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SE Texas-based Jason’s Deli tops Zagat health category

That I ordered a sandwich today at Jason’s Deli — at the Original, as in first-ever Jason’s Deli — had nothing to do with the Beaumont, Texas,-based restaurant outfit being named by the Zagat consumer survey as best large chain with healthy options. In fact, it was downright depressing when I later looked up the “New York Yankee,” the sandwich I ordered, on the company’s online nutrition chart. I nearly fell out of my chair when I discovered the tasty pastrami and beef on rye carried with it a whopping 69 grams of fat and 1,189 calories. Thank goodness I have started eating Healthy Choice frozen dinners at night lately.

Billed as the “Gastronomic Bible” by The Wall Street Journal and its own PR people as “the world’s most trusted source for consumer generated survey information,” Zagat released its annual fast food survey today.

I try to choose from the much lighter Jason’s menu but light gets old in a hurry. Plus, I’m a Jason’s junkie. Having a great deli company like that based in your neighborhood is good okay, kind of like wicked fine only mo’ better.

Subway won that same category in the “mega-chain” group. The ‘way is, of course, famous for its different sandwiches under 10 grams of fat and which made Jared skinny. I eat at Subway too. However, Jason’s offer more than just sandwiches. Probably my favorite Jason’s is the “Quarter Muff Special” which includes a quarter muffuletta that is about the size of a double-meat Whopper and includes chips (I go for the Baked Lays), a pickle and a cup of soup. My soup “cup” of choice is actually a spicy and delicious seafood gumbo.

Likewise, Jason’s has breakfast items which I have yet to taste in the 15 years I have dined at the chain. They have one of the best salad bars to be found anywhere. Regardless of whether I eat at the salad bar or order something else I usually pickup about a handful of assorted nuts from their salad bar. J’s Deli also features all types of wraps and spuds and soups, as I’ve mentioned. I love their Black Currant Tea although they have several other types as well of other refreshments. I suppose they still sell beer at the original Beaumont stores but I am not certain. I haven’t noticed for a long time. Since lines tend to get long at both their Dowlen Road location and the original at Gateway Shopping Center off South 11th, it is quite handy they have a kiosk where you can use your credit card to get a salad bar order. Just step ahead of the crowd, place your order, swipe your card and get a big bowl from the counter.

A Jason’s Deli meal most times averages around $10 if you have a drink with it. Closer to $8 if you only want some iced water. Even though I think their tea is unmatched in most places, at least in this part of the country, I still think $2 is a little steep. Of course, you can refill and the dilligent and most times smiling Jason’s folks will cheerfully hand you a “go cup,” which is very useful in these scorching Texas days we have had lately.

I have to say I can’t agree with a lot of other Zagat survey choices. The news release announcing their survey gives the particulars:

 “This year’s survey covers 103 chains as voted on by 6,064 diners. The typical surveyor dined at a fast food restaurant at least once a week. They weighed in on everything from breakfast to burgers and fries to frozen yogurt, separately rating each chain on the quality of its Food, Facilities and Service on Zagat’s signature 30-point scale as well as ranking their favorites.”

Still, some of those joints they weighed in on — some of which I may visit every now and then — are kind of baffling. I get the popularity contest of the top five mega chains, 1st to last, Subway, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell. The top “overall” ratings which include service, food and facilities for mega-chains are 1. Wendy’s 2. Subway 3. McDonald’s 4. Pizza Hut 5. KFC. That, my friends, is truly mind-blowing.

The survey did unveil some clever comments from the respondents and some appear as if they might land pretty much on the mark for some spots:

  • Rule #1: don’t look inside the burrito
  • Helping generations turn into obese diabetics
  • Consistently awful everywhere, but at least you know what to expect
  • They even fry the napkins
  • Major food groups are well covered: grease, salt and burned
  • Always entertaining – usually a brawl or arrest to watch

 

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A little Labor Day randomness

Tropical madness

It would probably sadden me to determine just how many of the 1,975 — this being No. 1,975 — posts which I have published on this site dealt with weather. I counted 10 thus far in 2011 alone. My possible sadness comes from my own consternation over the countless paragraphs I have written over the past three decades, most in newspapers, concerning the weather. Now those stories I have written since I began freelancing six years ago do not count because I was paid by the story rather than a salary.

