I’ll try eating a lot strange things. But not that.

Adventurous eating gets my motor running. I feel sorry for people whose favorite restaurant is McDonald’s.

But even I have my limits.

My favorite section of the newspaper all week is the food section. My cupboard, filled with piles of recipes I’ve ripped from food sections over the years, is a testament to my fanaticism.

The Chicago Tribune’s food section, however, stymies me.

They call it the “Good Eating” section, and it usually lives up to its name. Today’s cover story is about dashi.

Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either. And I have two kinds of quinoa in my pantry.

Dashi, I learned, is a fragrant broth made from the pink petals of a dried Japanese fish.

Um, I don’t care about recipes using dashi. Like I could find dashi in Hampshire. Moving on.

Still, I can appreciate a newspaper telling me news about food, and a recipe for macaroni casserole probably doesn’t qualify as news.

A few pages later I found a recipe for Red Quinoa with Dried Fruit and Yogurt.

That one, I ripped out. I take after my mother that way. She made her own hamburger buns the other day, and homemade hazelnut biscotti. She’ll try anything.

But then Good Eating gets to this week’s “How to pair wine” column. Again, good information. Always helpful to know which wine to order in a restaurant or serve to guests.

Let’s see, which wine goes with this week’s recipe for Italian Burgers, essentially hamburgers with mozzarella cheese on top? Gotta be red.

California Zinfandel? Hmm, that sounds good. A Barolo from Italy? I think I’ve heard of that kind of wine before.

What’s this? The Chicago Tribune recommends a 2004 Tenimenti Angelini Brunello di Montalcino Vigna Spuntall from Tuscany, Italy. A sangiovese that costs …

Oh my gosh.

Wait for it.

A bottle costs $85 to $100.

First of all, I’ve never drank an $100 bottle of wine with any food. Ever.

But with a mozzarella cheese burger?

That is seriously over my head.

News flash, Chicago Tribune: People who can afford to drink $100 bottles of wine with their hamburgers aren’t ripping recipes out of the newspaper to make their own burgers.

You know which wine goes best with burgers?

Beer. Beer goes best with burgers.

Yawn, chocolate is plain vanilla in February

Is anyone else sick of chocolate recipes yet?

Apparently, chocolate is the only thing to push in February because it’s, you know, Valentine’s Day in February:

• Practically every library I’ve visited in the past four weeks is pushing their “History of Chocolate” or “Chocolate Tasting Class” in February because it’s, you know, Valentine’s Day.
• The cover of Food Network Magazine is plastered in chocolate. Today’s Food section in the Chicago Tribune had not one, but two recipes for chocolate mousse because, you know, you serve your loved ones chocolate on Valentine’s Day.
• A passel of emails that have invaded my In Box in recent days have touted chocolate cocktails, chocolate tea, champagne chocolate truffles, chocolate at the movies and chocolate for dessert at a nearby vegetarian restaurant. Why? Because Valentine’s Day, you know, isn’t complete without chocolate.

Marketers lacking the creativity gene sell back to school in September, monsters and vampires in October, gratitude in November, “the holidays” (used to be Christmas) in December, losing weight resolutions in January and chocolate in February. Set your calendar to their predictability.

Frankly, most of us should embrace a sale on gym memberships year-round, not just January. Chocolate (and chocolate sales) are delicious any time of year, not only when we’re dropping hints for our main squeezes.

I know, secretly, it’s not the marketers who aren’t creative. The ones who aren’t creative are a lot higher on the ladder, and too often they’re looking for the safe bet. Especially if it helps them maintain or beat last year’s sales, month over month.

I wish Madison Avenue’s monthly themes were a little more broad: Maybe perseverance in January, warmth in February, freshness in March, etc. Happy Freshness Day, anyone?

So we are left with chocolate, chocolate everywhere this time of year because chocolate says love like nothing else, I guess. No one is willing to promote a cup of sweet cream ice cream with almonds, peanut butter and Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup mix-ins. That’s what I had for dessert tonight at Cold Stone Creamery. No emails. No ads. No sale prices. But it hit the creative mark for a February craving.

I loved it.

No satisfaction in cashing this check

The check that was in the mail arrived yesterday.

It was a settlement for a class action lawsuit in which I was a party. Well, one of the lawsuits in which I’m involved. This lawsuit is the case of Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litigation & Ross, et al, vs. American Express Co., et al.

