Two Sandwich Menu Boards, One Supermarket

On Friday, March 30, at Pavilions, I saw this sandwich menu board:



On the left side are options to build your own sandwich, with the bread you want, the meats, the cheeses, and the condiments. Meridith did the math on her calculator and came up with over 3,000 different combinations. I was curious, but for me, the fun is more in putting many combinations together, seeing what sounds good.

On the left side are ready-made sandwich types. Just order whichever one you want, and they'll make it for you. You don't have to come up with your own sandwich. Not a great deal of imagination in these sandwiches, but since it's just a supermarket, where you get the groceries that you need during the week, that's not to be expected. And there's photos of each sandwich, photos sanctioned by whichever division of Safeway Inc. handles such matters.

Yesterday at Pavilions, I saw a new sandwich menu board:



I wondered what had changed so much to trigger the need for a new sandwich menu board. Were customers so unsatisfied with how their sandwiches looked compared to what the photos showed that an exasperated Pavilions asked for a new sandwich menu board sans the photos? I see also that the "California Dreamin'" sandwich has changed to simply "Turkey Bacon Avocado." I think I know why. "California Dreamin'" would be the name for the sandwich in Detroit since Detroit is far enough away from California, particularly Southern California. But living in California every day, there's no dreaming involved. We live however it keeps us sane. In California, why would we be dreaming of California? Ultimately, that name makes no sense here.

On the new board, there's only a photo of bread in the now-"Classic Sandwiches" menu instead of "Build Your Own Sandwich." I guess shoppers trust that there will be meat and cheese in a sandwich, and no photographic proof is needed. Plus, it looks like a sign of cost-cutting, or of the sandwich counter not doing so well here (unless it's a company-wide edict) that there's no condiment offerings on this menu. The one from the end of March has a fair list of options, but all you'll find of condiments in this new menu is under "All Sandwiches Include:". Mayonnaise and mustard. That's it. Must not be a demanding crowd here. It always fascinates me that there's someone in the company, perhaps overseeing this region, who looks over reports of what's selling and what's not and determines what should be stocked by that. All those lists, all those figures. That's a person I'd be interested in talking to, not to suggest anything myself, but to wonder how they do such a job, what they do after they determine what's needed, and who has to sign off on it. It's like how the Walmart on Kelly Johnson Parkway sells books that are different from the ones at the Walmart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive. Someone studies all that.

It's a streamlined menu, I guess. The more time people spend staring at a menu, the less time they spend ordering. Lost minutes are lost sales. Put the same price on each menu instead of in the middle of the "Choose Your Favorite Sandwich" menu on the one from March 30, show that all the breakfast sandwiches are $1.99, and that's that. Less for a customer to look at, everything close together, and they'll spend less time staring at the menu trying to decide.

I didn't ask Meridith to take a photo of the breakfast sandwich menu from March 30 because it didn't interest me as much as the main sandwich menus. Perhaps they needed photos of the sandwiches for this new one because there's not as many choices as there are on the main sandwich menu. They have to gussy it up somehow.

At the bottom of the new one is "3 Minutes or Less or Free." For the rushed office worker, no doubt. It seems disheartening though. No one wants to wait for anything anymore. No one wants to take time to look around a bit. I must be the only one who, despite knowing every inch of that supermarket, always finds something interesting (to me) to look at. In this case, the menu boards, and wondering who created them, what meetings there might have been to determine what they should look like, because you just know there had to be meetings for such a thing.

On the March 30 main sandwich menu is a Chicago South Sider, which has disappeared from the new menu. Doesn't sell here. Only the basics in sandwiches for all. I'm not sure if this will improve sandwich sales, though. Every time I've been there, the sandwich counter has always been empty. It's cheaper to grab the already-made, already-wrapped half-hoagie sandwiches in the refrigerated case that sell for $2.49 each if you buy two or more. $3.99 if you only buy one. For $5.49, I'd prefer to find a more adventurous sandwich than what's offered on the new menu. Once in Henderson, I want to see if there's any changes in the sandwich menus. Since a great number of residents come from somewhere else, I should think Vons would want to be a little more daring there. Or maybe not, since there's so many options for eats in Henderson. Better to be safe than unprofitable. I still want to see.

