that has stuck with me over the years was the “Wells Fargo Wagon” song (see here). Well, we all know that the Wells Fargo wagon has since been replaced by the beloved Amazon delivery truck. It occurs to me that the anticipation of receiving some material item is often more pleasurable than actually acquiring it. “For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” – Luke 12:15

The daily newspaper: Going, going, …

The daily newspaper is a threatened species. Rochester used to have morning and afternoon newspapers, but now it’s down to just the morning Democrat and Chronicle newspaper and it’s a pretty slim version of its former self. I was a regular subscriber to the paper for years and years, but stopped maybe five years ago because of the rising price. After I retired, I re-subscribed to the paper and I’m enjoying it, but I realize its days are numbered. In our digital age, the daily newspaper is an anachronism. The D&C recently announced it’s laying off 108 employees and transferring its printing operation to faraway Rockaway, New Jersey, 300 miles away, meaning the paper’s limited reporting will be even less timely.

Snuffy’s Hot Sauce vs. Sal’s Hot Sauce

In my review of Sal’s Birdland’s half-chicken dinner (see here), I recounted how Salvatore “Sal” Nalbone got the inspiration for his suburban restaurant from Harry “Snuffy” Smith, who operated soul-food chicken joints in the city going back to the 1950s. Snuffy passed away in 2008, but his sweet-spicy sauce is still being sold in some area groceries. Sal died in 2021, but his restaurant is still going strong and his sweet-spicy “sassy” sauce is also sold in Rochester groceries. Sal’s sauce is mustard-based while Snuffy’s sauce is ketchup-based, although mustard is also an ingredient. How about a very brief taste-test dual? Mmm. Both sauces are de-lish, although Sal’s sauce is sweeter and has more of a syrupy consistency. Both sauces have a nice tang. If push came to shove, I would choose Sal’s sauce over Snuffy’s, but it’s nice to be able to change it up.

Cleaning Out the Garage

Nope, that’s not our garage in the photo above, but our garage does get a bit messy and disorganized over time. Twice a year, in the early-Spring and late-Fall, I clean out the garage. I was a little late this year, and my wife got after me to clean it up before our youngest son arrived for a one-week visit. Why not just keep things picked up and organized throughout the year? This reminds me of how sin accumulates in our life and we need to take stock, repent, and get things right with the Lord.

More Rochester Meat Hot Sauces!

Speaking of hot sauces, back in August 2020 I presented a couple of posts reviewing six of Rochester’s delectable meat hot sauces (see here and here). Well, the other day I was shopping at Hegedorn’s, an independent grocery store in Webster, NY, and spotted three more locally-made meat hot sauces. From left to right: Harladay Hots Meat Sauce, Old-Fashioned Meat Sauce, and Little Johns Meat Sauce. All three are delish and somewhat similar variations of Rochester’s classic meat hot sauce. Of the three, I give the nod to Harladay Hots, which is made under the auspices of Charlie Clottin, proprietor of the Harladay Hots food cart, which can be found at 10 N. Main Street in Pittsford, NY during the warmer months.

Hillsong

Has anyone watched the four-episode documentary, “Hillsong: A Mega-Church Exposed”? I’ve caught bits and pieces, but need to watch the entire thing. The documentary exposes much that is horrifically wrong with the seeker, hipster, church-growth model. Shameful.

Sauce YET AGAIN???

Yup, I realize we’re already heavy on the condiments in this odds-and-ends post, BUT I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one more. On a trip to Hegedorn’s grocery several months ago, I bought a jar of LeFrois Sauce pictured above. LeFrois is a locally-made, tomato-based barbequing/simmering sauce with a deliciously-unique flavor that I first discovered at our Wegman’s grocery way back in the early-1980s. For some ridiculous reason, Wegman’s discontinued carrying LeFrois sauce, but I was delighted to spot it at Hegedorn’s years later. However, on a very recent trip to Hegedorn’s, the LeFrois sauce was gone! What happened? I did some internet sleuthing and it appears LeFrois’s manufacturer, Jets Le Frois Corporation in Brockport, N.Y., is no longer operational. No one answered the phone at Jets Le Frois when I called during business hours. Argh! It’s going to be sad when I get around to opening my last jar of LeFrois (expiration date 9/23).

