Save the Martini and the salted peanut

There is an otherwise excellent seafood restaurant in my Long Island town of Merrick that has a vast selection of specialty "Martinis." When I was growing up, a Martini meant one thing - a drink that was 80% gin or vodka and 20% vermouth. At this restaurant (and many others I've seen lately) there are Apple Martinis, Chocolate Martinis, Pomegranite Martinis, Pineapple Martinis and Cranberry Martinis- it's enough to make James Bond cry. These are not Martini's - these are drinks for wimps who are kidding themselves. They want the sophistication of drinking a Martini but the reassurance of drinking something made with pineapple juice. I'd support a class-action lawsuit to take the name back.

Salted peanuts. The major grocery chains in Long Island (Super Stop N Shop and King Kullen) have got together and decided for us that we the customers do not need Salted in the Shell Peanuts. In the past year I've seen them go from hard to find to impossible. Stop N Shop in particular has a selection of 5 different kinds of unsalted peanuts in the shell. After this morning's trip to the King Kullen in Bellmore, I decided that I've had it. I went to a web site in Virginia and bought a five pound bag - enough to see us through the winter. This is a technique I learned in the waning days of record stores.