Tag: food

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane – It’s Lunch!

I had a couple of ostrich burgers just now (oh, Lord! he’s back on his ostrich jag — spare us!), and I have to tell you, especially for those who are relatively new to this site and who missed prior ostrich postings that even sizzled in my unskilled skillet they came out tasting almost exactly as burgers should taste. They tasted, that is, like ketchup. No better, no worse, and very little different.

I tell you this not as a money-saving tip. The stuff goes for $3.50 a ground pound plus shipping. And the shipping, if you get your birdburger flown in, as I do — 318-894-3044 — ain’t cheap. (Ah, the irony. The poor birds have to die to fly.) Rather, I tell you because for those of you who had your last burger years ago, when your buttons began popping and your cholesterol level began to resemble an area code, it should be interesting to note that there’s actually less fat in ostrich than in chicken or turkey (2 grams versus 3 grams in a small portion), let alone beef(16 grams). And yet this is as “red” a meat as you’re likely to find.

The other advantage of ostrich is that for quasi-semi-pseudo-neo vegetarians — i.e., those of us who still eat fish and chicken but have largely sworn off more lovable animals — ostrich are fowl and nasty. I know, I know: there’s no fat at all in a turnip. But for those who like red meat, ostrich may be a temporary compromise.

Full disclosure: I own no ostrich farms, no ostrich futures, am in no way related to anyone (I know of) who does. I did get a two free ostrich eggs from Superior Ostrich after plugging them the last time, but one of them came broken and I’m really not sure what to do with the other. Your health is my only motivation here.

 

Updates

My ostrich burger patties arrived from Louisiana — $3.50 a pound plus second-day air freight. The cooler kept it all frozen, and the burgers, which have about one-eighth of the fat of hamburgers and fewer than half the calories, tasted just about the same. Unlike turkey, or chicken, ostrich is very red meat. (Incidentally, my apologies for a typo in that nutritional table: the cholesterol numbers expressed in grams, as one of you sharp-eyed readers pointed out, should have been labeled milligrams.)

And for you vegetarians in the crowd (hey: looking at that very red meat has given me serious vegetarian thoughts), I recommend Health Valley fat-free “Healthy Soup in a Cup” — specifically, the “corn chowder with tomatoes.” I’m not saying it’s particularly frugal, at about $1.89 for what becomes 15 ounces of soup (though at least you don’t have to have it air-shipped, and no one has to chop its head off while it’s in the sand). And I’m not saying it’s all that elegant to be eating soup out of the same cup you cook it in. (Charles is in Paris or I’d never get away with this.) But I just love the efficiency of it all. It weighs next to nothing (cuts down on shipping and lets you “lug” a dozen of them home with your little finger). It tastes great (warning: I am an easy audience). And all you do is pour some boiling water into the cup (or microwave), let sit, drink, and toss out the cup. Not a bad hot lunch at the office once you get the hang of how long to microwave it. Who says life isn’t getting better every day? (What’s that? You object to tossing out the cup? Well, rinse it out and then use it for your coffee.)

Meanwhile, as I was hard at work taste-testing this stuff for you, my Russian stock broker coughed up every penny I was owed. It wasn’t like investing here, where you know you’ll get the proceeds of your sales promptly. The dollars took more than two months to arrive. But — to my mild surprise and great delight — I got back every cent of my original investment plus a nice fat profit (which you can rest assured I promptly blew on some other stupid investment). I think it certainly helped to have a friend on the scene to make some calls. And it helped that I spent a few hundred dollars to hire a firm that specializes in such matters. What I don’t know, and may never, is whether my Russian broker was actually trying to keep my money, or whether he had encountered difficulties and bureaucratic weirdnesses of his own. (“This is Russia!” after all, as people there are fond of saying.) But I said I’d let you know what happened, and that’s what happened.

I continue to think that, while speculative, Russia represents quite an opportunity. If the Templeton Russia Fund (TRF) should tank one of these days, perhaps on the eve of Yeltsin’s operation, or if it fails to go well, or there’s some other big scare, I think I’d pick up a few more shares. It’s risky . . . but not if it represents only a small portion of the funds you earmark for long-shots.

