Dear readers,

Last week’s column about the Duchess of Sussex now being in the jelly business brought almost as much mail as when I write about “The Helbing.” I didn’t realize we had so many anglophiles living in Shelby County.

According to one loyal reader, Duchess Meghan isn’t the only royal selling strawberry jam. Her father-in-law, King Charles, has his own jam for sale. The King’s jam is sold under his company name, “Highgrove Organic Strawberry Preserves.”  

I wonder which royal brand of jelly would win in a blind taste test. If Oprah wasn’t busy shilling for the weight loss drug Ozempic, it would make for a great television special. I can see it now. Oprah hosting a panel of celebrity judges rating the jam.

Do you remember the Quentin Tarantino movie “Pulp Fiction?” One loyal reader reminded me of the scene where John Travolta’s character Vince explains why the McDonald’s in France does not have a “Quarter Pounder” on the menu. It is because France uses the metric system and does not sell hamburger by the “pound.” So calling a sandwich a “Quarter Pounder” wouldn’t make any sense to someone living in France. 

Likewise, me claiming last week that there are two “Dollar General” stores on every block in England can’t be true. In England, their money is not in dollars so a store called “Dollar General” makes no sense. The loyal reader explained that England does have stores like our “Dollar General” in most neighborhoods, but the stores are named “Pound General.” 

Finally, I received a message all the way from California. It was from my childhood friend and college roommate Tony Wilson. Upon seeing the photograph of me holding a box of Saltine crackers, it brought back memories of me eating sardines when we were in college.

Tony didn’t say if they were fond memories. However, I’m guessing that they were because he was a co-conspirator of mine in those days. The summer before going to college we worked at a grocery store. The cafeteria at college didn’t serve meals on the weekend. We stocked up on food for those weekends when we would be living in a food desert.

Our dorm room had bookshelves, but instead of books ours looked like the shelves at the Dollar General but neater. Mostly we had canned goods proven to be favorites since the 19^th century. I believe we had cans of potted meat, Underwood deviled ham, and, of course, sardines. The sardines were my food of choice.

I am a big fan of sardines to this day. I enjoy them at least a couple of times a week. Sardines come in different sizes and are packed with various condiments. I like them all. They come in tomato paste, soybean oil, mustard, extra virgin olive oil, and plain water. I never get the ones in plain water. 

Most sardines are small fish. Some are so small that over 20 fish are in the little can. A few years ago, I discovered large cans of very large sardines were sold in Mexican grocery stores. Someone told me the giant sardines are caught swimming around beneath the cooling towers of nuclear power plants.

I’ve gone back to only buying the small cans because my family objects to leftover sardines being stored in the refrigerator. I am the only one in my family who likes sardines. So, I say, “more for me.”

See you all next week, same Schwinn time, same Schwinn channel.

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