Who Was That Masked Woman?

           Pretend you have a new product to sell. You have a Zoom conference with everyone involved, including the package designer. And this is the single best thing you can say about your product, so you put it on the front of the package:

         Seriously? You can throw this away? Not much of a high water mark, is it?  No bragging about the comfy fit, the effectiveness, the cute design, the washable fabric, the durability. Nope—this thing can be trash in a nano-second.

          Not only that, but isn’t EVERYTHING disposable? I mean, literally, everything?  So we have a redundancy issue as well.

          Some time ago I blogged about a product that claimed to be “Semi-Odorless.”  Semi?  Partially? Not quite?  If you can’t say it’s completely odorless, why bring the matter up?

          Tell me how well these items would sell:

          Jeans: Almost Comfy!

          Cereal: So soggy you won’t even need milk!

          Paint: Fairly Good Coverage

          Toothpaste: Four out of Five Dentists recommend  it (I want to talk to that fifth dentist).

          And how anyone sells a prescription medication with the crazy side effects they list is beyond me. They’re all worse than the malady they’re supposed to treat.  You’ve heard the same list: May cause suicidal tendencies, paralysis, cancer, blurred vision, abdominal swelling, and diarrhea, strokes, and tremors.

          At least the face mask won't send me to the emergency room.

          And you are totally safe buying my books. The worst that can happen is a cramp from laughing. (And be sure to order my VERY inexpensive Christmas short story, A Little Christmas Prayer. Makes a great gift!)

Can You Do This?

           Hidden talents. C’mon, you know you have them. I’m going to share three of mine today, and hope you’ll tell me yours as well.

          First, I will share one of St. Bob’s. He has Scissor Toes. Actually, they’re more like plier toes, or wrench toes. He can literally pick up anything with them, reach over and pinch your calf with them, pull out a chair with them, and who knows—maybe he can do calligraphy with them! I figure he must be part monkey, with prehensile toes. This would also explain much of his other behavior.

          To qualify for this talent roundup I think we need one rule: Your hidden talent must be utterly useless, not anything that could earn money.

          Okay, my first talent is curling my tongue. Aha—but not just rolling it into a tube like many can do. Nope, I can turn mine over, and also make it into a cloverleaf. Here’s somebody else doing it because I decided not to take a photo of my own tongue, thank you:

          My next useless talent is remembering lines of dialogue from movies I haven’t seen in 20 years. Yep, nobody lining up to write checks for this.

          And last, I can pour a cooking ingredient into my palm and accurately know whether it’s a teaspoon, a Tablespoon, or any fraction thereof.

          Lots of people have useless talents. I’ve seen people who can ride a bike without using the handlebars, who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in record time, who can say the alphabet backwards, impersonate Donald Duck, recite dozens of numbers in pi, and fall asleep within seconds. (Of course, I don’t know anyone who can do ALL of these.)

          So what’s your useless talent? Pleeeease tell me it’s watching my Youtube Mom videos, or buying my books. Granted, you won’t get paid for it, but you’ll have inner satisfaction that you did the right thing. Check ‘em out at my website.

Death of a Hobby

           For years I've loved entering cook-offs.  Sometimes these are live events where you compete with other cooks. Or it may be a contest where you send in an original recipe, then expert chefs try it and award prizes.

          It was a blast. For one thing, I won more than a hundred of them. This meant fabulous trips (France, Hawaii, the Caribbean, New York, etc.), appliances, and cash.

          St. Bob likes to tell the backstory, which is that I make up recipes and send them in without first trying them out. But after umpty-ump years of cooking, I can tell when I read a recipe if it will work. And then, of course, if it wins I definitely make it! Here are just a few big winners, starting with a mini-cornucopia made from turkey, for Thanksgiving:

Then a Vacherin:

This one, from 1997, is why you see tortilla roll-ups at every potluck now:

Here I am being interviewed at the National Beef Cookoff: 

I definitely went through a spiral roll-up phase:

This Jazzy Jamaican Eggs Benedict one took us on an incredible trip to France:

And a layering phase:

And more:

 

And then social media happened. Suddenly the entries were not judged by experts, but voted on by your friends. And if you worked in a big office building, you could get 1,500 votes, easily beating the measly 285 votes of the home hobbyist.

          Companies didn’t care that it was now a popularity contest; the advertising they got from all the postings and likes were worth it.

          So, like writing jingles in the 1950s, or selling buggy whips in the 1800s, the legit recipe cook-0ff was dead. Or, as Billy Crystal said in Princess Bride, “mostly dead.”

          Every once in awhile I’ll still hear about a contest that’s judged by experts, and sometimes I’ll enter. But the glory days are gone. And let’s not bemoan it; let’s just celebrate the fact that it was such fun while it lasted. If you’d like a few of my original recipes, check out the “What’s Cooking with Joni” tab on this blog. Food is fun, and always will be.

          Two of my books are cookbooks, in fact. Check ‘em out right here. And be sure to subscribe to this blog!

Treaters and a Trick

 

          Yikes. Halloween just happened but I made a HUGE mistake. I’ll explain.

          A couple of weeks before Halloween I always buy candy I don’t like, so I won’t be tempted by it as the big day approaches. But this time I decided the local kids have been through enough with Covid, so I’ll get the chocolatey candies I love.

          I dumped them into a basket.  Late in the afternoon my neighbors (the ones I have hijacked as grandkids) came over to show their cute costumes before heading across town to Trick-or-Treat with their cousins. I happily handed each of them a big candy bar.

          Then Bob and I had dinner, and settled down to watch a movie. Suddenly, at around 8:30, I gasped, “Hey! Our doorbell hasn’t rung once!” Was it because of the pandemic?

          “Oh,” St. Bob said, “That’s because I didn’t turn the porch light on.”

          WHAT? So everyone thought we weren’t participating? Oh, no! Not only do we look like the Halloween equivalent of Scrooge now, but I am stuck  with a mountain of candy I LIKE.  This is not good. I do not have that kind of willpower. All I can say is, if you run out of sweets, come to my house and I’ll be happy to replenish your stack with whatever’s left (don’t wait too long)!

          And you get double if you buy my books right here. Or watch my Youtube Mom videos filled with life hacks and DIY ideas!