Tag Archives: twitter

Green Potatoes 4: The Search for Spuds 🥔

Posted on by Standard 2

The starchy spud saga continues. This time I got an email from Sun-Glo who packs potatoes for Side Delights. Side delights was the brand I caught at Giant Eagle in Bridgeville that was a bag of entirely green potatoes. I probably reached out to this company twice, or maybe three times. I did not purchase that bag, and I have not had a concrete reply from Giant Eagle or Aldi USA yet. The potato farmers seem to place all the blame at the feet of the grocer.

Good afternoon,

I appreciate your email about green potatoes.

The one thing I do want to stress to you is this…..we have USDA and internal inspectors in our warehouse at all times. If the potatoes were green in a bag, they would not pass our inspections and would be not pass. When the potatoes leave our plant, they have passed a USDA inspection.

The one thing we can’t control is how fast or slow the retailers turn their inventory. Potatoes are going to turn green under artificial lights, there is nothing we can do to control this.

There is a website that you might find helpful with a lot of ‘potato knowledge” that the Idaho Potato Commission answers most questions you might have about potatoes. Idahopotato.com

I appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,

Jill Crapo Cox

VP Sales

208-356-7346 ext. 214

208-313-6350 cell

You saw the mazes, right?

I also included these photos with my reply:

Side Delights - Green Bag of Potatoes at Giant Eagle

And, I feel like I am ratcheting up the ridiculous with each reply.

Hello Jill,

Thank you for the reply! It is interesting to learn that Sun-Glo and Side Delights potatoes are one in the same!

I am sure you have strict quality control standards, that’s why it is so surprising to see so many green potatoes out in the wild.

I did see but did not purchase a nearly entirely green bag of Side Delights potatoes this Sunday at Giant Eagle in Bridgeville PA.

Monday at the South Fayette PA Giant Eagle, I noticed a fine looking bag of potatoes with the Sun-Glo label.

I have been reaching out to as many potato farmers as I can. The issue seems to go back a few years, and I confess I have not payed much attention to brand. We typically shop at Aldi and Gaint Eagle, but sometimes Shop ‘n Save, Target, Walmart, or even BJ’s Wholesale.

What has been brought to light (pun intended) is that Giant Eagle and Aldi must be improperly shipping, storing, or handling potatoes across the board.

The common denominator seems to be too much artificial light?

Maybe they need to start selling potatoes in rooms with red lights like darkroom back in the 1900’s when people had to develop film.

I have reached out to Aldi and Gaint Eagle to no avail (so far). They are not as quick as you at returning inquiries.

I will most definitely have to do some more research on the Idaho Potato website.

I do grow some of my own in the summer, but I am hardly a titan of tubers, or even a sultan of spuds… perhaps a prefect of potatoes? I could grow some more if I learn to store them properly myself.

I should blog more potato recipes. I cook a lot of potatoes.

Please, find the attached mazes for your enjoyment, and share them with your co-workers. I will also attach the photos of the bag I saw Sunday at Giant Eagle.

Perhaps my mazes can be used in potato safety & storage education going forward?

I appreciate your time, your concern, your knowledge, and your zeal for getting directly to the point. Honestly, and probably obviously, that is something I need to work on.

🥔 Starch-cerely,
-Eric

If you’re interested, keep following my twitter, or check the posts out in order:

This makes me think of the books Idiot Letters and The Complete Idiot Letters by Paul Rosa, which probably started all of this with me. I used to also write letters via snail mail before email became a thing. Somewhat less inspiring but still awesome were Ted Nacny’s Letters from a Nut and the Emails from an Asshole website from John Lindsay.

Green Potatoes 3: Probably Not The Last Crusade🥔

Posted on by Standard 3

Well, the replies are starting to come in. While this certainly isn’t an issue as pressing, depraved, or salacious as the lady who put the pee in potato at Walmart that one time, it does seem to resonate with people.

What am I talking about? The story so far:

Also, to prove and share my love for potatoes, check out these recipes:

My post on Nextdoor had some strong opinions in the comments. My favorite implied that like bananas, I should just let the green potatoes ripen. Oops.

First, I wrote back to Alsum:

Hello Christine!  

