you wanna try ...?

I can't imagine how my internet algorithm translates in terms of... of...  honestly, I don't think it falls into any sort of definable terms. On any given day, I log into some aspect of the internet a few dozen times. On Facebook or Instagram, I see all sorts of videos (or "reels" or "stories," as the different platforms call their videos) from people talking to their cats, to clips of comics' stand-up routines, to insider "hacks" at Disney theme parks, to pan-and-scan shots of cemeteries accompanied by wind-blown off-camera narration from someone who cannot pronounce anything. Mixed among this seemingly unrelated content, I recently started seeing videos from a woman named Emmymade. I see Emmymade's videos more and more frequently. I suppose since I watched one all the way through, my algorithm was adjusted to show me more of Emmymade's videos. And her videos are adorable.

I am a nearly 65-year old white male. I would consider myself "out-of-the-loop" as far as trends in current pop culture go. I don't think I could identify a Taylor Swift song. I'm not quite sure why Sydney Sweeney is famous. Considering my longtime undying love of television, there are dozens of shows on dozens of streaming services that I have never heard of nor seen. I find myself Googling various phrases I see written or hear spoken on the internet to get some context as to their meaning. So please forgive me if I'm a little late to the party where Emmymade is concerned.

A little quick research answered some basic questions. California-born, Rhode Island-raised Emmeline Cho began making videos sixteen years ago when she was living in Japan. With her very first video, demonstrating how to use a Japanese candy-making kit, she attempted to combat her boredom and show what it was like for a foreigner living abroad. She continued making videos after moving back to the United States. She branched out with her content, presenting herself taste-testing new foods, examining and tasting the contents of military ration packs along with simple recipes for comfort food or unusual food combinations. To date, Emmymade has amassed over three million subscribers.

What makes Emmymade so compelling is her unpretentious demeanor. She displays a sense of naivete that manifests as bewilderment. For someone whose main focus is food and food-related subject matter, she seems astonished by things like bread and butter and forks and plates. One video, shot in her car just after getting food from a Burger King drive-thru, was highly enjoyable. Her description of the fast food outlet's signature Whopper came across as though she is the first person to ever try a Whopper and you were there to witness it! She says things like "the bun is soft and chewy... really fresh and it has these little sesame seeds all over it." or "the meat is good and well-seasoned." Then, with her mouth full, she politely dabs the corners of her lips while nodding her head in approval and offering several affirming "hmm-mm, hmm-mm"s, careful not to speak with her mouth full. It was just delightful.

In the majority of her videos (at least the ones I have seen), Emmymade is just positively gobsmacked by the things that emerge from her oven... or her blender... despite the fact that she put the individual ingredients in there just minutes prior. She is shocked when she opens a can and it is filled with the contents pictured on the label. She is overjoyed when a finished loaf of bread is extracted from a vintage breadmaker after adding the required ingredients and waiting the prescribed amount of time to bake. She smiles and tells her loyal viewers that the whole house smells like bread. She enthusiastically slices the freshly baked loaf, awkwardly adds a little butter and takes a dainty bite. For a moment, while she is close-mouthed chewing, she offers her trademarked "hmm-mm, hmm-mm" before swallowing. Her assessment of the bread is usually "it is very chewy and bready, slightly sweet, very airy".... you know, the way you or I would describe bread. But, the whole presentation is so endearing and Emmymade is as cute as a button.

I was telling my son about my discovery of Emmymade's videos. He laughed and told me that there are dozens if not hundreds of people on the internet that do this sort of thing. (there I go revealing my "out-of-the-loop"ness again!) He went on to say the funniest one of these folks is the woman who makes fun of these "content creators." In her videos, she tries the most everyday foods as though it's her first time. In one video, she explains that she will be eating chocolate chip cookies and she has never eaten chocolate chip cookies before. After a hesitant, but healthy bite, she describes the experience with such adjectives as "chocolatey" and "crunchy." She further admits that she never expected them to be so filled with chocolate chips. Once she is finished, she moves on to the next item she will be tasting, and that item is chocolate chip cookies. She repeats the entire first segment, as though she didn't just do that very thing, again confessing that she has never had a chocolate chip cookie before.

I still watch Emmymade's videos when they pop up in my feed. She's still entertaining and unintentionally comical. However, my algorithm has determined that I'd also enjoy watching a personable young Scottish guy named "Hugh Abroad" who travels to various Asian countries to sample their culture, primarily through their street food.

Once again, the algorithms are right.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

comfort and joy

There were a series television commercials when I was a kid that fascinated me. They were commercials for Cream of Wheat, the hot breakfast cereal, perennially overshadowed by its more celebrated oaten comrade. The commercials all depicted approximately the same premise and message. A boy or a girl — or, sometimes a boy and a girl — are seated at a typical family breakfast table, spooning heaping servings of Cream of Wheat into their hungry maws while an authoritative voice expounds on the nutritional value of the less-popular, bastard cousin of breakfast stalwart oatmeal. Then came the most exciting part of the commercial. After slurping down the last vitamin-filled glob of Cream of Wheat, the child would tie on a scarf, zip up a jacket and head out for a day filled with running and jumping and other stuff kids were expected to do in the early 70s before their eyes were glued to a video game or a smartphone screen. But — and here's the part I loved — before they left the house, a ghostly bowl of steaming Cream of Wheat would rise off the table and float eerily about the child's head. When the child left the house, there was that bowl of Cream of Wheat, animated tendrils of warmth swirling above its cartoon rim, hovering protectively just inches from the child's head. The announcer reassured us that the vitamins and energy packed into each delicious bowl of Cream of Wheat followed your child and stayed with them throughout the day.