Eva’s European Sweets Polish Restaurant in Syracuse, NY

My wife and I had to take a short trip to Syracuse (a one hour drive from Rochester) last Wednesday, so I took the opportunity to arrange for us to have dinner at that city’s only Polish restaurant, Eva’s European Sweets (photo above).

Eva’s European Sweets Polish Restaurant
1305 Milton Avenue
Syracuse, New York

Polish immigrant, Eva (spelled Ewa in Polish) Zaczynski, nee Marcinkowska, opened her desserts bakery in 1997 and gradually transformed it into a full-scale restaurant serving a wide variety of Polish and Eastern European ethnic foods. I had visited Eva’s many years previously as a side-trip on one of my solo visits to the Syracuse Polish Festival, but this time I brought along my piękna żona.

My non-Polish bride is not as familiar with Polish cuisine as myself, so as she scanned Eva’s extensive menu she asked for my help. I knew she would enjoy the breaded pork cutlets, popularly known in Germany and even in America as Schnitzel and as Kotlet Schabowy in Polish. It was served with red cabbage, pan-fried potatoes, and cucumber and tomato salad. My piękna żona enjoyed her dinner very much.

I ordered the Polish Platter, which included a gołąbek (a single gołąbki is properly called a gołąbek, cabbage stuffed with a rice and ground beef mixture), a serving of bigos (Polish Hunter’s Stew), which is a melange of sauerkraut, cabbage, kielbasa, beef, ham, bacon and mushrooms, two pierogies (Polish dumplings) stuffed with potato and sauerkraut, and a kiełbasa (Polish sausage) link.

Above: My Polish Platter at Eva’s, clockwise from left to right: A gołąbek, bigos, sauerkraut, pierogies, and kiełbasa at the bottom.

My dinner was good, but I had a few quibbles. The gołąbek (pronounced gaw-WOAM-bek) filling was plentiful, but a bit bland and there was no tomato sauce topping. The bigos was very good, although not quite as good as my homemade recipe. The pierogies were tasty and the dough edges were chewy, just the way I like them, but they were quite small. The undersized, cut-in-half link of smoked kiełbasa was waaaaay over-fried. The above criticisms are minor, except for the kiełbasa. A meaty and properly-cooked kiełbasa portion would have erased all of the other minor objections. I do realize this was a sampler platter and that portions would be limited. However, I have nothing but sympathy for the poor patron who makes a full dinner of this cringeworthy over-fried kiełbasa (note: a “kiełbasa dinner” is on the menu).

Eva’s has a pleasant interior with many Polish-themed decorations. Outside dining is offered during the warm months, which I was looking forward to, but it was raining when we visited. The service was very prompt and friendly.

Overall, the experience at Eva’s was an enjoyable B to B+. I look forward to going back to Ewa’s in the future and trying the Placki (potato pancakes) and one of their authentic Polish desserts.

Polish restaurants are scarce here in Western and Central New York, so I appreciate that Eva’s has been able to survive and thrive for 25 years.

Postcript: The Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” with chef, Guy Fieri, visited Eva’s European Sweets in 2013. Eva prepared Placki Hungarian Style in that episode.

Above: Eva Zaczynski, left, and her two children David and Karolina

Review: Sal’s Birdland Chicken Dinner

Like many people, I gained “a few” pounds over the course of the pandemic. My new job that I began in January 2021 was/is also a big strain, physically, and I regularly turned to “comfort food” to get me through the work weekend. Ice cream every night! Enough finally became ENOUGH in mid-May when I tipped the scale at my all-time-highest weight. It was time to pull out the “big guns” and once again go on my 100% fail-safe Sal’s Birdland Diet!

Well, I reached the half-way point of my weight-loss goal a couple of weeks ago, so I rewarded myself by driving the eleven miles to Sal’s Birdland at 400 Air Park Drive off of Scottsville Road across from the Rochester airport. Salvatore “Sal” Nalbone (1939-2021) opened the original Sal’s Birdland in 1974, a few blocks south of the current site.* I feasted on my first Sal’s half-chicken dinner in 1977 and have been a fan for 45 years.

While I’ve mentioned my Sal’s Birdland Diet several times over the course of the seven years that I’ve been blogging, I don’t believe I’ve ever actually reviewed Sal’s delicious half-chicken dinner. Time to rectify that oversight.

