Pizza Factory

Pizza Factory
503 W.Appleway, Coeur d'Alene
208-765-3434

My chubby little typing fingers haven't been bloated in this sort of special way in quite a while. They've so missed the satisfied but uncomfortably full feeling that comes after an hour or so spent at an all-you-can-eat pizza lunch buffet.

Back in the day, the endless pizza slices and salad bar at Godfather's Pizza on 4th and Appleway in Coeur d'Alene was the backdrop for many face-stuffing events. We'd arrive just in time to watch the Sally Jesse Raphael Show on the overhead TVs, and get caught up in all the out-of-control-teens or drag queen antics. Sally and her goofy red glasses haven't graced our screens since around 2002, and the Coeur d'Alene Godfather's disappeared for good not much longer after that, so that serves to describe how long it's been since I've experienced some pizza buffet love.

And really, it was there the whole time. I knew somewhere in the dark corners of my brain that the Pizza Factory (formerly known many moons ago as the Pizza Shoppe), tucked away back on the north end of the strip mall/shopping center at Appleway and 95, served up an all-you-can-eat lunch spread, but it didn't actually occur to me until earlier today to pop in and check it out.

I must not be the only one who for whatever reason forgot all about their buffet situation. When a friend and I arrived at what should have been the height of lunch rush, the place was completely deserted, save for one lone office-y type lady, casually grazing away her lunch break and staring out the window at the wig store across the way. I thought "Ah, well - more pizza for us, I guess!"

But after paying the dementedly bored looking cashier girl and getting our drinks, we noticed that there was only one trusty little tray of pizza occupying the hot table, lazily warming itself under the heat lamp. But it appeared fresh, and the one pizza was made up of three different varieties - Hawaiian, classic pepperoni, and some kind of intense looking meat combo. I piled a slice of each on my beige plastic plate and delivered it to a large table next to the video game area.

I wasn't quite ready to settle in yet - a visit to a pizza lunch buffet wouldn't be complete without a trip through the salad bar. Kudos to Pizza Factory for stocking such a complete, fresh, and lovey salad bar despite the apparent lack of public interest. When I go for a salad bar, this is what ends up on my plate - lettuce (of course), slices of purple pickled beets, black olives, a ton of sliced boiled eggs, sunflower seeds, a pile of croutons and several large scoops of thousand island dressing. That's pretty much it - carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and cucumbers can bite me. I always try my best to turn something potentially healthy into a carb and fat laden mess, and I definitely accomplished that mission.

The video arcade area of Pizza Factory isn't particularly enormous or impressive, but I was drawn to sit in that particular section of the place perhaps because I spent a large portion of my youth in the 1980's hanging out in environments where there was a solid wall of boopy bleepy noise coming from rows of electronic video games machines. It's a sound that's still comforting to me to me to this day, and eating hot pizza slices in that environment always transports part of me back to my teenage years.

I dug into my soupy salad first, and it was exactly as good as expected, and I mean that in the best way possible. Thousand island dressing is so viscous and sweet, it turns pretty much everything it touches into a sort of dessert. The sweetness of the pickled beets sealed the deal, and the boiled eggs lent a breakfasty feeling to the affair. Heck, it was like having all six daily meals at once (there are six meals, right?). For whatever reason, salad bars are rather rare these days and they are missed, at least by me.

The pizza at Pizza Factory is great! In my opinion, they are one of the most underrated franchise/chain pizza places in the country (120 locations in five states). I can't stand the sweet crust of Dominos Pizza, and their chintziness with toppings. I like Pizza Hut, but the sauce and general greasiness inevitably gives me death heartburn that lasts into the wee hours of the middle of the night. Little Caesars pizza is weak in too many ways for me to get into. But Pizza Factory does it just right. The crust is just the right thickness and baked to a crisp delicious golden brown. The sauce is bright and tasty and doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the plentiful cheese and toppings.

I think Pizza Factory survives on being a gathering place for larger groups of people, like kids softball teams and family reunions (we had one there a few years back and they gave us our own room and treated us royally). I've heard from a few in-the-know folks over the years that their sub sandwiches are gigantic and exceptional, and that their spaghetti and pasta dishes are excellent as well. Clearly, the place must get people-y at times - including the Pizza Shoppe era, they're one of the longest surviving pizza joints in town.