Well, I was sold. I begged — begged! — my mother to buy Cream of Wheat. And, she did... along with a big cardboard canister of Quaker Oatmeal for my father, because my father.... well, my father wanted what he wanted...and that was oatmeal.... and not that "creamy wheat" shit.... oh, and cigarettes. On weekends in the winter, and sometimes if I got up early enough before school, my mom would make Cream of Wheat for me. There was no instant Cream of Wheat when I was a kid. No instant boiling water and certainly no microwaves. My mom would actually cook the Cream of Wheat in a pot on the stove, closely following the detailed directions printed on the side of the box. She'd carefully measure each precise quantity of water and dry grainy Cream of Wheat in a large glass measuring cup. She'd bust out her jailer's ring of aluminum measuring spoons to dole out the exact amount of salt the recipe called for. I'd wait impatiently, watching my mom stir and stir and stir the contents of that little pot until the allotted time had passed (again, according to the recommendation from the good folks in the trusted test kitchens of Nabisco's Cream of Wheat Central). My mom would grab a bowl from our kitchen cabinet. Setting it down on our kitchen table, she'd tip the pot slightly, allowing the golden gloppy mixture to lazily flow into the bowl. Then, she'd add a pat of butter, a few generous teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk, again, adhering to the "serving suggestions" from the hot cereal authorities at Nabisco.

I ate that Cream of Wheat and I really liked it. I liked the creaminess (hence the name!). I liked the sweetness, not realizing that it was due to the ridiculous amount of sugar my mom added. I liked the smooth texture (what they call "mouth feel" now, thanks to a slew of pretentious Food Network programs) and I liked the warmth it provided as it made its way to my stomach. I was, however, very disappointed that I didn't have a ghostly bowl follow me for the rest of  the day, like in the commercial. Oh, believe me... I looked. I looked a lot. I tried to spot it in my peripheral vision. I tried to spy it lurking above my head or ducking behind a tree as I walked to the school bus stop. After a while, I resigned myself to the fact that the floating bowl only followed those kids on television. But, I still ate Cream of Wheat.

Now, I am almost 65 years old. I hate winter. I hate the cold. I hate snow. I hate shoveling snow. I hate driving in the snow. I hate worrying about other people driving in the snow. I hate going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. The only thing about winter that I do like is Cream of Wheat. When the temperatures start to drop and Canadian winds blow cold air down to our area, that's when I buy a box of instant Cream of Wheat to supplement my regular breakfast of cold cereal. Unlike the days of my youth, when my mom would avail herself of the elaborate ritual of Cream of Wheat preparation, I can just empty a premeasured envelope of dry Cream of Wheat into a bowl, add two-thirds of a cup of water and pop it into the microwave. One minute and thirty seconds later, I have a hot bowl of Cream of Wheat, all ready to receive a small scoop of non-dairy margarine (instead of butter) and two packets of Splenda substituting for the sugar my mom insisted on adding. That first spoonful brings me right back to my childhood kitchen table. When they talk about macaroni and cheese and real mashed potatoes being "comfort foods," I always think of Cream of Wheat as my "comfort food." I am still comforted by Cream of Wheat. Remember that climactic scene in Ratatouille when surly food critic Anton Ego is mentally transported back to his childhood by a single taste of a dish from his distant past? That's me and Cream of Wheat! It reminds me of a time when my biggest concern was which cartoon to watch on Saturday morning. It takes me back to a time when I didn't have to hear some asshole supermarket owner tell me to make the price of blueberries in his store's ad three times its current size and to move that can of soup just a skosh* to the left. It's simple. It's calming. It's comforting. 

Yes sir... Cream of Wheat sure is good.

And I'm still looking for that bowl floating behind my head.

* Yeah, that's how it's spelled. I looked it up.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

a must to avoid

Have you ever walked or driven past a place that you have never been to and, just by the looks of things, thought to yourself, "I am never going there!"? I do this a lot. Sometimes it's a store. Sometimes it's a restaurant. This time, it's a restaurant.

I take the same route to work every morning. I wind my way through northeast Philadelphia towards the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge and eventually to the mostly industrial burg of Pennsauken, New Jersey. Every morning, at around 6:30, I pass a small strip center on Levick Street. Wedged between a Chinese restaurant whose curtains are always drawn and whose neon "OPEN" sign is always lit even when they are not open and a Little Caesar's which I will never set foot in again is an intriguing little restaurant. Well, intriguing to me, anyway. Every morning, when I pass by this place, I find myself craning my neck to get a closer assessment. The place is marked by a large backlit sign (that is never lit) that reads "Breakfast & Lunch" with a small subhead that guarantees "Homemade Style" along with the phone number. Beneath the sign, the grease-streaked windows display several pieces of paper taped to the inside. I can only assume that these papers delineate some important information for those who are close enough to read their contents. Perhaps the day's specials or a change in business hours or maybe a plea for qualified and experienced restaurant help. Whatever they may say, from my position behind the steering wheel of my car and doing approximately 40 miles per hour, I am not privy to that information. I can, however, see that there is never — never! — a single customer inside the place. Never. I can make out a few figures moving around at the back of the interior, behind what is most likely a service counter. I can make out an array of tables and chairs but they are all always empty. I can see a large cooler with a PEPSI logo glowing at the top, but there are no customers helping themselves to sodas nor employees taking some drinks out to fill an order... at least never during the four or five seconds that elapses as I drive past.

