What happens when Atlantic salmon is spliced with genes from Pacific chinook salmon and a spooky looking fish from the eel family called the ocean pout? You get a super-fish called “AquAdvantage Salmon.” The advantage being — this hybrid critter grows like gangbusters. Instead of maturing in 3 years, it can be brought to the table in 18 months.

AquaBounty, the small biotech company that developed this GM (genetically modified) salmon, has been seeking FDA approval for it since 1995 and a recent FDA statement pronouncing the salmon safe to eat has brought the company closer to their goal. Final approval from regulators could be reached as early as this summer. If and when that happens, the salmon will be the first genetically modified animal approved for human consumption, joining GM plants like soy and corn that have been altered to withstand harsh insecticides.

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As an Apple fan, I know how smart their products are and as a New Yorker I know our city shines even brighter thanks to Apple’s dazzling Fifth Avenue, glass cube flagship store. But today I received a surprise when, for the first time, I looked at photographs of Apple’s other stores in the US and around the world.  I had expected to find their ultra modern designs– glossy cubes and sleek rectangles — multiplied across the globe. But no.

In numerous cities Apple has designed and adapted storefronts that are downright traditional — even conservative in appearance — reflecting the style and spirit of the older structures and neighborhoods housing them.  Apple’s New York Soho store started life as a branch post office. In its conversion Apple left the original exterior untouched, adding only two small signs with the Apple logo. I’ve never associated Apple with the world “old” but another of their stores is located in an art deco Miami building whose first tenant signed a lease way back in the thirties.  Apple also retained the distinctive thirties exterior, though the interior, like all Apple stores, showcases their familiar layout, spacious atmosphere, parsons tables and genius bar.

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I know someone whose father went AWOL during World War II. Drafted into the US Army and promoted to Corporal, he was working in an Army camp office in New Jersey when a huge piece of news hit his desk. Just before the weekend he learned his unit was to be sent to Europe on a ship leaving Monday morning. Because the families of many men lived too far from camp to allow for quick round trips home, no final leaves would be granted before their departure.

His family, however, a wife and three children lived only a short train ride away. So what did he do? He boarded a train and traveled home to say goodbye to his wife and three young girls, one of whom was only a few months old. When he reported back to camp the next day, he was demoted to private and, without further punishment, boarded the ship with his company for the Atlantic crossing.

I’ve sometimes wondered what I would have done in his shoes. I see both sides of their story — his and the army’s — as understandable. From the Army’s standpoint, if all soldiers did what he did, the whole military structure would crumble. Yet the man was being sent to a battle that might be his last.  How could it be a crime for him to spend a few treasured hours with those he might never see again?

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One of the world’s first cultivated foods, chickpeas were eaten by ancient Egyptians along with the folks who created the Roman Empire. Then along came some Middle Easterners who pureed those chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, blended them with a few tasty ingredients and voila — hummus was born. Now centuries later, hummus is big again. And why not? It’s got four powerful pluses going for it: it’s healthy, cheap, can be served in countless ways and it’s a breeze to make.

Along with the main ingredient, chickpeas, typical hummus contains lemon juice or vinegar, garlic, tahini (sesame seed butter), and olive oil. The hummus in Martha Stewart’s basic recipe can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Packed with protein and vitamins, hummus also contains rich minerals such as folic acid, zinc and magnesium.  Along with other beans, it may help to defend cells from genetic changes that could lead to cancer, according to lab tests at the American Institute for Cancer Research.

Beyond being used as a simple spread on sandwiches and wraps, hummus makes a great dip for chips or raw veggies, a zippy dressing (after being thinned) for salads, an accompaniment for burgers in place of ketchup or mustard, a topping for bruschetta and a less fatty substitute for mayonnaise or cream cheese.

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In the beginning my part time job was enough of a challenge to make it interesting. Recommended by a high school classmate, I had been hired by a local department store to repair damaged costume jewelry. Working in a tiny, windowless, basement space, I nonetheless got a kick out of figuring out how to put broken jewelry pieces back together without the repairs showing. But there wasn’t enough repair work to keep me busy, so I was moved into sales on the basement floor which included a peculiar conglomeration of merchandise: home furnishings mixed in with pricey boy’s clothes. It was quickly apparent that discussing the finer points of curtain rods, mattress covers and boy’s socks with housewives wasn’t high on the thrill list of my 16 year old self. So what I remember most about those days was crisscrossing the narrow aisles between puffy piles of pillows and sheets in an attempt to walk off the boredom. The odd thing is I don’t recall making a single sale, but I must have, because I somehow lasted a few months before the store owner caught on to my sales unsuitability and said, “Sayonara, kid.”