Chowing down on my truly fantastic mega-loaded slice of all meat pizza (pepperoni, Italian sausage, ham, ground beef, crispy bacon), I looked around the empty restaurant and wondered why the heck more people weren't taking advantage of such a great deal - $7.99 for all-you-can-eat salad bar, excellent pizza, and a bottomless soda. Maybe it was just a way off day, but the demeanor of the counter girl and the owner/manager guy that eventually emerged from the back indicated that they were used to the place being not-exactly-hopping during lunchtime.

I guess until the secret gets out (here it is, folks!), we will have the place to ourselves and as much thousand island dressing and mega-meat pizza as our hungry hearts desire.  

The “Original” Mongolian BBQ

The “Original” Mongolian BBQ
3213 N Government Way
Coeur d’Alene
(208) 664-8782

“Even foul water will quench fire.” - Mongolian proverb

The concept of the Mongolian BBQ is a bit of a fuzzy sham, albeit a delicious one. Turns out the basic idea actually originated in Taiwan within the last 30 or so years, and is far closer to Japanese-style “teppanyaki” cooking than the dried camel jerky and yak dumplings popular among the nomads of Mongolia.

The back story perpetuated by many of these types of eateries is that the soldiers of the ancient Mongol Empire went hunting for meat, overturned their massive shields above a bonfire and cooked dinner in them using their mighty swords to stir-fry whatever they could kill that day, presumably along with whatever vegetables happened to miraculously be in season during the continuous freezing cold weather. I do like the story, but in reality it’s not much more than a clever marketing device.

By no stretch of the imagination would anyone confuse the cooks at Coeur d’Alene’s “Original” Mongolian BBQ with the ancient soldiers of Mongolia, but what they do does require quite a bit of old-fashioned skill. It’s always fairly entertaining to watch them circulate around the cooking table, pushing the food to and fro and creating dramatic, sizzling storms of steam with squirts of water meant to keep things from sticking to the grill and becoming overcooked.

There have been a few times when I’ve seen these guys do some fantastic tricks with my future dinner, including cooking behind their backs and using their long stick-like utensils to swoop the finished meal up into the air and then catch the whole thing with one of the serving bowls without dropping so much as a broccoli crown on the floor.

It must take a lot of practice and a certain amount of talent to be able to fling unwieldy mounds of noodles, meat and veggies around with such effortless precision. I’m certain I’d have the fire department there in ten minutes after my attempts at culinary flamboyance resulted in flash fires and first-degree burns on my hands and face.

On my recent lunch stop into the restaurant, the men working the sizable round grills were comparatively mellow in their performance. It was a lazy Sunday early-afternoon and the crowd was nowhere near as hectic as I usually encounter. Scanning the other diners, I concluded that this must be where the attractive churchgoing hipster crowd of Coeur d’Alene decides to meet for their post-sermon lunches.

For those who aren’t familiar with the setup, you choose between three bowl sizes, big, bigger and biggest, then travel down a long buffet, filling your bowl with your own personalized selection of raw ingredients. The beef, pork, and chicken are sliced micro thin and kept frozen for more even cooking. When you reach the end of the line, you pour ladles full of different cooking sauces and oils atop your heaping mound and then the cook does his swift magic right in front you while you wait.

Usually I like to load up on the noodles but I decided to avoid them entirely as a precaution against wrecking my diet, leaving more room in my bowl for nutrient-rich veggies. As I went down the line, I selected broccoli, carrots, celery, red onions, pineapple chunks, mushrooms, baby corn, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and, somewhat regrettably, a handful of very ripe jalapenos. I piled iced chicken shreds on top and poured on countless scoops of the Mongolian sauce, the Thai peanut sauce, the garlic sauce, finishing with a generous amount of the red hot oil.

What I ended up with was a hot mess, in the most appetizing way possible. I located the table where the hostess had dropped off my lemonade, unwrapped my chopsticks and let the steam and mouthwatering aroma waft into my face for a moment before digging in. Bam! I had bought myself a one way ticket on the express train to Extra Spicy Land. I’m usually able to tolerate the most wickedly peppery of foods, but apparently my sinuses didn’t get the memo that day. The combination of the plentiful jalapeno slices and the scoops of hot oil had teamed up to wreak havoc on my senses.