Tidbits from the Sixth Issue of The Henderson Press

I want to write about my first movie in Nevada, Beauty and the Beast 3D at Regal Fiesta Henderson 12, and about hours spent at the Galleria at Sunset mall with Mom and Meridith while Dad went for a test and a job interview at the Clark County School District offices. As I read more and more books from my Las Vegas stack, that desire returns to describe the starship-hallway feel of the one corridor at the movie theater that contains the entrances to all 12 auditoriums. Yes, just one side of the building.

But not yet. Soon, though. I'm sure of that. For now, I've opened the .pdf file of the sixth issue of The Henderson Press, which is Vol. 2, No. 1, and dated January 13, 2011, which is strange because the previous issue, Vol. 1, No. 5, was dated December 30 - January 14, 2011. But considering that this is the sixth issue and can pretty much be considered still the beginning of The Henderson Press's run, that's understandable. Takes time for any new venture to establish a rhythm of sorts. I'm not a stickler since the writing's good and therefore there's more to occupy my mind than errors like that.

So let's see what this issue has on tap:

- I peeked at the latest issue and found that Jeremy Twitchell is no longer there. A search on Facebook finds him in College Station, Texas now. I only hope that there are writers now at The Henderson Press who can fill what would seem to be a gaping black hole after Twitchell's departure. Fortunately, Don Logay, my other favorite reporter, is still there, and I get to enjoy what there is of Twitchell from this issue to whenever he left.

- The U.S. Veterans Administration is planning to build "a new clinic on the east side of Boulder Highway." 38,000 square feet and "more than 100 parking spaces." I like seeing efforts like this in progress in my future community.

- I don't like Jennifer Twitchell's column because she doesn't have a firm line on what she wants her columns to be about. There is a purpose there, but it's mired in what feels like sentences that haven't been properly edited. However, when she has to focus entirely on one topic, and it's not part of her column, she's really good. Her article about unused airline miles being donated to the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth to help homeless teens is focused (finally), solemn, and caring. When her writing isn't about her, her husband Jeremy, and their son, she's a decent writer.

- For municipal elections, Henderson uses "vote centers," as it had in 2007 and 2009, which don't require precincts and permit residents to vote at any of 13 vote centers during early voting, and 12 on election day.

- Two months and "almost $88,000" to renovate the indoor pool at the Whitney Ranch Recreation Center. Aging tile, plaster, ladders and other fittings to be replaced. It's said here that the new materials will last 10-15 years. It seems small in the scheme of a city, but I like these kinds of stories. They show that nothing's too small in this city.

- Green Valley Ranch Resort and Spa has a show called Nashville Unplugged, hosted by country songwriters Aaron Benward and Brian McComas, with two invited songwriters, discussing their backgrounds and inspiration behind various hit country songs. If it's still there after we move, I want to see it.

- Julio Iglesias at the Grand Events Center at Green Valley Ranch Resort on January 15. Maybe. He's not one of the top names on my list, but still impressive.

- Henderson Farmers Market on Thursday, January 20 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Seems to me that a farmers market would be better on the weekend, considering how many people work, but maybe there's something more leisurely about doing it on a Thursday.

- There's a coupon for $9.99 winter jackets at Lakes Discount Center. I've got to see this place.

- In the transportation section, there's a listing for a 1997 Honda Accord. $1,400, the owner's moving and it has 200,000 miles on it. Oh, and the keywords "needs tlc." It means you're going to paying out your ass to fix it up.

- The back page of this issue has a full-page ad for Lakes Discount Outlet (where the coupon's from), showing off many discounts, including 2 for $10 on graphic t-shirts. I want to see what they've got.

This issue is a turning point for The Henderson Press. They've settled into a comfortable, informative rhythm, with much of the writing less self-conscious than it first was, and it helps that Jennifer Twitchell's column isn't here. That makes this issue much easier to read.

I'm hoping for more articles by Don Logay. In The Henderson Press at least, he writes strictly with the need to inform in mind. A true journalist.

This is starting to feel like a true community newspaper, since all involved clearly care about their community.

Sandwich #2: The Emmy at Junior's

A block away from The Landmark, where Meridith saw Jiro Dreams of Sushi and I saw We Have a Pope last Friday, is Junior's Deli, one of the very few authentic Jewish delicatessens in Los Angeles. The greatest is Langer's near MacArthur Park, which has retained its dignified feel through all these decades. It's small and it will remain that way, and it will always have the best Jewish food you will ever taste.

