Living Dangerously Through Pie

I'll live dangerously for this pie.

Happy Pi Day. 3/14. Didn’t realize it until I saw a piece on the Houston Chronicle’s site about pie. Nice that they mixed it up with sweet (pecan) and savory (chicken pot) pies.

But this isn’t about those pies. This is about My Favorite Pie. Well, my second-favorite pie. But it’s My Favorite because I can’t find a recipe for my actual favorite.

So on with the danger!

$1,000 French Silk Chocolate Pie, by Mrs. H. E. Cooper, Silver Spring Maryland.*

This gem of a recipe comes from Pillsbury’s 3rd Grand National $100,000 Recipe And Baking Contest, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, December 10, 1951 – 100 Prize-Winning Recipes Adapted for your use by Ann Pillsbury.

Something actually happened before I was before I was born.

Every so often, Mom would make this pie. It was awesome. It was the only thing she made that was edible. Probably because she followed a recipe.

The danger in this recipe is the eggs. Raw eggs. Two of them. Mom said that they get ‘cooked’ in the process of beating at medium speed for five minutes, after the addition of each egg.

I believed her like I believed the man from Multnomah County who came by every summer with a big truck and a high-power blower to shoot our field on one side, and woods on the other, with DDT to keep the mosquitos to a minimum each summer.

“Just wait an hour, then you can go back to playing in the field.”

We always did what we were told to do.

I believed her because I didn’t detect slimy eggs when I ate the pie. This no-bake filling takes over 10 minutes to mix. For-ever. The eggs must have been cooked.

I never did get salmonella, and somehow survived the DDT. I guess the proof exists: I had children who have grown into normal adults without weird appendages or learning disabilities, and I still have all my body parts.

Anyway, this is, by far, the best pie ever. The proof is in the years of use the recipe book (it doesn’t say cookbook anywhere), from where this recipe resides, shows the wear/tear/pie filling of repeated joyful culinary preparation.

If you live dangerously, the recipe follows.**

And just to cover my ass, this recipe book was copyrighted in 1952. Here’s a link to Pillsbury’s Bake-Off site so I don’t get into trouble.

Oddly, it’s the 47th Bake-Off. If the 1951 Bake-Off was the 3rd, wouldn’t that make the 2014 Bake-Off the 66th?

Amazing, pies are round. We apply pi: the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, will 66 become 47? Magical day.

Here’s the recipe:

Crust – the pie shell is a traditional flour crust. I usually buy ready-made or a crust mix. If you really want to make a scratch crust, here’s a lovely recipe.

My sis prefers this pie in a graham cracker crust. You can do that too. I like the original version, though, and why add all the carbs?

Filling (the best part, and you can eat it right out of the bowl)

Cream:

1/2 cup butter, then add gradually
3/4 cup sugar, creaming well

Blend in:

1 square (1 oz.) chocolate, melted and cooled (they don’t state, but I use semi-sweet)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Add in:

2 eggs, one at a time, beating 5 minutes after each addition (With electric mixer use medium speed) [this was the ‘50’s after all]

Turn:

into cooled, baked pie shell, Chill 1 to 2 hours. Before serving top with whipped cream and walnuts, if desired. [Walnuts? Nope, don't need them]

And by the way, my favorite pie is Plush Pippin’s (a restaurant in the Great Northwest which is sadly gone) Sour Cream Pineapple pie. My coworker Jana and I, during a particularly desperate time,  bought one and ate it for lunch with chopsticks because we didn’t have forks and were too proud to go to the kitchen and expose the fact that we were willing to eat an entire (almost) pie for lunch. I cannot find a decent recipe for this pie.

*$1,000 in 1951 equates to $9,321.96 in 2014.

** Never consume raw or uncooked foods.***

*** I see this on every menu, so I thought I’d add it for flair and professionalism.

We're Lucky If We Get Timesheets Once A Month

Do you remember what you did on February 3rd? How about the 12th, or how about last Friday?

Neither do I.

So imagine my surprise when a client tells me they’re lucky to get timesheets once a month. Yeah, lucky. Well, they have to get timesheets monthly because they have to bill the client.

Wow waiting for timesheets so you can get your billing done.

Your staff is holding your income hostage. And their paychecks for that matter – but they don’t think of that.

And when they finally get around to entering their time days or weeks later, chances are it’s inaccurate. Actually, it is inaccurate.

To recreate what they did all those days, (and to further their own pain) your staff is probably going back through email and files they worked on (if they even care that much), to get, what they think, is an accurate read on what they accomplished, and what they feel is a giant-pain-the-ass done. . . for you.

No wonder they hate to do timesheets. Everyone is making it harder than it is.

So let me tell you a story: I worked for an agency with about 250 employees in five offices. We installed new software that was pretty easy to use. Entering time consisted of clicking on an icon and entering the number of hours worked. Clients and job numbers already there. Just click.

Then the partners did something magic. They required daily timesheets.

Then they did something else, they locked-out anyone who hit day-five without completed timesheets.

No prisoners. Compliance in five days.

There were still a couple laggards who got locked-out regularly, but they did get their timesheets done.

I’ve talked to agencies that reward (!) employees for keeping their timesheets up to date. Bonuses for doing a fundamental part of their job.

