Sometimes, when driving to work, I would see a sign for the Wonder Bread/Hostess Bakery Thriftshop (thriftshop–really?), but the place always looked closed and/or deserted. I wondered if it might be a front for the mafia. Then one day I actually walked over there and looked in their window. Assorted Hostess goodies (including Twinkies, cupckaes, ding dongs) for less than 50 cents?? I decided I was willing to risk the wrath of any family. Locked and loaded (read: my car doors and my change purse), I rolled on up. Inside, the place is fairly small, and the wares are simple. But the deals are pretty big; one can purchase a LOAF OF BREAD for 99 cents. (Do not be perturbed by the seemingly nigh expiration dates. According to a Slate article, expiration dates mean very little as long as the food looks and smells OK.) Oh the wonder of it all!
Wonder Bread/Hostess Bakery Thriftshop: 385 E Park Ave, Chico, CA.
(The real bad guy here could be their hours; during the week they close at 6 p.m.)
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
Some of you may or may not know, but the Buzz used to exist in tab (short for tabloid) form, instead of just in Internet ether. As such, it was entered into the 2011 California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest.
I say “we” because many people are involved in putting out what you see every Thursday in (what is now called) the Entertainment section. While it’s gratifying to know that my hours spent slogging through press releases, begging/hunting for photos, farming out and scheduling writing assignments and physically putting together the issues got some nice recognition, I recognize that I never could have got here without the freelancers, who actually wrote the articles, which constitutes the coverage.
A huge THANK YOU goes out to them (and forgive me if I miss any names):
Dan Barnett
Nick Farrar
Pat Feldhaus
Kyra Gottesman
William Kelvin
Allen Lunde
Michelle MacEachern
Verda Mackay
Mary Mullen
Wayne Mullen
Jaime O’Neill
Esmeralda Ramirez
Phil Reser
Anthony Siino
Bruce Smith-Peters
Erin Tarabini
Brian Ward
And while the award was for coverage, I bet the way it looked helped (the Buzz was very pretty), so a big thank you goes out to Ryan Olson, who redesigned the look of the Buzz, and to George Kremenliff who designed spectacular covers for it every week.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Gary Kupp, who not only started the Buzz/Entertainment section about 10 years ago, but trained me in its ins and outs.
It’s true: Sometimes I will go somewhere other than the dollar store. And sometimes, I will find something that does indeed make me holler for a dollar. Like this chocolate bar, which combines some of my favorite things: dark chocolate and cookies (although the name Speculoos did give me some pause; although it apparently refers to a Dutch biscuit, the name sounds uncomfortably close to a medical device used to investigate body cavities).
The cookie filling is more creamy than crunchy, although there are some solid cookie bits in there (more would be appreciated). It’s a mild, not overly sweet filling, and contrasts nicely with the dark chocolate. A solid snack for 99 cents.
Found at Trader Joe’s, 801 East Avenue Chico, CA 95926
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
Carrot souffle with an oatmeal cookie crust. If you let it bake for 1 hour, the top will caramelize!
They say that when you get married, you discover strengths you never knew about the other person. I discovered my husband is waaaaay better at negotiating for what he wants than I am.
How I persuade
On dinner break at my work this week, I told my husband we were out of bread (in a Swedish household this occurrence is almost tantamount to sacrilege). He agreed to go grab a loaf from Trader Joe’s.
Throughout the rest of my work day, I envisioned my midnight/afterwork snack: toasted pieces of artisanal bread with a thick layer of creamy avocado on it, sprinkled with a little garlic salt and topped with a generous helping of shredded pepper jack cheese (try it, you won’t be sorry).
I was salivating as soon as I stepped through my door. But lo and behold—there was no bread to be found!
I stood in the kitchen and called out peremptorily: “Baby!” It was close to 1 a.m.
Bjorn came stumbling out to the kitchen. “Baby, where is the bread,” I said with reproachful eyes.
“I’m sorry, baby, I forgot,” he said. He came over and put his arms around me. I stood my ground.
“Ah, the righteous non-hug,” he said. “Now I know I”m in trouble.”
He offered to go to Safeway, which is open 24-hours, to buy bread. I was mollified, and a bit remorseful as it was the middle of the night and he wakes up at 6 a.m. to go to work.
“It’s OK, baby, I’ll just go get the bread,” I said, trying to be the good person, as I watched him splash cold water on his face to wake himself up.
“OK, thanks, baby,” he replied, a little too quickly.
Remorse also quickly fled. “Wait, what? You really are going to let me go to the supermarket by myself?” Good person be damned.
So off we went at 2 a.m. to buy bread. My victory was tainted though, by the guilt I felt and the creeping suspicion that I am a terrible person until fed.