First of all, I am intrigued by the sign. I wonder what was the discussion that led to the decision to call the place "Breakfast & Lunch?" Did the owner make a list of possible names, scratching out the ones that were too obscure? Was "Petit-Déjeuner et Déjeuner" not used because the majority of the neighborhood residents did not speak French? Was "Elevenses" passed on because the Tolkien reference would have been lost on the working-class folks who make the immediate area their home? Perhaps "Breakfast & Lunch" was the just best option in the owner's short list. After all, that is what they serve... sort of like the General Putnam Motel Diner featured in the film My Cousin Vinny.

I am also intrigued by the general description of the cuisine, as described by the subheading on the sign. "Homemade Style" is not exactly enticing. "Homemade" is, but not homemade style. Does this imply that the food is not homemade, but, instead, mimics the type of food that one would expect to be homemade. Is your food homemade? Well, it's homemade style! When we rip open this 300 pound bag of hash brown potatoes that were frozen in some processing plant last month, they will be prepared in the style of homemade food. Same goes for when we rehydrate these powdered eggs. Or maybe it's more along the lines of when you see a "kosher style" designation at a delicatessen, yet you find bacon among the breakfast side orders or Swiss cheese melted on your corned beef in the ever-popular, but decidedly trayfe, Reuben sandwich. Well... maybe "homemade style" isn't as "cut and dried." "Homemade style" sounds... sounds... I don't know.... weird. It's a bit too noncommittal and very suspect.

Two doors away from Breakfast & Lunch is a DMV location where people regularly line up hours before the official opening time. You would think that Breakfast & Lunch would do some kind of business from the folks waiting for state-issued identification. But, no... the queue stays just outside the doors of the DMV office and no one gives a glance in the direction of Breakfast & Lunch

I decided to see if Breakfast & Lunch has an internet presence. Sure enough, they do!  It seems that food from Breakfast & Lunch is readily available via Door Dash, Uber Eats and various other independent delivery services. My search also revealed that the place also goes by the name "B L Kitchen." This alternate moniker is emblazoned on the laminated menus from which a customer could select a meal... if there were indeed any customers.

And then there is Yelp! — the internet's great equalizer. The Yelp! reviews of Breakfast & Lunch are required reading. Evidentially, they do have customers. Regular customers! I suppose they patronize the business at other times besides 6:30 AM and 6:30 and five seconds. The Yelp! reviews feature a lot of photographs of very generic looking platters of standard breakfast food. Eggs, just plain eggs. Toast accompanied by a little plastic container of commercially-packed jelly. The amateurly-written sentiment ranges from high praise and sworn loyalty to vivid descriptions of disgusting and traumatic experiences endured by unsuspecting customers just looking for a couple of scrambled eggs and some coffee. There are repeated complaints of wrong orders, undercooked or overcooked food, not to mention dirty silverware, dirty plates, dirty tables and dirty floors. Other reviews stated that while the food was okay, the staff was rude, obnoxious, slow, unresponsive, unknowledgeable and — in one case — stoned. Sprinkled among the viscous and disparaging reports are glowing accounts of ambrosial pancakes and heavenly sausages with just the right amount of seasoning and condiments. These are immediately followed by a tirade about ketchup packets being pulled from a customer's take-out order and a manager scolding the waitstaff for putting so many packets in a customer's order in the first place.

And then there are the roaches. A number of reviews — too many for my comfort — describe troupes of roaches on tables, on walls, on counters, near food preparation areas, and, of course, in the bathrooms. That was all I needed to see.

I have no intentions of ever stopping at Breakfast & Lunch. I will never let my curiosity get the best of me. I will continue to pass Breakfast & Lunch a little before sunrise and again on my return commute hours after its 3:00 PM posted closing time. Even before reading Yelp! reviews, the place just looked.... uninviting from the outside. It is just one of those places. If you live in the Philadelphia area, patronizing Breakfast & Lunch is totally up to you. You won't see me there.... or anyone else, as far as I can tell. 

Although, this guy sure seems to like it... whoever he is.

originally posted on Yelp!

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

Mrs. P's cousins — Juniper and Veronica — came in for a visit. After a long drive, they finally arrived in Philadelphia and asked if we'd like to meet them for dinner. Of course we said we'd love to. They spotted an Olive Garden across the street from their hotel and decided we'd meet there.

Before I continue, let's get all of our Olive Garden jokes out of the way.

America is home to the strange phenomena of "casual dining chain restaurants." You know what I'm talking about. Places like Applebee's and Red Lobster (Seafood Applebee's), Outback Steakhouse (Australian Applebee's), On The Border (Mexican Applebee's), Texas Roadhouse (Barbecue Applebee's), Buffalo Wild Wings (Chicken Applebee's), Cracker Barrel (Redneck Applebee's with bonus hillbilly yard sale) and, of course, Olive Garden (Italian Applebee's).