At the risk of being sued, here’s the summary: Credit cards in the early 2000s were charging high (reasonable? outrageous? depends on your perspective) conversion fees to Americans who used their cards when traveling outside the country. Somebody (Ross?) took issue with this and sued the credit card companies on behalf of the card holders.

See, when you use your credit card in another country, the credit card “converts” the purchase in say, Euros or pesos, into U.S. dollars, and it charges you a certain percentage for the privilege. Most travelers choose to do it that way rather than convert dollars to another currency before leaving on the trip because the bank charges even higher (more reasonable? more outrageous?) fees for that.

Like anything having to do with banks nowadays, they get you coming and going.

At the time, I was traveling internationally on a monthly basis and I spent a lot of  personal funds on cool jewelry, funky clothes, strange snacks, mind-expanding entertainment and foreign reading material (I was reimbursed for hotel, meals and taxis, so I didn’t get to claim that). I was made aware of this lawsuit and invited to submit documentation, so about four years ago, I did. I claimed I spent somewhere along the lines of $6,617.37 over the course of eight years on various meaningless trinkets on which the credit card companies charged 1% to 3% in conversion fees.

That was four years ago. The folder of my documentation is so old it was in the very back of my file drawer.

The settlement check was for the tidy sum of …

$32.76.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

It took more than four years, a solid afternoon of my time, 10 million claims from other card holders, two separate lawsuits (this represents the results of only 1) and 11 appeals by the credit card companies to get this check.

Oooh, we really stuck it to the Big Banks, didn’t we?

That’s the part that makes me laugh.

The second lawsuit, if I read this right, is about to be settled. Nearly $50 million in claims have been submitted by members of the 99% like me, and attorneys have been awarded $13.875 million plus the costs of notice and administration of the settlement.

Now that’s a check: $13,875,000.

So the banks overcharge their customers, and a law firm gets millions of dollars for representing the customers. And it takes the American legal system nearly five years to sort the whole mess out. That’s the part that makes me want to cry.

So, I have this check for $32.76. How should I spend it? Should I invest in more cool jewelry and funky clothes? Or buy a tent and a picket sign?

Well, while I ponder it, I think I’ll deposit it.

In a bank.

New Year’s Resolutions: Find a mantra and make it matter

To make New Year’s resolutions that stick, think like a marketer.

Focus on benefits, not features. A feature describes (more noodles, hybrid power, sheepskin lining. A benefit is about desires (which means a heartier lunch, fewer stops at the gas station, your feet won’t get sweaty).

And use a easy-to-remember tagline. “Just do it” sings. “Got milk?” has generated millions of copy cats. “Tastes great, less filling” says something.

So, your resolution should focus on benefits and should come with an easy-to-remember mantra. In the past, my resolutions have revolved around “Let go” (I was proposed to that year I tried to just let things happen), “Make room” (I cleared clutter) and, last year, “Boldly go” (spent three months down south and finished my book).

I’m a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, and I’ll share mine tomorrow, but here are a few I won’t be making:

• I resolve to read People magazine like I’ll be taking a test on the contents.
• I resolve to obsess about imagined slights from minor players.
• I resolve to wipe the counter tops more effectively (my Beloved might like me to make this resolution but … not gonna happen!).
• I resolve to watch the stock market fluctuate wildly, move my investments around and lose sleep over it.
• I resolve to figure out the lure of Housewives of Anywhere.

Some things just aren’t worth worrying about. Major on the majors, I’ve heard it said.

Whatever that means.

Old St. Nick on the throne … really?

It’s at this time of year, I think everyone should have taken an art class or two in college.

Oh, the tacky Christmas decorations I see. Decorations are supposed to decorate, not detract. And the composition? Uff-da. Yes, good composition adds to the aesthetic beauty, and it requires a little restraint. The scattershot approach is not decorating; putting a Christmas touch on everything in sight is neither decorating or composing — it’s puking.

This, for example, is not in good taste:

Why would anyone think it is festive to poop where Santa’s face is? If you paid $12.99 for this on Amazon, you did not get a deal. You got taken for a tasteless chump.

In the name of peace and joy and all that is the spirit of Christmas, do not festoon your toilet in Santa’s regalia. More — as in more red-and-green Christmas tchotchke in every direction — is not better. It’s just more.