Quite frankly, I think newspapers — the ones I worked for at least — often publish needless stories about the weather. If it rains after a long drought, okay, it’s more than likely news. If it comes a thunderstorm with no damage or power outages or anything more than a lot of rain and lighting when such a storm is normal, I don’t think so.

The truth is though, that weather interests me, a lot. I may have mentioned here that I wanted to be a TV weatherman (we didn’t call them “meteorologists” back then) when i grew up. I guess I became one in a way, writing news stories about the weather, I just wasn’t on TV.

Weather is also most likely the one facet of life which affects everyone in one way or the other. Do you want to know how to dress for work tomorrow? Are you planning on an outside gathering or a job or perhaps even working at all? You check the weather or if you don’t, you probably go outside and look at the sky! These are just the obvious concerns one has most every day about climatic conditions.

Among the many other reasons for considering the weather:

*Voter turnout in elections

*The price of food

*The price of gasoline

*Local traffic

*Air travel, both locally and nationally

*The stock market

*Recreational economies

*Crime

The list goes on and on. So perhaps my aversion to “meaningless” weather stories was a little wrong-headed. Well, I will concede that is true in some cases but not so true in others. What is meaningless is doing a weather story — like any other — without meaning. Nevertheless, when the boss tells you to do a story or dig that ditch or make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear you usually do it. That is, you do it if you want a pay check.

With that very long explanation, just a brief mention that the Beaumont area did get some rain out of Tropical Storm Lee despite the repeated lines by The Weather Channel people that Texas was not to receive any beneficial rain from the storm which for quite sometime was no more than about 80-to-100 miles off the coast from where I live.

It is true, the majority of Texas received no beneficial rain, if any. Today, huge fires have burned several hundred homes in the Bastrop, Texas, area just to the southeast of Austin and there are other wildfires blazing in the parched state. But we received a little rain here in Southeast Texas, perhaps near 2 inches where I live. Plus the gusty winds and the clouds kept the temperatures down to highs of about 75 degrees. That was worth a weather story alone, considering we have recently experienced 100-degree-plus temperatures.

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College football swirling down the toilet bowl

The supposed departure of Texas A & M from the Big 12 Conference to the SEC has once again set in motion a major shakeup in Division I alliances. Now there is talk of Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State splitting for the Pac-12.

College football has long been about money, some of it legit, some not so legit. Now these threatened departures smack of nothing more than greed. In the case of Texas, Tech and A & M, I can’t help but think that the defection from the Big 12 of these state-run universities with regents appointed by our own Gov. Goodhair may have a major political angle as well. Okay, go ahead and say “duh” or “ya think?” Nevertheless, money and politics, politics and money, we may see the end of Texas and even national Division I football as we know it. Many of these proposed alliances just do not fit. Think about it. You’ll see that I am right. Because I am always right and I never lie. (Apologies to Firesign Theater)

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The reason for the day off

It is Labor Day. This day traditionally marks the end of summer and some great sales by giant retailers. But the holiday itself is about honoring the workers of this nation. The holiday is rooted in the original labor councils of the late 19th century, the forebears of today’s AFL-CIO.

The right wing has made an all-out attack on labor since the Tea Party-led Republicans gained a congressional majority. That is why it is important for organized labor to continue to drive home the contributions the unions have made to the American worker such as those in this reminder by the AFL-CIO:

 “Unions have made life better for all working Americans by helping to pass laws ending child labor, establishing the eight-hour day, protecting workers’ safety and health and helping create Social Security, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage, for example. Unions are continuing the fight today to improve life for all working families in America.”

