Top 10 Fast-Food Introductions of 2010 - The Best And The Worst

What better time than New Year's Eve for looking back at the waning year from a fast-food perspective?  Here's a list - placed according to highly subjective criteria from "worst" to "best" - of what I consider the top 10 fast-food menu item introductions of 2010.  Note that some items which received a good deal of internet buzz - like Carl Jr.'s foot-long burger, for example - didn't make this list.  That's because they may have been test-market-only products that never made it nationwide, or because franchises featuring the foods just don't exist in the Hartford CT/Springfield MA market (my home turf.)

10 - Burger King Ribs:  Although a Time Magazine article called Burger King Ribs "a success," I have to disagree.  Tiny, overpriced, with a strange spongy texture and odd salty aftertaste,  there was nothing especially worthy about these ribs that made them worth standing in line for.   In fact, if it weren't for this post I bet you'd already forgotten about them.  Props to BK, though, for the balls it took to try something so completely outside the standard fast-food norm.

9 - Wendy's Natural Cut Fries with Sea Salt:  Perennial burger joint also-ran Wendy's scored a huge victory for mediocrity by introducing these spectacularly ordinary boardwalk-style fries to their menu.

8 - Friendly's Grilled Cheese Burger Melt: Lynnafred had this at Friendly's a few weeks ago, but hasn't gotten around to writing a review.  The waitress gave her a funny look when she ordered it, so when it came to the table, Lynnafred asked her if it was a popular item.  "Yeah," the waitress replied, "We sell a lot of them to stoners, and you don't really look the part."  It should come as no surprise that the actual sandwich looks nothing like the idealized photo at left, but more closely resembles "a pile of lunch," as Lynnafred said.  She also reported that the sandwich fed her and two friends, was difficult to eat without a knife and fork, and was mostly "a sloppy, greasy mess."

7 - BK Breakfast Muffin:  Burger King's lame attempt at copying McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg is an abject failure, doomed by bland sausage and a tiny portion of scrambled egg.  On the positive side, though, the  television advertisement for the Breakfast Muffin was made of Win wrapped in Awesome.

6 - Dunkin' Donuts Sausage Pancake Bites:  Cheap, greasy sausage wrapped in a batter that has more in common with corn dogs than it does with pancakes.  My review for them is in the post queue - look for it to go live in a couple of days.

5 and 4 - McDonald's Frappes and Smoothies: I'm giving McDonald's McCafe offereing two spots on the list because they're two distinct products.  The smoothies are awesome, and the frappes are destined to give Dunkin' Donuts Coolatas a run for their money.

3 - McDonald's Fruit and Maple Oatmeal:  Even though I'm not really a big fan of oatmeal, I found this new offering by McDonald's to be pretty awesome.  Order it without the brown sugar - you won't be missing anything but an extra load of calories.

2 - The Reintroduction of McDonald's McRib: Back nationwide after a 16-year hiatus, the McRib made a big splash with the press and fans alike.  Made of chopped and formed pork slathered in so much sauce it practically required gloves and a bib to eat, it was nonetheless tasty.  Lynnafred, who is too young to have remembered the last time McRibs were widely available, said "I could eat these every day."

1 - KFC's Double Down - The single most badassed fast food sandwich EVER, the Double Down went national in April 2010 (clicking on the link provided will bring you, however, to my full review from October 2009 when we first encountered them in the Rhode Island test market.)  The Double Down truly deserves the top spot on this list; not only does it encompass sweepingly vast expanses of awesomeness, but it set the stage for all of the bizarre and over-the-top offerings which followed it.

Do you notice that four of the five top spots - worthy and delicious products all - are from McDonald's?  Think what you will of them, this kind of careful product development combined with Micky D's powerhouse marketing strategies are why they're the leader in the fast-food market.

"French Leftover Beef"

I've got nothing but leftovers in the fridge, the family is hungry, and I'm just not feeling all that creative.  WAT DO??

Turn for help from the internet, of course.

It really is amazing what Google will turn up in a simple search for "leftover beef recipe."  Mostly it's amazing because it seems like there are an awful lot of people out there who think "hash" when they think of leftover beef, and I've done that to death.

