The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 10

Jon. Abby Comics. 2-l) Crossword 2-1 Erma Horoscope TV. .50 ulk-Food Sales 9 A Health Concern ff 26, 1984 wmmmmm-mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm i 1 gCxIXDOQCCiQ IMA 1 1 I By BRYAN MILLER The New York Times News Service YORK Cracker-barre! philosophers of a few decades ago who convened at the general store m.3mmiii'm,'t wmwmmsmif ered particularly attractive to single people and small families. Actually, food in bulk, apart from old-time practices, is not that novel.

Health-food stores and small specialty shops have been selling grain, flour and coffee, among other items, in open bins for years. The system is new, however, in large supermarkets. Withifi the last year and a half sucfTchains as Giant, Safeway, Lucky Stores, Pathmark, Grand Union, Purity Supreme," Price Chopper, Wegman's and First National have introduced bulk-food sections. Some offer as many as 250 different items. There is a nostalgic appeal to serving yourself from barrels, industry spokesmen say, as well as the convenience of being able to buy exactly what you need.

"IT IS A very sensuous experience," said Susan Barlow, director of the consumer center for First National Supermarkets, based in Cleveland. "It puts people in direct contact with the food they buy. They can see it, smell it and know precisely what they are getting. We think it's more fun to shop this way." Bulk foods can be seen as an extension of generic foods, which caught on in the late 1970s. Whereas generics and house-brand foods were cheaper because they avoided fancy packaging and expensive aHvprtisine.

bulk foods save even to swap stones ana comment on the state of mankind are close to, extinction in this age of sprawling supermarkets. Badinage in front of the frozen-yogurt cooler somehow lacks the same quaintness. But while aseptic, Muzak-inflicted supermarkets may never revive the social functions ot the old general store, the retail food industry is trying to humanize shopping by bringing back the cracker barrel and coffee barrels," dried-nuts barrels, candy barrels, spice barrels, cereal barrels and dozens more. The grocery industry calls it bulk-food sales, and it is the hottest trend in food merchandising. By eliminating packaging, bulk foods offer consumers savings of 50 or more on certain items.

Dubbed "high touch marketing" by one trade publication, this approach has grown so fast since it appeared about 18 months ago in West Coast supermarkets that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to issue special guidelines soon to deal with it. Public-health officials in states where bulk foods are sold have voiced concerns about potential health hazards associated with food in open BULK FOODS are displayed in either barrels, gravity-fed dispensers or containers made from plastic or glass. Customers usually scoop out the products, taking as much as desired, a feature consid 1 Staff photo by Dianne Milam through Sunday at ZaniesRedamak's Comedy Showplace, Fiahth South. 2025 Eighth Ave, South. "I'd never buy from those barrels," said Alberta.

MaUsk, who shops at the East Norwalk Grand Union. "I don't trust them, especially the candies. I've seen little kids reaching into the bins to grab things, flies around and everything." OTHER CONSUMERS as well as government officials responsible for food safety have raised con Pianist Talks Frank About Art Life ZanV Comedian 7 ca only Russian-born stana Spices are an example. At the Grand Union supermarket in East Norwalk, McCormick sweet basil in a jar costs $3.65 an ounce; bulk basil costs $1.75 an ounce. McCormick fancy paprika costs $1.75 an ounce while bulk paprika costs 57 cents an ounce.

NUTS ALSO SELL for less in bulk. At the Edwards Food Warehouse in Orange, bulk whole ator but a recreator, and I have this great abiding respect for music, no matter when it was written or even if it was in the process of being written at the lime. ILRRIS-inGGIEdoes, however, think of herself as a teacher. "I'll admit that I consider myself a good teacher," says the woman who, at one time, was the youngest pianist ever asked to join the faculty of. New York's Juilliard School of Music.

"I'm a tough teacher, but I'm also a professional. And everytime I meet a student, I see him as a new person. "I TRY TO BE warm-hearted, so that these young people don't get crushed. It wouldn't come with grace for me to say that others don't do this. But I will say that it's important that we remember that we're all human beings.