Sal’s Birdland Half-Chicken Dinner

Sal’s has a number of entrées on the menu (check the website below), but the half-chicken dinner is the go-to, flagship entrée.

Sal’s coats a small half-chicken in a light, seasoned batter and deep fries it until it’s golden crispy on the outside. The searing deep-fry locks in the meat’s tenderness. The bird is served on two slices of white bread and coated with Sal’s signature “sassy” sauce. My mouth is watering as I type this. Sal’s sauce is a mustard-based, sweet and hot sauce. There are several similar competing versions that are popular here in the Rochester area, including Snuffy’s** (aka Smitty’s), Boss Sauce, and Country Sweet. I always ask for the mild Sal’s sassy sauce. Sure, I like spicy food, but the hot sassy sauce is inedible. Sides? It’s your choice of potato wedges, macaroni salad, baked beans, collard greens, or mac & cheese. I always choose the mac salad and collard greens. Both are delicious, although the greens are a bit on the salty side. Sal’s vinegary blue cheese dipping sauce is a nice complement, although not mandatory.

The half-chicken dinner isn’t cheap at $14.70, but it’s well worth it.

There’s no better meal in this world than a Sal’s Birdland Half-Chicken Dinner. What about a $70 surf-and-turf, lobster tail and filet mignon dinner at a swanky restaurant? Keep it. Give me Sal’s.

https://salsbirdland.com/

Above: A Sal’s Birdland half-chicken coated with sassy sauce, and served with macaroni salad and collard greens on the side. Delish!

Above: Sal’s Birdland exterior, 400 Airpark Dr. (off Scottsville Rd), Rochester NY

Above: Sal’s Birdland’s unpretentious interior

Sal’s Birdland has a second location at 309 East Ridge Rd., Rochester, N.Y.

Yup, I’ll be going back to Sal’s again for another celebratory half-chicken dinner when I hit my final weight-loss goal in about 12-weeks. That’s the “can’t-fail” secret of the Sal’s Birdland Diet.

*Sal’s Birdland’s first location was in a round, glass-paned, 1960s-style building in front of the Olympic Park Roller Skating Center at 1300 Scottsville Rd. The building, which no longer exists, was originally home to a burgers and fries joint that I can’t recall the name of. After enjoying skating parties with my grammar school classmates at Olympic in the late 1960s, we would enjoy a cold Coke at the burgers and fries joint as we waited for our parents to pick us up.

**There’s zero doubt that Sal Nalbone patterned his Sal’s Birdland after Smitty’s/Snuffy’s Birdland. Former professional boxer, Harry “Snuffy” Smith, hung up his boxing gloves in the mid-1950s and shortly thereafter opened his first restaurant, Smitty’s Birdland, on Ormond Street in the city. Smith concocted a ketchup and mustard-based, sweet-hot sauce for his fried chicken that became legendary throughout Rochester. The restaurant relocated to several sites over the years, but eventually ended up at 575 Brooks Avenue in 1997, where it was renamed Snuffy’s Birdland. Smith closed the joint in 2002, retired down to Phoenix, and died in 2008 at the age of 86. Snuffy’s ketchup and mustard-based “Original Gourmet B.B.Q Sauce” is still being produced and bottles are available at several Rochester groceries, right next to bottles of Sal’s Sassy Sauce (a future post). While Rochester is known throughout the world for its Garbage Plate served at Nick Tahou’s (see here), its other contribution to international haute cuisine is the fried half-chicken coated in sweet-hot sauce dinner introduced by Harry Smith and perpetuated by Sal Nalbone at their respective “Birdlands.” Although it’s probably never been put into print before, it can rightly be said that Nalbone brought Smith’s inner-city “soul food” to the Rochester suburbs.

Whatever happened to Snuffy’s Birdland? – Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Nov. 15, 2021

Heluva Good New England Clam Dip Recipe

It’s June 1st and while Summer is officially still a few weeks away, we’ve already had some summer-like temps here in Rochester. Up here in the Rust Belt, we’re cooped-up inside from November to April, so it’s great to be outside once again in shorts and a t-shirt. One of the pleasures of Summer is grilling and dining outside. Clam dip and chips is a real crowd pleaser when we have family or friends over for a patio dinner. The post below was first published on July 10, 2017 and continues as this blog’s second most-viewed post of all time with 8081 hits to date.

