Our Potato Trip

My younger brother loves Utz pretzels, it goes well with his beer he says. I can only understand half of what he says because I do not drink beer.

But Utz does not ship their products to the West Coast. Specially not their heavenly potato chips. If you like Lays, Utz potato chips is infinitely better. Its only available in some States in the East Coast.

Potato chips was an accidental invention. An Admiral dining in a Saratoga inn complained about his fried potatoes, saying that they were sliced too thick. The cook who was a Native American was offended and to take revenge he sliced the potatoes paper thin.

Instead of getting mad at the cook's culinary sarcasm, the official called the cook out to compliment him on his invention. That is why the story stuck in my mind because it was born in a sarcastic tone. Those chips were called Saratoga chips and then later simply potato chips.

A couple from Hanover, Pennsylvania named Bill and Sally Utz decided to sell these kind of chips at the local farmer's market. They hand cooked the chips in their 2 storey home. Soon, they mechanized their production by purchasing a mechanical slicer and a deep fryer the size of a half barrel.

Don't ask me what they looked like and how they worked because I am no engineer and I am not interested in those details. I leave it to your imagination because most of my blog followers are intelligent. That's the reason there's very few of you. You are a select few.

Well anyway, the trip to the Utz Potato Chip factory in Landover, PA was part of our post-Christmas road trip. That was our destination after my wife and daughter's window shopping at the Rockvale and Tanger Outlet stores out in Lancaster.

Lancaster has the best Red Roof Inn and the most interesting Amish community in the East Coast. Its also very affordable to stay there and that's the primary reason we do that. Besides its picturesque countryside scenery is beckoning.

As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by my hyperactive verbiage, the potato chip factory wafted a delicious smell as soon as we got off our car. The Utz sign drew shrieks of delight from my 7 year old son. Utz Honey BBQ Potato Chips is his version of Snack Heaven.

So we proceeded to the factory like pilgrims to a shrine. When I saw the old slicer and fryer, its like being transported in time. Like a historian in a time machine, my buttons were pushed once again. I was trying to contain myself, in the container that was Me. We were like winners, winners of the Golden Ticket of that Chocolate Fact'ry.

Then we saw the chips in various flavors: there was Plain, Salt and Pepper, Barbeque, Honey Barbeque, Chesapeake Style and Crab. Along with countless othe flavors I cannot recall anymore. Then there were pretzels of different shapes and sizes in containers of different sizes and shapes.

We went inside the factory and I proceeded to take out the camera but then the sign said "NO CAMERAS ALLOWED". So I merrily but it back in my jacket.

Entering the viewing area which was about three stories from the factory floor, we were able to see the whole process of Utz. First, the potatoes were peeled, washed, sliced and fried by machine.

Then they went to big tables where women were in charge of sorting the bad and the nice ones. The bad were those that turned out too dark from the dehydration of the frying process. Potatoes were 80% water they say.

The equipment for determining which was a bad or good chip was very sophisticated at Utz. I do not recall what they call it, but we lay people call it women's eyes. The few bad chips went into potato jail. Without exception ! They have no lawyers.

After sorting the naughty from the nice, the chips went to a conveyor belt where they were distributed to different spicing areas. Like I said, Plain, Barbeque and the other flavors. Then they were bagged by machines and then put in boxes by women who worked as fast as, well , whats the word ? Machines.

All the people working in this area are women. The warehouse where the boxes of chips were taken were manned by men. Except for a singular woman who held a clipboard and inspected the boxes for any sign of sabotage or plain error in counting. Take your pick, whichever you find more exciting.

So the men carried the boxes out from the processing area, stacked them up according to spice and size. Then loaded them in ten-wheeler trucks. They used vehicles running on electricity to do this in the Utz factory to maintain the sanitation. No fossil-fuels in the area was used.

The whole experience was related by a Voice Over in each manufacturing process which you activated by pushing a button. Thats the reason I am able to relate these things to you with a certain degree of accuracy.

After that we were treated to free bags of potato chips Plain. There were vendo machines selling soda (soft drinks to us) for a $5 each ! Which explains the smile on the face of the guests officers when I was grabbing more than the required Take One please. Just kidding, the soda sold for the usual $1.25 a can and I just took one bag for each member of the family. Honest !

So thats my tale of the Utz factory tour. Now if you will excuse me I got checks in the mail I have to grab. I wonder where its from ?

Christmas In a Foreign Land

This is the happiest Christmas that we ever had in this country.

We went to Midnight Mass and while we nodded in sleepiness the High Mass brought back memories of home. The Mass was in a language foreign, but the spirit there was something from back home. Community, faith, oneness, belongingness.

In this world of fear, doubt and economic uncertaintly, we find the certainly of our faith us a catalyst that keeps us going on. We reclaimed what we had back home and what was missing in the past Christmases here. Faith and hope.

