What I'm finding is that there are a lot of sales on things that normally are not on sale. My mom takes a particular (expensive) nutritional vitamin/supplement. We have had no trouble finding it "buy one get one" for the past several months. Every day in my in box some other higher end clothing store that rarely has discounts has another discount (20% off for the next 3 days, free shipping for the next 3 days). Buying is off (I certainly have no taste for spending on things right now unless I need them).

teatpuller wrote:Oddly Caputo's doesn't carry tongue (I've asked). I'm sure you can order it though.

Seriously? Whoda thunk...however, there are plenty of places that do ( I've asked) Marketplace on Oakton, H-Mart, to name two...just got some jellied veal tongue at Eurostyle Deli (and yes, it's delicious)

leek wrote:Every day in my in box some other higher end clothing store that rarely has discounts has another discount (20% off for the next 3 days, free shipping for the next 3 days). Buying is off (I certainly have no taste for spending on things right now unless I need them).

Yes, I notice this as well. I'm still feeling the guilt from an ill-advised minor spree on things I needed, but really didn't, last weekend. I justify it on the grounds that it's my small way of holding up the economy through trade. But I can understand why anyone is reluctant to spend right now, regardless of whether or not there's a change in your household circumstances.

Mhays wrote:I wonder how long it takes Global Economic Depression to trickle down to vermin? After all, they're living off our gardens and garbage...

The turning point will be if municipalities change their minds on animal husbandry -- Mount Prospect's code says, "No person shall keep, maintain and/or harbor any live swine, pigs, pigeons, bees, horses or cattle within the corporate limits of the village" (source) -- the pigeon- and bee-bans were a result of some grumpy neighbors (not of mine), and their farmer's market forbids home butchered meat, poultry or wild game animals, home canned foods, and so forth (source) -- although they seem to have relaxed their restriction on salsa, relishes and pickles.

If raising our own food becomes more critical for living, those laws will have to change. A goat sounds like fun, and might fit within the rules above (does it count as cattle?).

Signs in the restaurant scene that we're in a depression:

Graham Elliott switches from Budweiser foam to Meister Brau foam
Rick Bayless introduces American food in Mexico City
Moto introduces new technology: 8-track sashimi
Donnie Madia and Terry Alexander open new restaurant, "The Public Assistance"
Schwa answers its phone

Mike G wrote:Signs in the restaurant scene that we're in a depression:

Graham Elliott switches from Budweiser foam to Meister Brau foam
Rick Bayless introduces American food in Mexico City
Moto introduces new technology: 8-track sashimi
Donnie Madia and Terry Alexander open new restaurant, "The Public Assistance"
Schwa answers its phone

5 more and you can submit a list to Letterman.

JoelF wrote:The turning point will be if municipalities change their minds on animal husbandry -- Mount Prospect's code says, "No person shall keep, maintain and/or harbor any live swine, pigs, pigeons, bees, horses or cattle within the corporate limits of the village" (source) -- the pigeon- and bee-bans were a result of some grumpy neighbors (not of mine), and their farmer's market forbids home butchered meat, poultry or wild game animals, home canned foods, and so forth (source) -- although they seem to have relaxed their restriction on salsa, relishes and pickles.

If raising our own food becomes more critical for living, those laws will have to change. A goat sounds like fun, and might fit within the rules above (does it count as cattle?).

While we've always sort of teased about the idea of a sheep or goat as lawnmower, it is important to remember that a lot of these laws were put in place to prevent the spread of disease during depressed economic times. As a dog owner, I understand how challenging it can be to provide appropriate sanitation for the animals that are allowed in the city. Think of how many people don't even try...now multiply that by goats, chickens, etc. - keeping in mind how difficult it is to prosecute dog-cleanup scofflaws. Though there are some who've managed to keep chickens in Chicago...

In areas where you have larger yards, I can kind of see where these rules are a bit restrictive, but we've got 6 units in a standard-size Chicago lot. While I have a yearning for Soufflé au Manchego from homegrown ingredients, I doubt that we're going to have animals in densely populated areas. One would hope, though, that the farms in outlying areas would change from factory farms to ones that serve the City.