Thank you so much for your prompt reply!  This was a 5 lb. bag of Russet potatoes, I believed purchased at Aldi via Instacart.  Unfortunately, I disposed of all the packaging.  I cooked the whole bag!  Well, everything that wasn’t green.  It would have been purchased at the Aldi in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania… earlier this week.  I really don’t want a rebate or anything.  I just want to stop getting green potatoes.  Can you imagine if 3 out of every dozen eggs were unusable?  Or 5 slices of every loaf of bread just moldy?  I may have to reach out to Aldi regarding their shipping/storage practices… and Instacart about their selection process.  I am sure you take great pride in your potatoes.  I know how I feel with a back yard garden, and I’m only feeding a family of 4.  You guys must feed millions.  I, really though, am going to reach out every time I get green potatoes, no matter the producer.  We, as a society, can’t afford to not get the most value out of a dollar.  I hope everyone can work together to get perfect produce into our kitchens.

Thank you for your time!

-Eric

And, they wrote back to me:

Hi Eric,

These are unique potato mazes! Thank you for sharing along with where you recently purchased your Alsum 5 lb. russet bag of potatoes. I’m hopeful the hands shopping for your produce through Aldi can be educated to remove from the store shelf any green potatoes to prevent this poor experience going forward. It might be worth the call to bring this to the retailers attention to help everyone have a good potato eating experience and use the bag in full.

As a consumer, I couldn’t agree more we need to stretch our food dollar, and it’s important from farmer to retail grocer to work together to provide a quality product.

We hope you give us another try.

Take care,

Christine

I wrote back once again:

Thank you Christine,

I have reached out to Aldi via web contact form and Facebook, but they are not nearly as quick as you with a response.  I am sure you, like all of us, feel the pressure of stretching a dollar lately.  I will most certainly give Alsum and Aldi (and even Instacart) another try.  Hopefully they can adjust their potato handling process.

Thank you so much for your quick, informative and warm response.  I hope the mazes can bring a smile to your co-workers’ faces!

-Eric

Then, my mass email reached Sterman Masser Potato Farms:

Good Afternoon Eric,

You have a knack for writing, I enjoyed your email!

I am very sorry to hear about the many “green potato’s experiences”  you have had.    This particular purchase does worry me, we have not supplied potatoes to Giant Eagle since Sept. 29, 2022.  So if they are our spuds, they were packed over 9 weeks ago and they would most definitely be green or breaking down.   (We suggest a 4 week shelf life).

You are correct in saying eating green potatoes can be harmful, that is true but only if consumed in very large amounts.  To play it safe, we tell everyone just to peel the green away or just throw it out. 

Do you happen to have the kwik lock (plastic tie) to seal the bag? If so, can you tell me what the 6 digit numbers are?  I am sorry I cannot be of much help on this one, but I would let the produce manager know so he or she can clean out their out of date bags on their produce shelf.

Thank you for your message,

Rachel

That was via webform, so I sent the potato mazes and this:

Hello Rachel,

Thank you for such a quick informative reply!  I hope the attached mazes can entertain you & your co-workers.  I believe I will follow up with Giant Eagle and other local grocers about the green potato issie.  It seems that no potato farms are letting green potatoes out the door, but improper storage may be leading to green toxic tubers.

I must confess I have never put much thought into the choice of brands of potato.  I just go with whatever is on the produce shelf.  I will have to seek out Masser Spuds with intent from now on.  

I don’t believe your product specifically was one that has recently been GOA (green on arrival) or turned quickly once it reached my home.  I had some issues most recently with Alsum.  In a bag of 8 total potatoes, 2 were green and unusable as baked potatoes to go along with the delicious chili that my wife made last week.  It’s delicious because she follows my recipe although taking some unnecessary liberties on portions.  The kids are crazy because they say hers is much much better than mine.  I agree with them, because I may be crazy, but i am not stupid.

I also spotted an entirely green bag of Side Delights potatoes at the aforementioned Giant Eagle yesterday.  It lends credence to the theory that Giant Eagle may need to take more care of their precious potato produce.  A lot of people may not understand.  I posted on social media asking if others had noticed the issue.  On Nextdoor someone suggested that like bananas, I just let them ripen at home. 🤦‍♂️

Sadly though, the problem does not seem limited to any one store or potato farm.  The Alsum bag with one quarter of the bag unusable was just the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.  I feel like for the last 2 years, I have been getting a much greater number of green potatoes from Giant Eagle, Shop ‘n Save, Aldi, Walmart, Target, & even BJ’s Wholesale.  It is usually only with bagged potatoes… not ones that I would pick fresh.  There is the convenience of ordering from Instacart or Target home delivery.  Arguably they should be picking better produce, but it is hard to see the whole bag.  

