Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards (32 page)

In addition to housing the headquarters for Chrysler’s car company and several other corporations, the building was home to a speakeasy and restaurant known as the Cloud Club. The club filled three floors—the 66th, 67th, and 68th—and featured sparkling pink marble bathrooms with lockers so that, during Prohibition, members would have a place to stash their alcohol if a
raid occurred. The club was a popular members–only attraction until it closed in 1979.

The building’s exterior boasted the spire and eagles all made from a new chrome-nickel alloy. The metal has never corroded. Aside from its record-setting height and glamorous look, another of the Chrysler Building’s greatest accomplishments was its safety record. No one died during the construction process.

Shortly after the building’s completion, Chrysler accused Van Alen of taking bribes from subcontractors and refused to pay the balance of what he owed. The feud was tough for Van Alen to live down, and with the onset of the Great Depression, he had trouble finding work. The Chrysler Building remains his most lasting accomplishment.

Today, the Chrysler Corporation no longer owns the building that bears its name; it leases a portion of it as office space. In 1976, the building became a National Historic Landmark. The Chrysler Building now ranks as the 24th tallest in the world, but in terms of style and elegance, it’s still the Top of the World. (You can visit the it at 405 Lexington Avenue at 42nd Street.)

Taipei 101 (Taipei, Taiwan): 1,671 feet
Shanghai World Financial Center (Shanghai, China): 1,614 feet
Petronas Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia): 1,483 feet (each)
Empire State Building (New York City): 1,454 feet
Sears Tower (Chicago): 1,451 feet
Jin Mao Tower (Shanghai, China): 1,380 feet
Two International Finance Centre (Hong Kong): 1,362 feet
CITIC Plaza (Guangzhou, China): 1,283 feet
Shun Hing Square (Shengzhen, China): 1,260 feet
Central Plaza (Hong Kong): 1,227 feet

Vanilla

Without vanilla, cakes, cookies, brownies, ice cream, and just about everything else that’s good for dessert just wouldn’t be worth the calories. And before you say chocolate is better, consider where chocolate would be without vanilla—bitter and tough to swallow. Whether dark, milk, or white chocolate, vanilla is added to complement the flavor, and even unsweetened baking chocolate is rarely used in a recipe that doesn’t also call for vanilla. More than 250 components make up pure vanilla’s natural flavor, which is why imitation vanilla doesn’t taste as good. And vanilla is the second-most expensive spice in the world. (Saffron is first.) It’s also a time-consuming process to cultivate this complex flavor. So for all these reasons, vanilla wins our award for the finest of flavors—hands down.

Vanilla is actually a type of orchid, and although there are some 20,000 known orchid specimens, only one type of vanilla plant—
Vanilla planifolia
—produces anything edible. The vanilla bean is the fruit or seed of this plant that opens for just a day and can be pollinated only during the morning of that day. That’s not enough time for bees to do their job to produce all of the vanilla that the world craves, so a hand-pollination method was developed in 1841. This gave growers the ability to produce vanilla economically for the first time.

But it’s still a laborious process. Vanilla beans have to grow on the plant’s vines for nine months before they can be harvested. After that, the flower’s vegetative tissue is killed to prevent it from ruining the bean, followed by a hot and humid process called “sweating,” which allows enzymes to start producing the many flavors that make up vanilla. The beans are set in the sun to dry out, and when they reach a high enough temperature, they’re wrapped in a blanket and placed in a wooden box to sweat. It takes weeks for the beans to turn dark brown and develop a vanillin crust. The next step, the aging process, can last up to two years. After that, the beans are sorted by quality and then are shipped off to delight the taste buds of people worldwide.

All told, there are about 150 different types of vanilla, but two dominate the market:

Americans consume more than 1,200 tons of vanilla beans per year, much of it in ice cream. In spite of the enormous variety of ice cream flavors available, vanilla remains the most popular. And it’s all just “vanilla,” too. French vanilla isn’t a different flavor. Its name comes from the French method of using vanilla to make custard, which in turn can be used as an ice cream base.

One legend says that, after serving as the French ambassador, Thomas Jefferson returned home with 200 vanilla beans and introduced the flavor to the United States. That probably didn’t happen, but Jefferson did develop a tasty recipe for vanilla ice cream, and his support of the flavor may have contributed to its (and the ice cream’s) popularity.

Note: Ice cream connoisseurs should keep vanilla ice cream at a frosty 8°F for maximum flavor and texture. Keep that in mind if you decide to make Mr. Jefferson’s recipe quoted below:

2 bottles of good cream

6 yolks of eggs

1/2 lb. sugar

1. Mix the yolks & sugar put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of Vanilla. When near boiling take it off & pour it gently into the mixture of eggs & sugar.

2. Stir it well. Put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon to prevent its sticking to the casserole. When near boiling, take it off and strain it thro’ a towel. Put it in the Sabottiere [the inner canister of the ice cream maker] then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. Put into the ice a handful of salt. Put salt on the coverlid of the Sabottiere & cover the whole with ice.