And then I ran into "French Leftover Beef" - A blog post which was published in 2005 on a blog called Mantia's Musings. As blog author Alyce tells it, the recipe is derived from boeuf miroton, a French dish which is specifically about using up leftover beef, and was originally published in "a women's magazine years ago."  Alyce's description of the dish sounded delicious and I knew right away I had found what I was going to make for supper. 

Such a recipe is enormously flexible, and so I made a few tweaks of my own to the ingredients.  I think it turned out great, and so did the rest of the family.  Except the dogs.  They never got to try it.  The gravy is heavy on the onions, and onions are not at all healthy for dogs.

French Leftover Beef

Serves 4 to 6

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 smallish onions, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 cup chardonnay

1/2 cup beef stock, plus more as needed

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 tablespoon Gravy Master

Salt and pepper to taste

3 cups leftover cooked beef, cut into cubes

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven and add the sliced onions. Sautee until the onions are soft and beginning to caramelize. Stir in the flour and continue to cook until the flour is lightly browned, then stir in the chardonnay, beef stock, tomato paste and paprika.  Continue to stir over the heat until the mixture thickens, darkening the color of the mix as you wish with the Gravy Master.  

Cover the gravy and simmer it over very low heat for 10 minutes, adding more beef stock as necessary to prevent the gravy from getting too thick and scorching the dutch oven.

Stir in the meat and simmer, covered, for an additional 20 minutes (adding broth when needed as before.)  Serve with a tossed green salad and cheese toasts.

Alyce suggests serving Cheese Toast with French Leftover Beef, and I agree.  It's easy to make: just butter some slices of ciabatta or French bread, sprinkle it with grated Parmesan cheese, and run it under the broiler for a few minutes to toast the cheese and make the bread crispy.

More Horror At Dollar Tree

Who designs this stuff, anyway?

"In the meadow, we can build a snowman
And pretend that he's a murderous clown
He'll say, "Am I funny?"
We'll say, "No, man!"
And then we'll run off screaming through the town..."

Lyrics by Lynnafred.

McDonald's New Fruit & Maple Oatmeal

I'll be honest:  Oatmeal is not my favorite food.  When I was a kid and my mother used to make oatmeal for breakfast, it had the magic power to turn my stomach on the second spoonful.

These days, oatmeal seems to have developed other magic powers, like doing good stuff to one's cholesterol levels and having lots of fiber so you can live the American dream of having bowels that move with clockwork regularity. 

I don't really care about those things, though.  As I've gotten older, I've found that I can actually enjoy oatmeal now and then, especially if it's not served in a thick, sticky, overcooked lump with milk poured over it the way my mother used to do it. 

Anyway, McDondald's sent me a few coupons for their new Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and asked me to give it a try.  I agreed because although McDonald's is making this product an all-day offering, I associate oatmeal with breakfast and McDonald's breakfasts are pretty much universally awesome.  I thought that maybe some of that awesomeness would rub off on the oatmeal, even though I wasn't very optomistic.

So, Sunday morning, my wife Maryanne and I each sat down to a serving of Fruit & Maple Oatmeal courtesy of Mickey D's.  Each cup contained a generous portion of lightly sweetened oatmeal with a touch of maple flavor, topped with brown raisins, golden raisins, diced red and green apples, and dried cranberries.  There was a generous amount of fruit - enough that we didn't need to ration it out as we ate to insure that there would be some in every bite - and the sweetness was very mild and not at all cloying.  There was just enough maple flavor to be noticeable without being overwhelming, so the overall flavor profile was exceptionally good.

I'm not sure if McDonald's is using a "cooked" oatmeal or an "instant," but in this case it didn't matter because it didn't taste like instant.  The cereal was hearty with big grains and reminded me of good steel-cut oats.  It had that familiar oatmeal texture without being lumpy or gluey.  And it was extraordinarily satisfying: the portion size was just right.

Maryanne, who is a big fan of oatmeal to begin with, loved it.  I expected that.  What I didn't expect was that I liked it too.  I went into this thinking "Eww, oatmeal" but came away with the impression that McDonald's potentially has a winning product here.  I'm not sure how many cups of oatmeal they're going to sell during traditional lunch and supper times, but at breakfast I can see this stuff being a big hit.

So here's something I never thought would happen:  I'm actually going to give a thumbs-up to oatmeal - specifically, McDonald's Fruit & Maple Oatmeal.  If you're out for a fast-food breakfast but not really up for a McMuffin (more words I never thought would flow through my pen) this might be just what you're looking for.  I'd buy it again (just don't tell my mom.)