Hi,

I met someone from the Lawndale neighborhood who keeps chickens for their fresh eggs. Her neighbor's keep goats in the garage. There are no complaints because these immigrants are from environments where people and animals lived together.

The great flu epidemic of 1917 is thought to originate in the UK. There was an army encampment with pigs raised for food as part of the complex with not very good sanitation overall. The disease jumped from pig to human, then took off around the globe, because these soldiers were deployed all over.

Pasteurization of milk substantially reduced disease. Dan Block of Harold Washington College has researched this extensively and occasionally offers public lectures.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:I met someone from the Lawndale neighborhood who keeps chickens for their fresh eggs. Her neighbor's keep goats in the garage. There are no complaints because these immigrants are from environments where people and animals lived together.

It is currently legal to keep chickens as pets within Chicago limits, I believe. The city was going to ban it last year based on complaints but there was a lot of furor and the subject was apparently tabled.

I'm not certain of the current legal status of pet goats. Doesn't Sam Sianis still keep a live mascot for the Billy Goat?

I know of one past LTH poster who has a chicken or two, and I've had eggs from a private home in Evanston.

It's roosters that are illegal.

Hi,

This Lawndale resident said there are roosters in the neighborhood. She claims nobody minds.

Regards,

Jacks Restaurant now closes at 3:00 P.M. every day as a direct result of these tough times. Oh wait...that's not really a bright side, is it?

stevez wrote:Jacks Restaurant now closes at 3:00 P.M. every day as a direct result of these tough times. Oh wait...that's not really a bright side, is it?

When was the last time you went for dinner? The few times I have gone to Jack's it was breakfast and lunch. I was at an event recently where someone mentioned being a 1 AM regular at Jack's when he was a wedding singer in the 1970's. It was news to him it was no longer a 24 hour joint. While he remembered the place very fondly, he had not been there in years.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:When was the last time you went for dinner?

While I can't say I go there often for dinner, it's close enough to my house that I would go maybe 4 - 5 times/year. No more, though.

stevez wrote:While I can't say I go there often for dinner, it's close enough to my house that I would go maybe 4 - 5 times/year. No more, though.

Ellen and I go to Jack's half a dozen times a year for dinner as well. I typically get a BLT combo with thick slice bacon and she gets the $10* prime rib special, not exactly Lawry's, but satisfying in a basic Blue Plate Special fashion.

Enjoy,
Gary

*Its been a while, $10 is an estimate

When I used to live in Evanston, I'd routinely eat dinner at Jack's, maybe a couple of times a month. That was back in the day when smoking was permitted and even though I loved the homey, diner-riffic food, the cigarettes and billowing smoke eventually made it too hard to bear and we stopped eating (dinner) there.

This may be a somewhat controversial thing to say but I really don't understand this 3pm closing time. With their location right off the Edens, plus the ample parking, it seems to me that this place could still thrive on a 24-hour basis -- or at least as an "open late" joint. I just don't get it, especially when places like Omega, which is open 24-hours and farther from I-294 than Jack's is from the Edens, seem to get an entirely separate wave of business after 11 pm. This sort of feels like throwing in the towel but it's not my money in the place, so wtf do I know?

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:This sort of feels like throwing in the towel but it's not my money in the place, so wtf do I know?

I talked to the owner about this. He said that the place has been very slow for dinners for some time and lately, biz dropped off even more. Although he didn't say so, I have a feeling that business is off for breakfast and lunch, too, so subsidising a money losing dinner hour wasn't working out any longer. Cutting back to a single shift was his cost saving solution.

You know, when I moved here 20 years ago the city was packed with these kind of Greek diner/coffeeshop places. Certainly half of them that I knew then are gone now and many that do survive are breakfast and lunch places, not dinner places (even if they're open for dinner, there's a big contrast between being jammed for Sunday breakfast and being empty at 7:30 pm). I just think a lot of people under 60 just don't eat that kind of food for dinner, or at least go to that kind of place, ever, and the retiree vibe in most of them becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

The following isn't a "bright side," just a dispatch from the global economic depression:

In the past week I've been in three cities and eaten in three restaurants all in the non-super-pricey but "upscaley" end of the spectrum. Two were doing about half the amount of business you might normally expect; the other was practically deserted except for us.

