Articles, Notes & Squibs

Potato Chips: Do We Really Need 250 Flavors ?

Which of the following are actual flavors of Lay’s potato chips:

a) chilli and knuckle of pork; b) Marmite ; c) balsamic sweet onion; d) all of the foregoing ?

If you answered (d), you would be right. You may be astounded however to find out, as I did after a recent shopping trip, that those flavors are just three of some 250 flavors of potato chips made by Lay’s and its foreign subsidiaries world-wide.

Shopping for Snacks

My shopping trip was a mission to pick up snacks and beverages for my son and his girlfriend who were visiting for a long holiday weekend. I texted my son from the supermarket as to flavors and brands. This is how the texts went: Continue reading “Potato Chips: Do We Really Need 250 Flavors ?”

Inequality: The Report & The Closet

Oscar de la Renta flower dress                                   Credit: thecoveteur.com

We know –because Bernie Sanders talks about it all the time — that the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” is turning into a “yuuge”, yawning chasm. We know that Bernie doesn’t like it , and he talks about mercilessly taxing the “haves.”  CNN Money recently estimated that if he had his way, the rich would be taxed up to the eyebrows at a total 63% tax rate (two-thirds of their pay in taxes) — and that’s just talking about federal, not state, tax. Continue reading “Inequality: The Report & The Closet”

One Woman : The Book

 

Attachment-1I just finished reading Marilyn Murray Willison’s nifty memoir titled, “One Woman, Four Decades, Eight Wishes.”  I met Marilyn, a fellow author-journalist a couple of weeks ago at a lunch of the Palm Beach Writers’ Group.  Author Cathy Helowicz, who organized the lunch at the Pavilion Room in the Chesterfield Hotel, introduced us because she thought we’d find a lot in common. She was right. Continue reading “One Woman : The Book”

DAY 2: Palm Beach Book Festival

51K65yoQgoL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_Burt Reynolds tells packed house about his loves, fleeting fame and why he loves living in Jupiter, FL.

Burt Reynolds has quite a morning at the Book Festival.  It starts out with a Q&A  with Scott Eyman, and Burt talks openly about Hollywood, fleeting fame and two loves of his life. He chokes up a little talking about Sally Field,  and he talks about his Mensa wife whom he doesn’t name (but who is surely Loni Anderson) and whom he says was brilliant and beautiful, but spent one-and-a-half hours taking off her makeup at bedtime. And then another half-hour “putting on something else on her face… by which time…” Burt pauses, and pretends he’s gone to sleep. Continue reading “DAY 2: Palm Beach Book Festival”

Palm Beach Book Festival 2016: Day One

Highlights with Molly Ringwald,  Dorothea Benton Frank, and Jacquelyn Mitchard

 

Molly Ringwald and husband Panio Gianopoulos in Los Angeles, CA
Molly Ringwald and husband Panio Gianopoulos in Los Angeles, CA

Molly Ringwald,  actress, singer and author (When It Happens to You ) reveals to an audience at the 2016 Palm Beach Books Festival that she likes to write with her husband in the room “to have him there, to touch his knee” if she wants to.  Molly tells the  audience packed into the auditorium at Palm Beach Dramaworks, Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, that she used to date many writers. “Then, my therapist said, ‘Why don’t you be a writer instead of dating them?'” Continue reading “Palm Beach Book Festival 2016: Day One”