Finally, an update on my friend Jim Halperin’s first novel, The Truth Machine. It was no place two months ago and is now in every bookstore in the country, more or less, making me green with envy and Jim green with greenbacks. It’s an amazing story made more so last week, when Warner Brothers optioned the movie rights for big bucks. The producer is Bruce Berman, who was the studio head for the last two Batman movies and all three Lethal Weapons. And what I hate most about Jim Halperin is not his extraordinary success — that I suppose, as a friend, I could learn to abide — but the ease with which he does all this, part-time, while running a business. As we speak, I’m on page 257 of his second novel. Sad to say, it’s a lot of fun.

Ostrich = Again?

I thought we were done with the ostrich comments, but take a look at this:

OSTRICH MEAT COMPARISON

3 oz. Protein Fat Cholesterol Calories
serving (grams) (grams) (milligrams)
Ostrich 22 2 58 92
Chicken 27 3 73 140
Turkey 25 3 59 135
Beef 21 16 74 240
Lamb 22 13 78 205
Pork 24 19 84 275

Dave Davis sent me these numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Nutritive Value of Foods.” He also found us a supplier: Superior Ostrich Products at (800) 905-6287. Their address is PO Box 547, Ringgold, Louisiana, 71068.

Ostrich is so expensive it reminds me of the late Malcolm Forbes line about the wealthy widow who said she couldn’t eat at a particular four-star restaurant because she didn’t like to eat her money.

But at $12 a pound for the prime cuts, plus air freight (and as little as $3.50 a pound for ostrichburgers), it’s cheaper than a trip to Australia.

Remember: marinate, marinate, marinate.

Tomorrow: Chickens

I’ll Squire You Around Hawaii

Frequent visitors to this site know they are burdened with a couple of my obsessions. One for “historic documents;” another for low-fat foods (have you tried Dannon’s new “Light ‘n Crunchy” frozen yogurt? the peanut butter crunch is fat-free and 440 calories for an entire pint); another — the subject of today’s comments — for auto insurance reform.

There’s this battle we waged in California, the history of which, if you care, I have chronicled at length in the October issue of WORTH Magazine (the one with Ralph Nader on the cover — the title, despite my professed admiration for much Mr. Nader has accomplished, being RALPH NADER IS A BIG FAT IDIOT).

Here’s the executive summary: more of California’s auto insurance premium dollars go to lawyers, when you’re hurt than to doctors, hospitals, rehabilitation specialists and, yes, even chiropractors combined. Fixing the auto insurance system would cut out the lawyers in most cases. The trial bar hates that. And in this Mr. Nader has always been their ally.

I won’t reprise the whole thing here, but the flavor of it might be caught from a recent press release sent out by our opposition (currently calling themselves the “Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights”).

It says that the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that provided most of our financing, people like Intel, “having grown extraordinarily wealthy from the patronage of computer-using consumers” — you — “now want to undermine the basic institutions of Democracy.”

First you get rich in software and chips; then you feel this overwhelming desire to undermine Democracy. How? Three ways: by fixing California’s auto insurance mess (Prop 200); by making unfounded securities class actions more difficult to bring, as Congress overwhelmingly did at the federal level last year (Prop 201); and by putting a sort of “usury” cap on lawyers’ contingent fees when there’s a quick settlement (Prop 202, based on a concept widely endorsed by both the left on the right).

The two-and-a-half-page single-spaced Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights press release is, in short, ridiculous. But the part I read with most interest, naturally, is the part that targets me.

I’m described as a “business consultant” (I’ve never done any business consulting) and “a friend of the big corporations and insurance companies who often swindle or abuse consumers and small investors” (to which I don’t even know where to begin to respond). But the specific charge I thought I should answer, because it could impact your vacation plans, reads: “In 1995, Tobias was squired around Hawaii by State Farm to support legislation similar to Prop 200.”

Squired around Hawaii.

Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll provide the same cushy deal to every one of you (and to the good people at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights). I will give you a Hawaii vacation and see that you are squired around just as I was. The only conditions are, first, that, like me, you pay your own way to get there, your own hotel and meals, your own airport cabs; second, that you wear a suit and tie the whole time; third, that you go in late June, when it’s good and hot; fourth, that you stay a maximum of 48 hours; and fifth, that you spend most of your time talking to people about auto insurance.