It is prudent for everyone to watch personal expenses in times like this, but I didn't expect restaurant patronage to fall off a cliff as it has, as judged from this anecdotal evidence.

riddlemay wrote:The following isn't a "bright side," just a dispatch from the global economic depression:

In the past week I've been in three cities and eaten in three restaurants all in the non-super-pricey but "upscaley" end of the spectrum. Two were doing about half the amount of business you might normally expect; the other was practically deserted except for us.

It is prudent for everyone to watch personal expenses in times like this, but I didn't expect restaurant patronage to fall off a cliff as it has, as judged from this anecdotal evidence.

On the other hand, I've been to three very recently opened places in the last few weeks. We all know how hard it is for new restaurants to get off the ground, and one would think it would be even harder in times like this. On each of these three occasions, the restaurant was packed with a line out the door.

This is encouraging, Kenny. But you say this observation comes from visits you've made "in the last few weeks." Does any of it come from experiences you've had in the last few days? That's when I began to see the drop-off.

Kennyz wrote:

riddlemay wrote:The following isn't a "bright side," just a dispatch from the global economic depression:

In the past week I've been in three cities and eaten in three restaurants all in the non-super-pricey but "upscaley" end of the spectrum. Two were doing about half the amount of business you might normally expect; the other was practically deserted except for us.

It is prudent for everyone to watch personal expenses in times like this, but I didn't expect restaurant patronage to fall off a cliff as it has, as judged from this anecdotal evidence.

On the other hand, I've been to three very recently opened places in the last few weeks. We all know how hard it is for new restaurants to get off the ground, and one would think it would be even harder in times like this. On each of these three occasions, the restaurant was packed with a line out the door.

Happily ?, this has been my experience as well. On Saturday 10/4, I had to try 4 restaurants before I found one at which there wasn't at least a 30-minute wait at dinner time. I joked with my wife at the time that it would be hard to tell how bad the economy was, based on the lines at these places. It was a fairly diverse mix of places, too: Habana Libre, Greek Islands and Carnivale. All of them were packed just before 8 pm. We ended up at Kang Nam. Our original plan was to hit Smak-Tak but they were closed for a private party.

Having spent this past weekend in Phoenix, which is a retiree-laden zone, business seems pretty brisk there, too. Of course, this is just anecdotal information, as well.

=R=

riddlemay wrote:This is encouraging, Kenny. But you say this observation comes from visits you've made "in the last few weeks." Does any of it come from experiences you've had in the last few days? That's when I began to see the drop-off.

Indeed it does. The Bristol was jammed with an hour wait for a table at 7PM on Friday night.

Good news, then. May your and Ronnie's experiences prove typical, and mine prove to be "outliers." (I've never typed or even spoken that word before.)

riddlemay wrote:Good news, then. May your and Ronnie's experiences prove typical, and mine prove to be "outliers." (I've never typed or even spoken that word before.)

The amateur economist in me figures that things are going to slow down for a lot of restaurants. I just don't see how that's not going to happen. It may not happen across the board, but I'd wager that our current tough times will definitely take some folks out.

The dimestore psychologist in me figures that immediately after economic hardship sets in, many folks go out just to comfort themselves. Shortly thereafter, reality sets in and they cut back on certain luxuries.

I wonder what the impact will be on food costs -- and the distribution of spending across various food-related segments. Could grocery spending increase at the expense of foodservice spending? Call me a cynic but I don't foresee a whole lot of people, who aren't already doing so, taking matters into their own hands and growing their own food or making it from scratch. I do expect that folks will eat at home more but what exact form that takes is anyone's guess. For example, fast (take-out) food's cheap and plentiful and easily accessible.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:The dimestore psychologist in me figures that immediately after economic hardship sets in, many folks go out just to comfort themselves. Shortly thereafter, reality sets in and they cut back on certain luxuries.

Not to mention that the restaurants in question have recently opened. Here's hoping they can hang on to the traffic once the novelty wears off.

riddlemay wrote:I didn't expect restaurant patronage to fall off a cliff...

I was at Prosperity Dumplings in Manhattan's Chinatown on Monday and the place was overflowing, crowds out the door.

Then again, it's about the size of a phone booth! Or maybe a modest walk-in closet.

