Seven Sons

BusinessWeek article on Ford’s use of retro technology to improve gas mileage in its new vehicles.  Direct injection, lightweight steel, four cylinders and turbos.  Not exactly rocket science, this stuff has been on the shelf since the 40’s.  But automakers SWORE they couldn’t make cars any more efficient than they already were, at least not without years of development and mounds of expense.

Will these cars suck like those of the 1970’s?  The 2011 Ford Explorer will have a four cylinder turbo putting out 275 horsepower, about 25% more than today’s V8 Explorer.  Torque and towing power?  If 18-wheelers can use turbos, I’m pretty sure the average personal vehicle can do so just fine.

First of all, I have to say that a lightbulb makes a great cake. Just don’t get your fingers caught in the oven.

My daughter's Easy-Bake oven cakes

Yesterday there was an article on the NPR show Day to Day about a woman who has just published a 99¢-store cookbook. She buys ingredients at the discount store, mostly canned vegetables and packaged foods like Pillsbury buscuits, and turns out delectable dishes. She imagines that in this down economy there is a real market for a book that teaches people how to cook economically, and she is probably right. But while the reporter was charitably impressed by the woman and her food, I spent the entire article thinking how sad it must be to have to rely on a discount chain store with its dented cans rolling around under stuttering fluorescent bulbs for the components of your daily meal.

If you don’t troll around food blogging sites like I do, where these concepts are preached to the choir on a regular basis, tape these simple rules to your hemp-sack shopping bags:

• Learn to cook.
• Shop with a list.
• Buy in season.
• Eat less meat.

There you go. Four simple discount chain store avoidance strategies for a down economy.

Honestly I was going to include the “shop the perimeter” rule but Dina here makes a good point. You can’t usually get rice, flour, beans, nuts and other staples on the outer edge of your grocery store. But while you might hit up the baking aisle on a regular basis, allocating most of your shopping time to the produce section is a good habit to develop.

Random thought on a morning where it feels like we’re slipping back into the Ice Age…

• I’ve been a fan of Sirius Satellite Radio for just over two years.  Nice refreshing change from regular ‘commercial’ radio.  In that two year span, I’ve yet to listen to Howard Stern– the supposed ’savior’ of the brand.  Instead, I’ve become addicted to BBC Radio 1.  Which is, I’m sure, just as annoying in England as any other radio stations are here.  But it’s refreshing to hear DJ’s rambling on about the problems in their neighborhoods rather than mine. 
• As a result of BBC Radio 1, I found out yesterday that the economic downturn has hit the British auto industry as hard as it has the American one.  850 workers at one of the Mini plants were informed approximately an hour before their shift ended that they were being let go.  Which leads me to believe that any items produced during the last hour of the main shift on 02/16/09 are highly suspect.  And it also had the (unintended) effect of giving the now-displaced workers time to gather food with which to pelt their former managers and supervisors when they left the plant.  Classic.

A Visual Aid to Help Dookies Understand Their Place In the World

My sister provided this, source unknown, but it quite succinctly sums things up.