a conversation with kok

A CONVERSATION WITH KOK

Most weekends on either Saturday or Sunday we have lunch and after lunch we discuss things about the running of the company on the office side.

But first a recipe of one of our favorite dishes. Pum is a very astute chef, but when they purchased Dungeness crab, she was not knowledgeable of how best to cook it. I said the next luncheon I will make it for them.

We used to have a Vietnamese restaurant in town where they served it and I learned the recipe from them. it is a tamarind sauce recipe. It is quite easy, and I think, we think delicious. Asian food stores have tamarind sauce or what I use tamarind paste.

2 Dungeness crabs

Tamarind paste (I use probably 3 ounces from a package that is 14 ounces)

One cup brown sugar (the recipe calls for two cups, but that is to sweet for our taste)

Garlic

Ginger

Scallions

Sweet peppers

Baby bokchoy

Two cup hot tap water

And any other vegetables you like to stir fry.

I have a wok that is easily I suspect 50 years old.

Heat olive oil in the proper amount that you Asian knowledgeable chefs use, lots of fresh garlic chopped up and the same with the ginger.

Once these ingredients start turning brown add the tamarind paste and brown sugar. The tamarind paste should be soaked in the two cups hot water and mashed around until it is liquid like the water. Now mix in the sugar and once nicely blended add to the oil, garlic, and ginger. Let the mixture boil so it reduces and thickens a little. This should take as much as 10 minutes. Since I showed Pum how to do this simple recipe she has taken over my kitchen. So, I do not interfere, I talk with Kok.

Pum then puts in enough vegetables to fill the entire wok. Once they have cooked down, she adds the crab. She breaks up the crab not discarding what is inside the shell of the crab. She breaks the body apart in 3 or 4 pieces and breaks off the legs. She now adds the crab to the wok and mixes it until the crab is completely coated with the sauce, then covers it so the crab gets hot, then serve.

Pum makes fried rice to go with this dish.

NOW FOR OUR CONVERSATION

For the past year I have been introducing Kok to the business side of the company since I am getting older, I felt if anything were to happen top me there were things he had to know.

Yesterday, after I asked him if there were things, he wanted to review with me that he was not sure of and his response was not what I expected. Keep in mind that Pum his wife is from Cambodia and only a resident of the country for two years. She does work at Wiggy’s and obviously become familiar with our products.

One day Kok told me they were walking through the Cabela’s store and she was looking at the sleeping bags and thought they were more attractive and felt softer than ours. Kok was at a loss to explain the differences, so his question to me was what the difference between us and of the rest of the world was sleeping bags.

He had never been asked about this before in the 32 years we have been together. This gave me the opportunity to give him an education that is covered by most of what I have written and thought it would be a good subject to share with my readers.

The bags hanging in Cabela’s as in the rest of the stores that sell the “no sleep sleeping bags” have cosmetic treatments that are a ploy to sway someone to these bags. They are all quilted because they are filled with chopped staple polyester fiberfill.

At this point he said is not our product polyester fiberfill as well. The answer is yes but it is not as you know not chopped but continuous filament polyester fiberfill. I further explained to him all of the polyester is created as continuous filament and then put through a process that puts a crimp in the fiber. Io then reminded him that for 32 years he has been looking at the crimp in the fibers. The crimp being v’s about 12 or 15 to the inch. I have never thought to count them, and I will not now. The next step in the process which our product does not go through is to be chopped every two inches. The reason every two inches is because that is the length of cotton staple fiber.

The Asian companies that make the “no sleep sleeping bags” for companies in the USA have garneting machines and they buy the fiber as is and separate the fibers to whatever weight they need. The batting they make is then fed into premade ticking like pillow ticking. It could also be fed into quilting machines. But regardless it MUST be quilted in order for it to stay in place.

Because the fiber has not been subjected to a bonding process it has no binder on it, so it is nice and soft. When Pum felt the bag, it was nice and soft. Keep in mind the bags are on hangers, so they appear loftier than our bags which she sees the components laying flat in the factory.

I explained to Kok if there was to little fiber put in lager sections of the bag the fiber would ultimately separate leaving gaps in the middle of the quilted sections. This become accentuated when you wash one of these bags. This was what happened to the original North Face shingle construction “no sleep sleeping bags” when they were using the hollow fill polyester fiberfill. They had 18 inches wide by 60 or more inches long sections that were not quilted, and all the fiberfill moved from the center of the bag to the sides. I pointed this out to their designer a guy named Mark Erikson. I asked him if he had ever washed a bag, he said no and nobody else does either. I said you put a label on the bag that machine washable. As I recall the returns of this bag were so great and, in my opinion, caused them huge financial losses. Soon there after they started doing the same construction with Polar Guard the first branded name for continuous filament fiber.

I suggested that he wash one. Three months later I was back at his office and I asked if he did wash one, he said yes, and it was over in the corner for me to see. As I told him all the fiber was to go to the sides and it did. I further said if he used the Lamilite that would not happen. His use of Lamilite did not happen as well.

Now for quilting the unbonded fiber in small areas, it gets hard after a while. Why is this happening? Because the fiber turns into itself like holding a hand full of snow and compacting it in your hand and turning into a snowball. Again, the now ball of fiber leaves areas around it with out fiber. This too is accentuated when the bag is laundered.

I then explained to him that our construction has shown a remarkable attribute that I was not knowledgeable of, and that was what I learned from many of the Wiggy’s customers, that body heat will dry out a bag and keep you warm as well. These other products the “no sleep sleeping bags” do not do this because the body heat loss is so great since the fiber used as insulation does not insulate.

He did know about the body heat drying out the wet Wiggy’s bags. So, I told him to tell Pum the reasons our bags are better that what she sees in the Cabela’s store even though those bags may look they do not work: PERIOD.

Over the years I have shared with Kok the many testimonials that Wiggy’s has received, and since they have been saved on our web site, he can review them if he choses at anytime if he wants too.

As I discuss Wiggy’s Inc. with him I point out how much he knows even though he does not realize it. There is longevity in my family, mother went to 94 and many have gone into the 90’s so at 78 and feeling good as well as eating a primarily Asian diet and not consuming any alcohol, I had plenty in my youth like so many others, so I don’t miss it. The point is I figure I will be around long enough to make sure he has all of the knowledge of Wiggy’s.

Now to heat up some of the left-over Dungeness crab for dinner. If any of you out there try this recipe let me know how it turns out.

A TESTIMONIAL RECEIVED YESTERDAY

1. Great Sleeping Bag

   This bag compresses small enough to fit in my backpack, was light enough for me to carry 100+ miles on a 10 day trek, was warm enough for to me to cowboy-camp in single-digit degree weather, breathable enough for me to use when it was significantly warmer, and water resistant enough for me to cowboy-camp in a light freezing rain. This bag performed really well in every scenario that I've used it in.

   – Joe