An accoutrement staple of Summer backyard picnic dining is potato chips and dip. One of my family’s favorite chip dips used to be a New England clam dip manufactured by a local cheese company named “Heluva Good” of all things (see photo). For some reason, Heluva Good stopped making its clam dip in the early aughts (2000s). Some said it was in response to tightening FDA regulations.

Unable to purchase clam dip, my hankering grew and grew until I finally started searching online for a clam dip recipe that was similar to Heluva Good’s. I found the one below several years ago. It’s a pretty close facsimile and very easy to make. Any time we serve it to guests they always rave about it. I could eat a whole bowl of clam dip with wavy chips in a single sitting all by myself, but my arteries clog up at just the thought of it.

p.s. Heluva Good was headquartered in nearby Sodus N.Y. but was bought out by food conglomerate HP Hood in 2004 and like most things in New York, production was eventually moved out of state. It’s also interesting that the slang term, “one hell of a…” is used to connote something that’s either very good or very bad. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms says the phrase has its roots in the second half of the 1700s.

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Heluva Good New England Clam Dip Recipe

• 6.5 oz. can chopped clams
• 6.5 oz. can minced clams
• 8 oz. package Philadelphia brand cream cheese – allow to reach room temperature
• ½ tsp. minced garlic
• 2 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 and ½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 dashes Red Hot or Tabasco sauce
• ¼ tsp. paprika
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 pinch black pepper

1. Drain clams, reserving ¼ cup clam broth. Put drained clams aside.
2. In a medium bowl, mix cream cheese with hand-held electric mixer until smooth while adding clam broth, garlic, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, paprika, salt, and black pepper.
3. Add clams and mix together with a spoon or spatula.
4. Cover and refrigerate for three hours
5. Sprinkle the top with some additional paprika before serving.

Serve with Lay’s Wavy Potato Chips. Enjoy!

Review: Pittsford Hots’ “Plate”

A couple of Thursdays ago, I was looking for something quick and easy for lunch and dinner prior to my work-weekend marathon, and it popped into my head that I’ve been meaning to try a “plate” from Pittsford Hots for several months. A plate? What’s that? A little background. Greater Rochester, New York doesn’t have much to brag about these days with the demise of Kodak, Xerox, and most other local manufacturing companies, resulting in a downward-spiraling economy, but we are the home of that culinary masterpiece, the Garbage Plate.

Above: Nick Tahou Hots, West Main Street, Rochester

The plate originated at Nick Tahou Hots, starting out as “hots and potats.” I experienced my first plate of “hots and potats” back in 1976, but the delicacy goes back farther than that. Late-night college-student customers subsequently kept asking for “the plate with all of the garbage on it,” so Nick recoined it as the “Garbage Plate” and even trademarked the name. A basic plate (i.e., my favorite version) is two hot dogs or two hamburgers or one of each (the combo) over macaroni salad and home fries and the whole thing smothered with Rochester-style meat hot sauce and raw onions. Other burger/hot dog joints picked up on the popular plate, but they must call their version something else besides a “Garbage Plate” because of Nick’s trademark. See my 2017 post about the plate here.

Anyway, our little village of Pittsford is about 8 miles from downtown Rochester. Main Street Pittsford is lined with quaint, picturesque brick buildings from the 19th-century, but the street-parking is almost non-existent (although there is parking in the rear), so the trendy boutique shops come and go like a revolving door. Former MCC women’s basketball coach, Tim Parrinello, and his wife took a shot and opened Pittsford Hots at 5 South Main Street last December. I’ve been meaning to try their version of the plate and finally got around to it on April 21. So without any further ado, let’s review Pittsford Hots’ version of the famous Rochester Garbage Plate.