And while we’re on the subject of red and green, why on earth do people pay for Christmas M&M yard decorations, as one of the residents of my little village must have done? What do  M&Ms have to do with Christmas? I understand eating these tasty candy-coated chocolates at this time of year, but advertising for them in your yard? That doesn’t make the village a happier place. It makes me sad. It makes me sad that you spent your money and your time to erect an advertisement to candy in your yard thinking it somehow says “Christmas.” It says “soulless.”

I am grateful that my neighbors across the street have chosen a tasteful crèche scene with the word “Joy” lighted in pretty white lights. That’s restraint. That’s beauty. That’s festive. Since I have to look out of my windows every day at my neighbor’s yard, I’m grateful they paid attention in art class.

New packaging sticks in my craw

My favorite flavored drink has a new package (top). The former packaging is on the bottom.

In the words of Paul Simon, I ask Maxwell House, “Now who do … who do you think you’re fooling?”

The marketers at the “good to the last drop” company are wringing every last bit of spin out of the latest packaging change to the International Café line.

I love the Café Francais flavor more than I ought to, and I’ve been buying it for years. A hot cup of that concoction mixed into milk is my decadent little mid-afternoon or evening treat.

International Cafe beverages — formerly General Foods International Coffee until chai tea and vanilla creme were added to the line — have always been packaged in distinct steel tins.

Until recently.

The last, um, container I purchased came with a “New Look, Same Great Taste!” message. The steel had been replaced with, oh, for the love of all that is good and holy …

Plastic.

Over at the Maxwell House website, consumers are handed this manufactured A under the FAQs tab:

Maxwell House International changed from a steel container to a new and innovative Lock-In-Fresh package that gives you increased convenience while helping reduce the impact on the environment. This new package helps seal in freshness, makes our product easier to scoop out, and is more environmentally friendly as it uses 50% less packaging material than the previous package.

Then those clever marketers addressed the design change:

Maxwell House International changed from our traditional white and red look to our new bold, blue look in order to match the look of the Maxwell House family of coffees and remind consumers of the rich coffee heritage behind the product.

Tell the truth, you robber barons!

No one buys International Cafe beverages for the coffee! Despite the pretty coffee beans in the corner and the bigger, more prominent logo, consumers buy these addictive drinks for the sugar and the nondairy creamer and a whole bunch of other unpronounceable ingredients! If we wanted coffee, we’d buy, well, Maxwell House!

But here’s the real rip-off: That plastic “Lock-In-Fresh” packaging with 50% less material is cheaper to produce! But the price has not changed a whit!

Maxwell House dumped the steel packaging and tells consumers it’s greener while pocketing the profits!

I’m no dummy. I’ve been a marketer with that 8-ball pointed at me. I know the language, the skullduggery, the double-talk when I see it. I’ve used it!

Woe be to me. Now I must have my coffee and eat my words, too.

11 Retirement Realities (not 10 — this Top 10 is ‘enhanced’)

Accession, the Wealth Enhancement Group, sent me an offer for a “free” copy of “11 Retirement Realities You Need to Know.”

I’m flattered that Accession would contact me in the same way I’m flattered when a bartender cards me. Sometimes it’s nice to delude one’s 40something self into thinking one looks younger than 21.

But, like the dumb bartender, Accession has the wrong gal.

The expertly written copy noted this guide is written exclusively for “people with investible [sic] assets of $500,000 or more.”

I have a lot of things (including the ability to spell “investable”), but the last thing I have is a half million dollars to invest. And I’m thinking those folks with half-million-dollar portfolios might be able to buy their own copy of “11 Retirement Realities” rather than wait for Accession to offer them a “free” copy.

So, since I’m not going to get a “free” copy of anything from Accession, I thought I’d develop a version of “11 Retirement Realities” for those of us who don’t have a half million dollars in our mattresses:

11 Retirement Realities You Need To Know

1. Don’t bank on myths. The most activity that happens at that “active” retirement community occurs around a card table. It does freeze in South Texas. And blue hair is your destiny.
2. Social Security is a ponzi scheme. Start collecting glass bottles now because by the time you turn 65, or 67 or 72, Social Security will be paying recipients so little, you’ll get more for recycling those bottles and collecting the deposit. Hey, on the bright side, it’ll take only 80 5-cent bottles to buy a promise from Social Security and a cup of coffee.
3. Forget about that wall Rep. Michele Bachmann wants to build along the Mexico border. The fence you should be worrying about it the one that the 1% is going to build around Wall Street to keep out the Occupy Wall Street protesters representing the 99%. You read it here first.
4. The asset you call your home is worth the lot it’s sitting on. If that. You won’t live long enough to recoup the 2007 appraised value.
5. Wondering if you should pay off credit cards with 9% interest rates or contribute 15% of your income to the 401(k) that your company matches up to 3% and invests in company stock? Stop. The math will just get you a headache. You’re screwed either way.
6. When you finally push the baby bird out of the nest, it’ll be saddled with crippling student loan debt and unable to find a job, er, spread its wings. In the end, you’ll both be competing the same low-paying retail job without benefits. Decide now who’ll get the oxygen mask first.
7. Worried about estate taxes? Don’t. You need to have an estate to pass on to your heirs for estate taxes to be an issue.
8. Start studying up on supplemental Medicare insurance now. It’ll take you decades to get through all the fine print.
9. Don’t lay awake thinking about the price of bread when you retire. Based on inflation over the past 28 years, a loaf that cost 50 cents in 1983 will cost $11.05 in 2039, the year you turn 72. Savor the Wonder Bread today and sleep now because it’ll be hard to sleep on an empty stomach when you retire.
10. Consider stalking public officials — especially former members of Illinois state government and Chicago union officials. They’re collecting outrageous public pensions and might offer poverty-stricken folks like you crumbs off their feast tables. Unlikely, but worth a shot.
11. Retire? Ha! You’ll never retire. You will work until you can no longer form coherent sentences and your legs have turned to arthritic blocks of concrete. You will then move your grocery cart of belongings to the street gutter. Near a van. Down by the river.

And you thought the “free” copy sounded like a deal.

Is it too much to ask that common cents be our new currency?

The protesters on Wall Street — and spreading to other cosmopolitan hubs across the nation — have a point about corporate greed and the gap between the rich and poor.

I hate banks. Or, at least, some banks. Or, at least, one bank.

I’ve had it up to here with Chase Bank’s student loan department.

My stepdaughter took out a significant amount of money in student loans, and my husband co-signed for a couple of them. She graduated in May, and the six-month time frame for beginning repayment is approaching.

Mind you, the first payment isn’t due until November. And mind you, my stepdaughter has every intention of repaying her loans. And mind you, my husband is a co-signer, an albeit important but a secondary role if the primary debtor — my stepdaughter — defaults.

Despite all that, Chase has called our home six times in the past three weeks. The first five times, the bank representative was “confirming contact information.” We weren’t home for the first call, but on the second call, my husband talked to the bank representative to confirm his and his daughter’s contact information.

Still, Chase called three more times. Once when I got irate, the bank rep hung up on me. No kidding. By “irate,” I mean I raised my voice. I was not threatening lives or the life of the bank rep’s first-born. I was irked that the bank was calling a third time for information they already had.

By the fourth and fifth calls, I wouldn’t even pass the phone to my husband. I just told them to check their notes. I was assured on the fifth call that the bank rep would “talk with a supervisor” to make sure the automated called were being “coded” properly.

Yeah, I’d like to code you.

Sixth call: The bank rep, after I demanded that the bank rep add to the notes that “stepmother is irate about the bank harassment,” apologized for the previous phone calls and said he was calling about deferment. Deferment? Seriously? Shouldn’t you be talking to the primary debtor first?

At that point, I called my stepdaughter and asked her to contact the bank directly, which she did, and now we’ll see if Chase Bank calls our house again next week.

The hassling has reached a level of total farce. No payments have been late. The first payment isn’t … even … due … yet! If Chase Bank employed a few less call centers harassment specialists, maybe my stepdaughter could enjoy a lower interest rate.

It makes me want to create a clever picket sign and spend some time in the financial district in downtown Chicago.

Really, who do you call when you’re being bedeviled by a bank? It’s like, who do you call when the fire department burns down your house? There’s no 911 for this. Yes, my stepdaughter borrowed money. Yes, my husband co-signed. Yes, papers were signed promising repayment. I get it.

But there is nothing wrong yet! We’re the good guys!

There is no way my stepdaughter could have gotten that kind of money without a bank.

But I am really hating banks right now.

Especially Chase Bank.