Potatoes usually don’t last long here before they’re consumed.  We grow our own in the summer, but they cannot fuel our entire consumption.  Our small yard and time available are limiting,

If only Mythbusters was still a thing, perhaps they could tell us how much green potato we could safely consume before it felt like we had one of everything from the Taco Bell menu with a side of possible neurological complications.

Thank you once again for your time, and I do hope you enjoy the mazes.

Thank you!

-Eric

And that’s about it for now, other than some standard auto-replies, like this one from Aldi via Facebook Messenger:

I know you’re absolutely riveted by the saga and glued to the screen with anticipation of a solution to the great green potato crisis. Try the potato mazes while you wait!

Green Potatoes 2: Return of the Glycoalkaloids🥔

Posted on by Standard 11

We’ve established that I’m odd, right? If you have read much here, you know that I like to write emails or letters that blur the line between reality and insanity. Sometimes it’s a real-ish request. I’m using ridiculousness to call attention to a situation.

Did you see the last potato related post? Short version: I’m tired of getting green potatoes. What can we do to stop it?

I’ve started to reach out via emails, contact submissions forms, and even Facebook Messenger to some potato farms & stores.

This time, I attached some mazes though. 🤣

Why? Why not?

Here’s pretty much what they all got…

Salutations Spud Specialists,

I hope this email finds you well.  Living up to stereotypes, my Irish ancestors would be proud at my levels of potato consumption.  I’ll eat them just about any way they can be cooked.  Keel me over with carbs, please.  

I have noticed a trend with potatoes over the last few years and it really has my mind reeling with questions.  You are not alone.  This applies to nearly every [expletive removed for politeness’ sake] bag of potatoes I have bought in the last year, no matter the source.  I typically get a ridiculous amount of green potatoes in each and every bag I purchase.  The other day, I opened the bag which was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  That 5 lb. bag contained eight potatoes which I planned to bake, and two were green all over the outside and thus unsuitable for baking.  Could I skin & fry or boil or mash them?  Sure.  The vitamins and taste are in the skin though… as I’m sure you are aware.  I even like to leave some of the skin in when making mashed potatoes.

The green skin & portion just under is poisonous, no?  If I understand correctly, light reacts with the skin to turn it green via chlorophyll & photosynthesis, producing solanine & chaconine.  Glycoalkaloids can be dangerous.

The Healthline website states that:

  •  “Studies have estimated that peeling a potato at home removes at least 30% of its toxic plant compounds. However, that still leaves up to 70% of the compounds in the flesh.”

I feel like if ¼ of every bag of potatoes I buy is unsuitable for consumption and I’m playing by the pound, there ought to be some rebate or relief.  I have started & will continue to reach out to all of the producers of bags of potatoes that I buy from now on with similar inquiries.

Did you all fire your potato inspectors at the farm or the processing or packaging plants?  Do you have a machine that needs fine-tuned?  Are you willfully and knowingly shipping toxic tubers?  I understand that they may be exposed to light, heat, or longer than ideal conditions while shipping from you to the grocery store.  Are they in trucks or warehouses too long?  Could the bags have better ultraviolet protection? 

The cost of everything is going up, and I understand that… but I can’t accept lowering quality standards at the same time.  Can I reach out to your shipping partners, logistics, warehouses, and the grocers? 

I confess I am not brand loyal to any potato conglomerate.  I purchase potatoes at Aldi, Giant Eagle, Walmart, Target, BJ’s, Shop ‘n Save, or wherever may have the best price or be the most convenient.  Sometimes Instacart purchases for us, and I guess I’ll need to follow up there about the selection of green potatoes.  Sometimes it’s not evident until the entire bag is home.

I hope you had a restful and prosperous Thanksgiving.  I stuffed myself with fresh delicious mashed potatoes… my secret ingredients are turkey broth and buttermilk!  

I look forward to your thoughts on this green ‘tater epidemic.  How can we move forward into a ripe yet not overripe future?

You’ve got ap-peel for real,
-Eric

aixelsyd13.wordpress.com

Which is just edited text from the last one.

I hope they enjoy the mazes. I hope you reach out too. I’ll post replies as I receive them.

