kevinnowak.com

New Ketchup Packets.

This post relates back to early March when I wrote about the inefficient and environmentally insensitive ketchup packets that the Heinz company has made for nearly half a century.  Well, as someone pointed out, there was good news on the horizon as Heinz had just announced they were coming up with the first redesign of the traditional ketchup packet in 42 years.    This was music to my ears.

Kel and I don't stop for fast food too often, other than when we make the trip up to Boston, but last night after I picked her up from her bi-weekly NYC trip we were trying to figure out what to do for supper.  For some odd reason Kel suggested Chick-fil-A and it was on.  We made a B-line to the place as we were ravenous.  After we ordered we turned around to grab some napkins, straws, and ketchup when we realized that they had some of the new packets on hand.  I was excited!...probably more so than I should have been. In any event..we sat down and gave the new design a test drive. 

  

    

It was great.  you get 3x the amount of ketchup you normally get and it's already in a nice little dipping cup.  More ketchup, less packaging waste.  Me likes!

 

p.s. - Hey Chick-fil-A, what's the story with still using styrofoam cups?  Welcome to 2011! 

Maaaaa....the Meatloaf!!!

I got Kel a subscription to Real Simple magazine for Christmas and over the weekend we made a recipe from the latest issue.  Bacon-Gruyere Meatloaf with roasted Carrots and Onion.   Oh man was it good.  The bacon and gruyere in the meat give it such a unique taste.  Just put a little olive oil, salt and pepper on the onion and carrots and those get so flavorful after 30 minutes of roasting.

  

 

Of course I can't find a link to the recipe online, so you'll just have a pick up a copy of the magazine yourself if you want to give this a shot.  The entire thing takes 45 minutes or so all said and done.   

[anyone know where the title of this post is from?]

La Guadalupana.

In the ever present search to find a local stand-in for Jose's Kel and I found a place called La Guadalupana.  [I'd post a link to thier website...if they had one.]  This place is literally walking distance from our house so we decided to check it out one night last week with Pat, Kristin and the girls.   

  

     [no sign on the place...but they do have two signs letting you know they're "open"!]

The restaurant is as bare bones as you can get.  Just a few tables and a grill in the back.  It's a husband and wife team, so the service is a bit slow if there are a decent amount of people in there, like there were the night we stopped by. 

       

       

The downside here was that the food was only okay.....so I think we'll give it another shot and see how they do before we make a final verdict. 

       

Photos...For No Real Reason.

 
I had been itchin' to get out and do some shooting so this past weekend my favorite photo guinea pig, and sister-in-law, Renie, lent a hand to the effort. We did this once last year so she knew what was involved and was a great sport the entire afternoon. 

I had suggested a few spots closer to our house, but she had recently been down in the rural town of Ancora, NJ and proposed doing this down there.  Other than this old, stone entry gate she had spotted on a recent visit to the state vehicle inspection station we didn't have a plan for locations and we just flew by the seat of our pants.  I had very little idea of what to expect and figured we'd just have fun and experiment as we went along.   

So, we [Kelly, Renie and Myself] made the 30 minute drive down, started at the gate, and the rest of the day is below...

 

     

       

                                              [not sure if we were supposed to be here or not?]

After some time here we just got in the car and drove for a few minutes until we crossed some train tracks and spotted a freight train parked on the tracks. We all got really excited!  A quick u-turn, wardrobe change for Renie in the backseat, and we were out of the car and ready to go. I approached the train cautiously as I didn't know if someone was on-board or if it was going to fire up and pull away at a moments notice.  Turned out that it wasn't running and no one seemed to be around.  Some local farmer on a golf cart stopped and gave an inquisitive look, but other than that nobody bothered us.   

   

       

       

                                                [I really like the shot of her hanging off the engine]

From the train we found a field where we had hoped to incorporate this old rusty shovel and some work-boots we had brought along as a props.  It wasn't really working and we weren't feeling it...so we ditched this idea pretty quickly.  Hey...they all can't be keepers!

       

Just down the road from this field we stumbled upon a really cool old rail yard that is part train-car graveyard and part an actual train junction that is still used today. It's called Winslow Junction and back in its heyday it was a rather important area for trains heading to and from Atlantic City as well as Cape May.  Turns out that the freight train we had seen earlier was actually on another line that passes over this yard on a trestle bridge.  See the photo below.  Ignoring more of those pesky "No Trespassing" signs we tried the doors to this yellow coach and sure enough, it opened right up!  In we went.

    

       

    

    

Back in the car we just drove around for another 15 minutes with no real direction and stopped when we came across a very rural dirt road.  We just pulled it over and set up shop.

       

       

    

 

Back in the car, Kelly and Renie started to get a little punchy at this point so Kel took the camera into her own hands!

       

Our last stop of the day was an overgrown, grassy field that was just perfect as the sun started to fade away.  We broke out that shovel again and even had her take a seat for a very cool shot. 