The laudate of the past Masses in honor of our Virgin made us feel comfortable in this community. There is tradition, there is permanence, there is common belief. And that Christmas mass made us feel closer and closer to Home.

For what is Home, but where your Heart is ? We found tonight that there is one thng that made us unite as citizens of the our home country: our Faith. Although the faith and spirit of Christmas is not excatly the same here, in fact its 10,000 miles differrent, it still is Christmas. If we did not have that, if we did not a have the Church, we as a nation have disintegrated into chaos a long time ago.

Sometimes, we take things for granted for home are the very things that leave us from being unhinged. These are the things that we will cherish and look for in a foreign, foreign land like this. We are away, yes, and we miss our homeland. But our Faith has made us feel welcome and made us feel...at home.

Chilling out at the Slippery Slopes

The prospect of sliding down a slippery slope of icy snow holding on to a tire tube sounded to me at first like assisted suicide.

But then I looked at the ski resort brochure and looked at the backdrop of evergreens and wintry bush with streaks of mile long drops of snow.

Then I remembered my uncle from Scandinavia telling me that skiing is fun and then showing me pictures of his leg in plaster.

Then I heard the shouts of glee of my 6 year old and my teenager when I said that maybe we're going snow tubing.

And then I suddenly heard an ambulance siren in my head.

But then at this time, if you're still reading this, you must be getting bored of this to and fro, so to make a short story shorter, we went.

On our way there, pictures of snowconed mountains begun developing in the darkrooms of my head. I visualized people whizzing down the slopes and ski lifts with people wearing skis dangling like deadly accidents waiting to happen.

Half a mile to Whitetail, we can see the streaks of snow already. My kids went oooh and then they went aaah. My teenager begun snapping pictures, while my wife kept reminding me to keep my eye on the road. Just what I needed: a backup GPS.

So we looked at the Snow Tubing slope and read the rules. Then we watched how the mostly Euro-American guests who weren't even wearing bonnets slid down the slope like they did it everyday.

They were shrieking nonetheless. Or was it just their kids ? I could have sworn there were even some kids sliding down who were less than 3 years old. Although the rules said 4 and above.

Who cares ? I'm above 4. Besides, no one goes inside without signing a waiver.

So we finally decided to do it. But then we have to wrap ourselves up in layers of sweaters, thermal wear and jackets to survive the icy weather out there. Not necessarily in that order.

Then of course, the lip balm. We don't want our lips to be burned. Its very hard to eat Noche Buena when your lips are burned. Its not cool having chafed lips when we return for school/workday. So lip balm, but do it inside the car where they won't see you.

Well, anyway like I was saying, they make you read and sign a waiver which basically says "You're waiving your right to sue us just in case you break your neck."

A basic waiver and they let you sign it in pencil. "How very legal", I told my brain. "Lets have fun !' I told the kids.

So we went inside and found the slope to be less intimidating than from afar. "Its not that high, Dad", my teenager says, in our native tongue. Anyway, I agreed, it did not look too high. Maybe 50, 60 feet tops. Or maybe 100. But it was a gentle slope.

For my 6 year old though it must have looked like the top of Everest. When I suggested we take the lift and snow tube down he looked at me like I was suggesting he jump off a cliff.

So, in between cries of protest from our first grader, we rode up to the slope with our tubes in tow. They were exactly like salbabidas (lifesavers) back home but wrapped in some kind of green rubberplastic material. There's the solo tube and a combo tube for small kids and one parent.

On top of the slope you can appreciate the 80 feet. Not intimidating, huh ? Think again, so I put on my brave face and convince my skeptical son to ride with me. "No way", he said. "You can do it ! Its easy. Look ! Look at that kid, he did it alone !" I did not know if I was convincing him alone or I was also convincing myself.

So we slid down and halfway through the slope our tube spun around. I totally did not expect that, I thought we were going straight down. My son was screaming but I did not have that luxury. I am an adult for Pedro's sake. So I just closed my eyes, then opened it to look if we're still alive and found out that we were at the bottom of the slope, unharmed. "That was easy !" I told my son.

So we spent two hours of that. Up and down, up and down the slope. I experimented with my belly down solo instead of just sitting on the tube with my butt firmly stuck in the tube. The feeling was fantastic ! The chilly wind rushing to your face as you race down and the whirring sound it produced was simply priceless. I was even hit the end of the slope one time.

I heard a college kid said "There's three of us and just one of him and we can't hit the end. What does that say of us ?" I pretended not to hear that but I was smiling and I was reminded of my Daredevil brother V. back home. He will totally enjoy this.

I enjoyed it, my son and teenager enjoyed it but best of all, my wife enjoyed it. When our time was up, I wanted more. But we gotta rest so we went to our inn, ate and rested for the evening.

Next winter, I'm going skiing. I saw some people falling flat on their faces. But who cares ? There's no paisano here. Nobody knows me here.

And that snow tubing, it wasn't expensive at all. The night at the inn was free.