Massive Maze Morass ✍

Posted on by Standard Reply

Here’s a bunch more mazes. No real common theme. Inspiration is weird. Try ’em, post ’em, tag me. Post it on your WordPress or Instagram or Twitter, or Facebook or Tumblr or TikTok or whatever. I’m @aixelsyd13 on most all platforms. I think I even signed up for Hive and Mastodon. Host it somewhere and use html to post it here in the comments. You have a world full of options.

Do it on your phone or tablet. Print it and do it like it’s 1993. Have fun. There are no rules. Anarchy abounds!

_autotone

🌽Maize Maze, 🦃Turkey Maze, & 🙁August is Falling Maze ✍️

Posted on by Standard 1

I can’t stop. Ha. I’ve been in a maze mood apparently. Someone complete some of these damn things! Here they are from Instagram.

Mike Duke requested a maize maze.

Thanksgiving is my favorite.

Have you heard about August is Falling? See the Gloom O’ Lantern.

Collage of recent mazes.

Streaming related bands automatically?

Posted on by Standard Reply

This stated as a Twitter post/thread, and is ending up here.

Am I weird for thinking this?

Streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music need a feature that adds in related bands. I can tell Alexa to play Rancid, but I also wouldn’t mind Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards being in there, or Transplants, or Tim’s solo stuff.  Or even Rancid covers.

Streaming needs to get smarter already.  The Spotify “super grouper” feature picks the absolute worst songs from each selected artist.

Of course, I could just make a playlist.  But, with a band like Blink-182 in the news, I wanted to dig into Angels & Airwaves, Boxcar Racer, & +44.  I don’t know which songs to add to a playlist.

Also, if I want to listen to ALL, I could want to listen to the Descendents too.  What about Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, Loaded, Neurotic Boy Outsiders, Slash, Slash’s Snakepit, Miles Kennedy & The Conspirators, all of it.

Snuff, Duncan Redmonds, Dogpiss, Guns ‘n’ Wankers would be another example.  As would Misfits, Danzig, Samhain, Son of Sam, etc.

Saying one phrase or typing one into a searchboith to be able to bring them all up.

Is that bandtoband.com still a thing?  That could be a reference for connected bands.

Teenage Bottlerocket & the Lillingtons.  Screeching Weasel & The Riverdales.  Ann Beretta, Foundation, Rob Huddleston, & Sixer.  Metallica & Megadeth.  Green Day, Foxboro Hot Tubs, The Network, & 300 other bands.

Even unrelated bands.  Can I just say “Alexa play songs by Flogging Molly and The Dropkick Murphys” and not confuse the shit out of it?

I have an Ozzy/Black Sabbath playlist on Spotify with a ton of great stuff, including a plethora of killer covers.  It took time to curate.  I have similar ones for Metallica, Misfits, Guns N’ Roses, & Rancid. I need to transition them all to Amazon Music… we have the family account there since we’re using the firestick. I like Spotify’s suggestions better… but I can listen to Amazon sans commercials. I refuse to subscribe to another service, sorry Spotify. Oddly, most of those transfer services have a paywall once you surpass an unreasonably low amount of songs. I don’t even my remember my Pandora logins.

I would think AI could have probably pretty quickly picked up what I was putting down & fleshed it out.

I wouldn’t expect it to go this deep, but it could link Flogging Molly to Fastway.

With Hip Hop too… say all the solo projects of the members of N.W.A.?  All that in one would be awesome.

Does something like this exist and I’m just not aware of it? I miss WinAmp.

I need to rip all kinds of older, local, & obscure stuff and put it on my own damn streaming server. I understand Google Music would let you do that before it collapsed? There is really a lot of stuff out there that you can’t stream, and some of my favorites don’t have their entire catalogs available to stream.

Help me out, audiofiles, music nerds, and techno geeks!

Spotify Pie & Iceburgify for AiXeLsyD13
AiXeLsyD13 Spotify Listening Habits

Need help from those of you that sell art and/or merch using fulfillment services. (𝘢.𝘬.𝘢. The return of A-Maze Mugs & more?)

Posted on by Standard 7

So, Ci3 closed up shop… and with it went A-Maze Mugs. Not sure that any were actually sold anyway? I know I have 2 prototypes and we did work up art for the box. I posted about them a few times. I also did a (very) poorly recorded jingle.

I feel like I just sit on all my maze art, while others are able to monetize their art projects. This is me reaching out for advice from my creative peeps.