The hostess dropped by to ask how everything was and I grimaced and choked “just great, thanks” as tears poured down my face like I had just learned that “Ugly Betty” was cancelled. Mercifully, they do supply heat-absorbing sides of plain white rice for fools like me who end up in such a piquant situation.

Once I picked out the jalapenos, I was able to enjoy the flavors of the sauces and other ingredients and as I ate, the meal became increasingly palatable and satisfying. The fortune cookie the hostess brought with my bill was a nice final touch, and as I paid for my meal, I thanked them graciously for the kind service and the mind-bending, life-altering endorphin rush.

JB’s Family Restaurant

JB’s Family Restaurant
704 W. Appleway,
Coeur d'Alene,
(208) 765-3225
“Mmmm. Move over, eggs. Bacon just got a new best friend - fudge.” - Homer Simpson.

Sizzling strips of smoky, crispy bacon. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t love it madly. Bacon is the great uniter of the food world, something everyone can agree upon from back woods hash house cooks to “Top Chef Masters” winners. It’s been known to make even the most devoted vegans fantasize and reconsider. Everything goes better with bacon, and right now “bacon mania” is sweeping the nation. Celebrity chef Bobby Flay is hawking memberships to his “Bacon of the Month Club.” Chocolate covered bacon is popping up everywhere from county fairs to high-end bistros.

Novelty shops are stocked with bacon-themed must-owns, including wallets, belts, band-aids and even bacon soap. This could explain why all the hip kids always smell like breakfast. Most intriguingly, a Seattle company has recently introduced Bakon Vodka, a potato vodka infused with the smoky flavor of peppered bacon, cleverly saving judicious drunks from the tiresome hassle of actually having to eat those foods. At this rate, we can expect to see a line of “Sizzling Hot” bacon lingerie at Victoria’s Secret just in time for the holidays.

It was a good old-fashioned yen for bacon that drove me into JB’s Family Restaurant recently on a sweltering late summer afternoon. We do have some mighty fine breakfast joints around, but few stay open long enough to cater to late-arriving bacon cravers such as myself, and none have the magic power that the JB’s cooks must use in their creation of the Perfect Strip.

I first became acquainted with the Perfect Strip during trips through JB’s fantastic breakfast bar, which runs daily until 11 a.m. Stainless steel bins gleam under heat lamps, filled with plies of French toast, biscuits, gravy, scrambled eggs, a mysterious casserole, fresh fruit, cereal, and of course a tall mound of flavorful, perfectly cooked bacon. The place is always packed when the breakfast bar is rolling, and if they kept it open all day and into the night, it would probably still be buzzing with happy gluttons.

I’d probably have gone for that option if they hadn’t already converted it into a salad bar for the night. I needed to dive into the glossy, colorful menu and make a choice. Nothing in the dinner section struck my fancy bacon-wise, although they do have a solid selection of comfort-style entrees such as Roasted Turkey and Stuffing, Yankee Pot Roast, Pork Chops and Barbecued Ribs, as well as a ton of pasta, seafood, and steak options all for incredibly checkbook-easy prices. Technically it was still lunchtime and they do offer a wonderful B.L.T., a Turkey-Bacon Melt, and a California Bacon Burger, all of which I’ve enjoyed on prior visits, but ultimately I still had breakfast on the brain.

My incredibly likeable waitress Jenny brought my lemonade and asked for my order. With so many bacon-positive possibilities, I was indecisive. On a whim I decided to go for the gusto. “I’ll have the Stuffed French Toast with bacon and scrambled eggs and bacon.” While I waited, I thought about how JB’s is the kind of place we tend to take for granted and don’t give enough respect to. It’s not high on the totem pole of family restaurant chains, but their food always been consistently fine. The ladies of JB’s have always provided great service and on some visits have been quite entertaining with their gossipy inter-staff banter. There’s something comforting about the low ceilings, the dim lit corners, and the way they blend a vague Hawaiian theme with the obligatory “country living” décor.

Jenny arrived with my steaming hot breakfast, saying “I’m so sorry, seems like that took forever.” It really hadn’t, and even if it had it would’ve been worth the wait. The French toast was amazing, oozing with a sweet cream cheese filling and covered in a warm, chunky strawberry sauce, topped with copious amounts of whipped cream. It was like dessert for breakfast for lunch. The scrambled eggs were formed into a large, fluffy square and were certainly fine, but they definitely took second billing to the gorgeous examples of the Perfect Strip they shared the stage with.