I have had the honor of membership and serving as vice president in two different union locals which were, respectively, affiliates of the International Association of Firefighters and the American Federation of Government Employees. The contributions and assistance both organizations made to my fellow workers were of great benefit to both non-members and members. I have a number of friends in the trade unions who have made very good livings for themselves and their families both financially and through benefits such as health care and retirement. Like the old Neil Young song: “I’m proud to be a union man.”

Whether you belong to unions or you hate unions, your life has been enriched by organized labor.

With that, I wish you a happy Labor Day.

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It could be a great week for the East Coast

My niece in Virginia Beach, said a short while ago on Facebook: “Earthquake on Tuesday, hurricane on Saturday…this is shaping up to be a stellar week!” I’m glad of course that she is doing well as is her family and she can maintain her sense of humor.

The East Coast earthquake seems to be the topic of the afternoon. A fellow who works on my floor — our conversations have never ventured beyond small talk in the past couple of years I’ve known him — mentioned how weird the quake was. A man passing time listening to NPR while waiting on someone at the grocery store also made some mention of it. This fellow said he had lived in California and studied quakes. He said that when cool temperatures come up suddenly there tend to be more shaking.

Compared to the 80-degree nights we have been having in Southeast Texas, the last couple of nights in the area of the quake’s epicenter has been cool — in the upper 50s and 60s for lows, we’d take it — but hardly earth-shaking cold. Nonetheless, it was an interesting theory to listen to while putting the groceries in my auto.

This was the most powerful earthquake in the Eastern U.S. area in 100 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That is significant enough. But the fact that the quake was felt in Washington, New York City and Boston — the Megapolis (BosWash) — is another reason that this is such a big event even though the quake was nothing as severe as the 9.0 quake and tsunami that hit eastern Japan in March.

The fact is earthquakes happen all the time and all around the world. An earthquake can strike any location at any time, the USGS says. The last earthquake in Texas was 11:30 p.m., Aug. 6, about 6 miles west southwest of Dallas, this according to the “Last Earthquake in … “ page on the USGS Website. Pretty neat site, actually, as is individual state earthquake histories by that same agency. Included in the Texas earthquake history was a blurb of the series of shocks that hit in the mid-1960s in the area just north of where I was raised:

 “A series of moderate earthquakes in the Texas – Louisiana border region near Hemphill started on April 23, 1964. Epicenters were determined on April 23, 24, 27, and 28. There were numerous additional shocks reported felt at Pineland, Hemphill, and Milam. The only damage reported was from the magnitude 4.4 earthquake on April 28 – wall paper and plaster cracked at Hemphill (V). The magnitude of the other epicenters changed from 3.4 to 3.7. Shocks were also felt at Pineland on April 30 and May 7. On June 2, three more shocks were reported in the same area. The strongest was measured at magnitude 4.2; intensities did not exceed IV. Another moderate earthquake on August 16 awakened several people at Hemphill and there were some reports of cracked plaster (V). The shock was also felt at Bronson, Geneva, Milam, and Pineland.”

There was a lot of local interest in these shocks in my area, not because it was spread over the news or the Internet. It wasn’t. This was, after all, 1964 in the Pineywoods of East Texas.. All the talk, as I can remember, was by word of mouth. Much of the concern centered around Toledo Bend Reservoir, which spans the Texas-Louisiana border for 65 miles and is the largest man-made water body in the southern U.S. Toledo Bend was being built during that time so some dismissed the shaking as dynamite charges, used for what in building the huge lake I have no idea. Others still, worried about building a large dam holding almost 4.5 million acre feet of water — think 4.5 million x 1 acre of water that is 1 foot deep — being built on faults capable of producing seismic eruptions as those in 1964. But just as suddenly as the quakes came did they leave.

Everyone, it seems or at least in the U.S., has some sort of violent natural aspect for which to be concerned. Where I live it’s hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes (not recently though), lightning, forest fires, marsh fires, extreme heat and humidity,  disease-ridden mosquitoes, alligators, snakes, flesh-eating bacteria from the Gulf waters, and if you believe some, Bigfoot. Those are just some of the natural threats. Oh and earthquakes, we don’t have a big risk but remember what the USGS said. At least we don’t have mudslides, like California.

