NEWS FLASH – DOGS CAN READ!

…at least that’s the inescapable conclusion I came to when I opened Sunday’s newspaper.

I spend a lot of time thinking about writing, and on occasion, I’ll spot something relevant in the paper that’s worth sharing. Today’s subject isn’t an article or an editorial. I found it in the coupon circular. It’s an ad for a new product called Fortune Snookies – doggie cookie snacks. Each one has something written on it, like those candy hearts you see around Valentine’s Day that say BE MINE or I LOVE YOU. Only these say things like “the bark stops here” or “I only fetch Snookies.”

I know you’re going to say that this product is aimed at the human who actually goes to the supermarket and shells out the money. But I am convinced that the manufacturer truly intends for the cookies to be read by DOGS! Because right there in the ad, in big bold print, it says: “WOW! Different fortunes in every box. Read ‘em and eat ‘em!” So what other conclusion can I draw?

Still, I’m left with a few questions:

1) The ad includes a coupon for $2.00 off. If they’re willing to knock $2.00 off the price, just how much do these things cost? The package is only 8.4 ounces. By my calculation, that makes the price at least $4.00 per pound. I can buy top sirloin steak on sale for $2.77 per pound. It may not have anything written on it, but we’re talking about a treat here. If I were a dog, which one would wake up my salivary glands – cookies or steak?

2) If, as I conclude above, the messages are intended for dogs, wouldn’t your pooch have to be very near-sighted to read them while his nose is in the bowl? Are these cookies going to spawn a whole new industry in doggie reading glasses? Will we be seeing doggie optometrists selling fashion eye-wear for Fido? What if you’re just tossing the cookies to him one by one? Can he read them on the fly? These are some practical considerations that don’t appear to have been addressed by the manufacturer.

3) Some of the messages shown in the ad are “Life is Like a Box of Snookies” and “You Had Me at HERE BOY.” When was the last time your dog sat through Forrest Gump or Jerry McGuire?

4) Why are these things in English? It’s highly disputed whether dogs understand English at all. Wouldn’t it make more sense to print WOOF, or RUFF RUFF, or YIP on the cookies? If these messages are supposed to be amusing, how’s poor Fluffy supposed to get the joke if the cookie is written in a foreign language? It’s just not fair.

I think I have to write to the CCLU (Canine Civil Liberties Union) about this.

Hey, Bowser! Come here and translate this for me.

Even I need help with writing sometimes!

Think Twice About Ordering This!

 

I happened on an article today that brightened my day, not because it contained good news — on the contrary. It was about a serious subject, I suppose; the dangers of eating too much fast food. But the way the writer (Dan Neill, writing on LATimes.com) described some of the offerings of restaurants like KFC, really made me laugh. You have to register with LATimes.com to see the whole article, so I will save you the trouble and just share the best parts.

On KFC’s new Famous Bowls (tub of mashed potatoes or rice, topped with yellow corn, fried chicken nuggets, gravy and three varieties of grated cheese), Neill says:

And now, in the interests of participatory journalism, I take a bite. Hmmm. Uh-huh. OK. It’s like throwing up in reverse…

A couple of questions immediately present themselves: Why not go all the way and top the Famous Bowls with an apple pie and pour Coca-Cola over them? To save customers the struggle to pocket their change at the drive-thru, why not throw it on top as well? If the product developers thought Famous Bowls were a good idea, I have two words for them: chicken smoothie.

On some of the competitors’ menu items, he says:

To keep pace with McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s pumped up their dollar-priced menu offerings. Wendy’s, deciding its Biggie drink wasn’t biggie enough, recently began offering sodas in 42-ounce cups. Great, a beverage I can swim in…

The Southern California restaurant chain The Hat serves French fries in a paper grocery bag and a Pastrami Burger the size of a moose’s head. It’s the only place I know where meat is a condiment.

He’s funny, no? The article makes the point that most of this stuff is just awful for you.
I remember when MacDonald’s original chicken nuggets came out. They were so terrible (kind of slimy inside), I suspected they were made from beaks and toes, rather than any of the more edible parts of a chicken. I’ve heard they’re better now. One of the executives must have tried them. On the other hand, I do like the taste of KFC’s popcorn chicken. The coating is nice and crispy, and there’s even a little bit of chicken in each one, although on some of the smaller pieces, you have to search for it. They could save a lot of overhead by just serving the crisped coating all by itself. Oh my, I think I just invented the next craze. I’d better head for the patent office right away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recipe for Kreplach

When I got married and moved from Brooklyn to Ann Arbor, it was the first time I had lived away from home. It seemed important to me to show my parents that I was an adult. My method of demonstrating this was to make Kreplach, a time-honored tradition in our family. I made them, and reported my success in a phone call, but that still left something to be desired. I had made the entire recipe as it appears here, but since there were only two of us, instead of my Brooklyn family of 6, Michael and I were eating them for several days. As much as I love kreplach, after a few days, it’s enough already. (I didn’t know then that you can freeze them.) So I took one from the fridge, wrapped it tightly in aluminum foil, marked an envelope PLEASE HAND CANCEL, and sent it off as proof.