I would place Junior's second, but a very distant second. The food is decent, but they don't know what full-sour pickles are. Half-sour perhaps, but when we asked three times for a bowl of full-sours, they came back with the same pickles, what they apparently consider full-sours. If you're running a Jewish restaurant, you'd better know what full-sours are. Dad said that it's based on the population. Florida was populated with Eastern European Jews. Los Angeles has Israelis. Two very different belief systems in the way of pickles. It's hard to take, though, when you've grown up in one very particular way, when the passion for full-sours and really good kishka requires you to be exacting about your tastes. After that third bowl produced nothing of what we asked, we let it go. What else could we do?

When it came time to order, after I had quickly perused a fairly lightweight menu that felt disappointing, I ordered the Emmy sandwich, billed as "hot corned beef, pastrami, swiss cheese, and Russian Dressing." It's the kind of sandwich that needs fries, but no fries. Only cole slaw comes with each sandwich. Meridith had their Build-a-Burger option, choosing pepperjack cheese, and of course that came with fries. Fortunately, Meridith doesn't eat restaurant fries that often unless they're really fried, and these ones were, but I still got my chance at a few.

When I was a kid, I used to be impressed with the sandwiches I saw at The Rascal House in Sunny Isles, north of Miami Beach. They were huge! How could someone stack that much meat between two slices of rye bread and have it remain stable like that? What magic was there that kept the balance? And look at all that corned beef and pastrami and chopped liver! Amazing!

In my pursuit of my standard of perfect sandwiches, I'm a little incredulous now at sandwiches of that size. For Dagwood Bumstead, that size works because it's in a comic and that's his appetite. I know that there's Blondie's at Universal's Islands of Adventure, which Meridith and her friends searched for during their 8th grade end-of-the-year trip in order to try a Dagwood, but couldn't find the place. To me, that describes exactly what I think of such jumbo sandwiches: They're novelties. There comes a point when a sandwich becomes tall enough that it's more about the size than the sandwich itself. I believe attention should always be trained on a sandwich and the elements that make it so.

The Emmy is manageable with both hands, but you're just chomping into a lot of meat. The Russian dressing is slathered on both slices of bread, but never in between, I guess because to have it on any slice of the meat is to risk the balance of the reputation of sandwiches like these. One slice of meat has to cling to another. No sliding. And the Swiss cheese is only latched to the dressing on each slice of bread. Again, nothing in between, and again, just a whole lot of meat in your mouth. Stop giggling.

Fortunately, a squeeze bottle of Gulden's mustard was at our table and as my sandwich shrank, I thought to squeeze some on the meat. Oh god. If I had done it before, the sandwich would have surely fallen apart, but that combination of salty meat and Gulden's is a kind of heaven that can only exist in that moment. It counteracts the straight salt from the meat, elevating the flavors of the meat. It's as if the corned beef and pastrami stop trying to compete with each other in taste and just link arms and hum in peace. Gulden's is truly the United Nations of mustards, but more successful.

Tall sandwiches being a novelty that shouldn't be indulged in too often, I liked it in those moments of all that corned beef and all that pastrami. But separately, even though I know that's part of what Jewish delicatessens thrive on (the Carnegie Deli at the Mirage in Las Vegas does it too), it's still too much. Fortunately, the slices of rye bread at the top and bottom held really well, and that's how you know you're in a good Jewish restaurant. Rye bread needs to be strong for these sandwiches, but not too hard a crust. This worked.

The Emmy goes well above the egg salad hoagie I had from Pavilions, but probably lounges in the middle of my list. #5, I think. I'm saving the top spots for sandwiches that I'm sure will either come from Southern Nevada or New Mexico, or those cities I visit during my visits to presidential libraries. We shall see. I do know that I want to find a sandwich like The Emmy, but with some self-control, and more sandwiches that use hoagie rolls. I like the strength of those.

Dark Shadows DVD Reviews

In near-rapid succession (mainly because I wrote the second of these two reviews late last night and sent it early this morning), here are my latest DVD reviews of two Dark Shadows compilations released a month ahead of the Tim Burton movie, and also to highlight the 131-disc complete series set, which came out in a limited edition on Tuesday (and probably sold out quickly), and a deluxe edition which will be out, oddly, in July.

Here they are:

Dark Shadows: Fan Favorites

Dark Shadows: The Best of Barnabas

Reunited with a Crush

In 2001, I had a crush on Alyson Hannigan because of American Pie 2, and saw it seven more times that summer. Last Saturday, which turned into a few errands rather that pushed our Passover dinner to Sunday, I went to see American Reunion at Edwards Canyon Country 10 while Mom, Dadm and Meridith went on those errands. It was the first time in such a short span of time that I saw two movies at the only two theaters in this valley. Mamma Mia! comes closest to that, even though we saw it at that same Canyon Country theater. We saw it one day and then went back the next day to see it again.