The Fire Goes Out at Backyard BBQ in Enfield

Back in April 2010, I wrote about a brand new barbecue place that had opened up in my hometown.  It was called Backyard BBQ.  Their pulled pork was outstanding, and they also made the best barbecue baked beans anywhere, hands down.

Unfortunately, I headed that way last week - just before Christmas - to find the store dark with a sign in the window reading:

"To all our loyal customers! We are closing due to economic hardship. Thank you so much for supporting our business, and hopefully we can open up again when the market gets better."

Bummer.

Backyard BBQ had attracted some decent attention in the press.  Reviews in both the Hartford Courant and the Hartford Advocate were generally positive, and by the end of summer they seemed to be fairly busy.  I guess looks aren't everything, though.  I'm sorry to see them go.

OMG IT'S SNOWING, GET TO T3H SUPERMARKET

There's a winter storm on the way.  The National Weather Service says we should see maybe a foot of snow before it's all over.  Not too shabby.  Twelve inches of snow makes for a little inconvenience  in the way of shoveling and so on, but the temperature is cold enough that the snow should be powdery and easy to move.  However it works out, I'm not about to worry about it.

Plenty of people are worried about it, though, driven by hyperbolic "meteorologists" on local TV news stations that pump people into a panic to keep them glued to the newscasts (and the newscast's advertisements.)  I decided to check out the local Stop & Shop and see what was selling in advance of the storm.

O noes, better fill up that gas tank!  You never know when the town will get around to plowing the streets.  Don't want to get caught snowed in with an empty tank!  Every single pump had a five-car line.

Where's all the bread go?

Sorry We are out of Eggs

There was a run on ground beef.

Here's something I never figured would be rushed because of snow:  Cat food.

Oddly enough, there was plenty of milk - but the half-and-half and coffee creamer was decimated, and the bottled water aisle was hit heavily but not cleaned out.

It's been more than thirty years since a winter storm caused Connecticut to shut down, and that was in the days before so many people owned front-wheel drive and 4WD SUVs.  Yet, whenever a snowstorm starts sniffing around New England, we get panic buying like this.  *sigh*

Horse Cookies

Maryanne and I give a lot of gifts from our kitchen, as you might imagine.  We spend time during the year making jams, preserves, and jellies from seasonal fruits, and we do a fair amount of pickling and preserving the vegetables we grow.  And then, of course, there's the holiday baking - cookies, breads, pies and so on.  For the past few days, I've been baking cookies...but not for the people on our list.  No, this time around we decided to bake cookies for the various animals in the family.  I'll be sharing my recipes for animal treats here over the coming week, and today we'll start with horse cookies.

One of my sisters has a couple of horses and I thought it would be kind of cool to come up with something they'd enjoy.  Horses like sweet and chewy treats - one of their favorites is big, sweet oversized carrots - so I wanted to come up with something the horses would love and that my sister could carry in her pocket out to the barn.  I came up with this recipe, which horses really do seem to love.

Horse Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen 2-inch treats

4 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for kneading
3 cups uncooked quick oats
¼ cup brown sugar
1 egg
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup molasses
1 cup applesauce
¾ cup apple cider (approximately)

Preheat your oven to 300 F.

Stir the flour and oats together with the brown sugar in a large bowl.  Whisk together the egg, oil, molasses and applesauce until well combined, then dump the mixture into the flour and oats and work it in with a strong wooden spoon.  Gradually add cider, kneading it in to make a rather sticky dough.

Turn out the dough onto a heavily-floured surface (I used whole wheat flour for this, too) and knead for several minutes, adding flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking too much to your hands and the surface, until the dough is stiff, somewhat tacky, and easy to form.  This can take half a cup or more of additional flour.

Roll the dough out approximately half an inch thick and cut into cookies with a 2-inch round biscuit cutter.   Scraps should be briefly kneaded into a solid mass, then rerolled and cut.  Arrange the cookies on baking sheets prepared either by greasing them or by lining them with baking parchment.  Bake for 1 hour at 300 F, then shut the oven off and leave the cookies on the pans in the oven as it cools for several hours to help dry them out.

When the cookies are completely cooled, they can be stored in an airtight container to use as needed.