The menu had promised three strips of the good stuff, but my plate arrived with four. No one loves soggy bacon, yet too many places just don’t seem to care. JB’s does care, and they serve long, stiff, hearty strips cooked just to the edge of burnt, lending it a savory, satisfying smokiness. The whole meal hit the spot with a divine intensity and put me in such a contented, happy state that when Jenny arrived to clear my plate I had to resist the urge to give her a big hug. Perhaps the gift of some bacon refrigerator magnets would be more appropriate.

Mothers Day Buffet at Bistro on Spruce

We were having trouble thinking of something different to do this year with Mom on Mother's Day this Sunday, May 12. That is, until this web flyer from Bistro on Spruce arrived in our inbox today and made our tummies grumble with fond thoughts of good food and moms (and good food). Plus, look how affordable! Amazing price for such a lavish buffet, and I hear Chef Chris Mueller is one of the best in town.

After you indulge, take Mom to the free annual NIC Wind Symphony & Madrigal Singers Concert at the gazebo in Cd'A City Park at 2 p.m. Your mom will be so pleased,maybe she'll even forgive you for that Christmas you and Grandma drank too many Hot Buttered Rums and knocked over the tree dancing wildly together to "Jingle Bell Rock".

Bistro on Spruce Home Page

Mother's Day Concert at the Park

Mother's Day Concert

2 p.m.

Featuring the NIC Madrigal Singers and NIC Wind Symphony
at the Coeur d'Alene City Park Bandshell

(In case of inclement weather, concert moves to Boswell Hall Auditorium.)

Wagner's Hofbrau

Wagner’s Hofbrau
1726 W. Kathleen Ave.
Coeur d’Alene

Fleisch und Kartoffeln für einen König

An unexplainable mix of tension and excitement hung in the air as I waltzed into the new Wagner’s Hofbrau on West Kathleen in Coeur d’Alene. It wasn’t until I was nearly finished with my meal that I would clue in to the fact that I’d happened to pop in during the second hour of their very first day open. A retirement-aged couple arrived for lunch a while after me and asked the hostess for a booth no-one had sat in yet so they could “devirginize it.” That wasn’t the most appealing mind picture perhaps, but it prompted me to ask my waitress exactly when they’d officially opened for business. “Just today,” she smiled, “About an hour and half ago.” Given the high quality of the food and service, I have a feeling the fact that I was literally one of the first folks ever to dine there will give me deep bragging rights sometime in the future.

I’d learned the exciting news that our town was finally getting a genuine German restaurant a while ago after a friend of mine, scanning the Help Wanted section of the newspaper asked “What is a hofbrau anyway? Is it like a hot dog stand with sauerkraut and warm beer or what?” Honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure myself so I did a bit of old fashioned Googling to find out. Apparently, back in the motherland, a hofbrauhaus was traditionally a government owned beer-brewing outfit which was established and patronized by German royals and statesmen. In other words, it was a place for the king and his court to fill their big ugly lidded steins with the best brew available and drink until they plopped. When the idea crossed over to the shores of America in the early 20^th century, the introduction of food became an obvious necessity, and it seems foods were chosen for their ability to land with a thud in the tummy and do some serious soaking up of beer.

Maybe it was partly overcompensation for first-day jitters, but the staff at Wagner’s Hofbrau were pretty much treating their customers like visiting German royalty. I felt like King Ludwig III of Bavaria when I was so enthusiastically greeted at the door by a chatty hostess who was kind enough to walk me through the ordering process. Admittedly, I was slightly disoriented walking into a new place for the first time, and it was helpful to have a brief tutorial on what exactly I needed to do. Here’s the rundown; you grab a big brown tray and sidle up to the “reverse buffet”, wherein the chefs behind the line dish healthy portions of food for you instead of serving yourself. You can choose either a plate meal for ten bucks or go sandwich style for $7.50. The primary meat options are hand painted on a gigantic stylized wooden board that hangs mightily behind the counter like folk art from the old country. Daily specialty items are on offer as well, and the day I visited it was a truly scrumptious looking stuffed green pepper. You slide your brown tray down the line as they plate your choice of meat, sides and salad (and slices of irresistible homemade pies). At the end of the line, you’re given a drink cup and once you cash out, you pick a cozy corner to settle into and dig in.