How Bjorn persuades
Later on this same week, once again at dinner, I asked Bjorn, “What do you want to eat for dinner tomorrow?”
He said, “Let’s eat carrot souffle!”
Carrot souffle requires A LOT of work. First, you have to peel and wash 14 large carrots, chop them into small chunks and boil them for an hour. Then you have to mash them (I put them in a blender, but it requires cooling the carrots). After adding the other ingredients (which include a lot of butter and sugar —this is a very tasty dish), it bakes for an hour. With prep and baking time, you’re looking at a good 2 hours, at least.
I immediately started hemming and hawing, complaining about how much I had to do and how much work it was to prepare that dish.
“It is a lot of work,” Bjorn agreed. “And you’re really busy. Why don’t I bring us dinner tomorrow?”
And that is what this kind man did the next day. Brought me a tasty dinner, made me laugh for an hour, and not once mentioned the making of carrot souffle.
So you know what I did? I peeled and washed those carrots, boiled and baked them that very night. Three hours later, we had a piping-hot carrot souffle on a thin and crispy oatmeal cookie crust.
There is no defense against kindness. And it tastes delicious, too.
I, of course, was eating in front of the computer.
I love me some hard-boiled eggs. But hard-boiled eggs, it seems, hate to be eaten by me. They physically resist me, making it a battle to get their shells off and shedding thousands of pieces in protest. Even in their defeat, I am still conquered by the cleanup, making the victory a rather pyrrhic one.
And then there’s the issue of the wait-time involved in getting them ready. Being a rather impatient child, waiting for the eggs to boil was agony when I was younger. There must be a faster way to cook them, I thought, as my eyes slid over to the microwave.
But an egg by itself explodes. So does an egg in a bowl of water. As does one wrapped in a paper towel. Or a wet paper towel. Even microwaving it in 5-second increments still caused egg eruptions (although I think with longer cool-down periods in between this still might work.)
Finally, tired of cleaning the microwave, and with my mom noticing her rapidly depleting store of eggs, an end was put to the experiments. I thought my days of ovum outbursts were far behind me.
I decided to have one for a snack last night, though I still hate waiting for eggs to boil, and even worse, peeling them. But during the boiling period, I did research on the easiest ways to shell an egg (Tim Ferris has a rather interesting method , but seriously, making sure there’s two inches of water above them, throwing in baking soda, and icing them down — I’m lucky if I remember to throw salt in the water).
After a goodly amount of time (and by that I mean, when my stomach growled), I drained the water from the pot, doused the egg with cold water, tapped it all over when it was cool enough to hold and voila! The shell came off fairly easily and the egg appeared cooked.
Although it had recently been boiled, I thought microwaving it with the fried rice I had added (yes, this is still considered a snack) couldn’t hurt because now it was cooked and wasn’t in its shell.
After the timer dinged, I brought it out, sprinkled Lawry’s garlic salt over it (my favorite way to eat it), breathed in the heavenly smell of vegetable fried rice and egg and prepared to dig in.
The egg, of course, exploded. But what amazed me the most about it was how.
With no containment in a microwave, an exploding egg has quite the range. I found egg pieces at least 9 feet away. As I write this, a piece of egg white mocks me from on high; it’s so far up a wall that I can’t reach it even while I standing on a chair (full disclosure: I am on the shorter side). The force was so great it sent grains of rice and vegetables flying as well.
Even more uncanny was how the egg pieces were dispersed. Most of the globs found their way into the most difficult corner to access. As it was past midnight and I didn’t think my neighbors would be too enthralled with the sound of a vacuum cleaner (although they may already have been awakened by the screaming that accompanied the explosion), I had to pick up all the chunks by hand.
But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the exploding egg was the texture of it. There were slivers and lumps and hunks and crumbs; but my favorite (said with dripping sarcasm) was the fine spray.
After the explosion, I found myself covered, from the chest up, in particles so fine it would be fitting to call it “egg dust.” My husband’s USC cap, his favorite, which had been 6 inches away from the dispersion point, was also covered in it (although this occurrence inspires much less sympathy in me — go Bruins!).
I am sure this episode is far from over. Weeks from now, I expect to be finding fragments by their sulfurous smell.
But I vow to keep boiling, and eating, eggs. I will conquer that carton, I will whip those egg whites, I will not be undone by the unhatched.
I have egg on my face now but watch out — the yolk will be on you.
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
I am actually quite loathe to write this entry as I fear their disappearance off the shelves. But I must uphold the journalist’s code to bring you hard-hitting, investigative information. After multiple testings (just to be sure), the data is in: These cookies are good.