3. Leave it still half a quarter of an hour. Then turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes open it to loosen with a spatula the ice from the inner sides of the Sabottiere.

4. Shut it & replace it in the ice open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides when well taken (prise) stir it well with the Spatula. Put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee. Then put the mould into the same bucket of ice. Leave it there to the moment of serving it. To withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it will come out & turn it into a plate.

Three Former Child Stars

Some performers spend their entire lives fighting for their moment in the spotlight, while others step into it effortlessly. But childhood television and movie stars usually find that fame is fleeting, and many are ill equipped to cope with the sudden downturn in their popularity. Many quietly fade from view, but a few surprise their fans by achieving greater fame or success.

When it was introduced to television audiences in 1969,
The Brady Bunch
demonstrated to an increasingly divorce-laden society how wonderful a second marriage could be. But the perfect television family couldn’t stay that way forever, at least not without a time machine. In 1974, the Brady kids started to outgrow their roles, and ratings declined.

In an effort to recapture some of the show’s youthful chemistry, producers added clumsy, tow-headed Cousin Oliver, played by Robbie Rist, to the show. Instead of boosting ratings, though, Oliver and his ridiculous antics annoyed audiences for the last three episodes of
The Brady Bunch
before it was canceled.

Although it was the end of the line for Cousin Oliver, Robbie Rist went on to rack up countless credits in television, music, and film. Rist’s numerous post-Brady television roles included appearances on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
,
CHiPs, Knight Rider
, and
4
The Bionic Woman
. In addition, he was the voice of Michelangelo in 1990’s
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
movie.

His most significant, though perhaps lesser-known, contributions are to the music industry. Rist is a musical jack of all trades. He’s played guitar, base, keyboards, drums, mandolin—you name it—in countless bands over the years. He’s also a producer, an award-winning composer, and founder of Spidercrab West (recording) Studios.

In 2006, Rist showcased his versatility in a satisfyingly cheesy indie horror film he produced called
Stump the Band
, which won several film festival awards, including Best Music Score. What saved Rist from going the way of many fallen child stars before him? He credits good parenting . . . how very Brady.

The 1980s delivered a host of improvements in the lives of teenage boys: arcade video games,
Miami Vice
, MTV . . . and Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper, the attractive “girl next door” character on the Emmy-winning series
The Wonder Years
. Played by Danica McKellar, shy, overly dramatic Winnie kept a vice grip on the heart of the show’s main character, Kevin Arnold, the quintessential awkward teenager trying to find his way through adolescence in the 1960s and ’70s. For the six seasons that it aired on ABC,
The Wonder Years
was a smash hit that made stars out of the cast. But after the show ended in 1993, McKellar put her career on hold to pursue a higher education. As it turned out, acting represented only a fraction of her true potential.

McKellar graduated from UCLA in 1998 with a bachelor of science in mathematics. While she was there, she coauthored a groundbreaking math proof titled “Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller models on Z2”—whatever that means. In 2007, her book
Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail
was a national best-seller. It made Amazon’s 100 Best Books of 2007 list, and McKellar was praised for her efforts to encourage girls to enjoy and excel at math.

All this and she still had time to build her acting resume, making regular appearances in films, on stage, and on hit television
series like
The West Wing
,
NYPD Blue
, and
How I Met Your Mother
. But to most people, McKellar will always be that sweet yet sexy girl next door. In 2005, she was chosen by
Stuff
magazine readers as the 1990s star they would most like to see in lingerie. Not one to disappoint her fans, McKellar did a not-so-girl-next-door lingerie pictorial in the July 2005 issue.

Pretty much everyone can relate to the tumultuous times of adolescence, career changes, spousal conflicts, and sibling rivalries. When ABC aired a new sitcom in 1985 that dealt with all of those issues, it was both relevant and well received. The Seaver family on
Growing Pains
mimicked a then-growing societal trend of dads looking after the household while moms pursued their career goals. But like many sitcoms, ratings eventually began to slide. So producers introduced new, young characters (a baby daughter and a precocious homeless teenager played by then virtually unknown Leonardo DiCaprio) in an attempt to save the show. It didn’t work, and
Growing Pains
was canceled in 1992.

Most people still recognize the show’s child stars Kirk Cameron and Tracey Gold, but few people would express much enthusiasm over “an evening of Hollywood glitz and glam” with Jeremy Miller, who played youngest son Ben Seaver. Unless, that is, the event was held in China.
Growing Pains
(translated as
Growing Worries
in Chinese) was one of the few American sitcoms approved for syndication in China. Its immediate popularity, more as a “how-to” parenting guide than as a comedy, earned Miller an enormous fan base and a role in the Chinese indie film
Milk and Fashion
. But just how long could one TV child actor ride the wave of a show popular nearly 20 years ago? Thanks to the 2006 DVD release of
Growing Pains
, it seems there’s no shore in sight.