In the early 2000s, E! Entertainment, the pop culture cable network, ran a reality series called The Girls Next Door that centered around then-79 year-old Playboy Magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and the bevy of cookie-cutter young ladies that shared his life and home — the notorious Playboy Mansion. I was not an avid viewer of the show, but, when there was nothing else on, I would sometimes stop on it while I perused my options up and down the dial. The show was always good for a laugh, mostly at the expense of  "the girls." Most (if not all) of the humor played on the young ladies' naivete and their perceived (whether scripted or not) lack of intelligence and self-awareness. One particular episode focused on a meeting in Las Vegas with Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, who was contracted by Hefner to design a new take on the iconic Playboy Bunny costume. At a large table in a restaurant at the Palms Resort, Hefner introduced Cavalli to a few of the "girls" who had travelled to Sin City with him. When the "girls" found out that Cavalli was actually from Italy, they began to give him passionate recommendations for places to eat while in town. One of the girls — maybe Holly, maybe Kendra — gushed about Olive Garden. She told him "If you are looking for authentic Italian food that will make you feel like you are at home in Italy, you will love Olive Garden. The food and the atmosphere are just like being in Italy!" The Italian-born designer cocked his head to one side. All expression fell from his face and, I believe, his jaw nearly smacked the table. He said nothing. No response. Then turned his attention back to Hefner and his costume designs.

Now, where was I....?

I have only eaten in an Olive Garden three times. The first time was over thirty years ago and I can say there was nothing memorable about it. Aside from my wife, I don't remember who I was with or what the occasion was. (I'm sure we didn't "just decide" to go to Olive Garden. I don't remember what I ate, how it was, how much it cost... nothing. It was as though it never happened. The second time I ate in Olive Garden was maybe twenty years ago. The first time must have really made an impression on me to get me to return a decade later. Once again, my second visit was a completely forgettable experience. The third time I ate at an Olive Garden was last night. I'm pretty sure it was the same location as my first visit. According to the official Olive Garden website, the chain operates 956 restaurants. They all look nearly identical, so maybe it was a different location. Kind of like that clone episode of The Flintstones. So...who knows? And, honestly, what difference does it make? It's a chain restaurant and they strive to be all the same.

Juniper and Veronica were already inside, waiting for their names to be announced as the next to be seated for dinner. Considering it was 7:30 in the evening, the place was still fairly crowded. Mrs. P chatted with her cousins and I sat quietly. Actually, I assessed my surroundings and secretly hoped for an incident or other out-of-the-ordinary experience to get  the basis for a good blog post. If I couldn't get that, I would settle for horrible food, a surly waiter, a wrong order or something along those lines. Anything along those lines!

Everyone knows about Olive Garden's reputation. Everyone except for those who frequent Olive Garden regularly and rank it high on their list of "fine dining establishments." ("Olive Garden? Oh, we only go there for special occasions! We took Grandma there for her 101st birthday!") Everyone knows that Olive Garden's offerings of Italian cuisine are akin to a native Mexican not being able to identify a single entry on the Taco Bell menu. But for some people — a lot of people, as a matter of fact — Olive Garden is a nice place to get a close approximation of Italian food for a reasonable price. Educated palates, be damned! My palate wants all-you-can-eat breadsticks and endless salad. Oh, and it also wants the waiter to grind a fresh block of Kraft parmesan cheese on my pisghettis.

Olive Garden's menu includes everything you'd expect a chain Italian restaurant to serve. Everything is in English. Everything is familiar. Most every sauce is red, except for that exotic Alfredo sauce.... whoever he is! There is plenty of "fill-in-the-blank" Parmesan and lots and lots of pasta. The menu features enticing "beauty shots" of prepared dishes that bear no resemblance to anything you will be served. After minutes of scanning the menu, I decided on spaghetti with marinara sauce for twelve bucks, topped with broccoli for an additional $2.99. Mrs. Pincus ordered one of the "fill-in-the-blank" Parmesans, with the "blank," in this case, being substituted for eggplant. The cousin sisters opted to split a single order of chicken parmesan over fettucine Alfredo instead of the standard spaghetti. This deviation from the norm momentarily confused our waiter. He nearly brought out a full order of chicken parm and a full order of Alfredo until Veronica politely — but sternly — rephrased the order.

Our waiter brought out a big bowl of salad and a big basket of breadsticks — which are actually just mini loaves of bread. The salad was okay. Not great. Not awful. Just okay. It had too much dressing on it, but it was okay. The breadsticks were okay, as well. My spaghetti, sauce and broccoli was okay. Not great. Not awful. Just okay. The eggplant parmesan, as reported by Mrs. Pincus, also fell into the realm of satisfaction within the "just okay" bracket. Actually, she did not care for the blandness of the spaghetti that formed the bed for the eggplant and she spooned it onto my plate. That, too. was "just okay."

At the end of our meal, Veronica asked our waiter for a few of the Olive Garden's famous after-dinner mints. Evidently, Mrs. P's cousins are way more familiar with the ways and means of Olive Garden. In their defense, they live in Virginia Beach. a municipality that boasts more shopping centers and chain restaurants than anywhere I've ever seen. There are seven Olive Gardens in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Hampton Roads geographic area. As Mrs. P paid the check at the little on-table kiosk, our waiter returned with a take-out container stuffed with foil-wrapped, Olive Garden-logoed mints. They were "okay."

In hindsight, I think Olive Garden gets a bad rap. It's not horrible. It's not terrible. It's not the worst place I've ever eaten. It's a place to get food. Not great food, but food food.

I'll let you know if anything changes when I go back... in another ten years.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

first time

For those of you outside the Philadelphia area, Wawa is a chain of convenience stores that, more recently, have focused on their sandwich, coffee and take-out foods business. With very few exceptions, most Philadelphians love Wawa and visit them often.

There are at least nine thousand Wawas within five minutes of the place where I work. Several times a month, I will stop at one of them to pick up hoagies for Mrs. Pincus and myself. (That might be the most Philadelphia sentence I've ever written!) Last Monday was one of those times.

