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Jun. 1st, 2009
The scales of justice weigh hundreds of laws each day in Massachusetts. Here is a peek at some of the more obscure rules on the books in the Bay State. While we have to admit, we did not sort through every local law book out there - to the best we can determine, these laws are still on the books.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
No Grapes, No Nuts, No Market Share: A Venerable Cereal Faces Crunchtime
A New Identity as Breakfast's 'Father Figure'; Where Have You Gone, Euell Gibbons?
By BARRY NEWMAN
CERES, Calif. -- All the world's Grape Nuts come from a dirty-white, six-story concrete building with steam rising out of the roof here in the San Joaquin Valley. The valley grows lots of grapes and lots of nuts, so the factory's location would make sense, if Grape Nuts contained any local ingredients. Which it doesn't.
For 111 years, over breakfast, Americans have wondered: What's a grape nut? A grape nut looks like a kidney stone, but the name, unlike shredded wheat's, isn't self-descriptive. This raises many reasonable questions: Is it grapes that haven't developed? What part of the grape do they use? For those who have read the box and learned what Grape Nuts are made of (flour), a denser issue arises: How does a cereal with the mouthfeel of gravel get manufactured?
Teaser: On the factory's fourth floor, all day every day, objects with the proportions of hewn firewood and the heft of cinder blocks hurtle along a conveyor, dive into a steel chute, disappear down a black hole -- and emit what sounds like a startled scream.( Read more... )
(And as a matter of fact, my rabbi did once theorize that Grape Nuts might be hamotzi...)
A New Identity as Breakfast's 'Father Figure'; Where Have You Gone, Euell Gibbons?
By BARRY NEWMAN
CERES, Calif. -- All the world's Grape Nuts come from a dirty-white, six-story concrete building with steam rising out of the roof here in the San Joaquin Valley. The valley grows lots of grapes and lots of nuts, so the factory's location would make sense, if Grape Nuts contained any local ingredients. Which it doesn't.
For 111 years, over breakfast, Americans have wondered: What's a grape nut? A grape nut looks like a kidney stone, but the name, unlike shredded wheat's, isn't self-descriptive. This raises many reasonable questions: Is it grapes that haven't developed? What part of the grape do they use? For those who have read the box and learned what Grape Nuts are made of (flour), a denser issue arises: How does a cereal with the mouthfeel of gravel get manufactured?
Teaser: On the factory's fourth floor, all day every day, objects with the proportions of hewn firewood and the heft of cinder blocks hurtle along a conveyor, dive into a steel chute, disappear down a black hole -- and emit what sounds like a startled scream.( Read more... )
(And as a matter of fact, my rabbi did once theorize that Grape Nuts might be hamotzi...)