In peeking at Alton Brown’s Dannon deal, I noticed that Stonyfield, my favorite yogurt company, has formed a partnership with DANONE (French parent of Dannon). DANONE acquired 40% of Stonyfield in October 2001 and has the option to acquire a majority holding in 2004. Stonyfield management didn’t change, but the deal may have interesting consequences in the future. American consumers continue to seek out healthier foods and become more aware of what is truly bad for them, so I hope Stonyfield’s ingredients don’t change over time to match what some big exec believes will attract more customers. Also, I assume they wouldn’t want to cut into Dannon yogurt’s profits, so the Stonyfield niche may be safe.
I’ve driven by Sunset Magazine‘s offices in Menlo Park many times, but never considered visiting them. Little did I know that more than 100,000 visitors make the pilgrimage each year to see the buildings and gardens of “The Magazine of Western Living.” I also did not know that the magazine was concieved as a promotion for Southern Pacific Railroad and named after the Sunset Limited train which went from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Its original subtitle was “Publicity for the Attractions and Advantages of the Western Empire” so you can see that the premise of its founding was far away from the current audience of people who already live here and want to know how to keep their (hopefully drought-resistant) plants healthy, correctly cook their nutritious farmer’s market produce, decorate their Craftsman bungalows and ranches, and properly visit the plentiful national parks.
Alton Brown’s Slashdot interview of 10 questions is up. Also, he’s got a new bit up on his site discussing his upcoming product endorsements. Soon you’ll see him on 32 ounce containers of Dannon Plain Yogurt with an AB recipe under the lid. And he has a short term spokesperson deal for Hunt’s new Perfect Squeeze ketchup bottle. Great to see him cashing in finally!
The NY Times’ Moscow Journal reports that regular inspections for radioactivity are made on produce and meats. Moscow is 415 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant which blew a reactor in 1986. Inspectors seized 3,050 pounds of radioactive produce last year and expect a 10% increase in 2002. The problem arises not with farm-grown produce but with the wild goods harvested by folks looking to supplement their incomes by selling berries and mushrooms. Open-air produce markets have labs busy with inspectors checking goods. It’s now forest mushroom harvest time, but Cesium 137, easily absorbed by mushrooms, has a half-life of 30 years. Russians love their wild mushrooms, but they must remember that those grandmas selling produce on the street corners haven’t had their mushrooms probed with a spectrometer.
Although you can buy sectioned watermelons at the grocery store, somehow it’s not quite the same as lugging home the whole enchilada (as it were). Now there’s a smaller watermelon for you to carry home, weighing in at 3-6 pounds and with a thinner skin. It’s been named PureHeart and was created using cross-pollination, so there was no new-fangled genetic modification. They’re much more expensive than the big guys, but sound perfect if you want to feed a couple people or perhaps just yourself. And you can store them easily in the fridge too.
I never really knew what Mutual of Omaha did, but I figured they liked animals. Remember Marlin Perkins and “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom”? Well it’s coming back, though alas not with the distinctive narration of Mr. Perkins who passed away in 1986. New shows will be aired next week on the cable channel Animal Planet with Alec Baldwin narrating. Wild Kingdom is produced by Mutual of Omaha, which I now know is an insurance company, hence the full name. The original series started in 1963 and ran for 10 years and even longer in syndication, which is how I saw it.
Headlines One Year Later
8:46am 9:02am 9:40am 10:10am
An Uneasy Remembrance
Year of painful recuperation
A Tentative Normality
Society’s Anxiety
‘Alert But Defiant’
Remembrance and Resolve
Resilience and Grief
Journey From Despair to New Purpose
Grieve Today and Then Grasp Tomorrow
In many ways, remembering
Despite having attended a women’s college where most exhibitions and performances were the work of females, I am having trouble wrapping my brain around this concept: the National Museum of Women in the Arts. There are more than 3,000 works in the permanent collection with art from the 16th century to the present. Drawings, paintings, sculpture, embroidery, even silverwork. I am just amazed and delighted that this museum exists. Rooms of art all created by women… don’t imagine it, go see it.
Alas, it appears that stores still haven’t caught onto the need to stock plenty of those extra-long sheets for dormitory bound freshmen. Despite the high percentage (90+%) of college-going seniors in my hometown, my mother still had to special order my sheets from a local store. My college roommate arrived with standard sized sheets, which kept her popping out of bed all night to get the corners tucked back in. Her mom finally found and sent her XL twin sheets, in a pretty peach color which I was envious of since all we were offered was plain boring ol’ white. These days there’s the web to turn to. Online stores that cater to college students, like AllDorm, carry a selection of XLs, even in flannel. Lands Ends’ “Dorm in a Bag” comes in XL and other popular bedding retailers have XLs listed on their sites. So while local shops may not be keeping them in stock, online merchants may have them. And, worst case, it can’t hurt to learn how to fold proper hospital corners on a mattress with flat sheets.
(via Obscure Store)