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Some cities with the biggest blowups in the real estate market collapse now offer some of the best rental deals in the country. Thanks to a flood of vacant, single homes that many people are still too skittish to buy, these cities offer a plentiful supply of rental homes at reasonable prices. This is especially true of Tucson, Arizona, #1 on our list, where it’s cheaper to rent than to buy. Another Arizona city, Phoenix, claims the #3 spot on this list of The Best Cities for Renters, published by Forbes based on a number of real estate factors.

Missouri, almost dead center in the USA, also features two cities with affordable rentals: Kansas City at #5 and St. Louis at #7.

Still having problems selling single family homes, Texas too has a positive double entry: Houston at #8 (the city skyline pictured here) followed by San Antonio at #9.

The northern most city with auspicious rents is Columbus, Ohio. Representing the East Coast on the Atlantic Ocean is Jacksonville, Fla. coming in at #2.

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A longer version of this post was published in the early days of this blog when readers were as scarce as frogs flipping up Fifth Avenue.

Ever get the feeling too many salespeople consider customer’s questions to be intrusions into their real job – which is to grab our cash at top speed and shove us out of the way for the next customer’s money? Recently I came across such a salesclerk when I bought a digital camera.

Research indicated my computer operating system wasn’t compatible with the camera’s software so I needed a memory card reader (a small drive to get the digital photos into the computer). I telephoned the store with the best camera deal and asked if they could recommend a reader in the mid price range. Cheapo readers, it seems, had an annoying tendency to emit burning smells and melt.

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When we were driving through France our favorite summer lunch wherever we stopped was Salade Niçoise. Composed and artfully arranged a little differently in each restaurant, the salad’s snappy flavors and bright colors always hit a high note on those warm, traveling days. Julia Child called this her favorite main course salad. It’s mine too and like she did, I enjoy it all year round. But it’s especially delicious in summer when vegetables are at their freshest and hot weather calls for a light refreshing meal.  The main ingredients are tomatoes, tuna, string beans, potatoes, olives, capers, anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce and tangy vinaigrette.

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My apartment has been burglarized twice, but the second break-in — involving police with drawn guns, the Puerto Rican Day Parade and an apartment door smashed in two pieces — was far more dramatic.

Away for the weekend, I returned home Sunday afternoon to a street pulsating with loud Latin music and revelers celebrating the Puerto Rican Day Parade booming up the block. I was half way up the stairs to my apartment on the top floor, when I looked up at my apartment door and froze.  Broken in two, my front door was missing its’ bottom half. Holy moly! Were thieves still in there? Surely if the break-in had occurred earlier in the weekend, my next door neighbor would have reported it and the door would have been boarded up by now.

No, I decided, it wouldn’t be smart to enter alone. Down I went back to the crowded street. It took me only a minute to snag a policeman. But instead of being eager to perhaps stop a burglary in progress, the officer appeared reluctant to leave his cushy parade duty. Operating in slow motion, as though praying the thieves would disappear before he got there, he radioed his superior, got the okay to proceed and rounded up a partner.

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This post was first published almost two years ago when visitors to my new blog were so scarce, I often dropped by myself to check if it was still on-line. So for those that never saw it, here is that post about Thoreau with a few changes.

There once lived a man who was, is and always shall be The King of Frugal Mountain. Born in New England, and a close friend of Emerson the poet, Henry David Thoreau lived in Concord, Massachusetts, where living close to the bone was considered a worthy path. But Thoreau, a Harvard grad and aspiring writer, took that path and stretched it as far as it could go by leaving his cushy home in town and walking into the woods to build himself a small shack a mile from the nearest neighbor. There on the shore of Walden Pond, he lived alone for two years and two months. In his words: ” I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Leaving behind his comfy possessions, he wrote in a later book: “Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them. Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

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