Wall Street

Posted on December 20, 2021 by admin

Not too many streets get to be metonyms, but Wall Street does, which is a little remarkable for such a short street, only eight blocks from the East River to Broadway, or vice versa. During my walk along the street just before sunset, I wanted to take a closer look at the physical street, not its high finance subtext, which I hear about enough as it is.

I started at the East River Waterfront Esplanade, near where Wall Street meets South Street, which is partly under FDR Drive. You can catch a fine view of Brooklyn from the esplanade.

That’s as close as I got to Brooklyn this time around, as opposed to some other trips.

An enlargement of the sidewalk on the easternmost block of Wall Street forms Mannahatta Park, a pleasant place with bushes and trees and benches. Rose bushes bloomed there this December.

More than two centuries ago, the site was New York’s slave market, and surely not a pleasant place. The city erected a sign only in 2015 to mark the doleful history of the site.

At the corner of Water and Wall is 88 Wall Street, these days the Wall Street Hotel, very much an upmarket property (and not where I stayed) that opened only this year in a former office building.

The hotel’s web site has an unusually long and detailed history of the site, which is only fitting, considering the richly layered history of the street. One of the more remarkable snippets of 88 Wall Street history is the fact that a series of two buildings on the site from 1791 to 1870 were owned by a tontine, and known as the Tontine Coffee House and then the Tontine Building. Out of the 203 investors who had funded the coffee house, seven survived to be beneficiaries of the tontine.

The current building, a Beaux-Arts structure designed by Clinton Holton & Russell in 1901, was for a time home to an import company that was, among many other things, the world’s largest dealer in mother-of-pearl. When plastic buttons bottomed out the market for that material, the company went into cultured pearls.

By the time you pass 88 Wall Street, the thoroughfare takes on its famed canyon-like aspect.

Next to 88 is 74 Wall Street. Its entrance caught my attention.

The ever-useful New York Songlines says: “This round-arched building was put up in 1926 as the Seamen’s Bank for Savings Headquarters (hence the seahorses, mermaids and other nautical motifs); the architect was Benjamin Wistar Morris.”

Nautical motifs, all right, though Seaman’s Bank is long gone.

Almost as remarkable, the building seems to be vacant. Then again, maybe not so remarkable. Despite the persistence of Wall Street as an metonym, and the presence of the New York Stock Exchange, the street hasn’t been the hub of U.S. finance in many years; that moved on to Midtown.

Though not on Wall Street, 1 Wall Street Court — the Beaver Building, 1904 — is visible from there.

67 Wall Street, now a residential co-op.

Songlines again: “This 25-story triangular building, originally known as the Munson Building, was designed in 1906 by Kenneth M. Murchison for the Munson Steamship [Line]. From 1931 until 1972 it was the New York Cocoa Exchange.”

63 Wall Street.

60 Wall Street, a 1988 building designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo.

Originally Morgan Bank’s HQ, these days Deutsche Bank occupies it. I found the lobby impressive.

Soon after this point, it’s pedestrians only. Trinity Church isn’t far away.

40 Wall Street.

Lots of history here. A picture of the upper section.

Songlines: “Formerly the Manhattan Bank Building, this was designed to be the tallest building in the world, but was beaten out by the Chrysler Building’s surprise spire…

“The Bank of the Manhattan Company, which eventually became Chase Manhattan, opened its first office here in September 1799. It was founded by Aaron Burr against the opposition of Alexander Hamilton. The New York Stock & Exchange Board, as the NYSE was then called, had its first permanent office here in 1817.

“Donald Trump calls this the Trump Building; please don’t encourage him.”

37 Wall Street.

A familiar name, but Tiffany’s is a fairly recent occupant. Designed by Francis H. Kimball, a very busy New York architect, the building originally housed the Trust Company of America in 1907, and then a series of other banks. The upper floors are now residential.

Before long, one comes to Federal Hall National Memorial, which is behind some scaffolding now.

George looks a bit cut off up there. Looking down pensively, perhaps, on the nation he created.

There’s plenty else on Wall Street that’s perhaps a little less permanent. For instance, sources of affordable food to price-oppressed New Yorkers.

I bought a falafel at that first one, delicious and large enough to make part of dinner two nights in a row.