Pittsford Hots’ Cheeseburger and Hot Dog Combo “Plate,” $11.99

I ordered a standard plate with a white hot and a cheeseburger over mac salad and home fries, all topped with Rochester-style meat hot sauce and raw onions (photo below). The hot dog and burger were good. I checked and, yes, Pittsford Hots uses Rochester’s very own Zweigles’ hots, the best dogs in the nation (see here). The mac salad was a little different with a touch of mustard added to the mix. Unorthodox, but still very tasty, and moist. The mac salad is key for me and some establishments’ mac salad is dried out from fridge burn. The home fries were okay, but I would have opted that they had been fried a bit longer for a crispier exterior. Not a deal breaker. The meat hot sauce anchors every plate and Pittsford Hots’ version is the standard meat sauce that Rochesterians love.* Not greasy and not too much heat. My one small gripe is the meat hot sauce portion size was a little skimpy. So, overall, this was a very good plate. Nicely done. No bad surprises or disappointments. Five stars. Recommended.

It will be interesting to see if Pittsford Hots can survive at a location with less-than-optimal parking.

*While Nick Tahou Hots may be the originator of the Garbage Plate, its meat hot sauce pales in comparison to the Rochester-style meat hot sauces of most of its competitors. Nick’s hot sauce is greasy and bland. The first is not always the best.

Above: Pittsford Hots’ combo plate: A cheeseburger and a Zweigle’s white hot dog over home fries and macaroni salad and topped with Rochester-style meat hot sauce and raw onions

Above: South Main Street, Pittsford, NY. Pittsford Hots is located in the second building (yellow) from the right

Pittsford Hots Website:
https://pittsfordhots.com/

My Polish Deli Haul

The liturgical calendar with its seasonal religious holy days/holidays is the warp and woof of Roman Catholicism. After 27 years of being a Catholic before trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior by faith alone in 1983, I had had my fill of following the liturgical calendar, but I don’t begrudge my fellow believers who enjoy the seasonal religious holidays. I’m also not a fan of using the word, “Easter,” for the commemoration of Resurrection Sunday since it may possibly have a pagan connection (although the presumed connection to the pagan fertility goddess, Ishtar/Asherah, is not an open-and-shut case as some assume, see here), but it’s not my hill to die on, either.

Anyway, last Thursday, Easter/Resurrection Day was coming up and for any Pole that means getting some “fresh” kielbasa. Many of you are familiar with the delicious smoked variety of Polish sausage/kielbasa, but you may not know about the fresh, unsmoked biała (“white”) version. Growing up, my family always had fresh kielbasa for the holidays. So delicious. But it’s hard to find. Fresh kielbasa was occasionally available at our local big box grocery store, Wegmans’, but I haven’t seen it there in long time. No big loss. Their version of fresh kielbasa isn’t all that good, anyway. The word “pedestrian” comes to mind when thinking about Wegmans’ fresh kielbasa. You see, a Pole is very fussy and discriminating about their fresh kielbasa. Nope, my aim was to drive to the Polska Chata (pronounced pole-skuh ha-tuh, “Polish House”) deli/restaurant in Irondequoit to pick up a couple of pounds of fresh kielbasa because I knew from experience that theirs was excellent.

So, on the Thursday before Easter/Resurrection Day, I first took a trip to the Dybowski Authentic Polish Market (photo above) on Hudson Avenue on the fringes of Rochester’s old Polish Town neighborhood. Dybowski’s has a much larger variety of Polish food items than Polska Chata and I had a few things in mind. The place was busier than downtown Warsaw with Rochester Poles preparing for Easter/Resurrection Day dinner. I bought two cartons of Krakus brand zurek (“sour rye soup”) and two bottles of Vavel (Americanized version of the Polish Wawel) brand black currant juice aka czarna porzeczka nektar. Both zurek and black currant juice are very popular in Poland. Both food items are so delicious. I also couldn’t resist browsing Dybowski’s impressive sausage display. They have about ten different varieties of smoked kielbasa in addition to many other types of Polish-style meats. I ended up buying two large links of cherry wood smoked kielbasa aka kielbasa wisniowa. I also noticed they had two varieties of fresh kielbasa, but I was determined to pick up my biała sausage at Polska Chata.

Above: Polska Chata deli/restaurant

I then got in my car and drove the two miles to Polska Chata and they were packed with customers as well. The deli/restaurant changed hands in 2018, but I was hoping they still offered the fabulous fresh biała kielbasa that the previous owner, Margaret Gorniak, had shipped in from Toronto. No such circumstance. As I stood in the long line, I noticed several customers requesting fresh kielbasa and the owner retrieving frozen…ach…FROZEN fresh kielbasa from the back freezer. Two problems, 1) fresh kielbasa should never be frozen, and 2) the kielbasa looked mediocre, like the stuff Wegmans’ sells’. It certainly wasn’t the sausage imported from Toronto that I bought in previous years.