I usually choose the Wawa at Route 73 and Remington Avenue, just down the street from Pennsauken High School (home of the still politically-incorrect "Indians"). A few years ago, Wawa introduced a convenient touchscreen system to make ordering sandwiches, salads and other prepared foods a breeze. The system is great. It's fast, accurate and requires little-to-no interaction with any other human being. Each step in the ordering process is given its own screen from which a hungry customer can select the type of sandwich, the type of bread, the type of ingredients, the type of toppings and even the amount of said toppings. (Although, the choice of "a little bit of mayonnaise" is still totally subjectable, leaving the customer at the mercy of a hair-netted, name-tagged, minimum-wage earner.) When the order process is completed, a little box spits out a barcoded receipt. The customer takes the receipt to the cashier to scan. The customer pays and returns to the order area to pick up the tightly wrapped sandwich, usually ready and waiting. Regular customers of Wawa are used to the whole procedure and engage in it often. I know I do.

The whole touchscreen system is very intuitive, even for the most technology-fearing customer. This past Monday, while I punched out my selection for two hoagies, I overheard a guy at another touchscreen terminal. Actually, everybody in the place overheard this guy. He was screaming. 

I have noticed that people who insist on talking on their phones everywhere they go, love to scream. They have no issues with discussing personal issues — at top volume — while casually walking down the street, sitting on a bus, standing in a checkout line at Target or just about any public place. Well, this guy in Wawa was screaming into his phone. As the conversation unfolded, it became clear that he was ordering hoagies for someone who had never eaten a hoagie before. It was not clear (but it was a distinct possibility) if the person on the other end of the conversation had ever seen a hoagie. Perhaps these two — the guy at Wawa and his unseen conversation partner — were new to the area. Perhaps they just moved here and were unfamiliar with the local delicacy known as "the hoagie" and how Philadelphians place it in the same esteem as soft pretzels, "wooder oice" and — yes! — Benjamin Franklin and the "Liverty Bell." I would have given this pair the benefit of the doubt — except the guy was sporting a Phillies cap and an Eagles "Super Bowl Champions" t-shirt.

The conversation went a little like this...

GUY IN WAWA: What size hoagie do you want?

VOICE ON PHONE: Size? What do you mean "size?"

GIW: Size! Six inch? Ten inch?

VOP: Well, how big is the ten inch?

GIW(rolls his eyes and stares at the phone): TEN INCHES! Y'KNOW... LIKE TEN INCHES LONG! Y'KNOW BIG!

VOP: Um, then, six inches, I guess.

GIW: What kind of hoagie do you want?

VOP: Well, what kinds do they have? Do they have chicken salad?

GIW: They have the regular kind that everybody has.

VOP: Do they have Italian? Can I get an Italian, but with chicken salad?

GIW: What? No, they don't have chicken salad! You just want an Italian hoagie, then?

VOP: Well, what's on an Italian hoagie?

GIW: I don't know! I guess the regular stuff that's on an Italian hoagie anywhere!

VOP: Do they have cheese? Can I get cheese? Do they have Swiss cheese? Can I get Swiss cheese on my Italian hoagie? You say they don't have chicken salad? I really wanted an Italian chicken salad hoagie.

At this point, the GIW walks — no! stomps! — away from the touchscreen area and ducks down one of the merchandise aisles. After a minute or so, he emerges, still speaking into his phone at the very top of his voice.

GIW: ... you can can get lettuce, if you want. Yes, and tomatoes. What? No, they don't have chicken salad.

The number on my receipt was called and my hoagies were ready. I picked them up and left.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

a plate o' cole slaw

When I was a kid, there was a restaurant near our house called The Heritage Diner. My parents — especially my father — loved The Heritage Diner. My mother liked going there for two reasons. One - it meant she didn't have to cook. The second reason was she could order liver. My mother loved liver, but no one else in the house did (despite the fact that my father was a butcher by trade). My parents were old-school carnivores, with some sort of meat dish featured in practically every Pincus family dinner. Steak, roast beef, London broil, beef stew... but liver... that's where three-fourths of the Pincuses drew the line. So a trip to The Heritage Diner fulfilled my mom's craving for liver. After my mom died, I believe my father ate every meal — breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day! —  at The Heritage Diner. However, I don't believe he ever got the liver.

I liked going the The Heritage Diner, too. I marveled at the big display of desserts that greeted diners as they entered the establishment. I was fascinated my the enormity of the menu. I was given free reign to order whatever I like from the Heritage Diner's vast selection. There were burgers, hot turkey sandwiches covered with bright yellow gravy, even omelets were available in the evening hours and "breakfast for dinner" was always a welcome treat. On Sundays, the already -huge menu was bolstered with a typewritten sheet listing several dozen additional entrees to make choosing "what's for dinner" even more difficult. Each entry on the supplemental menu included soup or salad and dessert along with two — count 'em two — vegetables from a list of about fifteen or so choices. My go-to dinner (if I didn't feel like having a hamburger) was a massive slab of breaded fried flounder. Served on a large oval plate with smoky red trim, the hunk of fried fish was so large that it covered the entire platter, the edges flopping over the sides. Sometimes a second, slightly smaller piece of fish would come out on the plate, as though the first piece wasn't big enough. As part of my order, I was required to state which two vegetables from the list of the evening's offerings I'd like. I was not the most ravenous eater when it came to vegetables. I read the list of vegetables over and over, turning my nose up at things like "Harvard beets" and "French cut string beans." Those were things my mom ate at home and I turned my nose up at them there, too, so I was certainly not going to order them in a restaurant. I was cautioned about ordering two kinds of potatoes, as I narrowed my choices down to French fries and a baked potato. I was also not permitted to get corn and French fires. Something about "two starches" that — to this day — I still don't quite get. Well, I knew I wasn't going to get spinach or peas, so I settled on the final item on the list to share my plate with my fries... and that was cole slaw. I already knew that I wasn't going to actually eat the cole slaw. Sure, it came in a tiny plastic ramekin containing less than two forkfuls worth of shredded cabbage, mayonnaise, celery seed, carrots and vinegar. I knew that as soon as the waitress brought my dinner plate, that little cup of cole slaw would be pushed onto my mom's plate before it hit the table.

