Spaghetti-O’s, An American Icon in Food

“Campbell Soup recalls 15 Million Pounds of Spaghetti-O’s
by Mary Jalonick, AP Jun 17, 2010
WASHINGTON- Campbell Soup Co. is recalling 15 million pounds of Spaghetti-O’s with meatball after a cooker malfunctioned at one of the company’s plants in Texas and left the meat undercooked.”

Spaghetti-O’s - only the name is still Italian. Inside the can are small circles of different sizes of grossly overcooked pasta, boardering on mush, coated with a red sauce created with unpronouncable chemicals and the real juice of one half of one cherry tomato to give it color.

Everyone I know has eaten Spaghetti-o’s. As kids we loved them. Plus, it helped introduce our bodies to processed foods and preservatives. A toddler can live on NesQuick chocolate milk and Spaghetti-O’s. Bachelors still live on cans of Spaghetti-o’s. Recall 15 million cans because the meatballs might be slightly undercooked? Are they nuts? Toddler’s eat cookies off the floor, they’ll eat anyting off the floor. Bachelors just eat anything whether it’s off the floor or not. I knew a bachelor who pulled three rock hard Kentucky Fried biscuits out of his fridge. “You can’t eat those,” I said, “they’re stones by now.”
“You just have to let them soak in coffee a minute and they’re fine,’ he said, and proceeded to eat them.

I don’t think a slightly undercooked meatball - especially since there’s only one meatball in a can - is going to have any negative impact on anyone. Even if the lone meatball is undercooked, surely the preservatives will kill any bacteria along with the nutritional value.

Every home with kids has a few cans of Spaghetti-O’s in the cabinets right now. They are fast food, if not at home, they are perfect for the beach ever since they added the pull tab peel off top. Spaghetti-O’s are a staple in Shelter Island beach bags. They don’t need to be wrapped, you can drop a few cans in your beach bag with the Oreo’s and juice boxes for treats. There’s no social rules yet on what you can give kids for beach food. As long as you have SPF sunscreen and slather them every half hour you qualify as a good mother, no one pays attention to what you’re feeding your kids. There were times when I wanted to feed mine to the sharks, but there’s too many witnesses at the beach, plus the sharks are only in the deep channel and I knew my kids couldn’t swim out that far no matter how much I encouraged them.

I’m just waiting for the news to report some idiot who will try to take advantage of the situation.
“She was a normal nine year old, my Brittany. She loved Spaghetti-O’s, we didn’t know we had a can with a bad meatball. We think the meatball was made from a mad cow because overnight, our angel, became bratty, rebellious, sneaky, and talks to us in “textspeak”. She keeps saying, “OMG, WTF is wrong with you people?” to us. We’re suing Campbell’s for three million dollars. They took our sweet little girl from us. Now, they have to give us three million, or they have to take her till she’s 25. We just want what’s best for Brittany.”

To Stand and Witness

If you need a laugh today, I guess you’ll have to go to another place on the internet. Today’s column will be a vain attempt to bring comfort to the part of the heart no one can ever reach but its owner and sometimes God.

Last Friday, June 4th, the Island lost it’s first son in uniform since the Viet Nam War. 1st Lt. Joseph Theinert, age 24, in Afghanistan. He warned away and saved twenty other soldiers from the bomb that killed him. In that moment, in my mind, he went home, home to a place of no pain where he was met by loving relatives already there, and entered into the peace of God. Today, Friday June 11th, his body will be laid to rest in Our Lady of the Isle Catholic Cemetery.

His body came home to the Island on Wednesday, June 9, to a hero’s return with all the dignity and honor the Island could offer. The rain was strangely appropriate because everybody else was crying, why not the sky too?

It’s odd, but once you’ve lived here, whether for a single summer or your whole life, you are always affected by whatever affects the Island. Doesn’t matter how far you move, or how long you go, part of you remains here. The irony is when you live here, you can’t wait for a chance to get off-island, and if you’re off-island too long, you can’t wait to get home again. I never met Joe, but I’ll bet he’d agree with me on that point.

