New Product Saturday

I probably don’t buy and consume enough new products to do a “new product Saturday” every week or even very often, but I like the sound of it—like a real column in a real publication.

Not long ago I had the opportunity to explore a mid-sized grocery store with pan-ethnic leanings, the sort scattered around not only the city of Chicago, but the suburbs as well. Valley is the best of these, located in Roselle and Arlington Heights, Ill.

I forget the name of the mid-sized, pan-ethnic market, but I was there without children, so could examine at leisure products from around the world, or local products meant for people from around the world. You never know what you’ll run across in such a place—and one of these days I’m going to find those delicious orange-chocolate cookies made in Singapore that we enjoyed so thoroughly in southeast Asia in 1994, which I’ve yet to see for sale in North America.

I bought some Swad brand Aloo Mutter “micro curry,” product of India, with English and French on the box. “Aloo Mutter,” the box tells me, “is the original ‘Mom’s Cooking’ thought. Simple but full on flavor of cumin and cilantro. North Indian homes have best-married wholesome green peas and diced potatoes in a mild onion gravy.” Preparation is the essence of simplicity: inside the box is a plastic bag of aloo mutter that can either be emersed in boiling water for a few minutes or microwaved.

I opted for heating it in boiling water, and then poured it over rice. Results: pretty much what you’d expect, passable. Not the same as you’d get in your neighborhood Indian restaurant, where actual cooks are at work, but edible, especially considering the minimal effort involved.

I also scored a bottle of DG brand “sof drink,” pineapple flavored, at the mid-sized, pan-ethnic market. It was among the food and drink from Jamaica, its label sporting a cartoon cat, gray-green with purple and yellow trim, drinking with a straw from a bottle similar to the one he was on. He was also wearing yellow-tinted shades.

Close inspection of the bottle revealed that the drink was bottled for PC Jamaica Ltd., Kingston, “Product of Canada.” It contains not an iota of pineapple, unless it’s among the “natural and artificial flavors,” which is the ingredient just after gum arabic. I bought it and drank it. A good way to get my daily requirement of gum arabic and then some, I bet. Sweet swill, not awful, but not worth buying again. Probably better on a Jamaican beach than in temperate Illinois.

Not a food item, and not from the mid-sized, pan-ethnic market: a SkyDiamond brand kite featuring the face of Barbie. Got this for Lilly a while ago, and took it out for a test flight recently. Example of a buy cheap, get cheap. In the end, in fact, we (I) couldn’t figure out the best way to attach the string to the kite. You’d think that it would be self-evident, and the makers of the kite might have thought so too, since the exact words in the instructions were “Attach QuikClip™ to bridle loop,” with a small, gray illustration of hands doing something near the kite.

Bridle loop? What on Earth is that, in a kite context? Maybe I don’t know my kite lore, but I shouldn’t have to. We tried attaching it in what seemed to be all the obvious places, but the kite refused to fly, even though the wind was good. Piece of junk. No more SkyDiamonds for us.