"And don't call me a collaborator in new music. I have been abreast of new music, I admit, because it's all too comfortable to remain in the 19th century. "That's what people play because that's what they know. But I've always been in on the front row. You Yakov Smirnoff, billed as Ameri- jt up comeaian, is appcunny cashews cost $3.99 a pound, while Planter's fancy cashews in a can cost $6.62 a pound.

For some items, however, such as flour, savings may be marginal or nonexistent. Bargains notwithstanding, many consumers are hesitant to buy from open bins, citing fears that the products could be acci-dently contaminated. can call me a champion, but not a collaborator." THE SAME frankness of manner steps boldly forward when Harris-Heggie is asked to assess her own performing ability, particularly her near-legendary talent for keyboard improvisation. So remarkable, in fact, is her accomplishment in that area that she has been the subject of an M.I.T.-supervised investigation of mental phenomena. "That gets around, doesn't it," says Harris-Heggie.

"And there really are not too many people who do it, but it comes easily for me. If it's a noonday thing at UCLA, I just do a quickie; but if I'm performing with a ladies' group somewhere, I can go on for 40 minutes. "Whether I'm doing it for a garden club or a bunch of young blades, it's just like a great game." WIRN SHE approaches the subject of her upcoming performance with Heggie (or "Jake, that handsome dog," as she is wont to call her husband, who graduates this year from UCLA with a double major in piano and composition), tne anaai-(Turn to page 4-D) frnm v.w....0, 8 p.m. to the midnight sign-off. Channel 30 general manager By JOHN BRIDGES Johana Harris-Heggie, the pianist who returns to Nashville for performances tomorrow and next 1 Tuesday at Blair Recital Hall, cares little for society's simple definitions especially of herself.

"Wouldn't it be fun to be just Jo Heggie," she said earlier this week at the outset of a late-evening telephone conversation from her home in California. She teaches on the UCLA faculty and is happily married to the young pianist-composer John Heggie. THERE'S always this business of contracts and engagements and people who know me as Johana Harris," she says, referring to the formative years of her career and her long marriage to Roy Harris, which lasted until the respected Oklahoma-born composer's death in 1979. "But I'm so happy," she says in a voice still touched with a slightly husky sultriness, "why not just go ahead and hyphenate?" Harris-Heggie's Nashville sojourn, encompassing an appearance with the Blair Quartet and a duo-pi-. no recital with her husband, marks one "of her rare visits to the city ti.it..

ti, j- jtmMmdtaamammm cerns about bulk foods. The FDA guidelines, which are to address many of these safety issues, will not carry the force of law; rather, they are intended as a model for state and local health authorities in writing their own regulations. Seme states, including New York, Connecticut, Texas, California and Massachusetts, have already issued interim guidelines. -Heggie returns to a two-piano pro't town, should come in loud and clear to almost all Nashville area homes. In fact, he said, it should be as clear as Nashville's three af filiate stations and "better than Channel 17." "I think the public has the right to expect a good signal, and a good professional said.

"When we go on, we'll come up just like we've been up for 100 years well, okay, 56 years." At Channel 39 Meanwhile, down in Murfreesboro, WFYZ-Channel 39 is busy solving problems: problems, gen.1 eral manager Carlo Anneke say that were caused by the rush, to sign on. "I promised I'd have it on by the end of the year," Anneke said, "and I probably shouldn't have done it It put a strain on our technical staff." Channel 39, which remains on a shortened schedule this week due to a problem with the transmitter, also has been broadcasting from tape machines at the GladevjHe tower, rather than via microwave signal from the Murfreesboro studios. "Yeah," Anneke said last w(k, "we're bouncing our signal off a bank building." Apparently the stations (Turn to page 8-D) Self-confessed "humanitarian" Johana Harris Nashville this weekend for two concerts, one gram with her husband, John Heggie. more by eliminating packaging altogether. The savings differential between bulk food and national brands can be as high as 50, particularly for items for which packaging costs are high.