Prices are well suited for tough times, with sesame pancake with beef (fantastic) going for $1.50 and an order of fried pot stickers for $1. My friend Sandy strongly endorsed the pancake with duck, but there was no sign it exists as anything more than his fantasy despite him having just been there a few days before...

Prosperity Dumpling‎
46 Eldridge St
New York, NY 10002
(212) 343-0683

ronnie_suburban wrote: The amateur economist in me figures that things are going to slow down for a lot of restaurants. I just don't see how that's not going to happen. It may not happen across the board, but I'd wager that our current tough times will definitely take some folks out.=

I believe that the overwhelming number of restaurants are seeing their business decline. For some, the decline is minor while for others, it will be fatal. Either way, people are looking for value and are asking restaurants to moderate their pricing a bit.

ronnie_suburban wrote: I wonder what the impact will be on food costs -- and the distribution of spending across various food-related segments. Could grocery spending increase at the expense of foodservice spending? Call me a cynic but I don't foresee a whole lot of people, who aren't already doing so, taking matters into their own hands and growing their own food or making it from scratch. I do expect that folks will eat at home more but what exact form that takes is anyone's guess. For example, fast (take-out) food's cheap and plentiful and easily accessible.

Growing their food, ala "Victory Gardens", I don't think so. When that was popular in the 30s and 40s, most Americans lived on farms or were a generation away from it. Most Americans, even those in the city, had vegetable gardens. While my father spends hours growing vegetables, I have to confess that I have never done it (since I moved out of his house, ending 22 years of forced child labor).

Enlightened grocery chains, like Wegman's and Publix are offering more prepared entrees that will compete with restaurant food at 60% of the cost. Packages food preoducers like Conagra are preparing more frozen entrees geared at families, like precooked and sliced pot raost and the like. I see more people goign in that direction.

One thought about garden veggies: I have had a garden for all but about three of the years in the 22 I've had my own home (and one of those had a big pile of dirt on top of the garden at the time from my home addition), but I don't grow for the keeping.

Yes, this year I've frozen some tomato sauce, oven-dried tomatoes (also in the chill chest), canned some grape jelly and in past years have pickled peppers, made jalpeno jam, frozen grilled peppers, and frozen pureed tomatillos, but I see those as lagniappe, not the goal: I grow foods that just aren't as good in the stores, like fresh herbs, peppers and tomatoes. And I've spent over $50 on seedlings for what probably amounts to $40 of salsa at least once or twice. So it's not an economic benefit. Perhaps I'll make a little more effort to pick the stuff I won't get around to eating, and freeze more of it.

I'm not growing potatoes, carrots and cabbages that I expect to last all winter.
Given how few veggies my wife and sons enjoy, I'm not likely to change my gardening habits.
The fact is that the veggies that would keep all year, that my family would eat, are likely to remain dirt cheap (potatoes, carrots...). It's the 'fresh produce' that's going to be pricey, and that I can't really keep all year round in my house.

JoelF wrote:The fact is that the veggies that would keep all year, that my family would eat, are likely to remain dirt cheap (potatoes, carrots...). It's the 'fresh produce' that's going to be pricey, and that I can't really keep all year round in my house.

This is my take, too. Those people who enjoy gardening and preserving tend to try to justify their hobby by boasting how much money they're saving. When all is said and done, the economics are probably a wash, or worse, especially if you factor in labor. It's worth having a garden and preserving food if you have the space and time and like doing it. There's no reason to feel guilty about it if you don't.

VI disagreed with me on whether it was worth buying apples for the purpose of storing them. I had said that these days you can get perfectly good apples in mid-winter that have been stored by people who have excellent facilities for doing it. Even Midwestern apples.

Is it cheaper to buy apples now and store them yourself? In my experience, not very, especially if you factor in waste and the time involved in continually checking to make sure the apples haven't gone bad or attracted pests. If there's some special variety you're afraid you can't get later or if you find a real bargain, it might be worth a try if you have a cool spot that's unlikely to be invaded by bugs or critters, but imperfectly stored apples can be mealy and terrible, and the saying about one bad apple is, unfortunately, based on real truth.

If it makes you feel good to have a cellar full of stored food, that's reason enough to do it. But you needn't feel like a spendthrift if you don't bother.