Hopefully, my niece and her family and my friends on the East Coast will escape Hurricane Irene. It is bad enough just surviving everyday life without earthquakes and tropical cyclones to worry about. If my loved ones can get through that storm and the earthquake with little or no problems, then perhaps those folks might just really have a stellar week. Let’s all hope they do.

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Have we ever seen a summer like this before?

The same hot day without rain over and over and over is beginning to get on my last nerve.

Some people get their emotions all out of whack when it is cloudy and cold and dark all the time. It’s called SAD, for Seasonal Affective Disorder. I may not be depressed from the temperature peaking near 100 degrees every day and “nary a clown in the sky” as someone used to say. One can be danged sure though that I am truly sick of, seemingly, the same high pressure center parking its hot rear end over my part of the world and seeing how long it can stay there.

I know folks around these parts who say they can’t remember a hot, dry spell like the one we have been having here in Southeast Texas. I can remember such spells but they were not exactly in this part of the state. Most recently I think of the Summer of 1998 while living in Waco. That summer was No. 4 on the all-time list of consecutive 100-degree days in that “Heart of Texas (HOT)” city with a total of 29 days in a row, according to the National Weather Service. This year is the new No. 1, with a string of 44 days when the temp was at least 100. That streak thankfully ended on Aug. 12.

Before that was the summer of 1980. I lived in Nacogdoches that year, about two hours to the north of where I now live. I worked then as a firefighter and was in between semesters in college. I remember it as plenty hot then as I lived in a little shotgun shack with an air conditioner that gave its all in a house surrounded by no trees. But we had nothing of a summer in comparison with Dallas and even Waco. That was the No. 2 Waco summer of consecutive 100-degree days with 42 in a row. Dallas had it much worse that 1980 summer as it was the all time number of consecutive and total days of 100-degree days. I remember a friend told me a story about being inside a Dallas bar at 10 p.m. during that summer and the deejay announced, to applause, that the temperature had fallen to 100 degrees.

But I don’t remember summers like that where I now live, which is basically within 60 miles of where I was raised.

And thus a little new history from this summer in nearby Houston:

…THE 100-DEGREE DAY RECORDS FOR SOUTHEAST TEXAS… …2011 NOW HAS MORE 100 DEGREE DAYS THAN ANY OTHER YEAR IN CITY OF HOUSTON WEATHER HISTORY… THE HIGH TEMPERATURE HAS ONCE AGAIN SOARED TO 101 DEGREES IN HOUSTON. THIS IS THE 22ND CONSECUTIVE DAY THAT THE MERCURY HAS CLIMBED TO THE CENTURY MARK. THIS IS ALSO THE 33RD TIME THIS YEAR THAT THE 100 DEGREE THRESHOLD HAS BEEN REACHED OR EXCEEDED. THIS BREAKS THE RECORD OF 32 ONE HUNDRED DEGREE DAYS ESTABLISHED IN 1980.

MOST CONSECUTIVE 100-DEGREE DAYS AT HOUSTON (DOWNTOWN/IAH): (RECORDS SINCE 1889)

1. 22 DAYS – ONGOING AS OF 8/22/2011

2. 14 DAYS – ENDING 7/19/1980

…

It is difficult to interpret all of our local weather records which come out of the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La., probably because they have a much smaller office there. However, the August maximum temperatures for Beaumont/Port Arthur show that, so far, no records seem to be broken as for temperature. I didn’t check the rainfall records because that would have really depressed me.

So yes, it is hotter than a million dollars worth of 2-dollar pistols here. Maybe we have never seen a summer like this one before although perhaps our ancestors did. When we start talking about possible culprits is where the real heat begins. I’m talking about the dreaded “GW” and no I’m not talking about Gee Dubya (W) Bush. I think even he expressed his belief in global warming, to which I refer.