The packaging leaves much to be desired. For one, it looks generic. One of the pleasures/thrills of the Dollar Store is finding brand names for way cheaper. Though rare, Keeblers and Pepperidge Farms have been known to make brief appearances on the shelves. With its decidely orange-and-brown (no persimmon and mocha for them, thank you) color motif, bland font and lack of any noticeable name brand AT ALL, these cookies scream off-brand and perhaps that they were made in a far-off land (all right, Virginia, but close enough) and have been warehoused for a while (perhaps since the ’70s–orange and brown, really?)
But this is truly a case where you can’t judge by the cover. A crunchy shortbread cookie is topped by a layer of real-tasting peanut butter, and the whole thing is covered by, well it’s not exactly fudge, but it’s decent chocolate. Not only are they right on the dollar, they’re quite the steal.
Ah the dollar store (and me): Doing their best to bring diabetes to America—in a delicious way!
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
We received piles and piles of marriage advice and tips before we got married: Keep communicating. The first year is the hardest. Don’t go to bed angry. Be honest and open with each other about finances. Pick your battles.
Yet not one person mentioned a huge, glaring, fact about married life that has affected me deeply: the amount of laundry increases exponentially.
Full disclosure: I have a lot of clothes. Plus, I came up with the brilliant idea of having enough underwear, bed linens and towels to last me a month, so I would only have to do laundry (which I dislike) once a month.
That system was working fine for me…until I got married. There’s just something about men’s clothes—maybe it’s that they are usually physically larger so their clothing requires more material, but it just seems like men have more laundry. And it piles up faster.
However, my wonderful husband agreed to do his own laundry and as he has less clothes (and underwear), he does his laundry more often than I do. This usually keeps the amount of laundry at any given time in our place to a manageable amount.
But recently, whether due to stars crossing, bad timing or Kim Kardashian announcing she wanted to run for political office, our laundry schedules came to an unholy convergence. The piles were so monstrous it felt like they were pushing us out of our apartment.
So one night (and by that I mean it was after midnight) we loaded the laundry into the back of my SUV (yes, that’s how much laundry we had) and drove the 50 yards to our complex’s laundry room. There are 7 washers.
We used every single one of them.
We had fun though, sorting and stuffing the washers and making fun of each other’s underwear. With the detergent portioned out, the lids slammed and the quarters slotted, we sauntered out.
Thirty minutes later we returned to a dirty lagoon.
Something had gone terribly awry with the washers. Cloudy, rust-colored water covered the floor of the laundry room. Now we understood the presence of the bucket and mop in the corner, even though the place employs a cleaning service. We grabbed them, but the mop was painfully slow in soaking up the flood.
It was 1:15 a.m.
We finally had the brilliant idea (and by that I mean I did) to push all the dirty water outside the laundry room door. We even set up a system. Bjorn set a wave going from one end of the room and I directed it out the door when it reached me about halfway down. When all was done and said (the cleaning, the transferring of the clothes to dryers, the drying of the clothes), we finally returned home, exhausted, at 2:45 in the morning.
My advice to newlyweds: Do your laundry together. Many hands make tasks light…plus you never know when you’re going to have to face a sluice of dirty water.
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
My sister found a picture of me from 8th-grade, playing cello, in the dress.
I started taking cello lesson when I was 9. Why the cello? Well I have 3 older siblings. One opted out. One of them picked the violin. The other chose the viola. Which left me, the youngest and smallest, with the cello.
It started out as fun and games, but then I realized people were actually expecting me to perform and be good at it. It didn’t help that my older siblings were indeed proficient on their instruments. They were the first chairs of their sections in our youth orchestra; I was the last. It also didn’t help that the rest of the members of the orchestra were playing like their lives depended on it (but then again, the orchestra was mainly Asian, so maybe they did, haaa).
It was still all well and good because I got to go on tour (read: goof around in different locales) with my friends (which I’m sorry to have to let you know parents, is the real reason your kids will join band/choir/debate team, etc).
But it became excruciating when well-meaning people started asking us to play at weddings. Whereas playing in an orchestra allows slip-ups and warbly notes to be disguised, when playing in a trio or quartet, everyone can hear, with startling clarity, the off-beats and pitchy notes.
Bu they offered us food and/or money; how could we say no?
Being fairly good players, my older siblings were often impatient with me (to be fair, we were all teens and things like “maturity” and “empathy” were only SAT vocab words at this point). Playing and performances became hyper-stressful events.
It was with great relief that I put aside my cello after high school. I would occasionally dust it off for church performances of Handel’s “Messiah” or UCLA’s PCN, but that was about the extent of my “playing.”
But Mr. D had other plans.
Mr. D had been my 8th-grade teacher. As such, he witnessed my 8th-grade self playing a cello solo during graduation in my white, pouffy-sleeved dress with 3-tiered-lace skirt and hair in an updo (with tendrils, no less! It was the early ’90s, what can I say).