Also, men working.

Finally, I couldn’t very well come to Wall Street without a look at the NYSE (11 Wall Street), whose after-hours trading floor I got to visit in 2002.

“It’s a primary rain forest of electronic equipment — the guts of the capitalist beast — no, the sinews of the Invisible Hand,” I wrote at the time. Looking at the allegory-stuffed pediment, I’d also say Temple of Commerce.

New York City ’21

Posted on December 19, 2021 by admin

Until a few weeks ago, I assumed that I’d take no more trips for the rest of the year. I’ve had an exceptional year in that way, so another one would be an unexpected cherry on top of the sundae.

Early this month, my company invited me to some meetings and other events at headquarters in downtown Manhattan, so on Wednesday I flew from O’Hare to LaGuardia, returning today. The first thing I noticed in NY is that the redevelopment of LaGuardia is coming along. LGA is on its way to being a real 21st-century airport, rather than the dingy embarrassment it has long been.

On the whole, the weather was cooperative for a visit, clear and cool until Saturday, when it was cool and alternated between drizzle and mist. The pandemic was not cooperative. Some of the events scheduled for my visit were canceled or otherwise disrupted. New Yorkers were eager to be tested at popup facilities.

I had some time to walk the streets and other pathways of the city, especially on Saturday – a low-risk activity, even in the days before the vaccines – and had a few good dine-in meals, in spite of everything. Such as at a storefront on Water Street, Caravan Uyghur Cuisine, where I had a wonderful lamb dish, besides the experience of visiting a Uyghur restaurant for the first time.

From Wednesday evening to Friday morning, I stayed at a hotel at the non-financial end of Wall Street, and spent the whole time in Lower Manhattan, below Barclay St. From Friday evening to this morning, I stayed at a hotel in Midtown East (or Turtle Bay, on 51st) and spent some time around there, though my travels took me back downtown sometimes.

Lower Manhattan is a fairly small district, with its streets roughly hewing to those of New Amsterdam, meaning a grid that’s been dropped and stepped on, unlike most of the rest of the island. That makes for more interesting exploring, but it’s also possible to get disoriented, though never for very long.

During this visit, I had time to look over two streets in detail, Wall and William, though I poked around some others, such as the charming and close-in Stone Street, where a residue of 19th-century buildings overlook 21st-century outdoor bubbles that serve as restaurant annexes.

Spent some time in Battery Park (officially The Battery, but does anyone call it that?), which was alive with tourists and a few buskers late on Friday afternoon. Including this fellow, who was playing Christmas songs on his erhu. He was good, but not drawing much of a crowd, so I gave him a dollar.

I did a lot of walking, but also rode the subway. It was about the same as ever, except for near-universal masks.

Also, no matter how many times I visit New York, and I’ve lost count, and how many times I ride the subway, I still get on the wrong line, get off at the wrong station, and mistake an express for a local. I did all of those things this time, once each. My wayfaring skills are pretty good, but without more practice, are no match for the irregularities of the system, which was welded together more than a century ago from two different competing systems, the IRT and the BRT, which were themselves consolidations of disparate lines.

On Saturday, my only nonworking day in town, I was up early and walked with my old friend Geof Huth from Battery Park, near where he lives, up the greenway along the Hudson River to the city’s newest park, Little Island, a course of nearly three miles. Here’s Geof on Little Island.

We had a grand walk that morning, passing small parks, gardens, memorials, sculptures, recreational facilities, many Hudson River piers, and urban oddities, such as one of the most brutal structures I’ve ever seen, the Spring Street Salt Shed.

One thing I did not do, which I had fully planned to do on Saturday afternoon, was head up to the other tip of Manhattan to see the Cloisters. By now it’s a running joke with myself. Every time I go to New York, I want to see it. I have since a New Yorker friend of mine first recommended it to me in 1983, and a lot of other people have since then. Somehow or other on each trip, something happens to prevent my visit.

This time I was too tired after the grand walk, though I don’t regret the miles along the Hudson. Not only did we see a lot on the land side of the path, we had some excellent views of Jersey City and eventually Hoboken, across the river. Is it odd that I want to go to those places as well someday? Maybe not as odd as it once would have been.