He came from good people. I only knew his mom, Chrys Kestler. She’s a beautiful, hardworking and upbeat gal, always busy, I’d wave to her all the time in her van with the “Mamasita” license plate. With her as a mother, Joe was raised as right as any kid could be. I can’t imagine where she and Joe’s father, James, can find air to breathe since this happened.

It’s hard to comfort grieving parents. There’s a lot you’d like to say, but nothing would be adequate, and yet, saying nothing isn’t right either. I think sending a card is good because then they can open it when they can bear to. And if they never open the card, it doesn’t matter, because they can see your name on the return address and know you thought of them that day.

Sometimes, all we can do is stand and be counted. The people who stood by the dock that brought him home on the ferry. The people who stood along the road and faced the procession as it passed. The people who stood at the funeral, the wake, and the cemetery service. The people who embraced the parents, the people who sensed they needed to be left alone for a moment. The Islanders who are off island now, were counted as they called or wrote. Sometimes all we can do is say, I am here and I witness your pain. If there is any healing power in knowing that other people care, that is all we can offer the Theinert-Kestler family today.

Shells Angels ; Hell's Angels revised and edited

Picture above is from www.trikezilla.com/

“Hells Angels, Please Explain Lifestyle
Reuters; Thu Jun 3, 12:36 pm ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) Michael Perry Reporter: Australia's Hells Angels bikers will be forced to explain how they pay for their extravagant lifestyles with sports cars and high-end bikes after losing a court case brought by the Australian Crime Commission.....Sports cars, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, drugs, firearms, computers and financial documents relating to biker activities were seized in recent police raids, said the newspaper.... the 12 Hells Angels bosses were served with summons to appear before the commission, to answer questions on tax fraud and their finances...”

I guess it was bound to come out sometime. Hell’s Angels gangs are worldwide now and have even reached Shelter Island, but in a milder, greener form; Shell’s Angels.

You’ve seen them, we all have. They ride their bikes everywhere, sometimes three or four abreast across the road, defying any car to pass them. And flipping the bird at them what drives too close, these wild rebels of the Island...They bike all over the Island. Speeding down long hills with their arms open wide like they’ll get lift off at any moment.

And the Shell Angels chicks, with their “Born to Be Mild” tramp stamp tatoo’s....peddling along with children strapped into plastic chairs on their fenders. Everyone knows that baby seats are supposed to be rear-facing, but these social miscreants flagrantly defy the law.

To make matters worse, they’re all in great shape and the boys wear lycra shorts that leave nothing to the imagination, (thank God), which is that disgusting.

And unlike their Hell’s Angels cousins, who drive crippled members in side cars and let fat members drive three wheelers, the Shell’s Angels don’t have sidecars for adults, just drag carts that they load with children or groceries. And you can’t drive an adult three wheeler and be in their club. I know, because during my mid-life crisis, I tried.

“I want a shiny red adult three wheeler with an ice cream bell and shiny red streamers on the handles.”
“That we got, but you’ll need some special additional modifications, Ms. Flynn. We got a deal on some second hand tires from the space shuttle that we think can take the pressure, we got a John Deere tractor seat on order and some shocks from Peterbilt.”
“I’m not going to stand out too much with all this special equipment am I?”
“No Ms. Flynn, no one will notice the space shuttle tires or any thing like that, but they will notice the large orange triangle on the back of your bike over the sign that says WIDE LOAD.”
“I’m not really an orange person, can we get the triangle in a soft green or aqua, something a little more summery?”
“Nope, has to be legal.”
“Well how am I going to express my rebel side? I wanna be a Shell’s Angel.”
“I dunno know. How about you go topless?”
“That’s a great thought, but I’d be too worried about catching a boob in the chain or the spokes.”
“Yeah, the Fire Department probably wouldn’t appreciate trying to untangle you from that. You know, I know a guy who knows a guy, I think I could hook you up with some hubcaps with double C’s”
“Chanel hubcaps? Oh, that would make those skinny biker chicks jealous.... I love it. I can just hear them talking about me now.... Sally Flynn, rebel without a cause....”
“No, it would be, Sally Flynn, rebel without a clue.”
“Chanel hubcaps, sparkling red streamers, baseball cards in the spokes, peeing in the woods...living on the edge, that’s me...”