A Light Feathery Touch

       One fun thing about looking for trends is that you can ask anyone for a clue, because almost everybody is always on to something. Of course, one person's trend is another person's passe. But somewhere in between is the nut of the trend, if you allow room for subjectivity and loosely calibrated trend meters.
       And so it was that sometime this past September, while driving around for a work-related survey, I stepped into a new local store, and decided to ask a young customer if there was anything in fashion that was trendy right now. She showed me a pair of bead necklaces, with a kind of Indian or hippy-ish look to them, in the accessories section. These are trendy, she said. The necklaces reminded me of the flower-child look of the sixties, and I left it at that. Fashion snippets from past decades resurface now and then, and I can't decide whether to call it a trend or a lack of originality. So I sent bead necklaces to the same  ambivalent file where I put cork-platform shoes.
        But the young, friendly woman at the Miami store, with a strand of bright green hair and a feather weaved in, sure was pointing me to another trend.
        Yesterday, while on my annual post-Christmas trip to Manhattan with my daughter, 12 going on 15, we naturally had to step into the five-level Forever 21 store in Times Square. Forever 21, in case you don't know, is this proliferating chain of clothing stores that is taking the retail market by storm for its endless production of cheap and cute clothing that passes for fashionable and wearable for the young set, and anybody else who can get away with it. It's kind of like the Ikea of clothing. And what item dominated the front-and-center accessories rack? Feathers, feathers, feathers. Feather earrings, feather necklaces, feather headbands, feather clips. All color feathers, all size feathers. And not in boas -- that's so twenties, no. Earrings, necklaces and hair. That's where the feathers are going.

       
         Understated feathers is not how fashion designers would have had it. For at least the past couple years, designers such as Robert Cavalli and Salvatore Ferragamo have been using feathers, lots of them, in the creation of dresses and skirts, so that fully-feathered models have been walking the runway for a while. And there's the famous Ferragamo pheasant handbag  worn by Carry Bradshaw in one of the Sex and the City movies.  But from there to mass market? Unless I've missed something, feathered dresses and skirts haven't made the leap.

           Feather hair extensions have caught on more, to the point that they have jacked up the price of feathers, according to this article: http://fashionista.com/2011/06/the-feather-hair-extension-trend-faces-a-tragic-feather-shortage-plus-a-gallery-of-starlets-using-them-up/, and the anger of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, according to this article: http://www.peta.org/living/fashion/feather-hair-extensions-a-trend-worth-killing-for.aspx. Neither one of those bode well for any mass market trend.
          Which is why I think Forever 21, the ultimate mass marketer, is pointing us to where the feathers will ultimately land, synthetic ones of course. It'll be one here, a couple there, and maybe feather prints in clothing.
          It's about an earthy touch in the look, without becoming some other species.
       

       

             

       
       

     
     

Greek Yogurt -- Creating an Empire in the Dairy Section

      Hello readers, it's been a while! I feel like I should give you an explanation of why I haven't posted in so long, but then again, I know you have more important things to do than read a bunch of excuses. Plus, although I won't beat myself up so hard as to add "who cares?", I acknowledge and embrace the very reliable fact that the world keeps turning without me posting. Thank God, I might add. I really don't want to be responsible for the planet's rotation. And speaking of the planet's rotation, it is from the other side of the planet that a new item is now in our face, meeting my definition of trend.
       Have you noticed Greek yogurt? A few weeks ago, the slightly fatter and flatter containers with brand names other than Yoplait and Dannon struck me as I visually scanned the dairy section. Chobani is the brand dominating my supermarket, although others have appeared recently, including Yoplait Greek and Dannon Greek. (We're such copycats.) By the way, this website, http://www.snack-girl.com/snack/yoplait-greek-yogurt-healthy/, will give you the skinny on Yoplait's and Dannon's me-too entries vs. the real Greek thing. (As you might guess, Greek stuff wins. The Greek weren't an empire for nothing.)

     I grabbed three Chobanis (they were three for $4) in lemon, pineapple and peach flavors, kind of excited. (It really doesn't take much.) Truth is, foreign foods intrigue me. They always appear to me more wholesome and tasty than so many of our over-processed U.S. foods. Further, Chobani triggered memories of a Nepal-inspired dinner I once attended, in which desert was a deliciously thick creamy yogurt that had been drained of water for two days.
     True to the marketing pitch, Chobani is thicker, creamier and not as sour, and allegedly has more protein because the whey is drained out, leaving more protein-packed milk solids. (I do feel more nourished and satisfied after a Chobani than after a Yoplait.) Further, when manufactured in Greece, Greek yogurt is made from goat milk. If  manufactured in U.S. -- I think this is what you'll find in most supermarkets -- Greek yogurt is made from good ol' cow's milk.
      But don't take it from me. Just this month, somebody launched a web site that is all about Greek yogurt. It's called, appropriately, www.whatisgreekyogurt.com. This other site, http://www.thepilot.com/news/2011/oct/23/welcome-greeks-bearing-gift/,  gives an interesting perspective on the U.S.' not-so-long relationship with yogurt, up to our current encounter with the original Greek product.
       And if you think that I am making too big a deal out of this Greek yogurt thing, General Mills, parent company of Yoplait, doesn't think so. The food giant earlier this year complained to the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board that the maker of Fage Total Greek Yogurt, by using the word "Total", was creating confusion with General Mills' Total cereal brand. (Seriously?) Last month, Fage astutely noted in a countercomplaint that General Mills is more concerned about Yoplait losing market share to Fage, than about consumers inability to tell their yogurt from their cereal. (Complaint details are here:
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/Total-war-in-yogurt-fixture-as-Fage-tackles-General-Mills-in-trademark-dispute)
         By all accounts, consumers, including this writer, seem to have embraced Greek yogurt, along with other fancied-up foods now more readily available in supermarkets, such as artisanal cheeses and craft beers. Tasty, healthy, even exotic, without having to buy a plane ticket overseas. When it comes to food, that's our deal.