Had some fine views of Lower Manhattan too, such as with One WTC poking into the clouds. I’m going to consider this a vista, since we were raised a bit above sea level.

Though not technically a vista, I did manage to see the length of Manhattan as we left today.

And a good deal else, such as the infamous Rikers Island.

I thought the year of vistas had come to a conclusion after Russian Hill, but no. I squeezed a few more more in.

Sushi Night

Posted on December 9, 2021 by admin

Everyone’s in town. The evening we had sushi at a place we’ve been to before. The place makes especially good sushi, we all agree. My own favorite is their unagi (eel).

What’s sushi for if not to dig in? The piece in the chopsticks is in fact unagi.

On the way home, we drove to the lights that Elk Grove Village displays near some of its municipal buildings.

Mostly my camera isn’t much for taking night shots — or more probably, I don’t know how to set it — but I like that one.

Wright in Dwight, But Also Odd Fellows, Cobb, and a Relic of Quackery

Posted on December 1, 2021 by admin

Ambler’s Texaco Gas Station is on the edge of Dwight, Illinois, not far from the Interstate, and after our short visit on Sunday, Ann and I went further into town, seeking a late lunch. We found it at El Cancun, a Mexican restaurant in the former (current?) Independent Order of Odd Fellows building, dating from 1916. Looks like the orange of the restaurant has been pasted on the less-colorful IOOF structure.

I didn’t notice IOOF on the building until after lunch, so I didn’t think to ask the waiter about the building, though I did notice that the restaurant space, whose walls were large and colorfully painted, had a gray ceiling that evoked the late 19th/early 20th century. Maybe once upon a time it was a meeting room or bar for the Odd Fellows of greater Dwight.

Even if I’d asked the waiter, I’m not sure he would have known. Got the impression he didn’t grow up in these parts. He was eager to upsell me a margarita, however. I declined. Had the enchiladas verdes, which were quite good, and a classic teetotaler beverage, water.

The IOOF building is across the street from the back of Dwight’s historic railroad station, now a museum. This is the front.

About the depot, more info is easily available. “As with other neighboring central Illinois towns, Dwight began as a locomotive watering stopover,” explains The Great American Stations (now that’s an interesting web site).

“The Chicago and Mississippi Railroad sent surveyors in the early 1850s to this prairie location, and while the stop was just two small buildings and a water tank, James Spencer, Richard Price Morgan, John Lathrop and the brothers Jesse and Kersey Fell of Bloomington participated in laying out a town that they would name for Henry Dwight, who had funded most of the building of this section of the railroad.

“Dwight began growing rapidly in the 1870s, with significant railroad traffic through to Chicago from St. Louis, and the town hired Henry Ives Cobb to design their larger, grander railroad depot.”

Jesse Fell, by golly. Him again. He was definitely a big fish in the little pond of central Illinois.

As for Cobb, he designed the wonderful Newberry Library in Chicago and the phallic but interesting Yerkes Observatory in southern Wisconsin, among many other things.

But for big-name architecture, Cobb’s work isn’t Dwight’s star attraction. That would be the modest Frank Lloyd Wright bank building facing the front of the station. FLW was trying to smash that pre-FDIC paradigm of grand bank buildings, it seems.

Known as the Frank L. Smith Bank when built in 1905, it’s now the Dwight Banking Center of Peoples National Bank of Kewanee. I like the old name better: Frank’s Bank. How many of us get to have our own banks?

Next to the bank is the Fox Development Center, a state-owned facility for treating people with various unfortunate conditions.

Pretty spiffy for a government structure, eh? Originally it was one of the buildings owned by the Keeley Institute, built in 1891 and rebuilt after a fire in 1902 in its current brick-and-stone Greek revival style.

I wasn’t familiar with the Keeley Institute. Here’s the long and short of it: there was a patent medicine for everything in the late 19th century, and the product of one Leslie Keeley, a small town doc, promised to cure alcoholism with injections and liquids to drink. His cure containing a substance whose exact formula was a secret, though Keeley asserted it contained the element gold in one form or another.

Not too many people believed that, but a lot of people believed the Gold Cure might just work, enough to make Keeley a fortune and open up locations around the world that lasted well into the 20th century. The institute’s international HQ was in Dwight.

