Archive for February, 2008
February 15th
Last week I was flipping through my diocesan newspaper when I came upon an ad for McDonald’s: “What are you doing Friday night?” it read. “What the heck (I gave up cursing for Lent) is McDonald’s doing advertising in a Catholic paper during Lent!” I thought, and then I noticed it was an ad for their Filet-O-Fish Sandwich.
I thought that was very good marketing-cleverly timed to build affinity-so I decided to investigate and find out more.
In 1962, a man named Lou Groen was desperate to save his floundering hamburger restaurant, the first McDonald’s in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. His problem: his customer base was heavily Roman Catholic. Back then, most Catholics abstained from meat every Friday, as well as during Lent.
“Frisch’s (the local Big Boy chain) dominated the market, and they had a very good fish sandwich,” recalled Groen, now 89. “I was struggling. The crew was my wife, myself and a man named George. I did repairs, swept floors, you name it.”
“But that area (where his restaurant was located) was 87% Catholic. On Fridays we only took in about $75 a day,” said Groen, a Catholic himself. “All our customers were going to Frisch’s.”
“So I invented my fish sandwich, developed a special batter, made the tartar sauce and took it to headquarters.”
That led to a wager between Groen and McDonald’s CEO Ray Kroc, who had his own meatless idea. “He called his sandwich the Hula Burger,” Groen said. “It was a cold bun and a slice of pineapple and that was it.”
“Ray said to me, ‘Well, Lou, I’m going to put your fish sandwich on (a menu) for a Friday. But I’m going to put my special sandwich on, too. Whichever one sells the most, that’s the one we’ll go with.’”
“Friday came and the word came out. I won hands down. I sold 350 fish sandwiches that day. Ray never did tell me how his sandwich did.”
But the chain made Groen modify the fish recipe. “I wanted halibut originally,” Groen said. “I was paying $2 a pound for halibut. That sandwich cost me 30 cents apiece to make. They told me it had to sell for 25 cents. I had to fall back on Atlantic cod, a whitefish, and I added a slice of cheese. But my halibut sandwich far outshines that one.”
Groen wasn’t complaining. “My fish sandwich was the first addition ever to McDonald’s original menu,” he said. “It saved my franchise.”
And helped it to grow. By the time Groen sold his franchise in 1986, he owned 43 McDonald’s restaurants in Greater Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, about half the number in the region today.
About 23% of all Filet-O-Fish sandwiches are bought during Lent. Lou Groen invented the Filet-O-Fish to attract Catholics, but it’s popular among Jews and Muslims whose dietary observances prohibit other McDonald’s fare.
February 13th
Here in New York, snagging a good restaurant reservation is always a competitive affair, but the struggle grows particularly fierce when Valentine’s Day comes around. Tables book up weeks, if not months, in advance, and woe to the hapless souls who wander in on the spur of the moment, hoping to be seated at 8:00!
Personally, I’d rather stay home and cook (or get takeout), anyway. Why stress yourself out for a holiday that’s supposed to celebrate love? Some things are better left un-planned.
If you don’t have anyone to cook for (or get takeout with), on the other hand—and you live in the New York area—you can order your meal from FreshDirect, an online grocery delivery service with a special menu “for the brokenhearted”:
From bitters (to match your mood) to thyme (said to heal all wounds) these items might just cushion the bumpy trip from your blind denial all the way to newfound acceptance of single life.
What are you doing on Valentine’s Day?
February 12th
Karlgeorg Hoefer, a famous German calligrapher, developed a universal pen with novel writing and drawing features for Brause. As a result of this he began to design typefaces.
Hoefer developed his first font - Salto - from lettering done with the broad nib Brause 505. Using this nib he produced broad, thick strokes as well as extremely thin lines. This expressive lettering was reminicent of brush strokes.
Karl Klingspor liked Hoefer’s design so much he produced it at his foundry (Scriftgiesserei Kingspor). The Salto font is said to embody the zeitgeist of the ’50s.
February 11th
A couple weeks ago we received the following suggestion by a visitor to the Quo Vadis website: “Have you ever considered making a planner ‘Specifically Designed With The Truck Driver In Mind’?”
This product will greatly help drivers in their daily routine, where they can record daily records to reflect back on their maintenance, deadhead mi., trip routing, advances, fuel stops for each trip, po#, pick up ID# and so on. There is still a need for simple products instead of high tech products.
