I’d like to tell you all about the new Jura Signature Range Espresso machines not because I’m actually a coffee conossoir and not because this line of coffee makers and espresso machines will clearly rank somewhere in my list of the world’s most expensive coffee makers, but rather because I was sent a press release and haven’t written anything else in a while.

See, I wrote about a bunch of really expensive coffee machines a while ago and now I regularly get emails from companies that want me to promote their stuff. This is not a bad thing, but these emails never include a free coffee maker sent to my home.

These Jura Signature Range Espresso machines are no different. JURA is apparently a “luxury Swiss coffee brand” that makes incredibly shiny machines that excel at making drinks like espresso, coffee, capresso, Cappuccino, Latte, Macchiato, Ristretto, Ralph Macchio and a bunch of other drinks I’ve never heard of. The press release was dated as “Xx Feburary 2009″ so I know that the Jura press office is pretty serious about what they send out. They were probably on their third Venti Ristretto Latte when they wrote it.

Sex! Coffee Machines!
Freudian?

The first full page of this press release is dedicated not to how wonderful the machine is or how the coffee it makes will temporarily give you superpowers or how Jura is dominating the Swiss millionaire coffee machine market.

The first page of the Jura Signature Range coffee maker press release is, essentially, about sex.

It starts out by explaining how the Jura Signature range is an upgrade to three of Jura’s current models: the Z5, J5 and ENA 5. They sound sort of like BMW models, except for the ENA 5, which kind of sounds like an Enya cover band. The press release mentions that these luxury Jura espresso machines are made of “only the finest of rare and natural materials” which immediately has me thinking that they are made of elephant ivory, bald eagle beaks and those crystals that Superman used to build his private North Pole bachelor pad.

The next paragraph goes on:

Designed to perfectly complement the most glamorous of kitchens; the dazzling Signature Z5 incorporates a solid aluminium panel electroplated with Rhodium, an extremely rare and expensive precious metal, to produce an unusual mystical sheen. For that ultimate wow-factor, the Signature Z5 also flaunts a spectacular sparkling rotary switch, encrusted with a triple band of perfectly cut Swarovski crystals.

The “rare and expensive precious metal” and “mystial sheen” could easily be describing the +5 Magical Sword and Crown of the Green Ogre King, but no, it’s the JURA Z5 coffee maker. That’s the dinner and heavy petting part of the sales pitch. It continues…

Available in a choice of two rare and exclusive veneers, Columbian Walnut or Northern Birch… Considerable time and care is taken to source and prepare the veneers; Columbian Walnut is exposed to controlled doses of natural sunlight to achieve a desired colour. Uses of Northern Birch are under strict regulation due to its extremely slow growth in cold inhospitable areas of Siberia, limiting its uses to rare occasions.

Notice that I wasn’t too far off with the idea of using elephant ivory. I imagine a team of Siberian mountain men trudging thousands of miles to reach a single, solitary Norther Birch tree in the middle of nowhere and then they gently and lovingly carve off a single branch, pack it in velvet and march back thousands of miles to meet up with a Swiss Jura executive in a $1000 suit who is standing in a hotel lobby tapping his foot impatiently. When he’s presented with the branch he grabs it and says, “Ya, ya, ya… here are your 30 Rubles. Now get another.”

Ahem. This is clearly the foreplay part of the sale where we learn that this coffee maker is so damn rare and sexy that you should be lucky to be in the same room with it. Time to move in for the kill.

The last paragraph informs us that the Signature ENA 5 is available with…

…two vibrant shades of leather - Speed Red or Sports Brown. Using the same high quality unblemished cowhide as prestige cars, the Signature ENA 5 is sensuous to both touch and smell. With environmentally friendly dyeing and trimming carried out to perfection, the panels are hand-stitched by traditional craftsmanship.

Speed Red or Sports Brown? Sensuous to both touch and smell? We’re not talking about a sports car or a Las Vegas hooker. Heck, that’s not even describing the coffee or the beans. That’s just the damn coffee maker. It’s both environmentally friendly (gentle), trimmed perfectly (neat and clean) and hand-stitched (okay, okay I’ll stop).

Do you know how many Siberians died to make this coffee machine?

The last half page of the press release mentions that the Jura Signature range of coffee makers actually DO make coffee and the aforementioned drinks, have a bunch of cool features, will ONLY be sold in Harrods (and a bunch of other stores), will be available in June 2009 and will probably cost a lot more than you have, so don’t bother asking.

Ahem.

If you want to learn more about the Jura signature line of coffee machines they do list the address of the Jura website which has brief mention of the Signature line in the News section. This would be a great idea except for the fact that the link entitled “JURA Signature Line” appears to be hardcoded to Jura’s 404-Page Not Found page.

Don’t get me wrong: All the Jura espresso machines look pretty cool and I’m pretty sure any single one of their machines could beat up all my kitchen appliances (and probably my car) in a fight. I just think that trying to market jewel-encrusted coffee makers made from rare Siberian trees and fine-smelling leather and trying to sell them during to sex-starved consumers while the world’s economic systems twirl down the toilet is going to be a rough sell.