Pretty damn tempting, no?

In truth, I wasn’t exactly squired around Hawaii, a breath-taking seven-island chain. I was driven around downtown Honolulu by a P.R. guy in a sedan.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights press release would be laughable if it didn’t come from Ralph Nader’s camp. Aren’t they supposed to be the good guys?

Tomorrow: Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen

Reader Mail: Updates and Elaborations

AMERICAN EXPRESS REWARDS – SAVE $50?

I think that in your May 14th comments on the American Express Rewards Program you should have mentioned that membership costs $25 per year (1st year waived) and $50 to enroll using a Corporate American Express Card. I’m sure Mr. Broad doesn’t worry about the fee, but others might.” [I had passed on the report of SunAmerica’s Eli Broad charging a $2.4 million Roy Lichtenstein painting to his Amex “to get the miles.”]

One interesting avenue explained to me by the nice lady at American Express is to enroll your personal card for the $25.00 fee and then link your Corporate card as a secondary card for free.” — Peter Iannone

Thanks, Peter. I don’t have a corporate card, but if I did, it sounds as if you’d have saved me $50.

OSTRICH MARINADE

David Davis, Public Relations director for Dallas’s Adolphus Hotel, read my comment about ostrich steak and suggested the following marinade. I’m not entirely sure what a marinade is — I think it’s what you let the ostrich steak sit in for a day or two before actually cooking it — but I know some of you will follow this as easily as others of us follow yield curves.

Ingredients:

6 whole lemons, skinned
6 sprigs fresh thyme, cleaned and stemmed
3 shallots, chopped
5 pearls garlic
2 tablespoons whole peppercorns (or 2 ounces)
4 cups salad oil (or 28 ounces)
3 tablespoons honey (or 3 ounces)

Directions:

Place the above ingredients–except for the salad oil–in a blender. Mix the ingredients well while slowly adding the salad oil a little at a time. When the mixture is thoroughly blended, pour it over the ostrich meat in a tight-fitting basting pan. DON’T STRAIN THE MARINADE. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 4 to 6 hours. Sear each ostrich portion and finish in the oven at 375 degrees for 10 minutes (max). Serve medium rare with fresh fruit, a sweet sauce (blackberry, for example) or a honey vinaigrette. Since it has virtually no fat, the ostrich meat has to be cooked sparingly. It dries out very quickly.

Let me know if you and your friends have problems with this recipe. I can find out how to fine-tune it for you. (I’m no help personally in this area. The kitchen in my condo is used as storage space for my financial records.)

Remember: Don’t strain the marinade!

HOOVER – BIG DAM, NOT SUCH A SMALL MIND AFTER ALL

And while Mr. Davis has the floor, here is yet another remarkable message (remarkable for the trouble he went to on our behalf). It is in response to my July 25 comment on Herbert Hoover. Hoover was writing to film studios in 1917, urging them to stop using real food in their movies. Either use something fake or take out the scene, he suggested, which I took to be a rather petty contribution to the War Effort. Was the fellow conserving steel by suggesting reuse of paper clips soon America’s Vice President?

But Mr. Davis adds perspective:

I went by the library after lunch today and flipped through some biographies on Herbert Hoover to see if I could find your letter referenced. No luck. But the books confirmed that he was appointed “Food Czar” by President Woodrow Wilson in May 1917. According to biographer Eugene Lyons, this is what happened: “In the months before his return [from Europe], he [Hoover] had made for Mr. Wilson quiet surveys of food, shipping, and other elements of war. . . . From the first, ‘food mobilization’ had been recognized as America’s number one obligation if and when it joined the war. The formation of a special agency to deal with every phase of food provisioning was the President’s suggestion, but the availability of Hoover doubtless hastened the decision. In conference with Wilson, on May 5, Hoover accepted the invitation to organize and head up this agency. He made the same stipulations he had made in assuming the Belgian burden; first, that he was to receive no pay, and second, that he was to have full authority.” Lyons goes on to say that “Some twenty million individuals–housewives, restaurant managers, food processors, wholesalers, retailers, shippers–signed pledges making them ‘members’ of the Food Administration, as attested by a certificate and lapel buttons. . . . The very landscape of America shrieked the reminder, ‘Food Will Win the War!’. . . .” More than you wanted to know, but there you are.