So I got in my car and drove back to Dybowski’s. I asked the young pana behind the display cases, which of the two fresh biała varieties she recommended. She suggested the big, fat variety produced by the Winding River Meat Company (Bloomfield, NJ, Joe Krzyworzeka, proprietor). The kielbasa actually resembled my previous favorite imported by Margaret G.

I drove home with my Polish stash and a couple of hours later I prepared my fresh biała kielbasa. Unlike smoked kielbasa, you don’t pan fry fresh kielbasa. My mom always boiled it, but I subsequently learned from “old country” Poles that there’s only one way to cook fresh kielbasa and that’s to put it in a pyrex baking dish with about a half-inch of water, cover with aluminum foil, and bake at 350F for 45-60 minutes.

Mój, o, mój! My, oh, my! The fresh biała kielbasa from Winding River was sooooo good. The best I ever had. My wife concurred that it was the best she had ever tasted. Very little fat. Mild. No grizzle. The cherry wood smoked kielbasa wisniowa was also good, but I couldn’t detect the slightly sweet flavor it was claimed to have.

Well, my Polish fresh kielbasa excursion adventure definitely had a happy ending. I’ll be going back to Dybowski’s in a month or two for another Polish fix.

Note: Fresh kielbasa is served with freshly-ground horseradish.

Above: My Polish deli haul: Back row: Krakus zurek sour rye soup and Vavel Black Currant Juice. Front row: fresh biała kielbasa and cherry wood smoked kielbasa wisniowa.

Above: Some of the varieties of smoked kielbasa on display at Dybowski’s

Above: A large variety of food goods imported from Poland line Henry Dybowski’s store shelves

Cheesy random thoughts

I’ve had several rather insignificant blogging ideas rattling around in my brain, but no time to put them together because of the grueling, six-week leaf campaign. With no more tarps to pull and 12 days off from work I was finally able to create this cheesy excuse for a post.

The Best Cheez-It?

Back in February 2020, I published a taste test pitting Sunshine/Kellogg’s Cheez-It crackers against Nabisco’s Cheese Nips crackers, with Cheez-It winning the contest by a cracker crumb. See here. I subsequently found out Nabisco discontinued making Cheese Nips at some point in 2020. I continued to buy regular Cheez-Its at the Pittsford Wegman’s grocery, but when I visited the Wegman’s in nearby Penfield, I noticed they stocked Extra Cheesy Cheez-Its. Man, that’s some serious cheese flavor! But after awhile, the extra cheese got to be too much. I’ve found that a nice compromise is the Cheddar Jack variety of Cheez-Its. There’s extra cheddar flavor, but it’s not overpowering like Extra Cheesy.

Vanilla Coke or Pepsi Cream Soda Cola?

Readers of this blog know I’m a fan of Vanilla Coke. It was in short supply because of the pandemic, but returned to Wegman’s shelves in April 2021. This past September, I noticed Pepsi introduced its limited edition “Soda Shop Cream Soda Cola.” Curious, I bought a twelve-pack. Well, folks, the comparison wasn’t even close. Vanilla Coke has it all over the Pepsi pretender. Not much cola or vanilla flavor in Pepsi’s product. Other customers must have had the same reaction because Wegman’s pulled it off of their shelves.

Death of My Asus Chromebook

Maybe about six years ago, our PC died and our son steered us toward a Chromebook. They’re relatively inexpensive and start up as soon as you open the screen. Easy peasy. We got an Asus Chromebook with a 15.6″ screen (photo left). I initially didn’t like the Chromebook. What? No delete key! And I didn’t like not having a mouse. When I was laid off in September 2019, I liked the Chromebook even less because it didn’t have Word and Excel software that I would need for my résumé and job-search data. I learned shortly thereafter that Chromebook has free Word and Excel equivalents via the Google cloud. Cool! I also learned how to hook up my Chromebook to our printer when I needed a résumé hard-copy. I was pleased with my Chromebook until a month ago when one of the screen hinges (yellow circle) started making a clicking sound. I knew that wasn’t good. Asus’ screen hinges are extremely cheesy/flimsy. The problem got steadily worse and in a few days my Chromebook was no longer even operational with the screen starting to crack. I went to Staples to buy a new one, but their selection was very small. I then went to Target up the road and bought a 14″ HP Chromebook (photo right). The great thing about Chromebook is I turned on the HP and signed into Google and all of my favorites came up as if I was still on the the Asus. I was a little concerned about the smaller screen when I bought it, but the 14″ is actually preferable; less bulky and cumbersome and just as easy to read. In this case, smaller is better. HP’s long and substantial screen hinge design is heads and tails over Asus’ cheesy, flimsy hinges. Blogging on the couch with the light 14″ HP Chromebook on my lap is a pleasure.

