Day Three: Well, my office has become writer-celebrity central. Sitting a few desks away from Dave Barry is now Mitch Albom, sports columnist and writer of sappy, yet oddly affecting memoir. First impression: he’s a little bit short.
Slept in a bit, then headed downtown with the goal of writing the definitive story on the role lime Jell-O plays in Utah life. You can read tomorrow’s paper to see if I’ve succeeded. Spent some time wandering around the ZCMI Mall (the Z stands for Zion, and don’t you forget it), where a traveling exhibit of the Jell-O Museum is current stationed. Jell-O was invented in Le Roy, N.Y., and I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive my friend Kim for not telling me about the museum when we were but a few minutes away in Rochester back on December. (I will give her a pass, though, for telling me about the exhibit.)
Anyway, interviewing Utahns is a treat. They’re all extremely nice. So are Texans, but Texans are nice with an edge of suspicion. Ohioans, in contrast, are not nice and very suspicious. Just Midwestern chill. Utahns just open up with a smile, even if they secretly suspect you’re going to write a stupid story vaguely making fun of them for eating too much Jell-O. These people could be abused pretty easily. (It’s also quite a contrast from the Mormon church, whose media-industrial complex is extremely sophisticated and quick to call out any media coverage they think is out of line.)
At lunch, I got a chance to try out another Utah delicacy, fry sauce. Don’t like ketchup with your fries? Well, try this concoction made of ketchup and mayo, perhaps with some pickle juice thrown in. (And you though Quentin Tarantino invented the mayo-with-fries idea.) Not bad, although I’m not sure if fries really need any more fat content.