And for those of you who can afford the JURA signature range: I applaud you and would like to gently remind you that you can buy all your Jura coffee makers and supplies at Amazon.com by clicking on that link… you know… if you wanted to.

Me? I’m sticking with my two year old $14.99 Black and Decker white plastic coffee maker that I got on clearance. Don’t get me wrong: I still value luxury and the finer things in life.

Tomorrow I’m going to yank out the old Bedazzler and slam some rhinestones onto that VersaBrew Plus, probably right around the built in digital clock. And maybe I’ll go that extra mile for that wood grain look and consider gluing some scrap plywood to the side. As for the leather? Maybe I can wrap some beef jerky around the coffee pot handle and just squint a lot when I pour myself a cup of “Kirkland’s” best.

Sadly, I don’t think any of those things will improve my chances of getting sex. I mean, I’m no Ralph Macchio.

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My wife and I took a few days off this week and we decided to give the new Bobby Flay Burger Palace in Eatontown, NJ a quick try because my wife and I both think Bobby Flay comes across as a jerk on TV but his food is usually pretty darn good.

We drove down to Monmouth Mall and got to Bobby’s Burger Palace around 2pm on a weekday. We had no idea what to expect so we showed up with empty stomachs and high expectations based on our previous experiences at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill, which offers some phenomenal and unique dishes. We were a little curious to see if Bobby’s Burgers would be the same.

The line to get into the place was out the door even on a chilly afternoon and at first we figured we’d be standing for a while, but once we got inside the doorway we learned the first little secret to Bobby’s Burger Palace: it’s small. Really small. Though it looks large from the outside this “burger palace” really was more like a “burger joint.” I know Bobby Flay is short, but he’d have to stand about 12 inches off the ground to think of this little place as a “palace.”

The Bobby’s Burger Palace in Eatontown is not much bigger than a standard McDonald’s. This would, unfortunately, not be the last time we’d invoke the image of McDonald’s when talking about BBP. The line to the cash register was only about 25 feet long, so when we got in the door we saw that there were really only about five or six parties ahead of us, all looking up and down the large menu boards on the side.

The menu at Bobby’s Burger Palace is limited, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are 10 different burgers to choose from, a couple sandwiches and salad options, two types of grilled cheese, a few fry options, about seven milkshake options and a few sodas. That’s about it.

You can “crunchify” any burger for free. Crunchify is Bobby’s Flay term for “putting potato chips on it.” And if you don’t like beef you can get any of the burger offerings made with a grilled chicken breast, a turkey burger or “topless” which means no bun.

We dutifully waited in line and my wife got an L.A. Burger, while I went for a three cheese grilled cheese. We split a vanilla milkshake, an order of sweet potato fries and an order of onion rings, mostly out of curiosity. We were given a little plastic number tent like those the ones you remember from the 1970’s. After a few minutes of waiting two seats opened up and my wife and I were two chairs facing each other amidst a bunch of strangers.

Bobby Flay wants you to sit with some strangers and eat this.

This was our second real surprise: communal dining. There are no individual tables, just long stretch tables where you sit in comfy stools that are bolted to the floor with a bunch of people you probably don’t really want to be that close to. My wife and I were crowded between people with winter coats and jabbing arms and loud nasally voices all of whom had apparently bathed in cologne. Ahh, New Jersey.

Some of the tables were curved and some were angled at such a way as to actually take up even more space than they had to. This is, I suppose, “hip” and “cool” to some people, but judging from the conversations around us it seemed kinda stupid. That’s the second secret of Bobby’s Burger Palace: by limiting the number of seats in the place and making the cashier line short it ALWAYS looks busy and makes people think, “Oh, this must be worth it.” Limiting supply is a great way to artificially increase demand.

Our food came out in about 10 minutes, but all was not well. Our sweet potato fries were cold, our onion rings just lukewarm and we didn’t have our milkshake. There aren’t really waiters at Bobby’s Burger Palace, but there are a lot of employees cleaning up tables, bringing food out and doing waitery things. At the Eatontown BBP the number of tattoos and piercings on the waitstaff far outnumbered those in the general population and the mostly older suburban clientele. One of these waiter-type people immediately appeared and asked how everything was. I mentioned my lack of a milkshake and she immediately apologized and went to look for it. Meanwhile I had noticed people that were behind us in line getting their orders, including milkshakes, as well.

Our waiter person appeared again and said the milkshake would be out in a moment and actually used the phrase, “It was a computer glitch. Those darn computers!” Umm, yeah. I’m sure human error had nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, we ate.

The food was good. That’s about it. Good.

Just good.

Not great. Not amazing. Not worth waiting more than 10 minutes for. Not unique. Just… kinda okay. The sweet potato fries, other than being cold, were passable. I could almost see the “RESTAURANT BULK FOOD FROZEN SWEET POTATO FRIES” label stamped on them. The onion rings were slightly better, being made of large onion rounds and not just thinly sliced rings. The portions were just right. Next to us was a little carousel of dipping sauces such as ketchup, “burger sauce” (steak sauce), jalapeno sauce and some sort of smoky ketchup. We squirted each sauce on the plate and dipped and tasted. Again, it was flavorful but it was hardly cutting-edge or particularly wonderful.