I sampled one of them after the initial baking and before the drying time, and they're pretty tasty (though not exactly my idea of a snack, my sister's horses are going to love them.)

Wendy's Natural-Cut Fries with Sea Salt

So, Wendy's is rolling out this "new style" of french fries which they're calling "Natural Cut Fries With Sea Salt."  Russet spuds, peels left on, shoestring cut (fairly standard "Boardwalk Fries" if you know what I mean) sprinkled with "sea salt" as if that's going to make a big flavor difference on a handful of greasy fried taters.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that the new fries aren't any better - or even substantially different - than any other burger joint fries.  They're okay thirty seconds out of the fryer and they go downhill fast from there, at first getting kind of soggy in their own steam and then just getting tough and cold and nasty when the heat leaves.  Hey, even McDonald's fries - supposedly the industry leader - suck when they get cold.  Wendy's fries are going to continue to run a distant third in the Fast Food Wars, if only because they don't have to get cold all the way through before they suck.

I really don't understand what the hell Wendy's was thinking here.  What was so wrong with their fries the way they were?  I've never heard anyone ever complain about them, so it isn't like there was some huge public outcry to have a "new improved" fried potato on the menu.  Won't surprise me a bit if regular Wendy's customers raise hell about these new fries, though.

Free Coffee at Pride Gas Stations

This post is mostly going to be of interest to my home-turf readers in the Western Mass / Northern CT area.  Pride is a small (16 store) chain of locally-owned gas stations in Western Massachusetts and during the month of December, they're trying to drum up a little more business by offering free 16-ounce cups of coffee - no purchase required - at all of their stations.

Thursday night was one of those really trying nights.  I had come home from work to find the distribution blower in my pellet stove had stopped working and the house temp was in the low 50's  The service center that handles warranty work on my stove closes at 7 pm on Thursday, so I got right to work removing the old blower so I could swap it out for a new one.  By the time I got to the service center it was 15 minutes before closing, but I got the part I needed.  It was 7F/14C outside, I still had to stop at the hardware store for electrical connectors and foil tape to finish the repairs, and my car's gas tank was just about empty.

Pride to the rescue!  Cheapest gas in town and free hot fresh coffee.  Totally awesome.

Well, not totally to the rescue.  I still had to get home and install the blower.

Victory Toast!

Victory Toast!  A triumph of crispy, buttery, savory deliciousness the ingredients for which snatch value from the jaws of wastefulness!  VICTORY TOAST!!

Okay, so I admit that's pretty lame, but I couldn't think of anything really catchy this morning, so we're stuck with it.

Anyway, remember back in May, when I reviewed Kraft Spaghetti Classics - that nasty quasi-Italian crap-in-a-box which has remained unchanged for 50 years?  I still had a couple of boxes of it laying around the pantry and they needed to be used up. I boiled up the nasty grey non-semolina spaghetti for the dogs - both of them love pasta and sauce - but that still left me with strange Kraft "seasoning" and two pouches of Kraft Parmesan cheese.

So I made the best of it.  

Victory Toast

Sliced ciabatta bread

Butter

Kraft Spaghetti Classics Seasoning Pouch

Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese

Lightly butter both sides of each slice of bread.  In a skillet over medium heat, grill one side of the bread just until it begins to turn golden brown - don't let it toast completely.  Turn the bread so the other side can grill, and sprinkle the lightly brown face-up side with Kraft Spaghetti Classics Seasoning to taste.  Then sprinkle it with Kraft Grated Parmesan Cheese.  When the skillet side of the bread is nicely browned, flip the toast over again and grill the cheese side briefly, just long enough to toast the cheese.  Kraft's pouched Parmesan cheese is so low in moisture you won;t have to worry about it scorching and burning as long as you're reasonably careful.  Serve hot and crispy!

Feel free to improve this recipe by substituting your favorite Italian seasoning blend and freshly grated Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese.

More Ridiculous Hanukkah Advertising

Stop & Shop says Happy Chanukah!  Celebrate by cooking a delicious fresh pork shoulder, on sale now for just 99 cents a pound!

Domo Toys At Taco Bell!

ど―も!

Taco Bell kids' meals currently include one of five toys featuring Domo-Kun.  How cool is that??  Personally, I'd go for the sticker dispenser.