Curing alcoholism with injections might seem odd to us, but actual medicine was only just beginning to separate itself from patent medicine in those days.

“I will take any liquor habitue there, soddened and saturated by twenty years of alcoholic debauch, sober him in two hours, cut short his worst spree in four hours, take him from inebriety to perfect sobriety without nervous shock or distress, and leave him antipathetic to alcoholic stimulants of every sort and kind inside of three days,” Keeley said of his treatment. He also developed “cures” for opium addition and nervous exhaustion. Ah, if only it were that easy.

Note the slogan on this ad for the Gold Cure.

We Belt The World. Though it’s a little hard to see, that same slogan is still above the entrance of the Fox Development Center, wrapped around a globe in the pediment.

More about Keeley and the Gold Cure is here. Fascinating the things you find on the road.

Umbrella Tea House

Posted on November 23, 2021 by admin

I went out ’round midnight last night to put the car in the driveway. When I finished, I got out of the car and looked up, and there he was, bright as could be: Orion. Winter is here. Been cold much of this month anyway. Off in the distance, an owl woo-woo’d softly.

Back again on November 28. A good Thanksgiving to all, and don’t forget to be up at 4 a.m. on the day after for all those doorbuster sales. I plan to be asleep then, though I might be up to go to the bathroom.

The name of the place we visited recently, according to the sign over the door, is the Umbrella Tea House. That made me wonder: what was the place where Winston Smith hung out at the end of 1984, ahead of his eventual vaporization? The post-Ministry of Love Winston Smith, that is, who loved Big Brother.

That’s the kind of thing I might wonder. I didn’t even have to find my paper copy of the book to find out.

“The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music trickled from the telescreens. Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into an empty glass.”

So I might call the Umbrella Tea House the Chestnut Tree, just for a bit of dark humor that no one would understand unless I explained it. Orwell might have gotten Big Brother and doublethink and maybe even memory hole into the common lexicon, but not the Chestnut Tree.

Umbrella Tea House, which is in a retail strip near the Schaumburg Township District Library, is anything but dark. It’s a bright place.

It has all sorts of interesting features, such as a tip pig, and — not sure how to characterize the second image.

Naturally, umbrellas figure in the décor. Up on the ceiling.

A pleasant place to occasionally drink fancy tea, which we did.

The Presidio

Posted on November 17, 2021 by admin

From Crissy Field on San Francisco Bay, a convenient walking path leads to one of the formal entrances of the Presidio, on Girard Road, and some nearby green space.

Actually Crissy Field is part of the 1,491-acre former fort, which is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and sprawls across the northwestern part of the San Francisco Peninsula. These days, the Presidio includes many former military structures, museums, restaurants, lodging, recreational spots, art installations, trails and lawns, but also residential and commercial properties, including Lucasfilms headquarters.

Too much to see, even in a series of days. Still, I saw a fine slice. I spent most of the afternoon of October 30 at the Presidio, taking a look at some of the large stock of former military properties.

A former band barracks.

I didn’t know that band members ever had their own barracks, but apparently they did at the Presidio. The building could accommodate 37 musical soldiers.

“The Presidio of San Francisco represents one of the finest collections of military architecture in the country and reflects over 200 years of development under three different nations,” says the NPS.

“Today, the Presidio boasts more than 790 buildings, of which 473 are historic and contribute to the Presidio’s status as a National Historic Landmark District. The building types range from elegant officers’ quarters and barracks to large, industrial warehouses, administrative headquarters, air hangars, major medical facilities, and stables.”

Who says the military isn’t concerned with aesthetics in its buildings? Was concerned, anyway.

The Main Parade Ground.

Food was available.

I had some excellent Korean food from the Bobcha food truck. It seemed like a better bet than Viva Vegan, at least to my tastes. Had a nice view while eating, too. I was at the next table down.

Not far from the parade ground is San Francisco National Cemetery.

A picturesque hillside cemetery with towering trees.

At about 28 acres, there are more than 30,000 service members interred there. It was the first national cemetery on the West Coast.

A memorial to an incident that doesn’t have that many memorials: the Boxer Rebellion.

In this case, memorializing four marines from the USS Oregon who died on the Tartar Wall defending the Legations in the summer of 1900.