As I got older and became a more adventurous eater, I began to like cole slaw. I discovered that if it was added to a corned beef sandwich and slathered with Russian dressing, it made a sandwich that was unmatched and positively delicious. If the corned beef was substituted with turkey, it created an equally-delicious assemblage. I would sometimes order fried fish and eat all the accompanying cole slaw first.

Somewhere around 2006, I became a vegetarian. I stopped eating red meat and poultry. However, I did not eliminate fish from my diet (after all, fish are just asking for it) so, I continue to order and enjoy cole slaw with fried flounder — which is still a favorite of mine. I will sometimes finish my dinnermate's cole slaw, just because I know that most people don't really like it. 

There is a writer whose blog I have been reading for years. His regular job is writer and producer of the Garfield cartoon, but he has been a comic book writer for years. He also hates cole slaw and doesn't hide his hatred. In 1978, he wrote a story that appeared in the Hanna Barbera TV Stars issue Number 2. The story, illustrated with drawings by Jack Manning and featuring characters from a short-lived NBC cartoon called "C.B. Bears," was entitled "The Great Cole Slaw Conspiracy." He wrote the story to — and I quote — "educate children on the evils of cole slaw." He explained, in a blog post, that his editor shared his dislike for cole slaw and the story was given an enthusiastic "green light." He also regularly reminds readers of his blog how much he hates cole slaw and wishes for its removal from existence — in case you had forgotten. I continue to read his blog, but I bristle when he derides cole slaw. (Sort of how you cringe when I insult Ringo,)

On October 28, 2009, while the rest of Philadelphia was glued to their televisions to watch the Phillies in a return trip to the World Series, my son and I went to see off-the-wall comedian Emo Philips at a little comedy club. With Game One of the World Series as competition, the entire audience was comprised of just four people. Emo, in top form, sat on the edge of the tiny stage and delivered his hilarious routine while leaning forward with his elbows resting on the surface of our stage-side table. After the show, Emo came out and mingled with the audience... if you can call talking with four people "mingling." I asked him if he would sign our admission ticket. He obliged, taking the ticket from my hand and — without prompting or any sort of suggestion on my part — wrote "To Josh, King of Cole Slaw! Emo"

Even Emo knew.

Maybe one day, I'll tell you about my love of Cream of Wheat. But, not today.

www.jopshpincusiscrying.com

oh, oh domino

 Oh jeez.... another blog post about pizza? 

Since I began this blog, I have written exclusively about pizza eight times and mentioned pizza too many times to count. Well, whether you like it or not, here is another tale/rant about pizza, which now, I suppose, has revealed itself to be a favorite topic of mine. Right up there with television. When I was a kid, my dad was convinced that the only food I ate was pizza. I'm not sure if this was some kind of "diss" in his mind, but I do not recall ever seeing my father consume a single slice of pizza. Ever. I don't know if he was truly expressing concern for my questionable eating habits or if he was just repeating one of those "I'll never understand these kids today" fallacies that seem to attach themselves to generation after generation.

I like pizza. I have always liked pizza. And, as I have mentioned previously, I am not very discerning when it comes to pizza. I firmly believe that there is no such thing as "bad pizza." Recently, a less-than-pleasant experience at a conveniently-located and frequently-visited Little Caesar's Pizza forced me to seek another purveyor of pizza close to my home. While this new place — which has been open since 1966 —  is a little closer to my house than Little Caesar's and serves up a decent enough pizza, their prices are ridiculous for a little neighborhood pizza joint. A basic 18" circle of dough with a generous spread of tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese runs a little over twenty bucks. I don't know if this is the going rate for pizzas at independent establishments, but, to be honest (or at least "out of the loop"), most chain pizza places are constantly in a price war. I guess the idea is: if it's cheap, you don't mind the shitty quality... and, again, there is no such thing as "bad pizza," so a twenty dollar pizza should be — by my nonsensical logic — be spectacular. 

Recently, in my search for a new place to get a quick pizza when the back-and-forth debate over "well, what do you want for dinner?" rears its famished head, I have relented and gave our nearby Domino's a redeeming chance. I haven't been to Domino's since my son was in high school and we'd get pizza on a Friday night when my wife was working late at her family's store. (My son is now 37 and my wife's family's business has been closed for nearly two decades.) It wasn't that I had anything against Domino's, it's just we found good "bad" pizza elsewhere for cheaper. But, just this past weekend, Mrs. P and I decided to give Domino's  a call... except, as you probably already know... ordering a pizza doesn't work like that anymore. It's now done — like most automated, contact-free processes — online through an app.

