Tag Archives: retail

The Manliest Vegetable

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Today was one of the days that should be warm, but isn’t. Winter doesn’t want to let go. It even snowed a little, with cold rain predicted for the rest of the week. Bah.

I don’t have what it takes to be a drinking man, but I did visit a large liquor store not long ago, along with my brother Jay. That’s where I learned that potatoes are the manliest of all vegetables. Who knew? That’s a promotion for the humble spud, I think. Jay documented the evidence with his phone.
Total Wine & More San AntonioDeutsch Family Wine & Spirits imports the vodka into the United States, and its web site says: “Luksusowa Vodka (pronounced LOOK-SOO-SO-VAH) was created in 1928 in Poland. Luksusowa means ‘Luxurious’ in Polish… A smooth, rich, high-quality imported vodka that beats the competition in terms of flavor, mouthfeel & price.”

Mouthfeel? I’ve never heard of that before, but it’s one of those words that instantly explains itself.

Moo & Oink

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All of the holiday-themed merchandise you’d actually want to buy is long gone by now, snapped up at discounts in the days after Christmas. That leaves the likes of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie Set that I saw for sale today: a ridiculous item at a very steep markdown. Makes 6 to 8 ugly sweater cookies, the box said. It was illustrated with cookies shaped like brightly decorated sweaters.

When and how did the notion of ugly Christmas sweaters become popular? It happened while I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll continue to be apathetic about it, so I won’t bother to look into it. (But I will record here that Lilly went to a party with that theme this year.)

I didn’t buy the cookie set. I did need some barbecue sauce, and happened across an 18 oz. bottle Moo & Oink High 5 BBQ Sauce. That I bought.

Marketing verbiage on the bottle says: “Let’s face it, you take your BBQ seriously. So when it comes to what you put on your ‘Q,’ serious BBQ lovers are brushing on the thick & tasty blend of ingredients in HIGH 5™ BBQ Sauce.” The first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup.

Seems to be residuum of the Moo & Oink grocery stores that used to be on the South Side of Chicago, but which closed in 2011. I never went to any of their stores, but I did occasionally see the commercials.

Skeletons in the Big Box

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Yesterday I was wandering the aisles of a major warehouse store when I noticed a life-sized model of a human skeleton hanging at one of the endcaps. I had to investigate further. Turns out it was a bit of Halloween decoration for sale, along with some other items. Halloween?

I took a closer look. The quality was high, or so I imagined, not having spent much time with actual human bones, other than the ones hidden within our fleshy selves. Lilly was with me, and I said it was too good just to take out on Halloween. Better yet, we could get one and put it in a closet most of the year. That’s where skeletons should be, right?

— Or, I continued as we walked away, we can take one with us on our next road trip, and hang it in the motel closet. That should give the cleaning staff something to talk about.

— Are you really considering that? she asked.

— No, they might freak out and call the cops. Anyway, I forgot to check the price. But it’s probably too much just to spend on a joke. And we don’t have enough closet space.

Later I wondered, do other languages have a similar idiom to a skeleton in the closet, or is it peculiar to English? I was going to look into that, but I didn’t get any further than Skeletons in the Closet, the LA County Coroner’s Office Online Store. I found myself looking at it and thinking, is this for real? Does the LA County Coroner actually sell – or benefit from the sale of — clothing, cups, hats, key chains, magnets and the like? Looks like it.

 

South Loop Lights

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I went to a real estate event in the South Loop yesterday, at a mixed-use property started in 2007 but delayed, as so many were — and still are — by the Panic of 2008. But there’s been some recovery since then. These days, the property’s in reasonably good shape, with its apartments leased and retail tenants committing for space.

It has a U-shaped layout, with the residential floors on either side of a drive that runs the length of property, and an upscale movie theater at the end of the U, which is open for business.

It’s one of those places that has a fancy bar upstairs from the lobby of the theater, which is where the event was held. I didn’t drink there, but the bar food was pretty good. Fine views of the city from that vantage. The room had interesting lighting, too, which allowed me to take pictures like this one of the small crowd.

Outside the theater, not far from the Seward Johnson statue, shines this array of lights.

Nice to see a spot that isn’t all decked out for Christmas yet. Unless this is Christmas décor that’s trying to smash the prevailing red-green-gold-silver paradigm.

Mariano’s Fresh Market

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This year’s Thanksgiving meat: beef ribs. We discussed other choices, with the more standard fare rejected, though I wouldn’t have minded brining a turkey again. Obtaining the last of the items for the meal on Wednesday night meant visiting the new Mariano’s Fresh Market at Golf and Barrington roads, which has been open about a month. It’s the latest Chicago-area store by the chain, which is owned by Milwaukee-based Roundy’s Supermarkets.

I hadn’t been there before, but I’ll be back. It can’t quite replace Ultra Foods, since Mariano’s isn’t a discounter, but it’s a good combination of an ordinary grocery (around here, that means Jewel and Dominick’s) and an upmarket chain like Whole Foods, without Whole Foods prices. Or so I thought on first inspection. We’ll see if that holds up. Also, there are plenty of interesting brands I’ve never seen before, so the place merits further exploration.

Best purchase: a coconut cream pie for Thanksgiving dessert. Pretty much like the pies you can get at Bakers Square, but without the ordering in advance for a holiday, and at roughly the same cost. Best product that we didn’t buy: canned Spotted Dick, in the section selling British products. Enough to make me laugh, since I was once a 14-year-old boy, and he hasn’t completely gone away.

Hub-UK.com tells us that “Spotted Dick is a steamed suet pudding usually made with dried currants, hence the ‘spotted’ part of the name, which is traditionally served with custard. Why it is called ‘Spotted Dick’ is not exactly clear. There is a similar pudding called Spotted Dog which is made using plums rather than currants but it would seem unlikely that Dick is a corruption of dog.”

I wonder how I never saw Spotted Dick at the grocery store we used to patronize in Ealing years ago, where I did see Mr. Brain’s Pork Faggots.