since a three-year span when her deceased husband served as compos-er-in-residence at Peabody College. ask me to remember the dates," she pleads, but (Jrove uic-tionary of Music and Musicians lists the residency as 1949-51.) "TIE2E WERE a lot of the great musicians in Nashville at that time," she recalls, reeling off a list of associates musical and purely social from the period. course Bill Strickland was conducting the symphony then, but is Louis Nicholas still there," she asks. "And how about Mrs. Walter "It was like a great feast of music, and the people there appreciated it." Still, her participation in a thriving and colorful era of artistic foment seems to mean little, to Harris-Heggie these days.

"IF YOU WANT to call me anything," she says resolutely, "call me a humanitarian. Does that stop you? "I'd prefer that. I'd prefer that rather than being called a collaborator or a teacher or any of those other little things. "I know 'humanitarian' is very general, but it happens to be true for me. I don't consider myself a cre TV Column shows like "Tennessee Tuxedo," "Uncle Waldo" and "The Jetsons" after school.

At 4:30 p.m., the station will switch into an "adult female flow" with "Mork and Min-dy," "Eight Is Enough," "Carol Burnett" and "One Day at a Time." At 7 p.m., Jack Klugman fans can get a nightly fix with "Quincy," followed by an 8 p.m. movie. (Opening week titles include the two-part "Wild Times," "Lion in Winter" and At 10 p.m., there's "Taxi," followed by "Star Trek" at 10:30 p.m. and the comedy show, "Dave Allen at Large," at 11:30 p.m. THE WEEKEND schedule, which includes a hearty share of movies, also will feature series like the new "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," "Big Valley" and "High Chaparral." Saturday's lineup includes "Gentle Ben" and "Soul Train" as well as "Black Belt Theater" and two separate showings of "Wrestling" during the day, a 7 p.m.

special will feature a longer-than-normal movie or special event Opening week the "Alabama Friends" concert; for the second week, the mov ie "Cabaret." On Sundays, there'll be cartoons for the kids in the mornings, followed by "Johnny Quest," "Rifleman" and a steady stream of mov- Newest UHF Station WCAY-Ch. 30 Plans To Sign On Feb. 18 ICS irom II a.m 10 p.m. ftiiu in a switch from the conventional, Channel 30 plans religious pro- ft- Walser said the station's signal, inwer npar broadcas fro: i tow a ear Channel 5 on the north side oi Staff photo by Max York vX.yl vK By' DIANE BARTLEY Just as WFYZ-Channel 39 begins to iron out some of its initial problems, here comes another competitor that promises to sign on Feb. 18 as a "full-fledged, full-power TV station." WCAY-Channel 30, soon to join WZTV-Channel 17 and Channel 39 as Nashville's newest independent UHF station, is "way ahead of schedule," according to Tim.

McDonald, president of the Television Corporation Stations group. Last month McDonald reported he'd like to be on the air by Feb. 15; yesterday he officially announced the start date as Saturday, Feb. 18. THE REFERENCE to full-power could be taken as a direct dig at Channel 39, the Murfreesboro UHF station that signed on Dec.

30 but continues to operate on an abbreviated schedule. McDonald, joined by general manager John Walser and operations manager Jenny Zeller, was also ready yesterday to release a tentative program schedule, ranging from "Dudley Doright" cartoons at 6:30 a.m. to "Quincy" at 7 m. and "Star Trek" at 10:30 p.m. There'll be plenty or kids' programming Monday through Friday with "Plastic Man," "Spider-woman." "Star Blazers" and "Underdog" in the mornings, and WCAY-Channel 30 says it will be ready to go on the air Feb.

1 making plans ore, from left, general manager John Walser, operations manager Jenny Zeller, and Tim McDonald, president of the Virginia-based Television Corporations Stations (TVX). WCAY is the newest member of the ive-station TVX chain..