But I guess, whatever it takes, punitive measures or a bonus for doing your job; timesheets are the way an agency can tell how much time it actually takes to do a job. That translates to estimating accurately, billing a client properly, and in the end, making just a little more than you spend.

If you have agency management software, chances are it’s really easy to input time. If it isn’t, maybe it’s time to ask your software provider to help you out. Most write programs that make it a cinch to enter time – from anywhere – like an iPhone, or Android.

Then there are really no excuses. 

What Is Agency Culture? Beer? Billiards?

Yes, I usually work on electronics whilst drinking suds.

Credit where credit's due: "Image courtesy of marin/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net".

I just read the People page of Bernstein-Rein’s website. 

It says:

“Culture is about so much more than a ping-pong table. Which is why we also have shuffleboard, foosball, billiards, beer on tap, a candy dispenser, a Beauty Brands retail store, a spectacular view of the Kansas City skyline and pens with our company logo. But the truth is, our most valuable asset is our people.

We are artists, scientists, strategists, technologists, storytellers and data analysts. And every day, we put ourselves in the same room and figure out how to make an impact on the brands we serve. This is the approach that defines who we are and how we work. Also, we have a professional-grade coffee bar.”

I’ve written about it before, agency culture is more than beer Fridays and billiards. Or bringing your dog to work.

So when an agency defines their culture by the stuff they have for their employees, it makes me wonder what culture really consists of. (I know that by using this example they're gonna be hatin' on me.)

Don’t get me wrong, this agency looks like a great place to work, but if you take away all that . . . stuff . . . do they have a culture? Or does any agency without stuff have a culture, for that matter?

Back in the olden days, when I was actually employed by an agency, we all had separate offices. Yep, and collaboration worked really well. The good old days before open space, BYOD and, for cripes sakes, hotelling, sigh.

There were chairs, desks, drawing boards, pillows on the floor, Molskine notebooks, pencils and markers, an awesome library, and lots of people working in each-other’s offices.

We didn’t have billiards or beer on tap. However there was plenty of that downstairs in the bar – where we gathered quite regularly – sometimes before quitting time, but more often, hours later.

Granted that what the folks at B-R wrote about culture is clever, fun. But when you take that stuff away, does everyone leave the agency? Do they hate the partners?

I’ve talked to a lot of young creative folks over the years about where they want to work, and when they tell me they want to work for X Agency because they allow dogs or have a room dedicated to Xbox, I have to wonder . . . What happened to wanting the opportunity to work with the best agency and do the best work?

Do they know what advertising is about?

So to B-R, yes you got it right, because it takes all kinds – artists, scientists, and so on to do great creative – in the same room. That in itself creates the culture. The rest are perks.

Everyone should be grateful for the perks. Thank your partners for them, and then go and do great work.

Stop The Cruelty! I Hate Negative Advertising

This is Feather. The Most Awesome Cat. 

I saw this little piece in Business Insider today for The Mayhew Animal Home in London. Imagine that, a positive ad for pet adoption.

I’ll admit that I watch my share of cable TV, late at night, when all the pleas for donations range from saving children across the globe to saving pets in the US of A.

Yeah, I’m talking about the ASPCA ads with Sara McLachlan singing, I don’t know, it’s sad, the images are sad, and they’re compelling.

And they piss me off. This is what gets me about the advertising direction and the money negative ads generate…

If you Google Sarah McLachlan ASPCA, the top hits are the videos of the ad, then go about halfway down the page, the articles begin with questions on how much dough the organization brings in and how much is doled out to the local affiliates.

There is no doubt those ads get results, but stopping cruelty to animals starts at the local level. It is the care and shelter of animals in our home towns.

As one who has worked (on the ad agency-side) of a national non-profit, I’ve witnessed the scrutiny when tons of cash comes in, and the outflow is disturbingly low.

Most agencies that take on not-for-profit organizations do the work for free. I don’t know how it works these days, but back when I was on the agency-side, there was a certain amount of free TV air time dedicated to not-for-profit. I imagine it is the same today.

The recession has been devastating on pets in Las Vegas. A lot of people simply left, and left their pets behind.

But this is about advertising, negative advertising. I hate it. It gets Big Dollars.

So donate locally. There are wonderful local affiliates of the ASPCA and related organizations. Give to the local chapters directly.

Find your local ASPCA here (ok it’s a link to the Las Vegas search, but you just have to change the zip code, please.) Here’s the Las Vegas chapter of the ASPCA.

And just a little food for thought…check out the difference between the National Humane Society and our local chapter. What are they selling at the National level? Negativity. (okay,  awareness is good but can't they find a better way to convey the message?) The local chapter is a happy place.

So, all you ad agencies out there that do the good work for not-for-profits, talk those jerks on the boards out of the negative ads. And if you’re the ones recommending negativity, then it’s time to just go and pitch lawyers chasing the latest heart-attack-inducing drug. You’re one of them.

Do not get me started on the Humane Society. I have a personal story that still keeps me awake almost 15 years later. Someday I’ll write about it. But now it’s time to go to my happy place.

To think I was going to post about timesheets today. Hmm.