Southgate Beef Stew

I bought this at Dollar Tree as one of those "what the hell" purchases.  Lynnafred and I were ther to buy some cheap holiday-themed paper dessert plates (which were out of stock) and on our way out Southgate Beef Stew caught my eye.  Despite her protests - "Damn it, Dad, you and your crappy dollar store food!" - the label promised beef stew with textured vegetable protein added, and the ingredients panel seemed pretty straightforward:  Water, beef, potatoes, carrots, TVP, modified food starch, tomato paste, dehydrated celery and onion, sugar, caramel powder, paprika, black pepper, celery seed.  Nothing really outrageous there.  My expectations were actually pretty low, so I wouldn't be very easy to disappoint, you know?

And therefore, I was pleasantly surprised by how decent Southgate Beef Stew is considering that it's a canned beef stew.  Big hearty chunks of potato and a fair quantity of beef.  Real beef in chunks of various size, and by "real" I mean that it isn't some sort of bastardized loaf product made of beef and TVP mixed up, cooked, and cut in blocks for the stew.  The TVP was there, but separately, in little hamburger-like crumbles of their own, not trying at all to convince you that it was anything but crumbly TVP bits.  The gravy was also good, too.  Only a little hint of grease, not too salty with a beefy flavor and a hint of tomato and carrot, just like you'd get if you made your own.

All told, it was a pretty solid and satisfying lunch and a good deal for a buck.

Info and Link:

The Southgate brand is one of a number of brands produced by Choice Food of America, a company which has gathered many small labels and their recipes under a single corporate umbrella.  They produce and pack their own product rather than contracting it out to other companies and they're proud enough of what they make to put their name and address prominently on each label. I'm obsessive about reading labels and you'd be surprised how many times I've had to search the fine print on some brands to get a mailing address - some companies make it as difficult as possible to find out who's responsible for getting that can or box onto the supermarket shelf.  I've emailed Choice Foods to find out more about them and the brands they market, and hope to be able to write more about them in the future.

David Glass Sells Out In Two Hours!

David Glass and his wife, Vivie - dessert makers par excellence - have opened a "pop-up bakery" in subleased space in South Windsor, CT.  Baking during the week to satisfy demand, "Vivie and David Glass' Delicious Desserts" is opening on Saturdays only from 9 am to 4:30 pm with tastings and retail sales.

Saturday December 4th was the first day of retail operation.  Maryanne and I had planned to be there at the opening, but a prior engagement meant that we didn't arrive until about noon.

400 Chapel Street in South Windsor is one of those small light-industrial condos that have cropped up here and there all over the Connecticut River Valley in recent years.  The facilities look almost like a strip mall, but there are fewer windows and barely enough parking for employees.  There was a steady of stream of cars into the entrance and although no signs were posted, one of the "storefronts" had a door standing open.  It had to be the place; there were a lot of folks milling around, but as many of them were leaving - emptyhanded - as were coming in.  I walked in to find a somewhat embarrassed man (not David Glass) explaining that the five hundred desserts the Glasses had prepared were sold out before 11 am and there was nothing left to purchase at the shop.  There was a sign on the door:

If there were any doubts that the Greater Hartford area appreciates and misses the Glasses' baked treats, Saturday should be sufficient to quell them.  Disappointed customers being turned away were told that next week, the Glasses plan to have "three times" as many desserts with them.

Unfortunately, we have another prior engagement next Saturday as well.  If any of you manage to score a Delicious Dessert by Vivie and David Glass, feel free to send me a gloating email detailing the exquisiteness of your tasty morsel.

Bacon Prices Continue to Go Insane

It was "sticker shock" at the supermarket this week, where bacon prices have continued to go through the roof.  Look at that:  $6.69 a pound for Oscar Mayer bacon at Stop & Shop, where even the generic no-name crap bacon (the "Guaranteed Value" brand") is now $2.99 a pound - a 50% increase from last year.

I first noticed bacon prices rising in August, but a summertime price bump isn't unusual.  August is when everyone's backyard tomatoes are in their full glory, and bacon prices often tick up a bit then as loads of people buy it to make the archetypal summer sandwich, the BLT.  This year, however, summer prices didn't drift back down.

According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index, bacon prices have been climbing for seven straight months as of October (the last month for which there is data.)  As of right now, bacon prices are up an average of 33% over last year at this time.