Please Mr. Postman (and thank you)

Who doesn’t love mail?

Sure, you can find a lot of crap in your mailbox — bills, advertisements, newsletters from your Congressman — but the idea that a handwritten letter might be in there draws you to check the box the first minute the postman, er, letter carrier, steps away from the porch. Or curb. Or vast bank of bland letterboxes.

Email might preoccupy us the same way we used to obsess about snail mail, but the yearning to discover “you’ve got mail” is more intense for a delivery that comes only once a day.

As my postmistress was weighing letters for me this morning, I told her how much I appreciate her. The post office here is as little as the village, and thank goodness, it’s not in danger of closing like thousands of other little post offices across the country as the U.S. Postal Service overhauls its operation to cut costs. We’re notorious customers in Hampshire. My commercial insurance agent husband sends and receives enormous envelopes of paperwork almost every day. We use mail-stops regularly, sometimes for weeks at a time, and when we were traveling in the South earlier this year, we used the mail forwarding service which shipped our missives to us — wherever we were — once a week. And our preoccupation with eBay forces our carrier to step out of his vehicle to place the latest deal on our porch on a near daily basis. We’re the kind of customer that wrings every penny out of those stamps.

Who else delivers items of almost any size to your door six days a week for as little as 44 cents? Brown comes close, but I can’t send birthday wishes via UPS unless I include a gift. For goodness sake, it takes $3 plus a tip to get our Chinese food delivered from the Iron Wok a mile away. The envelopes I mailed today will be in New York by Saturday morning (find out what I mailed on my other blog about my book aspirations). I can hardly drive to New York in two days.

While some people might decry the postal service as going the way of the dinosaurs, I am not among them. I will miss Tuesday or Saturday delivery should the USPS decide to cut back. The people who work at the post office really work, unlike some government bureaucrats I’ve encountered, so postage is one “tax” I’m more than willing to pay.

One last note to this rant: The people who complain the loudest about how the only mail in their mailboxes is junk might look in the mirror before they look into their empty letterbox. If you’re not receiving handwritten letters, you’re probably not writing them either.

3 tips for toilet etiquette

Having spent 11 hours and more than 500 miles in a car today, I had the opportunity to see and, oftentimes, use a wide variety of porta-potties, wayside restrooms, fast food ladies’ rooms and Burp ‘N Slurp commodes.

The state of toilet etiquette in these joints along Interstate 90 is deplorable, and I suspect the same may be said for powder rooms across America. (Side note: Nothing in the Midwest is as scary as the public bathroom I encountered once in Tokyo: It was a concrete trench in the ground. That’s it. No stall. No seat. No paper. A hole. For a woman with an inseam of 36-inches, squatting down that far is feat by itself. Impossible with pants one leg on and one leg off. And for God’s sake, keep the panties out-of-the-way, too! Oh, the horror! Never again.)

If we all were to follow these three simple — and dare I suggest, basic — tips for toilet etiquette, our next visit to the public restroom might be a bit less nightmarish. Let’s give it the old college try, shall we?

1. Aim. Yes, I realize this could be a rant all by itself, but really, how difficult is it to actually get the pee in the bowl? It’s a rather large target, relatively, don’t you think? And the equipment you’re using isn’t as powerful as you might like to boast. I should think you could control it a little bit better than the gentleman (no, I doubt it) who used the porta-potty at the football field this morning before I got there. Pee all over the seat? Really? It was 11 a.m.? Did you indulge in a few too many Bloody Marys at that time of the morning already? Disgusting.
2. Flush. This issue is moot in a porta-potty, but in a proper toilet, really, is it that difficult to press the lever? An extra second, if necessary? That is one reason soap, water and towels are provided, you know: To wash one’s hands after using the can. To get the ick off. If actually pulling the flusher is that repulsive to you, learn how to use your foot. Leaving a stew of black scum and soggy toilet paper stagnating in the bowl is not acceptable. No excuses.
3. Alert. If aiming is a problem exhibited by males, then it’s females who need to speak up when you use the last of the toilet paper in the bathroom! Seriously, the gas station attendant will never see you again. It strikes shame at your immortal core to mention as you walk by, “Hey, the ladies’ loo could use some more toilet paper, sweetheart”?

I am off to the shower. To scrub the vestiges of dirty privys from my memory. And other skin surfaces.