life in the fast lane

A few days ago, I went to my son's house after work. Although I live in Pennsylvania, I work in New Jersey. As a matter of fact, my last three jobs have been in the Garden State. Many people who live in Philadelphia and the immediate surrounding suburbs work in New Jersey. It's really not that far and there are several bridges that take an interstate traveler to essentially the same place. New Jersey is weird that way. (New Jersey is weird in other ways, but that's a subject for another blog post.)

This would have saved Sonny Corleone's life.

When I first started working in New Jersey, I immediately purchased an EZ Pass. This ingenious little invention mounts conveniently on my car's windshield and allows easy (or, in this case EZ) access to special lanes on toll bridges. There is some sort of electronic reader mounted high above the EZ Pass lane that scans a car's EZ Pass and deducts the toll amount from the users' account. Or (in my case) charges a credit card that's on file in the EZ Pass system. It's quick, convenient and avoids any contact with a human being — three selling points that make me very happy. The EZ Pass system has pretty much eliminated the job of "toll taker" on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There are also no toll takers on the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, the one I take to and from work almost every day. My alternate route — The Betsy Ross Bridge — still has a few booths manned by real, live human beings for those commuters without an EZ Pass and a car ashtray filled with loose change. Actually, spare change is useless on a bridge, as the toll is up to six bucks on most of the bridges between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Tacony-Palmyra Bridge and the Betsy Ross Bridge also feature technology that reads a car's license plate and will bill the driver by mail. So, you really don't need cash.

Unless you're crossing the Walt Whitman Bridge and you're not paying attention.

Like me.

Job security

Every so often, I go to my son's house in South Philadelphia after work. Sometimes it's to feed his cat if he is working late. Sometimes, it's to feed his cat if he's away on vacation. Sometimes, it's to pick him up for a concert that — most often — does not involve his cat. That was the reason for my most recent trip. A concert. The most convenient bridge from my job to my son's house is the Walt Whitman. The Walt Whitman Bridge boasts a whopping fifteen toll booths to accommodate the volume of traffic that regularly use the thruway. The far left end of the bank of toll booths are clearly marked "EZ PASS ONLY." The next few are labeled "CASH ONLY" and the far end offer more EZ Pass options. Scattered among the toll booths are several that are labeled "LANE CLOSED" with a bright red light and a large gate blocking any access to the lane. Despite my unfounded and totally irrational fear of bridges, I try to navigate my car across four lanes of converging traffic to position myself in one of the EZ Pass lanes. On this particular day, I was not paying attention. Or perhaps the late afternoon sun was obscuring the identifying signs. Or maybe my glasses were smudged. Whatever the true reason, I apparently drove into a "CASH ONLY" lane. Now on other bridges, the Cash Only lanes are also equipped with EZ Pass readers. Not on the Walt Whitman Bridge, though. No sir. The Walt Whitman Bridge is still staffed by a skeleton crew of day-glo vest wearing, car-exhaust smelling cranks who haven't smiled since the Kennedy administration. They are like postal workers or DMV employees, except with less skills.

Take your pick, but choose wisely.

So there I was, behind the wheel of my car, waiting for the non-existent EZ Pass reader to register six bucks from the transponder on my windshield, thereby raising the gate that stood between me and the shores of the Delaware River. I leaned forward to see if... well, I don't know what I was trying to see. Just then, Mr. "I Hate My Job" Toll Booth Worker barked out at me. "Six dollars please!" The "please" at the end of his request didn't sound the least bit friendly or pleasing. "I have an EZ Pass., " I explained as I pointed to the little white box of electronics clinging to the inside of my windshield. "This is the cash lane. Six dollars please.," the toll guy repeated, as he moved closer to my car. He stunk like the inside of an auto body shop — a stale combination of rubber, gasoline, carbon monoxide and sweat. "I don't have any cash.," I persisted. Toll Guy frowned. "Don't back up!," he warned, "I'll have to call your license plate in and fill out a form. He sounded as though he would have rather had a limb amputated than call in my license plate and fill out a form. In my rear-view mirror, I could see him scribbling on a pad of paper and then return to his little protective sanctuary to call whoever he had to call. In a minute of so, he pulled the top sheet off his little pad and stuck it in my face. "Write your EZ Pass account number on this and mail it in within ten days.," he announced. Then he reluctantly pressed a button to raise the gate. I was on my way.

When I got home, I copied the account number off of the front of the EZ Pass transponder on my windshield. I filled in the other required information and mailed the form off.

A few days later, I had to make a stop at my son's house again after work. This time — and for all future times — I paid close close attention.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

cabbage head

For the past 14 months, we have been ordering and picking up groceries curb-side at our local Walmart on an almost weekly basis.. My "love-hate" relationship with the retail giant is put to the test every single week. Walmart's service and selection are inconsistent — sometimes attentive and vast, other times, lackadaisical and limited. But, their ridiculously low prices are reason enough to continue to put up with the incessant "Walmartness" of the situation.