There's a combination of factors at work here.  Remember the H1N1 Swine Flu scare last year?  That caused an overall reduction in hog herds.  Higher feed prices and overall recessionary conditions also helped make raising hogs a money-losing proposition for a lot of farmers.  And because pork bellies (the pigmeat from which we get bacon) is a traded commodity, market pressure from speculators has helped keep bacon prices higher than other pork cuts.

In this August article in the Birmingham [AL] News,  Business Editor Stan Diel said, "The good news for those who like bacon with their eggs in the morning is that it doesn't take nearly as long for farmers to raise new hogs, increasing supply, as it does to raise cattle. And with hogs once again profitable, farmers are raising more of them."  Unfortunately, since then bacon prices have still risen about 7% a month, and my own price surveys in the supermarkets haven't shown any downward trend.

In recent weeks, many of the supermarkets around me have started to run sales on bacon, which is taking some of the sting away.  But when you're starting at a regular price getting close to seven bucks a pound, even the sale prices are expensive compared to last year.

Steaz Organic Teaz

Anytime something is spelled wrong on a label, I get thinking.  I wonder why the hell people can't spell things normally, for starters. And I never think "Hey, that's really clever," no, I usually consider pluralizing with a z or spelling things with an initial K instead of  C to be an irritatingly cutesy (if not plain stupid) marketing gimmick for something that probably sucks.

Allow me to present Steaz Organic Iced Teaz.

Steaz bottled teas are usually pretty good, for the record. I'm not talking about Teaz® here, I'm talking about the plural of the word tea. I've had their regular black tea and it's been good, and the white tea is good enough that I don't ask myself why I didn't make my own damn tea, but as soon as they're slapping pictures of happy tea farmers on the can and adding fruit to it, something happens. It gets nasty.

Steaz Organic Fruit Teaz come in six varieties: Green tea with Blueberry Pomegranate Acai, Green Tea with Peach, Black Tea with Lemon, and White tea with Pomegranate and Lime, unsweetened Green Tea with Lemon, and Green Tea with Mint. I'll be reviewing the first four here, because that's all I could find.

Where do I even start? I'll start with Green Tea Peach. The flavor was certainly that of green tea, but Dave and I found only the barest hint of peach flavor to it. Dave actually described it as, "Like someone walked a peach by it." And that's fairly accurate. The peach flavor was there, but it was more of an "essence" than a real "flavor." My mother, on the other hand, thought that it was "very peachy." She also likes things more subtly flavored than Dave and I, so maybe we're just the wrong market for theze Teaz.

The Green Tea with Blueberry Pomegranate Acai wasn't much better.  There was the typical green tea astringency with a vague fruit flavor there, but the blueberry and pomegranate flavors just sort of muddied each other together without letting either of them be distinct enough to really enjoy.  Acai might have been in the mix, but it was indistinguishable.

Next up was the White Tea with Pomegranate and Lime. My friend Jess was over when I cracked this one open, and I let her take the first sip of it. She described it as "Gymbag Tea." This time, the White Tea's natural flavor was overpowered by a flavor reminiscent of dirt, artificial limes, and something kind of soapy. It was such a completely nasty tea that I ended up dumping  it out, and nothing of value was lost. Everyone in the house who tried it had the same expression on their face: ( ﾟдﾟ)

The best of the ones we found was the Black Tea with Lemon, but even this was flawed.  The lemon flavor was completely out of proportion with the tea, and it tasted more like a blend of lemonade and tea than a tea flavored with lemon.  Props for the tea not being heavily sweetened - there was just a touch of "evaporated cane juice" to take the sharp edges off the lemon and tea, but not enough to make a sickly-sweet Liptonesque concoction - but otherwise still not what I was expecting.


.

David Glass Is Back!

Photo from www.davidglass.com

According to this story by Korky Vann at ctnow.com, David Glass is back - for now, at least - in a "pop-up" bakery in South Windsor.  Glass and his wife Vivie are calling the new shop "Vivie and David Glass' Delicious Desserts," and will be the only employees, baking during the week and opening to the public for tastings and sales on Saturdays through December 18.

This Saturday, December 4, will the first tasting and sale with the bakery open from 9 am to 4 pm.  The new location is at 400 Chapel Road in South Windsor.  For more information, click the link on the beginning of this post to go to the ctnow.com article.