I know there are no-money-up-front printing/fulfillment services. Does anyone have good (or really bad) experiences with any of those? I clicked a link on one, and 30 are showing up in my FB ad feeds. Are any more reputable/profitable/flexible than the others?

Even better, does anyone local do printing & fulfillment services, like Commonwealth Press?

Would it be worth it to save & invest some money into it?

I would like to put my mazes on all kinds of stuff. I get likes on my mazes on Instagram. Occasionally someone sends me a solution. Maybe T-shirts would be useless… unless you had one on the back and wanted someone to complete it as a sort of massage? Ha ha.

Tiles may be interesting. The socks that Mike worked up were super cool! Mugs seem to be out but those new stainless steel tumblers are in. Maybe a beer stein? Maybe just a book of mazes? My thing though, is most of my stuff has no theme. They’re just mazes. I have a TON drawn. They just need scanned & maybe cleaned up a bit.

I’m not looking to get rich, but creativity funding more creativity never hurts. Right?

These look like a fun product IMHO, anyway. Finding someone to ship a mug and a dry erase marker AND do the printing may be tough?

The 4 initial maze mugs maze ideas.

I’m open to any and all suggestions and solutions. I feel like I’m just sitting on these, have been for years, and should be doing something with them.

Spalding Responds. Sort of.

Posted on by Standard Reply

I mean, at least they pretended to care. My review finally went live on Amazon. Wonder if anyone will find it helpful?

Got this seemingly automatically generated super polite “thanks, but go [fornicate] yourself” email:

Politely worded, no further need for follow up on their end. Bravo.

I also reached out via FB Messenger and DM on Twitter. Got this through Facebook, nothing from Twitter:

Shenanigans abound.

#OKBoom a.k.a. #PGHBoom

Posted on by Standard 7

On New Year’s Day at approx. 11:25 AM or 11:26 AM EST, there was a sonic boom in Allegheny County or Washington County Pennsylvania.

Immediately, Yinzers took to social media to ask what was going on. Some armchair experts already had all the answers.

The first link shared was from a website called Volcano Discovery. It posts user reported incidents before they’re certified as seismic events before the USGS. At least it’s a url right? It’s on the internet. It must be true.

The next thing that circulated was a phone screenshot of a news story from 2010 about detonating munitions at the airport. The date was left out. No link. Just a screenshot. I saw it all over the place.

Then, the meteor theory started to come out. A blip on an image from a satellite meant to detect lightning showed a flash in an area with no discernable storm systems. A known asteroid being close by for a meteor shower to peak in our area on Jan. 3rd, my be related. I read somewhere but can’t find it now that a chunk of the asteroid most likely entered our atmosphere (now a meteor) at twice the speed of sound, and burned up… resulting in the sonic boom & shockwave.

Yinzers on social media immediately forgot elementary school science class, put on their tinfoil hats, and stated emphatically that there was no flash or no crater, so it could not have been a meteor… therefore had to be anything from top secret military testing of airplanes, to subterranean bomb testing, to nefarious manufacturing at any number of local industrial businesses, to fracking, to gas buildup in mines, to extraterrestrials, fireworks (Yinzers do love their fireworks), and of course… to flatulence related to consumption of the Pennsylvania Dutch classic Pork & Sauerkraut dish as is new year’s tradition. So many fart jokes. Some blamed themselves, some blamed their significant others, one even blamed a cat.

I’ll give you a skyquake or guns of the seneca as also unexplained phenomena (that also may be this same exact thing).

I am fascinated by the videos that people shared form their Ring/Blink/Nest/etc. It sounds like the footsteps of Godzilla. (Mad props to Foley artists everywhere!)

I’m also sort of mad that I didn’t notice it. I was apparently at Sheetz at the time. Good to know I will not see any cataclysmic apocalypse coming. I’ll be taken out before I even know what happened.

Thanks to all the credible sources that reported on this and pieced it together. Thanks to the people who shared video. Thanks to the Illumi-nutty for the wild baseless yet endlessly entertaining fart jokes speculation.

If you want to go down the rabbit hole, let me at least turn on the lights…

Then, these… These are the greatest minds of our time speculating:

I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg too.

(To be fair this is the kind of shit I post on local FB groups and Nextdoor.)

Happy New Year!

Marked Safe From Loud Boom in Allegheny County