Chef Boyardee And Midweek Culinary Capers

by Kevin Burton    Got re-acquainted with an old boyhood pal last Wednesday and I had lasagna for dinner.    Sounds like glad tidings, yes?    Well maybe not so much. The “lasagna” came out of a can.    This all started with an e-mail from the Interesting Facts website, that alerted me to the …

Taking The Shake Out Of Shake ‘n Bake

by Kevin Burton     I am not definitively saying that Wal-Mart, distributor of Vibrant Life cat litter, is squeezing customers financially. I didn’t do the documentation.    You see, my boyhood pastime of reading the back of cereal boxes did not linger into adulthood and cause me to read for information, such things as cat …

The Story Of Pringles From Cradle To Grave

by Kevin Burton    Without this great big clue you would never guess this, or even think of it. With the clue you surely won’t miss.    Guess where and how the ashes of the late Fredrick Baur, inventor of Pringles, are buried?     Yep, in a Pringles can.    Ah but ain’t that America? …

How Long Is A Jiffy Exactly?

by Kevin Burton    Last month on Page 7 we looked at words such as several and handful that defy exact definition. Here’s another: Jiffy.    How long is a jiffy?    Merriam-Webster says a jiffy is “a very short period of time: moment, instant.” The Cambridge dictionary lists synonyms “flash, heartbeat, instant, split second.” …

Letters From Hamburg: Assessment

by Kevin Burton    Years ago there was a series of Skin Bracer after shave commercials where somebody slaps the actor in the face and the actor responds, “Thanks, I needed that.”    Remember those?    It was a bracing wake-up call and somehow was supposed to sell the product. They had celebrities such as …