As I sometimes do, I picked out an ordinary soldier to look up later.

Motor Machinist Mate First Class (MOMMI) Clayton Lloyd Landon of St. Louis, a submariner who went down with the USS Tullibee in 1944. It seems that the vessel was a victim of one of its own torpedoes, as happened sometimes.

Gunner’s Mate C.W. Kuykendall, on watch up top at the time, was the only survivor of the Tullibee sinking, having been knocked into the water by the explosion and later picked up by a Japanese ship, to spend the rest of the war as a POW. Remarkably, he tells his story in a recent video.

“I just feel like I’m lucky.” Well put.

Open House: Catholic Churches

Posted on October 19, 2021 by admin

During Open House Chicago on Saturday, we wanted to see a place called Boxville — “a 17-[shipping] container open-air marketplace full of art, music, food and a variety of entrepreneurial businesses,” the Open House web site says.

But it looked entirely too crowded as we drove by — people waiting for a tour, or a regular shopping crowd? — and there wasn’t anywhere to park close by. Since Boxville is at the E. 51st Street station on the CTA Green Line, that might be the best way to reach it some other day.

So we went on to Corpus Christi Catholic Church, which is at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and E. 49th St., not too far away. Except that as a functioning Catholic church, Corpus Christi has seen its last mass, which was on June 27.

“Corpus Christi… along with St. Ambrose, St. Anselm, St. Elizabeth and Holy Angels churches, will merge July 1 into one new ‘Our Lady of Africa’ parish, under the Archdiocese of Chicago’s ‘Renew My Church’ initiative, ongoing since 2018,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported in June.

“Under Renew My Church, struggling churches and schools are being closed or consolidated, to cut costs for aging infrastructure, as well as to address a priest shortage.

“And while many parishes continue to struggle with challenges from the changing demographics of Catholic mass and school attendance, the sense of loss from closings and consolidations remains the same.”

Thus the future of the building is uncertain. One of the docents told me she hoped another religious organization would buy the property, but it would be an expensive proposition. Still, someone should consider making a deal with the Archdiocese. It’s a resplendent church, especially inside.

But maintenance is clearly an issue.

“This Renaissance Revival building by Joseph W. McCarthy has twin spires and a deeply-coffered ceiling,” says Open House. “Brightly colored stained glass windows, designed in Germany by F.X. Zettler, depict the original church members processing with Pope Pius X…

“During the Great Migration of the 1930s, the church went from serving a predominantly Irish-American community to serving an African-American community.”

Fine detail is evident, including small mosaics.

A few blocks south of the Midway Plaisance, in a block that’s clearly gentrifying, is the Shrine of Christ the King. This is how the exterior looked on Saturday.

This is a Street View from July 2017, a year and some months after a fire gutted the church.

“More than 150 firefighters were called the 90-year-old church, located in the 6400 block of South Woodlawn Avenue…” WLS reported in October 2015. “Chicago Fire Department detectives said spontaneous combustion from rags used to stain the floor of the choir pew is the mostly likely culprit.

“The Shrine of Christ the King was originally a Catholic church, known first as St. Clara and then as St. Gelasius. As the size of the parish diminished, the building faced demolition. However, the building was given historic status and taken over by a religious order in 2006.”

Namely, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, which has been around only since 1990 and whose U.S. national headquarters is in Chicago. The building is considerably older, the final work of ecclesiastical architect Henry J. Schlacks, completed in 1927 (and suffering a previous fire in 1976).

The interior is still completely unfinished. All you could do is look in from the entrance, and hear about its pending restoration from volunteers. I’m all for that, so I put a small donation in the box on the table at the door.

On Sunday, while Yuriko was busy creating a most delicious marble cake —

— I headed to the North Side to take a look at St. Vincent de Paul Church.

“St. Vincent de Paul serves a parish founded in 1875 by the Vincentian order,” Open House says. “The present-day church was completed in 1897, considered to represent architect James Egan’s finest work… The church is constructed of Indiana limestone blending Romanesque architecture like rounded doorways and arcades with French Gothic details such as the large, soaring windows.”

Wonderful to see, but when I left I also took note of a more everyday wonder. Food. Across the street from the church is a joint called Jam ‘n Honey. People were sitting at tables out on the sidewalk, eating what looked like delicious breakfasts. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future reference.