  

    

Overall a very fun afternoon, albeit a bit chilly, but still fun.  So a big thanks to Renie for doing a great job and much thanks to to Kel for helping fluff between shots and for and excellent job working the reflector. If the HR career doesn't pan out you could make a good photo assistant.

p.s. Renie...you left your high heels in the backseat of our car!  

Color and a New Fan.

A little update on a few upcoming projects for the casa...

my painter tells me that he's available to start work on the entire first floor on April 1st and I'm hoping that's not his version of a lame April Fool's Day joke!  In any event, Kel and I started to whittle down the list of possible colors and we've settled on a great shade of khaki called Nantucket Dune.  This is no small job so I'm certainly going to need the help and Patrick works cheap...dinner and beers!  The color we like is the one on the far left in both of the photos...

  

  

 

In the kitchen we talked about changing out the baffles for the recessed lights.  They were black and just didn't look great...so we spray painted them white and now they just disappear in the ceiling.  Much better and it saved me about $75 by spraying them instead of buying new ones! 

We've also got plans to replace the kitchen ceiling fan, possibly the ugliest ceiling fan ever, actually, scratch that.  The title of the Uggliest Ceiling Fan goes to the one in the 2nd floor spare bedroom.  [second photo below] 

  

  

This thing is UGLY!  [both of these photos were from the first weekend when we had just moved in]

So we ordered a new fan the other day and we'll use that one to replace the kitchen fan and then put the kitchen fan up on the 2nd floor to replace that really ugly one!  I had my eye on a fan by the Modern Fan Company called the VeloHugger, but at $450-500 bucks it just wasn't in the cards.  Instead we chose the Concept II by a company called Minka-Aire that should work just fine, and it's about half the price.  I've gotta say, the options for modern/contemporary fans out there are slim.  Even slimmer when you need one with a light!

  

Hopefully in a month or so I'll  be able to post some completed photos...

Free Water Filter?

Need a FREE water filter for your fridge?  You might be in luck!  [notice how you all perked up at the word FREE!]

The good folks at Whirlpool sent me the wrong filter for our fridge last week.  We're on a subscription plan and for some odd reason the wrong one came this time.  I made a call and they're resending the correct one as we speak, but they said to just toss this one. 

Of course I can't just throw this away...so I figured I'd offer it up to you guys.  This thing goes for anywhere from $30 to 40 bucks online so why should it just go to waste and and up in the trash?  The packaging says it'll work on select models of Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, and Jenn-Air refridgerators.  Check your filters model # and if it's #4396841 this bad boy is all yours!  Just send me $5 bucks for the shipping and I'll send it out.  Here's a link to the actual filter  if you want to double check that it's the right one for you.

First come, first served.

  

The red tip is actually a cover that's over the inserts.  Hopefully someone can put this to good use...

Bike Ride and Ghosts.

I dusted off the old mountain bike this afternoon at the request of Kel so that I could join her on a lap around the river.  Felt great to get out on that for a little while...so different than the road bike.

  

Weather is supposed to be nice again tomorrow so I'll be certain to get out on the road bike!

 

At one point we came across these 4 guys walking down the sidewalk...it's not every day you see the Ghostbusters just walking down the road.  Other than October 31st maybe?

  

Turns out there were over at the Crown Plaza for some sort of horror movie convention.  Those packs they had on were legit too...

For a minute I thought they were heading over to Subaru headquarters [in the distance] to do some exterminating!

Team Xaverian T-Shirts.

Tis' that time of year again when we offer up the annual Team Xaverian t-shirts for friends and family to purchase.  As usual, Men's and Women's cuts are available.  Cost is $15/shirt. 

  

   

Order is going in on Friday, March 25th, so please act now! Send an email to knowak at gmail dot com and I will shoot you over an order form. 

Ketchup Packets.

I'm going to throw this right out there for everyone...why the hell do they make ketchup packets so damn small?

  

Kel and I were talking about this over breakfast one day in Florida last week.  I mean, who uses just one packet? Nobody!  You end up opening 5 or 6 packets just to eat an order of french fries or to spread over a side of home-fries. 

Why not make a package that's 2 or 3 or even 4 times the size of a regular packet?  Then you'd cut down on the packaging and resulting waste because folks would only have to open 1, or perhaps 2 packets.  Makes a lot of sense, right?  And wouldn't that save the ketchup makers some money on packaging?  I've gotta think they've thought of this before?   They could market it as a more "green" ketchup packet helping to save the environment.  Everyone is all about "green" stuff nowadays too...they'd sell like hotcakes!

I'm told that the Germans, who are fanatical about their ketchup, actually dip a fry right into the packet.  Seems like a novel idea, but I'd have to see it in action first.  And still...you'd need more than a few packets for an order of fries...so it doesn't really solve the problem. 

Something must be done!

 

p.s. - who uses Hunt's ketchup?  Isn't Heinz the gold standard these day?