Since I spend so much time complaining, I thought I would spend a few moments (but not too much) to mention the great experience and service we got at Lowe's, from the appliance guy named Larry Jordan.
After our stove broke on Saturday, the day of the Big Snowstorm, we needed to replace it, pronto. We (we?) also decided that as long as we were getting a stainless steel stove, we should also get a stainless steel refrigerator. What I never realized is that there are different shades of stainless steel.
Larry could not have been more patient, helping us find the right matching appliances, even moving various refrigerators next to the stove to compare, and most important, getting them delivered the next day.
I felt compelled to write to Lowe's -
Thanks again, Larry!
Replied On 12/22/2009 10:55:41 AM----------------------------
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Dear Jeff Pickens:
Thank you for taking time to let us know about your experience with Lowe?s Associate Larry Jordan. We are always glad to hear that a customer has received exceptional service while shopping with Lowe?s. Our goal is to provide customer-valued solutions with the best prices, products, and services to make Lowe's your first choice for home improvement.
The Turnersville, NJ Store Manager will receive a copy of your comments, and Larry Jordan will be recognized by the Management Team.
Again, thank you for contacting us about this experience.
Thank you,
Nicholas Lowe's Customer Care Received On 12/20/09 18:17:42----------------------------------------
I am writing to commend Mr. Larry Jordan at your Turnersville, NJ store. We recently bought a stove and refrigerator. Mr. Jordan spent a great deal of time with us, even moving the refrigerators next to the stoves so we could compare shades and styles. Mr. Jordan made the experience as positive as it could be, and arranged for next-day delivery in the wake of a major snow storm in our area.
PLEASE ENSURE THAT THE TURNERSVILLE STORE MANAGEMENT IS MADE AWARE OF OUR POSITIVE EXPERIENCE WITH MR. LARRY JORDAN.
His professionalism is a true asset to your organization.
I was looking at the view counts, demographics and discovery for one of my YouTube videos, "Rosslyn Metro Escalator Cam - Down", and found that the video, after a long relatively dormant viewership, suddenly received almost 200 hits on October 8, 2009.
I dug in further and found out that the spike in viewership was due to a link posted on fark.com. I looked on fark.com and could not find any link to my video. I emailed them about it but haven't heard back yet.
Has anyone ever heard of FARK? What is it, and I wonder how my video ended up there?
Michael Vick is really really sorry for all those things he did to those dogs. He even talked to schoolkids about it (on the same day as the President).
This year's garden has been a mixed bag - great crop of cucumbers and zucchini early in the season, some good cherry tomatoes, and some not so good regular and plum tomatoes. I think that something's getting at the tomatoes (squirrels? birds?) just as they turn red and before I can pick them.
One pleasant surprise, however, have been the green peppers. I have tried every year to grow green peppers, but have never been successful until this year. I have had lots of them, all edible and delicious.
This morning I picked a bunch, and discovered we had some Italian sausage in the freezer, so I decided to bring some of the Jersey Shore boardwalk into my house and make sausage and peppers for lunch.
Sausage & Peppers
To pierce or not to pierce?
Most cookbooks will tell you not to pierce sausage before you cook it, because the juices run out, but guess what? If you don't pierce them, the skin splits and the juices run anyway, so go ahead and pierce.
Cook the sausages first in a skillet. Get them good and brown on each side and try not to burn them. Then turn the heat way low, cover, and cook for about 5-10 minutes on each side until they're cooked through.
Take the sausages out of the skillet and set aside.
Slice the green peppers (and onion if you want) long-ways. Cook in the same skillet, in the sausage fat, at high heat, tossing often to prevent burning. Cook until soft.
Return the sausages to the skillet and mix thoroughly with the peppers and onions. Cover and let sit until ready to eat.
THANK YOU to everyone who donated to my Bike-a-thon ride. The event was a huge fundraising success, and there is still time to donate if you're interested.
The Garry Maddox BBQ Challenge, since 2001, is an annual event, sponsored by Phillie's centerfielder Garry Maddox. All proceeds benefit the Youth Golf & Academics Program (YGAP), an academic enrichment program founded by Garry Maddox to support children in grades K-8 who reside in troubled city neighborhoods (see website).
Last year, I competed for the first time, and did not win, probably because I was a rank amateur in the sport of competitive BBQ. This year I am still a rank amateur but just a bit less rank, thanks to lessons learned in last year's competition and in my experience as a judge at a BBQ event at the Keansburg, NJ Fire Company this past May. Thank you, Bill E., for that privilege!
I will be entering in all four categories:
Chicken
Ribs
Chef's Choice
Garry's Rib Challenge (the Big Prize: World Series tickets)
I'll be there from 6:30am to get set up and get my fires started.
If you're in the area, please stop by and say hello, and wish me luck!
An innocent "Meet me at the diner" Facebook post sparked this fascinating discussion about NJ cuisine and vernacular. Unfortunately, the profile photos didn't translate over when I copied the comment thread:
The Taylor Pork Roll company invented this particular delicacy, pretty much unknown outside of NJ, *IN* Trenton.
The label clearly says "Taylor Pork Roll," but for reasons lost in history, folks in the northernm prt of the state call it "Taylor HAM," and further south it's just plain "Pork Roll" (omitting the "Taylor").
I'm just reporting what I've read on the internet.
Growing up in Plainfield (Central Jersey, but more north than south), I don't recall anyone talking about "Taylor Ham," but I did know and enjoy "pork roll." But, that was thirty and more years ago.