Venerating St. Ives?

I get it. Men don’t usually talk about personal care products, but I really like St. Ives Oatmeal & Shea Butter Body Wash. Hey, everyone showers, right, and we all have to use some kind of soap. Well, Wegman’s took the St. Ives Oatmeal & Shea Butter body wash off their shelves for some dumb reason. I googled it and Target appeared to sell it. I made a trip to Target and bought two bottles. Cool. BTW, I googled St. Ives and discovered Ives/Yves is a canonized Roman Catholic “saint” who lived in Brittany from 1253 to 1303. Should I boycott St. Ives products because they’re named after a RC saint? Sounds very fundamentalish to me.

Polish American Studies

Readers of this blog may recall a 2018 post in which I recounted how I had turned an interest in my Polish heritage into an idol. See here. The best of the many publications I received in my Polish-American craze was “Polish American Studies” put out by the Polish American Historical Association. I recently had an interest in getting back into Polish/Polish-American history (on a much smaller scale than previously), so I submitted my membership application to PAHA again and received my first issue of the Polish American Studies journal. Fascinating articles.

Sweeter Than Sweet

Speaking of sodas, in my trips down Wegman’s soda aisle, I had regularly caught glimpses of Aunt Rosie’s Loganberry soda. Curious, I googled it and found out that the Loganberry drink (it’s actually non-carbonated) got its start at the now-defunct Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Fort Erie, Canada on the shores of Lake Erie, a 13-mile drive from Buffalo. Ah, so Aunt Rosie’s is a regional offering! Cool. I bought a 12-pack and taste tested it. It has a delicious flavor (the loganberry is a hybrid of the blackberry and raspberry), but, man, it’s sweet! A 12-ounce can of Coke has a whopping 39 grams (9.75 teaspoons) of sugar, but a can of Aunt Rosie’s beats that with 46 grams (11.5 teaspoons) of sugar, aka diabetes in a can.

The period goes inside the quotation marks

“The period goes here.”

“…not here”.

Call it a pet peeve, but I read quite a bit and I’m amazed at how many writers, editors, and publishers get this grammar rule wrong.

Copy Cats!

I’ve noticed how politicians and political pundits now begin every other sentence with, “Look, …” Some PR/Communications guru must have written a book extolling the word for conveying bold assertiveness, but to me it’s kind of condescending and impolite. I don’t appreciate someone admonishing me to “Look” or “Listen” when they’re beginning to tell me something. The fact that everyone has jumped on the “Look, …” bandwagon is comical.

Heluva Good New England Clam Dip Recipe

Yesterday marked the first official day of Summer, so fire up the grill and bring out the burgers, hot dogs, and marinated chicken thighs! At our house, a patio picnic includes wavy potato chips and dip; New England clam dip that is. The days of buying clam dip at your local grocery store are long gone, but take heart because I have a very easy recipe for you. The post below was first published on July 10, 2017 and continues as this blog’s second most-viewed post of all time with 6981 hits to date.

An accoutrement staple of Summer backyard picnic dining is potato chips and dip. One of my family’s favorite chip dips used to be a New England clam dip manufactured by a local cheese company named “Heluva Good” of all things (see photo). For some reason, Heluva Good stopped making its clam dip in the early aughts (2000s). Some said it was in response to tightening FDA regulations.

