by Saul Rubinek as warehouse keeper Artie and Allison Scagliotti as his geekfoxy twentysomething assistant Claudia and you’ve got a real keeper.
july 8-14
brian chilson
WAREHOUSE 13: NEW EPISODES 8 p.m. Tuesdays Sy-Fy Channel
MMM, MMM: The Hop offers Coca-Cola with pure cane sugar.
Sweet showdown Sugar cane-flavored soft drinks make a comeback. By Bernard Reed
n The latest trend in soft drinks is nostalgia: The desire for drinks sweetened with sugar cane, as in the old days, rather than high fructose corn syrup. Cane tastes better to some folks, and it’s being marketed as better for you than corn. Americans get 20 percent of their sugar from soft drinks. That makes soft drink production in this country an enormous industry. In the ’70s soft drink makers made the switch to corn syrup because it’s cheaper, it supports U.S. corn farmers and doesn’t have trade tariffs like sucrose from abroad. But sugar cane is back, mostly at privately owned businesses that sell specialty or gourmet goods. But a niche market can’t be so easily defined. Take the Hop, an old-fashioned diner selling burgers, and ZaZa’s, purveyor of artisan pizzas and creative salads. The Hop, which styles itself after an old-fashioned diner, figured that selling vintage soft drinks would add to the restaurant’s flair. It sells Mexican Cokes and sold vintage sodas from the New Jersey-based Boylan Bottling Co. The vintage sodas sold so poorly that owner Chris Isgrig decided to stop stocking them, but customers can’t get enough of the Mexican Cokes, Sprites, and Fantas, which are also made with sugar cane. Well, well — brand recognition at play. The Boylan Bottling Co. was founded in 1891 and pledges to provide “authentic soda-pops of a bygone era.” That is, an era when the word “Coke” wasn’t synonymous with “soft drink.” Boylan fares better at ZaZa, the upscale pizza restaurant in the Heights. Scott McGehee, the owner, takes pride in the 26 july 8, 2010 • ARKANSAS TIMES
fact that ZaZa offers healthy food, which is why he chose to stock Boylan beverages. They sell very well, he said, but the restaurant still serves regular Cokes. He wants his customers to have choices when it comes to their soft drinks, and he realizes that without the sticky, corn-syrupy choices of Dr. Pepper or Diet Coke, any restaurant would go out of business. When you’re at ZaZa munching on a chic pizza, a glass-bottled novelty drink just looks better, besides being the supposedly healthier option. If you get a beer there, it’s probably not going to be a Miller Lite. When you’re at The Hop, a Coke will do just fine, and if you happen to be a fan of cane sugar, you’re in luck. In this country we like our fizzy drinks too much to care about making a statement every time we need a refreshment. The notion that sugar cane is a healthier option is sort of a joke, unfortunately. While corn syrup is demonized as one of the big reasons for out-of-control obesity in America, especially among children, studies have shown that it’s not really any worse than sucrose. The problem is the amount of soft drinks being consumed in the first place. Mexican Coke, although you won’t get it in the drink machine at McDonald’s, isn’t too hard to find. Besides the Hop, it’s in Mexican grocery stores and River Market district stores Green Grass and 4Square. Whether it’s about health, or making a political statement, or trying to look cool with a throwback Pepsi in a glass bottle, human behavior is a complex thing to explain. But it can be simple, too. Those Cokes de Mexico sure do taste better.
n Though I wasn’t too impressed with the first few episodes of season one of Sy-Fy’s “Warehouse 13” — too hip, too goofy, too little chemistry between leads Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly — the show managed to grow on me quite a bit as the season rolled on. If you haven’t seen it and are a fan of dark comedy or sci-fi you should definitely give it a shot. The show follows the adventures of FBI agents Pete Lattimer (McClintock) and Mika Bering (Kelly), who are assigned to a mysterious, cavernous facility in South Dakota called Warehouse 13. Kind of like the government hidey-hole from the last scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” W13 is the place where the Powers That Be stash all their amazing and dangerous stuff: samurai swords so sharp they can slice through time, for example, and energy weapons designed by Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla. In addition to babysitting the cosmic yard sale, the agents are often assigned to track down and recover new artifacts so they can be categorized and safely shelved to keep them away from evildoers. As with much of science-fiction television, Warehouse 13 is a show that has to teach you how to watch it: what to expect, who you can trust, which way is up when it comes to this particular universe’s often dicey physics. Once I got a little of the agents’ back story and the actors gelled a bit, McClintock and Kelly work much better as a pair for me now, and have real potential. Add to that nice performances
BACK AGAIN: ‘Warehouse 13’ on Sy-Fy.
DUAL SURVIVAL Fridays 9 p.m. The Discovery Channel n I have no delusions about my chances for survival were I ever to find myself shipwrecked, stranded in the wilderness or otherwise detained more than 20 miles from the nearest Target store: I would be toast. I don’t like to go camping, much less snare rabbits and make shoes out of tree bark, so if I were ever in a life or death situation, I feel fairly confident that the outcome would be hikers finding my bleached bones next to a large sign made of rocks that says “Send Cheeseburgers.” That said, I have great respect for the folks that can live off the land. Little did I know there are different ways to go about it — different, anyway, from my plan to cry and pray while in the fetal position. Presenting those differing tactics to keep on breathing is the concept behind the new Discovery Channel show “Dual Survival.” Think of it as “The Odd Couple,” if Felix and Oscar had been forced to eat grubs and huddle together naked to stave off hypothermia. Every week, “bush hippie” Cody Lundin and former sniper and Army scout Dave Canterbury are dropped off in the armpit of the universe miles from assistance, and have to work together to survive. As you might imagine, their strategies to avoid becoming Bear Chow often clash. One video at the Discovery Channel website, for example, shows Lundin and Canterbury squabbling over Lundin’s new-age edict against wearing shoes, even in sub-freezing conditions (makes him closer to the earth, Lundin says, and gives his mitochondria a boost). Lundin, however, is no dummy. His eco-friendly, science driven approach to survival often trumps Canterbury’s he-man, kill-itbefore-it-kills-you attitude. Great fun. — David Koon