It is getting impossible to have a civil discussion on global warming. The conservative propaganda machine, the best the world has known at least since that fun fellow Dr. Goebbels, has managed to make the GW into one of those controversies such as religion or abortion. If you are not on their side you are on the wrong side, no matter what.

After college is when I first began considering this global warming debate, some 25 years ago. I remember discussing the matter over several pitchers of beer one day with two friends, one with a Ph.D. in chemistry and another who now years later holds a doctorate in geology. I wasn’t really sold on global warming back then because of the obvious cyclical nature of weather. But today I do believe that, yes, we have global warming and that, yes, it is caused by humans. Despite the strides the neo-Goebbelist machine has made, most polls are reflective of this one conducted by Yale and George Mason universities which show a solid majority still believe global warming exists and is man made. A fact sheet from the National Geographic Society also is enlightening both on the subject itself and on the so-called “smoking gun” conservatives used to attempt discrediting major scientists who have researched extensively the topic.

That the right of the right-wing Republicans are so against what the majority of Americans see as a perfectly sensible scientific fact because primarily they have been led to do so in the name of big oil is particularly puzzling when you have big petrodollar people like GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman who acknowledge this “inconvenient truth.” Oh and by the way, the Huntsman Corp. bought Texaco’s chemical unit in Port Neches, in our county, for $850 million back in 1994. Did the Huntsmans contribute to global warming? Is Jon Huntsman Jr. running a Democratic Party campaign in the GOP as a way of saying “sorry” to places burning up by warming caused by his family’s business? I kind of doubt it.

Such a speculation is just that. But there is plenty of room for people to amicably argue about global warming without going nuts. Just make sure you have the air conditioner turned up to Warp Speed as well as your tower fan before doing so.

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A note or two for the day

Just a note or two on the headlines.

First, it’s raining, but just a little bit. Just a little bit here and there and a lot there and here. That’s the way things go down here on the coast in the summertime, when as Mungo Jerry sang: “… and the weather is high, you can stretch right up and touch the sky.” Then, something, something about having women on your mind. It’s probably because of those little bikinis and thongs. Oh my goodness. Some folks get weirded out about a 55-year-old man talking about things like bikinis and thongs. Grow the f**k up, Junior!

But it looks like we will just get rains in fits and spurts like always until that tropical storm comes along and sits off the coast for a few days. We can only wish. The fits and spurts have made some progress here on the Upper Texas Coast though. We’ve had some pretty significant downpours. I’m sure you are interested in our weather here. Sorry, I’ve tried writing about other matters and came up short.

The Independent of London reports the death of Sean Hoare, the whistleblower of the News Corp scandal is not suspicious, according to British investigators. Hmmm. Coming on the heels of the Murdoch media empire tumbling down, the death of the whistleblower who made it all happens isn’t suspicious? Why it is to me.

An editorial in The Wall Street Journal, one of the News Corp properties in the U.S. along with Fox “Faux” News, says the liberal media and critics of Murdoch have just been piling on. When all else fails, blame it on the liberal media. Personally, it wouldn’t hurt me one iota to see Fox News tank. I have said and I continue to say that Fox News is nothing more than a propaganda tool for the right wing.  And yes, I include their news operation, especially their news operation. They should know better.

Finally, here is hoping a new, good and fair collective bargaining agreement gets approved by the NFL players. Yeah, the players make millions. They deserve it for a four or five year career that can leave them crippled for life with traumatic arthritis and brain damage. It’s their fault though, right? Well, yes, or their parents or coaches or teachers or school board or television or Wheaties or the Punt, Pass and Kick program or the late Dandy Don Meredith. They shouted out, “who killed the Kennedys, when after all, it was you and me,” ah “Sympathy For The Devil” a Rolling Stones classic. I can still see Mick Jagger way down there on the floor of the Louisiana Superdome singing/shouting “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name … ” It’s a great song. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Have a good rest of the day.