A few days prior to our scheduled pick-up time, my wife compiles an online shopping list using the handy Walmart phone app. Because we have been eating salads for dinner for the last two years, our weekly order doesn't change much. It includes a number of fresh vegetables and some jarred accouterments (like roasted red peppers and bread & butter pickles), as well as the occasional household item as needed (like lightbulbs or batteries). When our order is ready, my wife guides her car into a designated space in the Walmart parking lot. After identifying herself via the app, an attendant — sometimes masked, sometimes not — opens up the rear hatch of our SUV and loads in the pre-picked and already-bagged items from our order. Wanting to avoid any unnecessary social contact, we wait until we get home to check the accuracy of the order... and, invariably, something is wrong. At least Walmart is consistent in that respect. In various weeks gone by, they have given us four 15 ounce cans of Mandarin oranges to make up for a single 29 ounce can they did not have. (Math is not my forte, but... come on!) Another time, they substituted jalapeno peppers for out-of-stock radishes. Despite their mistakes, our receipts reflect the price of the original items, so we actually come out ahead. And, to a company the size of Walmart, I hardly think they care

Just this week, Walmart continued their streak of getting at least one item wrong, but this time.... well... things had a surprisingly pleasant outcome. 

I'm not sure if the person who brings the bags out to our car is the same person who actually roams the aisles and picks the stuff off the shelves. Whatever the case, this week's picker didn't know the difference between a head of lettuce and a head of cabbage. Apparently, anything large, round, green and leafy qualified as "lettuce." Lucky for us, watermelons or rubber playground balls don't have leaves. When we arrived home, I was confused when I extracted three huge, solid heads of cabbage from a bag... panicking when I discovered that our order did not include lettuce. Making a salad for our dinner would be difficult without lettuce. My wife made a quick phone call to her parents (who live around the corner from us). They were able to spare a slightly brown, slightly hacked-apart partial head of lettuce for our nightly salad until an emergency supermarket trip the next day could replenish our supply.

But, what were we supposed to do with all that cabbage?

Mrs. Pincus is a phenomenal (phenomenal, I tell you!) baker, as testimony from the numerous beneficiaries of our annual "Night Before Thanksgiving" dessert party will affirm. But, cooking... well, she will be the first to admit that she does not enjoy actual cooking. Y'know... like meals. As the recipient of over 36 years of my wife's cooking, I will heartily disagree with her assessment of her cooking ability. She may not like cooking, but she is a pretty good cook. Recently, in an effort to inject a little variety into our daily "salad, baked potato and vegetable" dinners, Mrs. Pincus had introduced steamed broccoli, steamed cauliflower (awakening my heretofore unknown affinity for cauliflower) and grilled asparagus. With the recent purchase of an air fryer, experimentation had yielded crispy potatoes — both sweet and white — panko-encrusted mushrooms and eggplant (another previously sworn-off vegetable that I am just now enjoying) and even battered fish filets. But cabbage? What to do with all that cabbage?

After staring at those three giant heads of Brassica oleracea for a good long time, Mrs. P fetched a large pan from our kitchen cabinet. She requested the cooking oil from the pantry and I obliged. Suddenly, she sprang to animated life. With knife in hand and cutting board at the ready, Mrs. P sliced strip after strip of cabbage from one of the heads, her head down, carefully monitoring her precision  and uniformity. Without looking up, she asked for an onion. Assuming my role as the new sous chef, I grabbed a medium-sized onion from a previous order that Walmart had gotten right. Mrs. P moved the pile of shredded cabbage aside and cut up the onion, adding the pieces to the oil simmering in the pan on the stove. To the onion, she added chopped garlic — our newly-discovered flavor enhancer — followed by the cabbage. She topped it all off with some shredded carrots and a sprinkle or two of sesame seeds (previously reserved to line the crust of our homemade pizza). 

"What exactly are you making?," I cautiously asked.

"I'm not sure yet.," Mrs. P replied with a smile. She pulled out a package of DynaSea mock shrimp* that had been defrosting in our refrigerator and released its vacuum seal with a flick of her knife. She dumped the contents of the package — eight pink and plump little "shrimps" — into another pan, where they were now glistening in some sizzling oil and chopped garlic. Then, she switched on a third burner (I didn't even know you could light three at one time!) and got a small pot of quinoa going. Along with the simmering cabbage and the simmering "shrimp," Mrs. Pincus was on fire! "Doesn't enjoy cooking?" Yeah... right!

We began making our standard dinner salads, just like we've been doing every night forever. As I doused mine with dressing, Mrs. P began the "plating" process, as though she was winding down her second round of Chopped and was confidently about to dash the dreams some line cook from the most exclusive restaurant in Pierre, South Dakota. She layered two bowls — first with perfectly cooked quinoa, then the translucent cabbage-onion-carrot-garlic creation. She topped each steaming bowl with four braised "shrimp" and some of the little charred pieces of garlic.

You can't believe how good it was! Well, I'll tell you... it was so good, that two nights later we made some more. And the night after that, Mrs. P started making a variation on a theme. We skipped the fake shrimp and added green peppers. I spiced mine up with a couple of shots of sriracha and soy sauce. Oh my goodness! — I began to have visions of opening up a food truck or selling this stuff from our back porch. I was already devising the "bill of fare" in my head. We could sell this stir-fried cabbage dish and some delicious baked goods.... and maybe my mom's iced tea. I can make that. Depending on what Walmart mistakenly adds to our order next week, some new items could be popping up on our menu.

Hey! When did this become a cooking blog?

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

*a seafood product made from pollock, shaped and seasoned to resemble shrimp, specially made for those members of society who observe the laws of kashrut [keeping kosher]. I have not eaten actual shrimp in over 40 years, so I can't determine how close they got, but it is pretty tasty.