I’m not sure it’s ever occurred to us that truck drivers were interested in our planners, but I’ll second the suggestion that simple products can still triumph over technology. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a small set of shelves on eBay, and the UPS package they were mailed in had a typo in the address—the ZIP code was off by a single digit. Everything else was correct, and what’s more, that wrong ZIP code was all of 7 miles away from my house, in a different part of Brooklyn.
Ok, I thought; no problem. I’ll just call UPS and sort it out.
So I called, every day, for a WEEK, and was told, variously, that the correction had already been made, that the local center would call me back, that the package had been lost, that it would be there within a few hours, etc. Meanwhile I followed the tracking number on the UPS website and could see that it would go out for delivery each day, only to come back every night undelivered (fortunately, there was no street by the same name in that other part of Brooklyn). In the end, I had to ask the sender to ship another package, while the first one was returned to her as “undeliverable.”
So much for sophisticated logistical systems—a map and a pencil would have sufficed!
February 8th
We didn’t notice it until recently, but Clairefontaine—the company that makes paper for all Quo Vadis planners—got a great plug back in December on Whitney Matheson’s Pop Candy blog: “If you’ve run into me at an event this year, there’s a good chance you’ve seen me clutching one of these handy French notebooks, which come in a variety of sizes, styles and colors.”
Thanks, Whitney—we love the paper, too!
February 7th
Happy New Year!
Chinese New Year 4706, which begins today, is the Year of the Rat, which holds a place of honor as the first creature in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese lunar calendar.
Legend has it that the rat was the first to arrive when Buddha summoned 12 animals to name a year in each cycle after each one of them. The rat was followed by an ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.
“The charm and innovative personality of the rat is legendary - he did not become the first sign of the cycle without good reason,” Theodora Lau wrote in her “Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes.”
The Chinese lunar calendar is based on the cycles of the moon, and is constructed in a different fashion than the Western solar calendar, with the beginning of the year falling somewhere between late January and early February, according to the Chinese Cultural Center of San Francisco. In China, the horoscope is often consulted to learn how to deal with a difficult boss or understand different personalities.
The Steamy Kitchen, a blog featuring modern Asian cooking, can help you get ready for tonight’s feast.
February 6th
Last week, our European colleagues at Quo Vadis went to the Paperworld fair in Frankfurt, Germany. They just emailed us some pictures, which, as you can see, do a great job of showcasing the new Quo Vadis products—Habana notebooks on the left, Memoriae diaries on the right and in the little spinning display rack.
You can see a picture of the team itself after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
February 5th
For years I wrote in pen in my datebook, but since very few things in life are really fixed, my book was dabbed and spackled in Wite-Out. I decided to switch over and write in pencil.
The standard for me since schooldays has been the Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil. But then I discovered Pencil Things, a wonderful company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that opened up a whole new world of different pencils and erasers. Don, the owner of Pencil Things, also writes his own blog on pencils, paper and accessories.
February 4th
Like most people, I’ve got a very sedentary job, so I like to get up early and do some sort of exercise before I park myself in front of a computer for 8+ hours at a time.
Back when I was in college, my dorm was right next to a park, so I’d get up each morning and jog. When it wasn’t raining or snowing, it felt great to be outdoors, and it also seemed like a very healthy form of self-sufficiency: I could stay in shape on my own, without the help of fitness classes or complicated machinery.
In grad school in Cambridge, England, the rain made running difficult. But then I discovered that I could bring reading material with me to the gym; I’ve been a devoted gym-goer ever since. (How else are you supposed to get through the entire Economist each week?)
Out here in Red Hook, though, the gym’s no longer convenient, and anyway it’s time for a change. So last week, I started jogging again—oh, soreness! I thought I was in decent shape, but no matter how fit you are, it seems, there’s nothing for running but running.
How do you stay in shape?
February 2nd
Punxsutawney Phil, our official Groundhog, predicts six more weeks of winter.
Here Ye! Here Ye! Here Ye!
On Gobbler’s Knob on this fabulous Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2008, Punxsutawney Phil, the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators, Rose to the call of President Bill Cooper and greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.
After casting a weathered eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil consulted with President Cooper and directed him to the appropriate scroll, which proclaimed:
“As I look around me, a bright sky I see, and a shadow beside me. Six more weeks of winter it will be!”
Groundhog Day has been celebrated for a long time in the United States. Back on February 4, 1841, a Morgantown, PA shopkeeper named James Morris wrote in his diary…”Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas Day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.”