Stir-Fried Fish Cake

Posted on October 6, 2021 by admin

Stir-fried fish cake is something you’ll usually get among the many and delicious side dishes served in Korean restaurants. I remember having it as long ago as the late ’80s, when I frequented a Korean restaurant on N. Clark St. in Chicago that I think is long gone, as well as some of the restaurants on Lawrence Ave. during the same decade, when the Albany Park neighborhood was Chicago’s Koreatown.

The Korean population there has dwindled in the 21st century, WBEZ reports. These days, metro Chicago’s Korean hub is suburban Niles, which indeed has a very large H Mart that we occasionally visit.

You can get stir-fried fish cake (eomuk) there to eat at home.

Niles is a little far for us, so Yuriko typically visits the smaller H Mart in Schaumburg, an outpost of the brand. Besides good Korean food, H Mart carries other Asian items, sometimes — often? — cheaper than at the Japanese grocery stores in Arlington Heights.

“It’s typically, a mix of Alaskan pollock, cod, tilapia and others depending on the region and season,” Future Dish says of eomuk, also known as odeng.

“The leftover pieces from these fishes are grounded into a paste and mixed with flour. Then finely chopped carrots, onion, salt, sugar and other ingredients are mixed into the thick and sticky paste.

“The paste is rolled, shaped and cut into various shapes (sheets, balls and ovals). Then deep-fried for a few minutes.”

It might not look good in my picture, but it sure is.

Now if You’re Ready, Oysters Dear, We Can Begin to Feed

Posted on October 5, 2021 by admin

Still able to eat lunch comfortably on the deck some days. Not long ago, part of my lunch included a tin (well, aluminum container) of Crown Prince Natural brand oysters, imported by Crown Prince Inc. of Industry, California. I don’t eat a lot of oysters, and none will ever be as good as the fresh-shucked oysters I ate while drinking kamikazes at the Fishery in Nashville during the fantastic plastic summer of ’82.

Still, there it was in our pantry. Why not make it part of an al fresco lunch, out among the turning trees? Not sure how long we’d had the tin. But I knew I had to hurry. Best if used by May 1, 2025, the box says.

I made short work of them.

The box tells me that these are “sustainably raised and harvested in South Korean coastal waters. Freshly shucked, smoked over oak and packed in Turkish olive oil.”

The box is further careful to point out that each tin (that’s one serving) contains 1,305 mg of omega-3 fatty acids, like that’s a good thing. Maybe it is, but I’m feeling too lazy to look into it, because looking up nutritional information online potentially means macheting your way through a jungle of nonsense.

Also, non-GMO verified. Wouldn’t want to eat any Frankenoysters, I suppose.

South Korean oysters and Turkish olive oil is an intriguing combo. That they can be combined in the same container and sold for a modest sum here in North America is, I believe, a testament to the vast reach of the global economy, even in a time when international logistics is gummed up.

“Often called ‘the milk of the sea’ for its high nutrient content, the oyster has long been a staple of the South Korean diet,” Bloomberg reports.

“Originally harvested by free divers, oysters are now grown in ocean farms along the country’s southern coastline and shipped overseas to the U.S., Japan and Hong Kong. Appetite for the delicacy has made South Korea the world’s second-largest exporter of the shelled mollusks.”

One more thing: a surprising lot has been said about this particular kind of mollusk.

But none like Lewis Carroll. Select verses:

” ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.’
…
A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.’
…
‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.”

오레오

Posted on October 4, 2021 by admin

Acquired at H Mart not long ago (a box, flattened).

I didn’t know that Oreos (오레오) are available in Korea, but it doesn’t surprise me. Who doesn’t like Oreos? It is a little surprising that Korean-made Oreos are sold in a grocery store in the United States, even one that specializes in Korean products. The label tells me that they were made by the Mi Ga Bang Co. of Gangwon Provence, South Korea.

Presumably to Nabisco specifications. I’m glad to report that inside the box, the cookies are exactly the same as domestic Oreos — at least in appearance and taste, down to the distinctive Oreo design on the face of the cookie that hasn’t changed in my recollection. The cookie that Hydrox could not beat.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Food & Beverage