The concept seems easy enough, but the divine, intense aromas rising forth from the food table and the mouth watering power of the visual aspect combine to make for some very tough decisions. Maybe they ought to come up with a special “indecisiveness plate” with a smidge of everything, because I literally wanted to taste it all. Splayed out behind the glass was a whole juicy turkey, a giant honey ham, a roast beef as big as my head, and trays filled with pastrami, corned beef, knockwurst and homemade sauerkraut. Sides include coarsely mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, and steamed veggies sprinkled with herbs. On the cold side of the line, options include fresh green salad, cucumber salad, mixed fruit, ambrosia, coleslaw, and of course that most German of salads, potato.

I stood there for a minute, slightly dazed at all the options before me, my growling stomach impatiently telling me to decide. The chefs behind the line were grinning ear to ear and glowing with the pride of a brand new parent; all this wonderful food was their baby and wasn’t it just so adorable? I opted to try the corned beef, a favorite of mine I rarely have the opportunity to indulge in. It tasted flawless, amazingly fresh, and its tender, melty texture leads me to believe it was cured right on site. So addictive, and if I could afford to eat the stuff everyday I would. The mashed potatoes were as good as the ones my mother makes on special holidays and they were slathered with the kind of rich old-style country chicken gravy I thought went extinct sometime during the heath craze of the Reagan years.

The bright orange and yellow colors of the steamed carrots and squash made it seem like Spring had sprung, despite the gloomy rainfall outside, and the creamy potato salad offered a sneak preview of Summer picnic weather. As if all that weren’t enough to send me to back to bed with a food coma, a huge bread roll and butter landed on my tray as well. Whew! The hostess must have read the look of astonishment on my face when I saw the huge portions piled on my plate. “Let me know if you need a to-go box or anything” she offered as I sat down to unwittingly devirginize a table and dig in.

Owners Bill and Roxanne Wagner are no newbies when it comes to serving up stick-to-your ribs German fare, having owned a popular Hofbrau in the business district of Fresno, California for many years. The newly constructed Tudor-style building seems like a blank canvas, with subtle Bavarian-style touches but minimal décor, save for a lone glassy-eyed stuffed deer head and an elaborately carved cuckoo clock.

I can’t imagine any reason that Wagner’s Hofbrau won’t win over the hearts and tummies of the North Idaho meat-and-potatoes crowd, and when they start arriving in droves, they’ll have plenty of space with room for nearly 150 diners and a banquet facility. Additionally, there are stools up at the impressively massive beer and wine bar, where they’ll eventually be serving both draught and bottled imports and domestics and a variety of fine wines. My only disappointment was that they didn’t have a couple of my favorite German dishes on offer, Spatzle (soft think noodles) and Weiner Schnitzel (breaded, fried veal cutlet). A minor complaint and I have a hunch they’ll be featuring these kinds of things as daily specials. After such a fantastic initial experience, I’ll be back as often as possible to check and see.

Top Of China Buffet

757 W Appleway Ave
Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
(208) 676-8888
Get directions

In the ongoing battle to feed my addiction to Chinese cuisine, I’ve experienced everything from the highest-rated Dim Sum restaurant in San Francisco to the lukewarm take-out of Safeway’s China Express.

With Dim Sum, elegantly dressed servers circulate from table to table with trays of small but delectable streamed and deep-fried goodies and even dessert, each item added to your bill as you choose it. In a way, the Chinese Buffet is the concept suburbanized, with greasy egg rolls in lieu of delicate shrimp dumplings and vanilla soft serve ice cream acting as a bland substitute for rich mango pudding.

Unfortunately, here in North Idaho we’ve yet to see the opening of a nice Dim Sum joint, but for those with the proper amount of bravery and intestinal fortitude, there are a handful of Chinese Buffet options to explore. Honestly, I’ve never had very good experiences at any of these places, but it was with an open mind and a growling tummy I recently decided to revisit the Top of China Buffet in Coeur d’Alene.

Right away, I noticed that the atmosphere had become less intensely surreal since my last visit, which was quite a few years ago. I seem to recall dozens of black and white clad hosts and hostesses standing silently at attention amid the gigantic backlit murals of the Great Wall, waiting anxiously for the next person to swallow their final bite of food, so they could swoop in immediately and snatch the dirty plates away.