Unable to purchase clam dip, my hankering grew and grew until I finally started searching online for a clam dip recipe that was similar to Heluva Good’s. I found the one below several years ago. It’s a pretty close facsimile and very easy to make. Any time we serve it to guests they always rave about it. I could eat a whole bowl of clam dip with wavy chips in a single sitting all by myself, but my arteries clog up at just the thought of it.

p.s. Heluva Good was headquartered in nearby Sodus N.Y. but was bought out by food conglomerate HP Hood in 2004 and like most things in New York, production was eventually moved out of state. It’s also interesting that the slang term, “one hell of a…” is used to connote something that’s either very good or very bad. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms says the phrase (or “one Devil of a…”) has its roots in the second half of the 1700s.

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Heluva Good New England Clam Dip Recipe

• 6.5 oz. can chopped clams
• 6.5 oz. can minced clams
• 8 oz. package Philadelphia brand cream cheese – allow to reach room temperature
• ½ tsp. minced garlic
• 2 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 and ½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 dashes Red Hot or Tabasco sauce
• ¼ tsp. paprika
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 pinch black pepper

1. Drain clams, reserving ¼ cup clam broth. Put drained clams aside.
2. Mix cream cheese with hand-held electric mixer until smooth while adding clam broth, garlic, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, paprika, salt, and black pepper.
3. Add clams and mix together with a spoon or spatula.
4. Cover and refrigerate for three hours
5. Sprinkle the top with some additional paprika before serving.

Serve with Lay’s Wavy Potato Chips. Enjoy!

It’s back! The return of Vanilla Coke!

Back in November, I published a post (see here) about my favorite soda pop varieties and bemoaned the fact that my #1 favorite, Vanilla Coke, and several others had disappeared from the grocery store shelves early-on in the pandemic. Single 16.9 oz bottles of Vanilla Coke were occasionally offered in the pop cooler near the store’s pizza/prepared foods section, but it was missing in the soda aisle for an entire year.

Well, a few weeks ago, Vanilla Coke made an unexpected comeback at the grocery store. First came six-packs of 16.9 oz plastic bottles. Yahoo! I stocked up not knowing if the return was a temporary blip. A week later came the more-convenient twelve-packs of 12 oz aluminum cans (see photo above). Fantastic! Yes, friends, Vanilla Coke is back and I’m indulging, but don’t tell my MD!

Papa Al’s Hot Sauce – It’s back!!!

Back in December 2018, I wrote a post bemoaning the discontinuation of Papa Al’s Hot Sauce, which had been locally-made here in Rochester, New York. See that post here. Boy, I loved Papa Al’s sauce and enjoyed it for forty-years. I’ve periodically thought about the sauce, wishing I could once again drive over to Southtown Beverages in Henrietta, New York to pick up a couple of bottles as I used to, but that ship had sailed for good. Or had it?

A few weeks ago, a fellow-blogger came across my post and inquired if I had ever tried to reproduce the sauce and asked for my recipe. Well, that got the old brain neurons firing. Referencing the list of ingredients from my last bottle of Papa Al’s sauce – ketchup, cayenne pepper sauce, water, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, salt, black pepper, and celery powder – I attempted to recreate the sauce by guessing on the ingredient proportions. The initial result? Hmm. Not bad. But there was touch of sweetness present that the original sauce did not have. I assumed that the sweetness came from the regular ketchup. The next day, I went to the grocery and bought a bottle of Heinz low-sugar ketchup. With this second attempt, I also simmered the sauce for one hour to blend the flavors as per our youngest son’s suggestion. He’s also a Papa Al’s Hot Sauce connoisseur and aficionado and we texted back and forth throughout this re-creation experiment. I put the new batch in the fridge overnight for it to “rest,” and sampled it in the morning. Pretty good. I judged the flavor to be around 85% authentic in comparison to the original. I then tinkered with some of the other ingredients (less vinegar, more celery salt) and the flavor of the third batch was in the proximity of 95% of that of the original. Excellent!!! Without any further ado, I present…

Papa Al’s Hot Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup low-sugar or non-sugar ketchup
• 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (cayenne pepper sauce)
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp. vinegar
• 1 tsp. celery salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Use a whisk to thoroughly dissolve ketchup. Heat on warm for one hour, stirring occasionally. Do not boil. Put in sealed container and cool overnight. Voilà! An extremely close facsimile of Papa Al’s Hot Sauce. Enjoy!

⚠️ WARNING: This Papa Al’s Hot Sauce facsimile has a good degree of spiciness and heat. Keep out of the reach of children, pets, and those with delicate palates.