The Rake Magazine

Tag: surdyk’s

  • Surdyks USED to be pleasant

    On a Saturday afternoon you can run many errands.  One great example is
    tasting the many cheeses at Surdyks and even sample some wine. My
    roommate and I did just this.

    After spending an hour of doing this and hunting for two nice bottles
    of wine, it was time to check out.  I was then asked for my I.D., which
    I was happy to give up.  I am 31, and getting asked for identification
    is getting less frequent. The worker then asked for my roommate’s I.D.
    When he realized that he didn’t have his, the transaction was
    cancelled and we left empty handed.  When I spoke to a manger named Rob. He informed me [rudely] that he can’t change the law and that
    they can be fined. I also found out that the best thing to do is lie
    about who you are shopping with, if anyone at all.

    Surdyk’s tagline should be, "Drink our wine for free, but if you don’t lie to us, you can’t buy it."  

    One side-note:  The wine sample worker was not asking for identification.

    I will not be returning to this store ever again—and I will not be
    bringing my mom there as I do dozens of times a year.  It is a shame
    that the laws are as they are.  But, it is more of a shame that a store
    with great products promotes lying and allows a manager to treat an [of
    age] patron with rudeness.

    David Lee, Columbia Heights
    Letter

  • Is Italian Garbage Making You Sick?

    Photo by the Associated Press.

     

    While in Italy earlier this month, my husband and I cancelled our trip to Naples and headed instead to the north from Rome.

    We’d been going to visit the southern region mostly because we wanted to see Mt. Vesuvius and tour the wineries in Campania, where one of my favorite whites — Lacryma Christi, or Tears of Christ — is made. What kept us away? Garbage. It was, we heard, piled to overflowing on the streets of Naples, stinking up the entire place.

    It comes out now, the trash may be doing more than just producing an odor and scaring away tourists. It seems to be affecting the quality of food produced on the Italian peninsula, particularly buffalo milk mozzarella, the region’s most prized cheese.

    Health officials in several countries have confirmed that there are elevated levels of dioxin, a carcinogen, in shipments of buffalo mozzarella coming out of southern Italy. The governments of France and South Korea have actually banned imports of the cheese until the problem is taken care of. And sales around the world are declining fast: Last week, they were down 40 percent from last year. With widespread coverage of the issue, it’s likely they’ll continue to tank.

    Many local vendors have decided to stop carrying buffalo mozzarella from Italy and are recommending their customers try a domestic product instead.

    "We are not importing Italian buffalo mozzarella right now because of the concerns with contamination," says Mary Richter, manager of the cheese shop at Surdyk’s. "What we’ve found is even more popular is a company in California called Bubalus Bubalis that produces a very good buffalo-milk mozzarella. We can only get it in during the summer months, but if the demand is there, I think we’ll be able to start getting it pretty darn soon."

    Meantime, public servants in Naples are posing for photographs in which they’re very conspicuously eating Italian-made cheese and exclaiming over its superiority. And they always seem to be standing on perfectly clean, garbage-free streets. It’s a miracle.