More recently, when living there for Katrina exile in fall-winter 2005-06, I saw referencces to Taylor Ham everywhere ~ at groceries and delis, on the menus at diners and sandwich shops, etc.
We always called it Taylor Ham in Bergen County. My wife, who grew up in Philly, never heard it called Taylor Ham until I said it. So maybe it is exclusively a North Jersey thing. I'll survey my SJ colleagues tomorrow and see what I can find out.
my vote and experience...Taylor ham in bergen county...
pork roll in ocean city NJ on the boardwalk in the 60's!
waynes vote..taylor ham...and he's from north jersey too
(actually hawthorne...passaic county on the border)...
Bev - glad you were finally able to weigh in on this important topic. It seems to me the consensus is, the farther north you go in NJ, the more likely you are to call it Taylor Ham.
My interpretation is that calling it "Taylor Ham" instead of "pork roll" is a growing trend moving from north to south. Must be so ~ a generation ago in the tri-county area of The Plainfields, it was simply pork roll, but now it's Taylor Ham all over that area (Sunset Diner on Rt 22, Sherban's in South Plainfield, the diner at 22 and Terrell Rd in ... Read MoreFanwood/Scotch Plains, a couple of places in Elizabeth, etc.)
I don't think it originated in NY, though. Taylor Pork Roll is a uniquely New Jersey phenomenon.
Tom : My ability to recall facts re: Rutgers in the '70s is somewhat inconsistent. Your instinct is right on; Pork Roll is the sort of topic that should be burned into my consciousness along with Eksaa's birthday (Feb. 28th) and what the douchebag in line at Springsteen's 1975 show in The Barn said ("open the damn door"). Alas, it's gone. Jeff might be able to help.
I've never had one of those sandwiches, and I want one now SO BAD!!!!
Correction: I stated above that it is de rigeur to order this delicacy "with salt and pepper." Actually, my internet research told me that the preferred specification is "with salt, pepper, and ketchup," or "with SPK." My memory was clouded by the fact that I immeidately decided that I would want mine with salt and pepper but not ketchup. I've never been a ketchup-on-eggs person.
I have no specific recollection of taylor ham / pork roll from the 70's Rutgers days. It would pale in comparison to Eksaa's birthday party, "open the damn door", and "this way - that way".
This has been some comment thread, we should archive it.
At the legendary diner Hagler's in Oradell, you would sit at the counter, George the owner would walk over and glare at you. Then you would tell George your order, and he would turn around to Sam the grill man and yell: "TAYLOR HAM & EGG ON A HAHD ROLL!", and just as the word "roll" came out of his mouth, the sandwich would be on your plate.
Ahh, the hahd roll. They're not the same now as when I was a child, though; I think the bakeries started using preservatives or something back in the 780s or 80s.
In the old days, they were much lighter and airier inside and crisper on the outside ~ not unlike New Orleans French bread. The downside is that this kind of bread goes stale within 24 ... Read Morehours.
So, in New Jersey, they started making rolls of the same size and shape that softer and denser and last longer. In New Orleans, the classic po-boy loaf is the same as ever, and all the restaurtants make a lot of bread pudding.
There are still some Italian bakeries in South Philly and my town (home of many South Philly refugees) where they make the bread the old fashioned way. You only buy what you expect to consume that day.
Dear God them hard rolls were great. We'd get them on Sundays after Mass, at Hy and Mim Glick's store. The were the only Jewish people in the world until I was in high school.
The Glicks ran the corner store (corner of Plainfield Ave. and W 5th St.) when we lived at Garndma's before you were born, Paul. They sold out and took over another store about a mile away on W 3rd, in a building that was once an A&P where Dad worked for a while in the 1930s. The former "Glick's" on our block then became "Norman's," which you might... Read More remember.
The Glicks had a son who was a very serious drummer who played with a jazz giant or two as a precocious young kid. I suppose you're aware of that ~ maybe that's why and how you remember the family store by name ~ ?
Taylor Pork Roll. That's how I grew up saying it. Didn't know any other way. My father is from Fairmount Avenue in Philadelphia & I grew up with Taylor Pork Roll (I'm a DC native & grew up here). I liked it but didn't love it. I AM a ketchup-on-eggs person, although my need for ketchup on anything has waned as I've aged (insomuch as I *have* aged... Read More...). Here in DC people had never heard of bagels until the 1980s, & even then they were relatively rare. How about scrapple? My Philly father introduced that to DC too I think. That MUST be eaten with ketchup.
Never had ketchup on scrapple. If cooked right, coated with flour, on a skillet with oil until it gets a crust on the outside, it really doesn't need anything. But to each his/her own.
My two cents: we definitely called it Taylor Ham in Bergen County (recently I mentioned it to a friend raised in Brooklyn who'd never heard of it and said oh, I don't eat ham). My brother moved to Ohio and craved it so much we had to buy pounds of it and bring it out there! It tops scrapple any day!
I think we should have a HUGE facebook Taylor Pork Roll diner party. I live in the DC area so I could drive some of us up to Jersey. I mean it! This would be SO FUN! (I don't bite people, just diner food)
How about a bus tour, sponsored by the Food channel. Start at the southern end of the state, go to various diners and ask for Taylor Ham. See how far north you have to go before someone understands what you're talking about.
The Bikeathon is a 64.6 bicycle mile ride from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, PA to Buena, NJ. This will be my fifth year riding. Over 4,000 riders participate in the event, raising over $1 million for this worthy cause, supported by donations from generous people like you. The goal this year is $2 million.
I will be Twittering throughout the event Sunday, mobile uploading photos to my Facebook page and iReport, so stay tuned.