The same feelings I had about Alyson Hannigan, or at least her role as Michelle Flaherty (now Flaherty-Levenstein after American Wedding), welled up again while I watched this fourth installment in the series. Whereas Michelle had an unabashed quirkiness in American Pie 2, it's matured into a subtle, understated quirkiness, since she's a mom now. It's still very attractive to me, and Hannigan still has the talent of attracting much sympathy, this time for Michelle's marriage problems with Jim. Oh, I feel for Jim too, but considering that he's married to Michelle, why the hell does Kara, his former babysitting charge, matter in the least? Yet, this is what the plot hinges on, so we must watch. I didn't mind it though because American Reunion lifts the franchise up from the problematic American Wedding. The gross-out humor is here again, yet done with, ironically, more grace.

And good god, the number of times I wanted to be with Michelle while watching American Pie 2 zoomed past millions. It was still in the millions during American Reunion, but times have changed not only for these characters, but also for me: I can't see this one seven times because I can't afford these damn ticket prices all the time! I paid $9.50 to see this at a 4:15 p.m. showing. At the time of American Pie 2, I think I paid $4 or $4.50. And the movie industry wonders why box office totals drop off after the first weekend.

This Feels Like Home to Me

I've described Las Vegas many ways, but this one sentence at the end of chapter 34 in Sin City by Harold Robbins easily encapsulates everything I've written about it:

I loved Vegas. It allowed people to be themselves.

You can truly be anyone you want to be in Las Vegas. If you're moving there, you can reinvent yourself. If you're staying for a few days, you can find your pleasures (it's always plural in Vegas) in a reasonable amount of time. Whatever you want, you can have it. It can be found somewhere. Now, that may not seem like people being themselves, but in Las Vegas, you can tap into your true nature, what you've always wanted to be but perhaps can't where you live or in the job that you do. Who you truly are is what Las Vegas wants.

That sentence reminded me of the title of Marc Cooper's book about Las Vegas: The Last Honest Place in America. It truly is. I know it.

The Endearing Harold Robbins

Sin City isn't by Harold Robbins, since he died in 1997, but by a writer who was chosen to hew closely to Robbins' writing style. The writer for this one was apparently Junius Podrug, according to Fantastic Fiction.

Nevertheless, Sin City makes me want to read the novels written by Robbins himself not only because Las Vegas is evoked so well here that I feel like I'm home already, but because of a line in Chapter 3. It encapsulates what I've come to realize about Los Angeles, after years of trying to extract some meaning from it, starting from 2003 when I was a new student at College of the Canyons and read every book that I could find about Los Angeles, including literary anthologies. But here it is, the meaning that shows that there isn't any meaning; there never was meant to be a meaning:

"She didn't like L.A. It didn't seem like a real town, just endless streets and rows of houses."

It sure felt like that yesterday when we drove back to Santa Clarita from the area where The Landmark was. Dad knew that Mom didn't want to go back by way of the 405, so he took local streets, which weaved us past houses high up on mountains, houses nestled in those mountains close to the street, houses on stilts, houses that cost more than I'll probably make in my entire life. It took so long to get past those houses, though there was a nice large yellow one I liked with a fountain in the front driveway. Endless streets and rows of houses is correct. In fact, a year and a half ago, I bought from The Library of America Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology for the sale price of $9.95, a perpetual sale price since it's still listed in the section of that website. I saw it at College of the Canyons, skimmed through it, but at that point, I wanted to read it to see if there was anything revealing about Los Angeles that could make me understand it. That one line in Sin City has made me seriously think about putting Writing Los Angeles in the Goodwill box. It's never been my city, it never will be my city, and I've found that meaning. Some like Los Angeles and perhaps to them it feels like a real town, but not to me. It never has.

The first paragraph of Chapter 10 in Sin City also has a perfect description in one of its sentences:

"To me, Vegas was like Hollywood, bigger than life, but even better because Betty told me that there really wasn't any place called Hollywood, that it was just a cheap and dirty street in Los Angeles and "Hollywood" was really movie studios and thousands of people scattered all over the L.A. basin."

Exactly. And now I can go home to Henderson and Las Vegas with this chapter of my life shut tight. I've nothing else to seek about Los Angeles. It's all right here.