Sounds vaguely like Gerald Ford’s WIN pins — Whip Inflation Now.

I just found the Ceres web site. You are obviously associated with Ceres. What is that association? Are you a principal? By your association are you recommending Ceres? In your books you seem to espouse mutual funds over individual stocks as an investment. Have you changed your mind? — James Griffin

My association with Ceres: they pay me (generously) to write these comments. I have no stake in the company and no relationship beyond that. True, I wouldn’t have accepted the assignment if I doubted the company’s integrity. But so far as I know, they are sound and principled — and at $18 a trade, I had little fear anyone would be overcharged.

I still espouse low-expense, no-load mutual funds — for example, in the disclaimer at the top of each of these comments. But like a lot of people, I trade stocks anyway. Even (horrors!) the occasional option. When I do, I like to keep my transaction costs low. I do maintain “full-service” accounts at a well-known firm, but it is mainly out of loyalty to my long-time friend/broker there — a relationship begun several years before there were discount brokers or personal computers at all. I don’t have an account at Ceres, but have been very pleased with my account of several years’ standing at Accutrade, owned by the same parent. Accutrade costs more than Ceres, but I’m too lazy to switch. I also have an account at Fidelity, but use it mainly as a checking account.

Tomorrow: Ripley’s – Believe It Not

Ostrich

I ate my first ostrich out at the beach this past weekend. Eddy the butcher had apparently been asked by one of its better customers to order ostrich for some special occasion, and either the customer changed his mind or else there was some left over — whatever the deal, Eddy asked me whether I might be willing to try some for $15 a pound, and I said yes.

Eddy’s is the kind of family business that reminds one of what small-town America must have been like when nobody locked his doors. I’ve been shopping there for 22 years—watched Eddy grow up helping behind the counter (and now his kids are helping). So I would have said yes no matter what. But on top of that — OSTRICH! How can you not break into an idiotic grin at the thought?

Think of the conversational possibilities.

“You and Bill like to come over for some ostrich?”

Or . . .

“Us? Not much. We spent the day marinating our ostrich.”

I can find amusement in vegetables — long-time New York Magazine readers will remember the unretouched photo of an eggplant that looked almost exactly like Richard Nixon, may he rest in peace — so you can imagine the twinkle in my eye with this under my arm.

“Don’t forget the ostrich!” I said as loudly as I could to the high school girl bagging up our purchases.

Of course, we weren’t carting home an entire ostrich, or anything close. No hoofs. No feathers. Just a two-pound slab of deeply red meat that looked rather like a giant raw liver.

One of our weekend guests, a Hollywood director, eats no red meat because of the way cows are slaughtered. (My own reason: the fat content.) Pork is “white meat” (on a fat-par with chicken), but he wouldn’t eat that either, for the same reason. Doesn’t like the way pigs are slaughtered. He admitted to a certain inconsistency in his willingness to eat chicken and fish — being slaughtered can hardly be fun for any species — so even on well-trod culinary ground his ethical guidelines were blurry. But ostrich? It looked like red meat, but apparently has even lower fat content than white-meat turkey. And who knows how they kill the things? My guess is they provide a bucket of sand and then — well, you know. Not wanting to take any chances, our guest had soup.

I’m no cook, but was invited to stick a fork into the dinner-to-be and found myself barely able to do so. Imagine sticking a fork into a tire. Yet with 36 hours’ diligent marination (in beer, onions, salt and other spices), the most remarkable thing happened: it came out really well! A London broil in appearance, sliced really thin; a Sydney broil in taste.

There is no financial point to this. I am not taking the long way round to introduce you to ostrich futures or recommend a chain of exotic-game restaurants.