I hadn’t seen Mr. D in probably 17 years. But when I moved up to the north state, he was impossible to miss in church with his flashy suit, suspenders and unmistakable smile. He remembered my siblings (he taught all of us), my mom’s cooking (he came to all our graduation parties) and yes, that I had played the cello (that dress is hard to forget).
“Where is your cello?” he asked.
“Oh well,” I stuttered, “it’s in the basement of my parents’ house. In Los Angeles.”
“Perfect!” he said. “I’m going on vacation down there. I’ll pick it up for you!”
And that is exactly what this kind, generous man did. Drove all the way to Southern California in his big Cadillac, went to my parents’ house, picked it up and drove it all the way back up.
It was a surreal, trembly feeling to see that case again. But so many years had passed, the negative associations with it had faded. When I opened it, I remembered only the good things: how much I had loved the color of my cello and the way its color deepened and brightened in light; the smell of rosin and wood, how fun it was to twirl by the neck. Without the pressure, I remembered the joy.
But remembering how to play it was something else.
I didn’t really have any music with me. I tried playing “The Swan, ” by Camille Saint-Saens, but it sounded like it was dying. So I looked up cello pointers on YouTube and realized my posture and the way I held my bow had been wrong for years.
But Mr. D had gone out of his way to pick it up, and he believed in me, so there was no way I was going to disappoint him. Plus, I don’t really believe in coincidence. If the cello was back in my life, that meant I should play it. I resolved to say yes to anyone who asked me to perform if I was available to do it. I soldiered on and practiced (probably to the great annoyance of my neighbors).
Luckily, my first outing wasn’t so bad: Our church was playing Handel’s “Messiah.” I had played this at least once a year after high school graduation, so the music was fairly familiar and muscle memory is an amazing thing. Plus, I was part of an orchestra so I could just blend in. And it turned out to be a lot of fun.
Then, I was asked to play as part of the worship team. Less people involved, but I was fairly confident the singers would drown me out. Until they mic’ed me. But that too proved to be a highly enjoyable experience.
Finally, “Do you want to play as part of a trio for special music for offertory?”
Gulp.
Once again I found myself in the position of being the weak link in the team. The other two players were professional-caliber (but at least they had loads of empathy and maturity). I was off-beat and out of tune during our first practice.
I decided there could be no shame in my game— I pencil-marked positions on the cello for the notes I kept missing; got up early to practice at places that had pianos; used a metronome for pacing. I got a cute new outfit because looking good is half the battle (unfortunately, my husband also deemed it worthy for hostesses at the Rice Bowl.)
During the warm-up, I missed a beat and was thrown off-rhythm again. A high note sounded pitchy. My hands got clammy and I could feel the heat flaring in my armpits. This was the day of the performance.
I don’t remember much about the performance; there were some pitchy notes and some off-beats. But at the end, I remember looking over at the other players with a huge smile. We had done it, we were finished!
But more importantly, I had done it, I had beaten fear.
Thanks, Mr. D.
A snippet of our performance of Haydn’s “London Trio” #1
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
I don’t know what’s going on with dollar stores, but there seem to be a disproportionate number of disembodied body parts for sale there. I took one look at this sculpture and I just thought, “Why?”
Do people really want giraffe heads that seem to sprout from rocks? Am I missing some intrinsic artistic value? I guess die-hard obsessive giraffe lovers might want one, but wouldn’t they be horrified that their favorite animal has been decapitated so horribly? It looks like the head was ripped off. Just look at all the ragged edges on the neck skin – gah!
Just another fascinating/disturbing day at the dollar store.
Item found at the Dollar Tree on 2485 Notre Dame Boulevard, Chico.
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
I was brushing my teeth the other night when my eyes rested on the two towel racks behind me.
And I sighed.
When I first got married, I was so excited about decorating our place. The first room I decorated: the bathroom. I spend an inordinate amount of time in there, so I wanted it to look good. I spent time selecting photographs that were bathroom appropriate (one of me fixing my hair, the other of Bjorn brushing his teeth), I put up the artwork we created on the back of the first complaint letter we received from an irate neighbor above the toilet, and of course, I bought matching towels (complete with our initials on them!). I spent alot of time planning and making sure everything matched and looked perfect.
And this is what it looks like a year later:
We did gamely try to keep the towels matching for a while, I think we made it to 6 months. But then, we started getting off schedule in our towel changing, we started showing preference for certain towels and from there it was helter-skelter.
After a year and some change, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that you should pick and choose your battles. This is not one of them. Seeing the towels this ways seems to me more homey. It reminds me that we’re more comfortable with each other and can be real.
I still sigh when I look at the towels. But now it’s because they remind of a much greater evil in marriage: laundry.
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