The package arrived intact, and my mother said the little krepple looked very nicely formed, although a bit too old to taste. My sister told me it was the funniest thing I had ever done. She went into hysterics when they opened the envelope. Only I would have thought of sending cooked pasta through the U.S. mail. It was just recently that she told me that when the thing arrived, it was several shades of green and had hair growing on it. My mother was much too kind to mention that.

So here’s the recipe. But please don’t mail them anywhere. I think they’ve now passed a law about that.

 

Jewish Ravioli

Or I would call ravioli Italian Kreplach.

It depends on who raised you.

WARNING! Read this entire recipe before you begin.*

About three months in advance of wanting to make kreplach, serve your family roast beef about once every two weeks. Always make a roast a little bigger than the family needs, and freeze the leftover piece. Soon you will have a bunch of little silver foil packets in the freezer, and you will wonder, “What am I going to do with all these little pieces of meat?”

Then you will be ready to make Kreplach.

THE DOUGH

Ingredients: 2 cups flour

salt (slightly less than a level teaspoon)

2 eggs

water

Here’s the rule: for each cup of flour, use one egg. Let’s start with two cups of flour. If it turns out we didn’t make enough for your family, you can do it again. If it turns out we made too many – no, forget it. There are never too many.

Put the flour in a bowl. In a cup, mix the eggs with about 1/3 cup of water and the salt. Make a crater in the flour and add the egg and water mixture, stirring it gently with a fork. Now the next step is hard to do in the bowl, so you have to spill the flour/egg mixture out onto a board or the kitchen table. Only you know how expensive your kitchen table was – so we leave this decision to you. Work the dough to combine all ingredients well. You might have to add a little more water or perhaps you should have used a little less to start with. All cooking is an experiment!

Knead the dough until smooth. It should be rather soft. Separate it into two balls and knead each one. If you feel that you do need a little more water, just add it one or two drops at a time and knead it in. If you find that you had too much water, add a little flour. Adding flour to the board or table will make it easier to work the dough and prevent sticking.

When the dough is made, cover it (you can just turn the bowl upside down and place it over the dough) and leave it alone for about half an hour. It’s going to get soft under there, and will be easier to roll out.

THE FILLING

Ingredients: 1 or 2 diced onions

oil

beef

Did you leave the little frozen pieces of meat in the regular part of the refrigerator over night so they would thaw? It would have been a good idea. But since you didn’t, just leave them out on the counter while you cook the onions.

After you dice the onions, saute them in oil. Cook slowly until translucent. Don’t let them get too brown. While the onions are cooking, cut the beef into small pieces. Add them to the onions. They will thaw the rest of the way. Let them get thoroughly heated and in the meantime they will pick up lots of yummy onion flavor. Salt the mixture to taste.

Do you have a meat grinder? Put the mixture through the grinder. Now you have your filling.

The problem when I was growing up was that the filling was so delicious that while my mother was rolling out the dough, we kids used to find excuses to come into the kitchen so we could snitch little pinches of filling. Only now am I able to understand why she used to find this so aggravating, especially since she had been saving that meat for three months. So put the filling in a safe place if you have children.

Did all that take half an hour? If so, you are ready for…

THE FINAL ASSEMBLY

On your board or table, roll out one ball of dough. It should be about an eighth of an inch thick. Using a sharp knife, cut the whole sheet into 3″-4″ squares. Lift up one square (start with a corner, it’ll be easier to get up) and place about a teaspoon of the filling into the center. BE SURE TO PUT THE FILLING ON THE UNDERSIDE of the dough. The underside is stickier and the kreplach will hold together better. Fold the square over to form a triangle and press the edges together firmly to seal the meat in. Repeat this until you have made all the kreplach.

At this point, I can never remember how many minutes to boil them. So I’d better do what I usually do – call my mother. Excuse me for a minute.

My mother said you cook them in boiling salt water for about 10 minutes. When done, drain them like any pasta. You can eat them in chicken soup, with pasta sauce, or with butter (that’s my way) or eat them cold the next day right out of the fridge – if, that is, you have any left to refrigerate. You can even make a big batch and freeze them (spread them out on a cookie sheet – and once frozen, put them all in a plastic bag) in anticipation of the day when you won’t have time for cooking. And my mother said that Aunt Tillie had her gall bladder out and didn’t even tell anyone she was going into the hospital. Oy!

OK, so you want to make kreplach right away and don’t want to wait three months. I suppose you could make a roast and use the whole thing for the kreplach, but I can’t imagine anybody doing that.

 

 

*otherwise you may find yourself having to run out and buy a meat grinder in the middle of everything.

 

 

Note: When I originally wrote this recipe out some years ago for a friend of mine, I was able to call my mother. Oh, how I wish that were still true today.

judyrose June 28, 2006