About two years ago, I gave up those big, sugary fried-apple bear claws when I realized I was gaining a few extra pounds every week. Like many American culinary icons, donuts, along with Girl Scout cookies, are basically nutritional disasters because they hardly have any nutritional value. However, our society will not declare these treats as a contributing factor to our country’s current obesity anytime soon. This type of junk food is on sacred ground and they have existed much longer than the Golden Arches.

Now we have a new doughnut connoisseur in our midst and he has no fears of showing his love for this deep-fried pastry. It seems that a 200 pound black bear in Sammamish, Washington was lured away from the forest by a hefty batch of freshly-made sugar-coated doughnuts near a nearby elementary school.

Lately the headlines have been flooded with stories of bears attracted by human food. These stories reveal our carelessness in the way we take care of our garbage. Cheese and fat-drippings left on fast food wrappers make strong bear magnets. I can just see the following headline story on MSNBC: “Local Black Bears invade one of the town’s Golden Arches because of a strong smell of fries. However, once inside, it was the sugary and crusted apple pies that they seemed to prefer over the burgers and fries. They finished their invasion with a 32 ounce glass of Pepsi!”

Oh God! Does the great discovery made in Sammamish, Washington, mean that our Krispy Kreme outlets are in jeopardy?! Let’s certainly hope so! Such a potential doughnut calamity might be an “unbearable” situation for some, but would surely be a good thing for their body. Deep-fried bear claws have not been put to rest yet, but I am sure the day will come.

Unlike people, inanimate objects often have a second life. There was clever demonstration of this in a recycling commercial when an deliriously happy aluminum can went bananas over its second life as a baseball bat. I know homo sapiens who have never reached this pinnacle of joy in their first life.

Thrift stores and antique shops are evidence that a second life may excel the first one. I have a sister who lives just to frequent her next thrift store. To her, they are simply treasure chests with front doors.

The older the article the more interesting is the discovery. As you examine these demoted discards, you can’t help but wonder about the previous owner and who might have possessed it. Did they love it? Did they hate it? Nonetheless, where ever such a shop exists filled with such irresistible paraphernalia, sisters from everywhere will surely found them. The value of these items are purely imaginary. They could be a childhood reminder or merely something with a heart on it…. bingo! it has a buyer.

While some fools are out panning for gold, others looking for rare coin or stamps, the chef looking for rare old edition cookbooks. However, my sister, who is nearly 80 stays fit just to be ready on a moment’s notice to embark upon a undiscovered used treasure emporium. We have built her a special room to store her mountain of indescribable collectables. We have named it
the Resurrection Room where everything is enjoying a second life with the exception of a rather worn-out check book.

Do you realize even ordinary things around your kitchen may also have a second life. How is it, we must retain that lovely tin canister we got at Christmas. Consider the life of any ordinary container, it is new or simply reused? This is why the frugal housewives give away her casseroles in Madware as she never expects for it to be returned. While you have an entire drawer full of lids and bottoms which simply do not fit each other. Be advised, this game of unmatched lids is the manufacture’s revenge for those who have strayed from buying their brand.

After a short period of usage , the honey moon with these polymer playthings is over. They crack when the food inside is frozen. After several days of normal use they just give up and quit like they are supposed to. In those immortal words of Pasty Cline “ I fall to pieces” Now revised to “They fall to pieces” Have you noticed today’s containers never seem to reach old age?

As a devout storage fanatic, I look for a ways to beat the system. I do jars and coffee cylinders but my real jewel in plastic recycling has been cottage cheese containers. Boy! talk about tough and long lasting. While I am getting all that great calcium, I am getting some extra. Becuase what ever these cottage cheese tubs are made of, they find them superior to over-priced plastic domes of disaster. Here is resurrection right under your nose!

Yes, there really is life after cottage cheese! And your first life could be getting extended with better bone density and a sensible form of protein. Secondly, there’s all that loose change you saved by reusing cottage cheese tubs!

I have this collection of lists and like most vain writers. I hate to waste them So in the future I shall refer to these writings as:

LISTS NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME PUBLISHING

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED

1. Why socks like the human species are seldom mated for life
2. If anyone has been arrested for blatantly ripping labels
   from pillows and mattresses.
3. Why supermarkets invariably relocate everything once you have
   memorized where they are at.
4. Do blind people really use ATMs
5. Why would anyone go on a talk show only to prove they are brain
   dead, morally bankrupt and essence of vulgarity!
6. Are chocolates really a substitute for sex or merely easier to obtain and guaranteed to satisfy.
7. Why long distance phone companies have the gall to assume that we even want to talk to our distant relatives
8. Why do Television Networks time their commercials to air simultaneously thus destroying any possibility of channel surfing?
9. Have you ever noticed those miracle wrinkle creams are only shown models under 30 and aging ever second?
10. How is it possible after only 20 minutes of grocery shopping you find yourself with a serious case of parking lot Alzheimer’s?

She is a perfect homemaker. She never gains or loses weight and never ages. Her picture is on a thousand boxes of GM product in the supermarket and with a her famous red signature. But who is Betty Crocker really?

