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GP 21 February 2007: A Few Good Buys
President’s Day Sale. There were markdowns
aplenty and eager shoppers were out for President’s Day, combing the aisles
for feel-good merchandise. As importantly, Chinese New Year just began, and
it’s the year of the pig. As we said in
“High on the Hog,” it’s time to pig out. So we feel impelled to get
into the spirit of things and recommend unnecessary necessities that you
must add to your larder.
Easier said than done. There is plenty of stuff on the
shelves. But, increasingly, no matter the cost, it’s not made right. In
fact, the Japanese, who most sparked the incremental quality control
movement in the years after World War II, are worried about
the hollowing out of their own products. The strivings for efficiency
that set into the developed economies in the mid 1980s have not only taken
the fat out of products and services, but have cut into their nerves and
muscle as well. Cost-cutting is never done well. In addition, too many
product iterations and a surfeit of useless functions have led to poorly
engineered widgets. But not all are shoddy, and we offer a few winners for
your inspection:
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Ha’s Black Pepper Pate for the New Year. We have begun with
GioThu which you can find on the Global Province: it’s pig’s ear pate
and it’s a snack designed for this season, when the people of Hanoi put
chores aside and set to celebrating Tet (i.e, the New Year) with a bit
of drink, rampant gambling, and general good fun. The cost will be
practically nothing, but you will have to go out and buy the
ingredients. Finding the raw materials will probably take you to some
ethnic markets, turning this into one of your more interesting shopping
experiences. The idea at New Year is to do your cooking in advance, so
that you have abundant dishes ready that require no further preparation.
That way you can dedicate yourself to good cheer and rampant
frivolity.
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Brookstone Microbeam Auto Light 540245. Now don’t worry that
the Brookstone website is clunky or that the picture of this flashlight
is missing. This is a pretty handy affair and it only cost $20. You
can use it inside your poorly lit car to read a map or toss off a few
pages of a novel when you are waiting for a relative to arrive at the
airport. It also has a blinking function, so the LED light will slow
down other motorists if you are disabled by the side of the road. It
easily recharges in the auto lighter you are not using because you are
politically correct and have given up smoking.
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Valrhona Chuao 2002. We’re given to
understand that Valrhona has lost its plantation in Venezuela due to
some sort of Banana Republic imbroglio. So you are pulling off a coup
if you get to the store and find yourself a
Chuao by this chocolate house that got its start as La Chocolaterie
de Vivarais, founded in 1924 by M. Guironnet, a pastry chef from the
Rhône Valley. We’ve just had a 2002 and found it most satisfying,
especially since we were able to compliment ourselves for consuming a
now rare vintage. We had no hangover. Meanwhile, if we understand
correctly,
Amedei has taken over Chuao and pushed the big boys out. Valrhona,
to be sure, is still producing its other chocolate delights.
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Ruffoni Acorn-Handle Copper Risotto Pan with Spoon. This comes
from Ruffoni in Italy, and it’s not only very pretty but a pleasure to
cook in. Yes, it does make good risotto, but the “risotto” nomenclature
is purely an invention of Williams and Sonoma which has an exclusive on
this particular design. It will cost you $155, and you will probably
have to wait a month since it’s so popular that the inventory is very
thin. You should regard this pan as a necessity, since the risottos in
most restaurants are much too oily and deny the flavor of the
ingredients. It’s a dish best made at home. Our sister site
Spicelines will get around one of these days to sorting out for you
where to get your Arborio and your saucepans. Lately, it has been
testing mortars and pestles.
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Nintendo DS. A while back, Nintendo realized that its audience
was growing up and that populations in the developed world were aging,
no where more so than in Japan. Its customers could disappear. It
needed to tap into oldsters to thrive in the years ahead. With the
Nintendo DS,
the background of which we discussed on the Global Province, the
company provides training exercises to recharge the brain—appealing to
some adults. But it’s got Advance Wars and Sudoku besides. Busy
Japanese fathers have felt the need to get reconnected to their
youngsters and have shown an
appreciation for toys that will work for young and old alike. DS
does not clutter up the house, does not cost a fortune, and includes
some of Nintendo’s newer hits such as the aforementioned
Brain Age. Maybe it’s a half intelligent response to iPods. We
still have to take our maiden voyage.
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Raul Malo. As we remember, Mr. Malo, once the lead singer for
the Mavericks, was born in Miami in 1965. His full name is Raul
Francisco Martinez-Malo, Jr. He’s just plain mellow and has put
together the best love song records around. He’s what you should have
brought your true love for Valentine’s Day. His website features
“You’re Only Lonely.” In fact, you will hear him sing when you dial into
it. But there’s another album on the way—more in the country and
western vein. We notice that the card shops often ran out of Valentines
this year, which may mean that ‘love’ is coming back big time. The Imus
Show in the morning elevated itself 15 notches when Malo appeared—on
February 14.