I downloaded the Domino's app. I found it to be very user friendly and very easily navigable, although I did nearly order a pizza with no cheese until the intuitive app guided me back to the toppings section of my order. After I placed my order, paid with a credit card and received an emailed receipt and confirmation, the Domino's app sprang into action. When I signed up for an account, I was asked for my cellphone number. I assumed it was merely for identification purposes. Oh, no, no, no. I immediately received a text with something called "Domino's Tracker." The Domino's Tracker offered me real time, step-by-step progress of how my pizza was doing. It skipped the "Order Received" Level 1 and moved right ahead to the Level 2 "We're Firing it up!" This was exciting. As I readied a couple of paper plates and a stack of paper napkins before I set out on the eight-minute drive to Domino's, I was alerted that my prepared pizza had entered to oven, which is Level 3 on the Tracker. 

On my drive, my phone signaled me several more times. When I finally reached the tiny parking lot at my nearby Domino's, I parked and checked my phone before entering the store. My phone had logged three progress reports from Domino's, including a final request to let the good folks inside that I had arrived and was on my way in to collect my pizza. This could be easily accomplished by clicking a big red button that read "I'M ON MY WAY IN!" Simple enough! 

There was a huddle of workers behind the small counter inside Domino's. Some of the young men were busily assembling pizzas. Others were surveying a computer screen, searching for the correct order to stuff into their insulated bag and speed off to deliver to a hungry family or single stoned guy in his mother's basement. Upon spotting me walk in, a young man greeted me with a standard, "Can I help you?" I told him I was picking up an order for "Josh." He asked me to repeat my name while he scanned a stack of similar-looking boxes with receipts taped to their fronts. As I finished the "SH" in "Josh," he plopped a box into my hands and thanked me for choosing Domino's.

I brought the pizza home and Mrs P and I ate our dinner. It was fine. It was nothing special. It was just okay. During dinner, however, I received another text and two emails from Domino's. Over the course of last week, I received at least two emails per day — per day! — from Domino's. Each day brought a new offer or reminder or discount from the marketing staff at Domino's. I just needed to make one more order from Domino's to receive a free pizza said one email. Another email informed me of a free "emergency pizza" could be ordered from my local Domino's at any time, as long as that time occurred before November 21st. (Technically, isn't every pizza an "emergency pizza?") I am expecting a few more messages of enticement from Domino's any minute now.

So far, I have only placed the one order with Domino's. Who knows if and when I will place the next one. If my father was still with us, he'd probably say that order will be placed as soon as I finish writing this blog post. But he didn't know what a blog post was.

Pizza... that he knew.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

time has come today

I love Wawa. As a life-long resident of Philadelphia (and now the Philadelphia suburbs), I believe it is my duty as a citizen to love Wawa. Wawa has stores throughout the Greater Philadelphia and New Jersey area and have recently expanded to include locations operating in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Florida, Alabama, and North Carolina — with its corporate sights set on Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, New York and Connecticut in the near future. If you don't live in one of these lucky states, let me explain what exactly Wawa is.

Wawa is the greatest convenience store there ever was. Wawa runs circles around places like 7-11 (except for Japanese 7-11s, which, by all accounts, rival Disneyland). Sure, Wawa sells a smattering of groceries for those who run out of something-or-other and need to fill in before their next supermarket run. Yeah, they sell pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream for a little over eight bucks, but Wawa is not a grocery store. Wawa is Wawa! it's a place to stop for great coffee and a fresh packaged baked good on your way to work. It's a place to grab a pre-made sandwich or snack or salad or — better yet — get a custom-made sandwich or hoagie from their innovative (and intuitive) touchscreens. Over the years, since Wawa introduced the made-to-order system, they have branded themselves as the "go-to" place for quick-serve meals. It's become as "Philadelphia" as The Liberty Bell, chucking snowballs at Santa Claus and soft pretzels.... oh! and they have soft pretzels, too. Sure, there are a lot of people in Philadelphia that do not like Wawa — some of whom I know personally, but I still choose to remain friends with them. 

Wawa's hoagies are just fine, as far as I'm concerned. Granted, as a vegetarian, my choices are limited. I switch between a mixed cheese, tuna and roasted vegetables varieties — three choices that die-hard Philadelphia hoagie aficionados will tell you don't belong anywhere near a hoagie. I cannot speak on behalf of any of Wawa's "meat" variety of hoagies, so I will not pass any judgement. Their custom-made salads are good, too. Wawa has added a number of different sandwich options to their menu, including paninis, quesadillas (with customers readily pronouncing both "L"s in that word) and wraps. They have also bolstered their expanding menu with breakfast options like oatmeal and egg sandwiches. More recently, Wawa has begun to offer milkshakes, smoothies, and whipped cream topped coffee beverages that rival Starbucks. Plus, their "annual hoagiefest" seems to pop up way more than "annually."

A few months ago, Wawa introduced pizza to the Wawa stable of made-to-order fare with a campaign they mounted as though no one in the Philadelphia area had ever heard of pizza before. (Full disclosure: Aside from the various national pizza chains that dot the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia boasts a "Mom & Pop" pizza place approximately every fifteen feet.) Nevertheless, Wawa sang the assured praises of their pizza, flooding the area with billboards and commercials and plastering their stores with the simple mantra: "Wawa has pizza!" The phrase was ubiquitous. It grew to sound like a threat. It was apparent that Wawa spent a ton of money outfitting their stores with some sort of pizza oven (these were concealed "in the back" and out of customer's view) and training their minimum-wage employees in the fine art of the culinary preparation required to produce a pizza that Wawa would be proud to put its name on. (For a frame of reference, Wawa has no problem with feeding customers macaroni & cheese or soup out of an 80 ounce food service bag, so their sense of "pride" is questionable.) Needless to say, local pizzerias have nothing to fear.