Their faces blank and expressionless, they would emerge from the kitchen like Twilight Zone zombies to replenish the buffet and scan the room for empty soda cups to refill. They’d respond to my repeated attempts at mirth and conversation with nods and chilly stares. These host-bots seem to have dwindled away, replaced by what appears to be a large family unit, who while not exactly warm and fuzzy in demeanor, seem quite a bit more relaxed and unafraid to let the occasional smile cross their faces.

The buffet restaurant has replaced the neighborhood coffee shop in our culture as the place for seniors and retirees to hang out and gab at each other, and I could tell some of the patrons here were very regular regulars. The hostess chose to seat me directly in the middle of their zone, and they eyed me suspiciously like I was riff-raff from the city invading their pastoral morning coffee klatch. I sheepishly ordered a tall Coke and headed up to the buffet to begin the culinary self-abuse.

I decided it’d be a good idea to take a “try a small bit of everything” approach. I had arrived early in the lunch hour so everything appeared to be fairly fresh and there were no slow-moving can’t-deciders to work around. I decided to ease my way into things gently on my first trip through, choosing items from the colorful fruit and veggie area.

When I returned to my table, the regular regulars had resumed their conversation, which from what I could gather was about the tragedy of horse incontinence, which when blended in with the blare of Celine Dion on the music system, made for a considerably harsh dining atmosphere.

Luckily, I was hungry as a Shanghai tiger as I bit into my Chinese sugar donut. So white and starchy, I adore those fattening little greaseballs, and wouldn’t mind paying the price of admission to eat nothing but them. The bananas in mystery red goo were passable, but the cherry jello squares had an inedible chewy layer – yuck. Methinks it takes some effort to make bad jello, and Top of China duly succeeded. The veggie salad was actually quite tasty, but what isn’t when it’s swimming in Ranch Dressing? The coleslaw was uninspired and the deviled egg wasn’t devilled at all, just plain ungodly, merely a hard boiled egg with a fraudulent sprinkling of paprika.

The “sushi” rolls, while not anything to really write mama-san about, were surprisingly acceptable. The shrimp roll was coated in what appeared to be an actual layer of bright orange roe and tasted very fresh, brought alive even further when soaked in plenty of wasabi and soy. At first I was a little cheesed out by the rolls consisting of BBQ pork instead of seafood, but it turned out to be a brilliantly tasty innovation.

For my second run through, I set about conquering some soup and main dishes, plopping just a taste of each item on my plate. Each time I returned to the table, I was pleased to see that my Coke had mysteriously refilled itself, the only logical explanation since I never once actually saw anyone do it. Taste wise, the hot and sour soup wasn’t either, instead it was oddly sweet with a hint of smoke and with none of the sinus-shattering bang that makes the dish normally so great.

I had picked up four varieties of chicken to sample, and the best was the coconut pineapple chicken, which had a great flavor but the undercooked coating had a cruel raw pancake effect. Then, in descending order of edibility, lemon chicken (overcooked and jerky-like), almond chicken (gravy recipe: flour, water, salt), and hot pepper chicken (rubbery with jaundice yellow pallor). How the almond green beans tasted fishy I don’t know, since there were no fish dishes nearby, and the fried rice was blah. I topped off the round with another Chinese sugar donut – I simply cannot resist them.

I decided to dip in a bit to the “American” table on my third and final foray. I took one bite of the pepperoni pizza before giving up in despair and the steamed cabbage and carrots were so salty that one bite made me guzzle my entire Coke. I felt like I was being a little risky when I took some of the baked salmon, but it turned out to be the highlight of the entire meal. Simultaneously lemony and peppery, it was moist and cooked to a flaky perfection.

Finally, for dessert was a small dollop of vanilla soft serve atop a pink-frosted piece of cake that had the same texture (and flavor) as a small chunk of tempurpedic mattress foam.

I sat spacing out to a Mariah Carey ballad, twenty-odd different food items suddenly battling it out in my confused and distended belly. The hostess brought me back to earth with the delivery of my check and fortune cookie, leaving me with a grimace-like smile and a quick “thank you!” My fortune read “Q. What is contained within everything? A. Wisdom.” In other words, “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, even bad jello.”