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Ryobi 18V Tuff Sucker. When Black and Decker came out with the
Dustbuster, it made it easy to clean up a spill, or a broken glass, or
whatever. But the ‘get up and go’ of the Dustbuster has ‘got up and
went,’ as cheaper renditions have hit the market in all the discount
hardware stores and all the DIY outlets. Then, in Santa Fe, we came
across the
Ryobi, from a Japanese company which, oddly enough, has chosen to
sell its consumer products at Home Depot of all places. The Tuff Sucker
works, and we suppose this company will eventually pull a Toyota on
Black and Decker, fighting the market leader with quality. Home Depot
advertises this item for $20.00, but that does not include the battery
or charger, which add another $40 or $50.
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The Wollemi Pine. Wollemia nobilis is not really a pine
at all, but a member of the Araucariaceae family, deriving its
scientific name from the Australian ranger David Noble, who discovered a
secret trove a few years back. Up ’til then, it was thought to be
extinct. In any event, it’s a lovely evergreen and will grow very, very
tall if you nurse it along properly with correct watering, bark
planting, etc. Now it’s being sold around the world, well publicized by
establishment newspapers in various countries. Part of the proceeds are
working their way back to Australia to fund forest preserves.
Apparently you can buy it for $129 at the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden or from
National Geographic for $99.95. We had to wait a while, since, as
with the Ruffoni, demand is outstripping supply.
Bruised and Battered Buys. Perhaps, however,
you’re jaded and no longer get any joy out of consuming. Then we will have
to sell you something. Perhaps some stocks. That’s a tough sell since the
smartest people around say everything in the American stock market is too
darn expensive. “Irrational exuberance” is in the catbird seat, and people
are paying too much for both stocks and houses.
We have a theory that you should take a look at
companies that have been to hell and back. It’s like going to the
secondhand store in affluent suburbs and getting a deal. We say about
alcoholics that there’s no hope for them until they fall far enough, become
so battered by drink that they finally are ready to irrevocably take up a
new course. That’s true, as well, for our principal companies. Most are so
mired in the bad habits of the 20th century that’s it is hard for them to
totally revamp themselves for the 21st. We alluded to this in
“Prometheus Unbound: Catching Fire Again,” where we suggested that all
our institutions need to undertake wrenching cultural change. For this
reason almost all our major companies will go through a bad patch before
they get better. The quest is to discover a few good news companies that
are promising because they have reported tons of bad news. Some of them are
still suitably priced. George Putnam’s
Turnaround
Letter often focuses on this kind of company.
A few have gone to the wall and come back.
McDonald’s reports good earnings, has cleaned up some of its
fundamentals (i.e, dirty stores), has added salads to the menus for the
diet-conscious, and has elevated to the top chaps who began at the bottom. Sun
Microsystems now has a different kind of president who, as far as we
know, is the only Fortune 500 CEO (Jonathan Schwartz) with a
forthright blog and has even pulled in $700 million of advantageous
financing from KKR, which we take to be quite a vote of confidence.
Corning has to be included in any such discussion. There are times when
people have wondered whether it would come apart. But the broadband
revolution worldwide and, as well, the flat panels in your TV sets, have put
gas in its tank. Interestingly, the Houghtons, the family that led it
through thick and thin, have had brushes with bankruptcy dating back to much
earlier days. In its iterations in Boston and then in Brooklyn, New York,
Corning had several near deaths, but lived to bring much to America and the
Hudson Valley. In other words, they have been pulling rabbits out of the
hat for several centuries. Through it all, the company has had a
distinguished research capability that has given it nine lives. We could
only wish it had not left the housewares business, for its flameware
provided the best 12-cup glass pot in which to make strong coffee. In fact,
if you find one, buy it. Apparently
Steuben is still a Corning subsidiary: it is a maker of fine glasswares
with bowls and vases that make excellent gifts for the Saudis, the Japanese,
etc. Read up on Standard and Poor’s affection for Corning in the
February 6, 2007 Business Week.
A Good Man is Hard to Find. Flannery O’Connor’s
short stories, including
“A Good Man’s Hard to Find,” tell us that good guys are hard to find.
That’s the way it is with products—and companies. The bad stuff comes easy.
But the good is still around, somewhere at the margins. You just have to
be one devil of a good search engine to find it.
P.S. Obsolescence is obsolete, but companies
have not caught up with this fact. It is no longer smart business to make
dishwashers and driers that wear out in five years. Once upon a time we
built products to last a lifetime, and now economics have begun to favor
that approach again. Resources are becoming scarce and expensive. Global
competition suggests that companies with wounded products, such as GM, will
be overrun by those offering more durability such as Toyota.
P.P.S. The time crunch is an enemy of
successful buying. Mobile families, moving to a new town, buy their
furnishings and their landscaping in a rush, anxious to get to more
compelling business. At best their surroundings are sterile; more often
they are ugly. Down the road, of course, they waste oodles of time, finding
replacements for the instant purchases that wear out too easily. Just as we
have recognized that the
Slow Food movement has added much to life, we are beginning to recognize
that slow purchasing ain’t bad either.
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