I first met Betty in my home economics class in high school where she taught me use to use Gold Medal flour for the rest of my life. When I married at end of the 50’s, my first book was a Betty Crocker Picture Cook-Book. During the next decade I would save all those coupons – those with red spoon – and when I saved the ample amount of them. I mailed away for my Betty Crocker’s Cookie Book which I still treasure today. I understand there many printings, mine was from the sixties. I never found another cookie recipe book quite this interesting.

Betty’s unrelenting influence had spread over three quarters of a century. She is the ageless icon for General Mills. Although Dorian Gray, the ageless model from the Oscar Wilde novel, stays young while his portrait ages, our picture of Betty seems to stay the same age but her face continues to change. From 1936 to 1986, seven different women were selected to represent this immortal General Mills homemaker.

Betty’s popularity has outlasted Martha Stewart’s without the vulnerability of greed, success and stock manipulating. Our Betty has none of those trappings to tarnish her lily white perfection. She is the ideal “Stepford Wife”. She is the missing housewife on Wisteria Lane. She is the image of good organization and impeccable domesticity. However: She lacks the experience of facing 5 o’clock traffic or a sick child with a 103 fever. She has a purely stress-free existence and has no idea how difficult it is to buy groceries on a budget.

So I say to you again, who is Betty Crocker, really?

Perhaps we should go back to 1921 and a bewildered staff at the General Mills. They were receiving many letters from customers seeking baking advice. Deciding if they put an actual name on these letters would appear more personal. But what and who?

They took the last name of retiring executive Crocker and decided Betty would make an ideal first name. Next they ran a contest among the female employee to find the perfect signature. For the next 75 years, this same signature has been the name
placed on General Mills products.

In 1924, The Betty Crocker School on the Air went on the radio, some 13 different actresses gave Betty her voice. Eventually it went nation wide and would go on for another 24 years. During the war years Betty Crocker and Eleanor Roosevelt were the two most famous women in the world. Being on the radio was enough proof for America to believe in her existence.

In 1936, General Mills gave our Betty a face, somewhat matronly and serious looking. It was drew on the features of several women to give her a universal appearance. This portrait led many women to believe our Betty was a real woman. Over
the next seventy years, Betty’s face changed seven times. After the second face appeared I think the ruse was probably discovered. Despite Betty’s changing appearance, as long as there is a General Mills, we are likely to see that red spoon and that unmistakable signature. Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus, but there has never been a living Betty Crocker.

As much as I have loved to cook and spend hours in my kitchen, I have also spend years writing satire and recording commentary on the state of the world or better yet the absurdity of our times. After years of writing letters to publishers in hopes of eventually someone would read my words , I ceased and allowed them to collect a little dust. So why not round out this new serious commintment with few light words of jest. This week’s subject is…… what happens at a grand opening of a supermarket which is appropiately named “Is this really grand?”

Have you ever wondered why all new businesses, stores in particular, always have GRAND OPENINGS? Why just once can’t we have a Sensational Start, Fabulous First Day, or a Bullish Beginning!

Webster and local entrepreneurs definitely have mixed messages as to the true definition of grand. There have been grand pianos and grand hotels, even a thousand dollars in cash has been grand. There are rare cases of grand reflecting dignified or admirable. Perhaps a duke or duchess would have this lofty status of grand. Could it be magnificent or splendid as in the description of the Titanic? I think not . . . However, if it’s large in scope or size or creation of extravagant outer show without any convincing proof of merit, you have the essence of today’s subject.

I found nothing grand about supermarket opening day, pushing my way through hoards of hungry predators loosely called customers who were seen scooping handfuls of loss leaders and attacking remains of germ-laden tortilla chips. Unwanted sale chickens were tossed onto other food displays. God only knows where all those unrefrigerated foul birds were eventually returned to! This store did not come with the usual number of check-outs . . . this mega-market had 13 check-outs.

Those old slow check writing days have been pre-empted by the wonderful speed of ATM cards. However, this cashier fresh out of school of propaganda plastic seems most eager to replace another piece of plastic in my overburdened wallet. “May I offer one of our Plucky rewards card!” I smiled and remarked, “My dear, my exit through your front door of this store will be reward enough!”

But wait a minute! I see strange lights in the sky. No! It’s not a spaceship or a new energizer flashlight battery shining near a strange collection of UWO’s (unidentified walking objects). They are earthen-controlled spotlights that are ostentatiously announcing another GRAND OPENING just unfolded to a persuadable populace!

“WHO’S KILLING All THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE?” is a 1979 movie spoof starring George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Morley. Morley is Europe’s noted gourmet food critic who has every gastronomical disease known to mankind–but he can’t stop eating. To save him, someone has begun killing off the great chefs of Europe. Bisset is the last chef on the list, but is saved from demise by an ex-husband.

Is it possible that we have no more great chefs worthy enough to be on such a hit list? Email me if you have a candidate chef you wish would just go away as he or she annoys you to no end.