But I would say that to succeed in the financial marketplace it helps to be the kind of investor willing to try the ostrich — and to abandon it once it becomes a fad. Investing in Russia when Yeltsin was trailing badly in the polls was a little like that. “Invest in Russia?” most people would have said. “You try it first. Maybe if he gets re-elected I’ll stick my toe in.” But now that he has, you have to pay twice as much. (So now might be a good time to take some profits — although the entire Russian stock market is still valued at less than 25% of the Coca Cola Company.)

The other obvious ostrichism:

Adapt to a changing world. Bury your head in the sand and it could get chopped off.

Tomorrow: Hoover: Big Dam, Small Mind?

Bagels

Bagels: the staff of life. But what if they go stale? Just give them 15 or 20 seconds in the microwave. It’s a miracle! Indeed, you will never have to throw out stale bagels or bread or buns or muffins again. Think of the money you’ll save!

(I’m less sure what to do if they’re moldy. I know mold on cheese can be a good thing.)

The same microwave nightmare that reheats but turns a crispy pizza crust mushy is the salvation of your stale baked goods.

You heard it here first. Or has Martha Stewart beaten me to it?

Reader Mail

Much of the fun of writing this daily comment is the daily feedback. Herewith, a sampling:

With respect to the comment about my Rastafarian employee who’d been arrested for possessing a pound of marijuana — is society best served by paying to put such people in jail, I wondered? — came this sensible reply:

“I haven’t smoked (pot) in years and don’t want my granddaughter to, but the current system has proven ineffective and is a waste of tax dollars. If we are trying to protect people from themselves by making marijuana illegal, then what the hell does a drug bust do to their life?! (Never mind screwing up what could have been a fine day.)”

(As it turned out, the marijuana was confiscated and the charges dropped.)

With respect to my Jacqueline Onassis letter to Rudolf Nureyev, where I asked whom Jackie might have been referring to when she said, “Caroline is so jealous of Tina” — who was Tina? — one of you answered:

“Christina — Onassis’s daughter.” You kindly omitted . . . “you moron” . . . from your message, but you would have been fully entitled to think it.

Finally, with respect to baked potatoes, one of you wrote:

“Substitute parsley or chives for “lots of salt” and try the Light & Lively V-8, and I’ll give you a big Aaa…men!”

Another of you wrote:

“Think how much money you would save if you put that big potato in the same glass with the V8. Not only will it save on dish washing detergent, salt and pepper, you wouldn’t have to worry about burning the roof of your mouth.”

Touché.

Big Potatoes

Looking for a way to save money? The E in POTATO stands for “excellent.”

Microwave a big one until really mushy, with the skin all thick and wrinkled . . . add lots of salt and pepper and a tall glass of V8 . . . and you’ve got a healthy fat-free lunch for about a dollar. Save $4 a day this way for a year and, apart from helping to shed an unwanted pound or two, you’re $1,400 richer.

Careful: don’t burn the roof of your mouth.

Tomorrow: Priority Mail

Alvin’s Tips II

Yesterday I passed on a bit of wisdom for an 83-year-old San Franciscan who knows. Today, more of Alvin’s tips:

“At Safeway, I buy their store-brand bread — day old if possible. I got a 1-1/2-pound loaf of their top bread for 79 cents and a 1-pound loaf of raisin for 79 cents also. They are just as soft and last just as long as regular bread.” (The logician in me imagines that day-old bread lasts precisely one day less long than regular bread, but that’s not the point. By Alvin’s lights, it lasts until he’s finished eating it, which is all that matters.)

You scoff, you why-not-eat-cake devil’s-food-may-care youngster, you. But Alvin retired 18 years ago and has tripled his net worth in the meantime (exclusive of the value of his paid-up home). Along the way, he’s gone to England, France (twice), Holland, Australia, Morocco, Egypt — and a lot more. Plus, he managed to give someone he cared about $25,000 to solve a personal problem. So day-old bread it will be from now on.

Alvin has some other tips — taking paper bags back to Safeway for a nickel each, recycling his cans every quarter to pick up an extra $7, buying cashmere sweaters at the Salvation Army thrift shop, getting 3% off on his 87-cent BP gas by using their credit card (and paying it off promptly each month) — but I want to leave these for his book.

Here’s wishing him 18 more happy and prosperous years of retirement — and 18 after that.

Tomorrow: Drug Bust