Appreciating Your Business as Long as it's Cash

     Some trends go hand in hand with a counter trend. Cash-only restaurants fall in that category. In a world that's all about virtual everything, including money -- you don't touch the stuff as much as you exchange it electronically -- it seems like cash-only restaurants are making a noticeable appearance.

      Like, for example, Crumbs in Parchment, a much publicized new restaurant in Miami's up and coming Design District. It has a trendy location, snazzy decor, mouthwatering menu, and its owner Michelle Bernstein owns another popular restaurant in the area called Sra. Martinez. But should you decide to check it out, be warned that this new hot spot doesn't take credit cards.

     I would have been extremely surprised and confused by this cash-only MO if I hadn't had an earlier exposure to this unthinkable occurrence.

       My daughter and I, strolling around the Columbia University neighborhood this past spring, stumbled into Tom's Restaurant while in search of a place likely to have chicken strips. It turned out that Tom's Restaurant, or rather its facade, is the shot that appears in every episode of Seinfeld, when the characters are getting together at the diner where they always get together. (I knew the facade was familiar from somewhere, but it wasn't until we stepped inside and saw all the Seinfeld memorabilia that I realized where we were, which was really pretty cool.)



      Tom's Restaurant had the chicken strips and the famous facade and a great location, but what it didn't have was the contraption that restaurants have to swipe your plastic. Cold cash only. The manager gave me a long-winded explanation for this, which involved all about Tom's Restaurant being the most photographed sight in New York, after the Empire State Building.  I just had to surmise that the owner doesn't want to incur the expense of providing that convenience to its customers, and doesn't need to.

      Can a restaurant that isn't of Seinfeld fame get away with a cash-only policy?

      Apparently, yes. Cash-only restaurants aren't such a rarity, especially in New York, according to this article: http://www.nypost.com/p/lifestyle/food/show_me_the_money_8niSh33bOLHfc8IWT5RH8H.   And a Pioneer Press writer complained about it happening elsewhere in this article: http://www.twincities.com/ci_17015829

      As a customer, a find it extremely annoying. As a member of society who hates to see paper goods such as books and newspapers disappear, I guess I'm glad there's one kind of paper some people will favor over anything else.

Irish Pubs Have Been Around Forever -- Especially Now

      There is something about an Irish pub that makes it blend into the background, like something that has always been there, even if the place just opened. Maybe it's because everyone knows what you'll find in an Irish pub: beer, cholesterol-rich food, lots of wood in the decor and a warm, frequently noisy ambiance. So if a new pub opens in town, is not like everybody will be talking about it, because a pub is just a pub, as simple and commonplace as fish and chips.



      Which is why I have to bring to your attention that lately new Irish pubs seem to be popping up all over South Florida, and possibly the world. We now have Fado and Brickell Irish Pub, both in the Brickell Avenue area. (For you readers from around the country and around the world --hey, there might be one of you, right? -- bear with my local spin for a moment.) There's a Playwrights Irish Pub in South Beach and another one in Hallandale, in the new Village at Gulfstream Park. Up in Broward County, J.G. McGuinness opened recently in the town of Weston.
       And there are more, but it's not about how long the list of new pubs is, it's about how it's getting easier to find one in Miami, which wasn't the case before. Until recently Irish pub in Miami-Dade County meant John Martins in Coral Gables, a landmark establishment that seems to have  existed since before Betsy Malone.
       It's also telling that Fado, one of the new pubs around Brickell, is a chain. If you read this really interesting article by Jim Hillibish of Gatehouse News Service, you'll learn that true Irish pubs -- pub, by the way, is short for "public place", don't you love that? -- bear the name and personality of its owner, who typically only owned one pub. http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x1777811602/-Yerriah-the-craic-is-back-Irish-pubs-often-copied-often-changing. You'll learn many other things about the history and tradition of Irish pubs, none of which involves being part of a chain.

       So I pose to you that Irish pubs are becoming trendy, outside of Ireland and outside of Irish-influenced U.S. cities. And not only in South Florida, but around the world, according to this article on Irish pubs invading the world, by Matt Longe of LandLopers.com, a travel blog: http://landlopers.com/2011/03/10/global-appeal-irish-pubs-world-invasion-pint-time/ 
      Given that pubs are meant to be places for public gathering where folks can relax, share rounds, tell jokes and just be folks, that's one invasion that should be well received.