Mrs. Pincus and I do not fancy ourselves as "food connoisseurs." We like what we like. We don't frequent pretentious restaurants. And we are fine with getting hoagies from Wawa a few times a week. It's convenient, relatively inexpensive and a stop on the way home from work only takes about twenty minutes. Our interest was piqued by Wawa's big pizza "roll out." So, when the good folks at Wawa offered one of their pizzas for five bucks (if ordered through their easy-to-navigate app), we were all in. Hey, I've eaten Little Caesar's pizza and I am convinced that there is no such thing as "bad pizza." So, five bucks was good enough for us to give it a try.

Wawa's pizza is okay. Just okay. It's kind of like the pizza you got in the cafeteria in elementary school. Not horrible. Not terrific, Just.... well.... okay. We ordered, and picked it up at a nearby Wawa. (We live in close proximity to four Wawas, all about the same distance from our house.) When we got it home and opened the box, it looked just like the pizza they display in their commercials. Perfect! Perfectly golden brown crust. Perfectly yellow-y cheese melted in a perfectly symmetrical circle equidistant all around from the crust, with a perfect border of red tomato sauce serving as a barrier/border between the cheese and the crust. It looked fake. I'm sure you've seen those videos of how they used food-like alternatives in commercials to showcase food products — like motor oil in place of pancake syrup or white school glue in place of milk in cereal or mashed potatoes (that won't melt under the studio lights) in place of scooped ice cream. Wawa's pizza appeared to be a reasonable facsimile of pizza. It tasted..... okay. Without the special deal, a Wawa pizza is fifteen dollars. I can get a larger, better tasting pizza for nineteen dollars just a few doors down from a Wawa near us.

Well, Wawa started offering us five bucks off the price of a pizza (when ordered through the app) nearly every weekend. So, I buckled and ordered on a Saturday evening. When the total was calculated, a full ten dollars was deducted from the price, leaving a final total of just five dollars. I selected the time I'd like my order to be ready from a list of times broken down in five minute increments. I also elected to have the pizza brought out to our car. I clicked and clicked and clicked and my order was placed. We arrived at Wawa #8080. We parked and — through the app — I let Wawa know in which numbered space we were parked. Several long minutes after our selected "ready" time, a Wawa employee emerged from the front doors carrying a large pizza box. He walked right past our car. My wife and I looked at each other. Mrs. P started the car and we slowly followed the guy with the pizza as though we were looking for an address on an unfamiliar street. He took our pizza on a little stroll and turned the corner of the building, headed back to the front door. Before he went back inside, Mrs. P called out, "Hey! Is that our pizza?" The guy adjusted his Wawa visor and asked, "Order for Josh?" Mrs. P replied in the affirmative and he handed over the pizza. We got it home and ate it. It was fine. Maybe a little overdone this time. Someone didn't read the training manual as closely as they should have.

In subsequent weeks, we began to order pizza from Wawa nearly every Saturday. We kept getting offers for five dollars off and they kept miscalculating the discount, leaving a grand total of five dollars. However, even after choosing a "ready" time in the app, I have had to wait at least twenty minutes for my order. Each time. Sometimes, I had to flag down an employee to check the status of my order. The employee's report of "it'll just be a few more minutes" was always punctuated with an apology. They seemed to be used to the question and accustomed to rendering apologies. After a few incidents of waiting too long for an "okay" pizza, I switched Wawas. 

I decided to give Wawa #8066 a chance, placing my "usual Saturday usual discount" order. I arrived a few minutes before my selected "ready" time. The sandwich makers were busy making sandwiches. Customers placed orders and picked up their orders as I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, a Wawa employee started refilling shelves near where I was impatiently waiting. As he got closer to me, he asked, "How are you today sir?" in a very "customer-service-y" tone. I told him I was waiting for an order that should have been ready fifteen minutes ago. He aske for the order number and promised to check the status. He disappeared behind the sandwich prep area and quickly returned with a solemn look on his face. With the somber demeanor of a surgeon delivering adverse results to a grieving family in a hospital waiting room, he said, "They're remaking your order. It stuck to the pan and they weren't happy with the presentation. I'm sorry. It'll just be a few minutes." It was fifteen more minutes. Ultimately, he handed me a warm pizza box along with another apology. I wonder if "apologies" are the final chapter of the "How To Make A Wawa Pizza" instruction course. I brought the pizza home. It was fine. Maybe a little burnt in some places and the cheese was placed a little unevenly, but it was fine.

Once again, Saturday brought another pizza discount from Wawa. Mrs. P and I gave in to the offer. I would be giving Wawa #0276 an opportunity to redeem the good name of Wawa. I placed my order as I had in the past, selecting my "ready" time as 5:40 PM, giving me enough time to pick up my pizza and get it home before the 6:05 start of the evening's Phillies game. I arrived a few minutes ahead of 5:40 and waited. At 5:39 on the dot, a guy behind the counter stopped what he was doing and retreated to the unseen "back," returning with a pizza box a few seconds later. I approached the glass separating the customers from the workers and pointed to the pizza. At 5:40 exactly, he place the pizza box in my waiting hands. After a little trial and error, I think I found the correct Wawa.

This pizza was okay. Maybe a bit more overdone that it should have been. Maybe the cheese had shifted a bit to one side. Maybe the crust was a little dry in places and chewy in others. Maybe the slices were uneven and not cut all the way through.

Maybe Wawa pizza isn't really that great. Maybe it really isn't even that good.

But I do love Wawa. Just like Bryce Harper. I bet he doesn't have to wait for pizza. I bet he doesn't get pizza from Wawa.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com