My wife’s burger was pretty good, but nothing that a good diner wouldn’t offer for about the same price. Bobby’s Burger Palace only cooks burgers to medium, so you’re out of luck if you like it any other way. My Grilled Cheese Deluxe included several different cheeses, including goat cheese, as well as tomato and bacon. It was a thin sandwich but it was creamy and crunchy and it worked well.

Our milkshake finally arrived and we both tried it. It tasted exactly like all the other vanilla milkshakes in the world and they all taste almost like, yes, a McDonald’s vanilla milkshake. Again, there was nothing out of the ordinary or even exciting about this milkshake other than the fact that it came in a glass that was smaller than the sodas and it came out a little bit late.

We left Bobby’s Burger Palace feeling as though we’d gotten a decent diner meal in a strange setting. Most of the burgers are around $7.50 or so and the fries ring in around $3.00 and the milkshake pinged us for $5.00.

Overall it was a good place to get a burger but no better than any other restaurant in the United States. If you like sitting with strangers, like average food and you can’t stand the idea of not eating at a FoodTV chef’s vanity project restaurant, then give it a shot. If, however, you’re hungry and want to relax I suggest you go for a burger just about anywhere else.

Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill is damn fine eating.

Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace is just good eating, dammit.

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Once again hurricanes are in the headlines and once again I have a morbid and unnatural fascination not with the storms themselves but with how the media chooses to report on them. I imagine reporters are given “Hurricane Stories” in the same way that privates in the Army are given “latrine duty.” Both jobs are doled out as the ultimate punishment for bad performance.

What the experts predict Florida will look like after every hurricane.

“Ted, as the Editor-in-Chief of this news organization I’ve noticed that your stories have not been very newsworthy. In the past three months you have not once mentioned computer hackers breaking into your home, celebrity divorces or Lindsay Lohan’s breasts!”

“But, sir, all I cover is the Weekly Farm Report.”

“And if you can’t find a way to mention Jessica Simpson’s rump, then I’m not interested. I’m sorry, Ted, but I’m going to have to give you another assignment.”

“What… but… Oh, God! No, sir, I’m sorry! I promise I’ll find some way to bring Britney Spears into the local hog trading market watch! It will be easy!”

“Sorry, Ted, it’s too late for that. I need you to go to Florida and… cover a hurricane.”

“Nooooooooooo!!!!!!…”

So poor Ted gets shipped off the Florida where he is given three specific tasks:

1. Go to a hurricane shelter and interview someone whose IQ is three points higher than his shoe size.

“Umm…wow.. I’m on TV! My name is Stanley Wabash, Jr….and I haven’t seen a hurricane like this for at least three weeks. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I just lost my job at the local Wal-Mart after I was caught sniffin the women’s shoes, I have seven kids and eight dogs to feed and the trailer just ain’t going to be the same without a roof. Just hopin’ my meth lab and dog-fighting ring survives this gosh-darn storm… Can I saw gosh-darn on TV?”

2. Interview a local scientist about the storm, being sure to include the worst case scenario as though it will inevitably happen.

“And as these charts and cool computer graphics demonstrate, you can expect most of the southern United States to be under a hundred feet of water by noon. And that’s when things will get really bad because by early evening we expect at least one, maybe two, meteors to come crashing down through the hurricane and flatten Disney World during their annual Orphans are Fun celebration. So if you haven’t been drowned by the rain then you’ll definitely be crushed or burned to a crisp by the explosion.”

3. Walk around outside during the hurricane while screaming into the microphone about how strong the wind is.

“As you can see by the way I’m cold, drenched and half-dead, this is a really wild storm. Everyone in the city has been evacuated and told to stay indoors, so only the truly mentally incompetent people among the population would be out here, in all this rain and wind while holding a bunch of electrical equipment like microphones and cameras. Hey, look, there’s a truck being pick up by the storm and blowing right towa-AAAUGGGHHhhhhh…..”

None of this news coverage is actually helping anyone in the storm. All those people are doing one of two things: they’re either huddled in concrete buildings without any power and eating meals consisting of granola bars and cans of warm soda or they are sitting around the pool of a hotel three hundred miles away drinking Mai-Thais and figuring out how many home theater systems and Rolex watches they can safely claim on their insurance forms.

Hurricane coverage has become nothing more than reality TV on a grand scale where the bulk of the television audience can sit back and smugly announce: “Well, they got what they deserved. Serves them right for living there. Hey, Hon, we have any more Cheese Doodles?”

The sad truth is that all the major “news” organizations treat tragedies like this as a great opportunity to gain viewers and sell commercials and I’m not going to feed into this vicious cycle anymore. I’m going to turn off the news when it begins to get too exploitive and I’m going to do the one thing I can do to help victims of tragedies: I’m going to pay more attention to Lindsay Lohan’s breasts.

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