#103 - truly thicker than water.

ain't it just the most wonderful time of the year for tv premieres? last week, i got the weeds season premiere & then this sunday, hbo brought back true blood. to top it all off, next tuesday is the season two premiere of a&e's the cleaner! oh wait, i don't care about that show at all, but i do love alan ball's works & loved the first season of true blood, so i'd like to discuss it for a moment...& if you haven't seen it yet, maybe i can spoil a few things for you while i'm at it.

the second season picks up where we left off, with sookie stackhouse (anna paquin) & vampire bill compton (stephen moyer) as a couple & vampire bill now responsible for a young, hot, red-headed vampire who he was forced to turn into a vampire (as punishment for killing another vampire in sookie's defense). they're one of my fave on-screen couples, as sookie is totally cute & full of southern drawl and vampire bill is all "i'm a vampire from civil war times & i talk all properlike." they pretty much get it on in every episode, which is cool with me. in fact, they get it on so much that last season, there was even a scene where bill rose out of the cemetery mud & they did it right there.

as for other characters, other than the hot, young red-headed vampire, there's this vibrating chick who showed up near the end of last season & has taken in sookie's friend & co-worker tara. there's lafayette, sookie's gay, drug-dealing co-worker, who disappeared at the end of last season & who we discover is still alive & being held captive in a dark basement with three other people. sookie's brother jason is about to join the anti-vampire church (the fellowship of the sun) as the vampires & non-vampires continue to ratchet up the debate...& it's revealed that sookie's boss, sam (a shapeshifter), has a history with the vibrating chick. so yeah...a handful of captivating storylines going on.

the premiere ended with some serious hardcore shizz...& when i say "hardcore," i mean hardcore, because that's what we basically got in the scene when sookie & vampire bill finally got it on. there was some hardcore softcore porn side nakedness & from-behind sex going on there, which i guess was helped by the fact that anna paquin & stephen moyer are apparently getting it on off-screen too...& after they got it on, we see a scene where eric (one of the older/more powerful vampires, played by alexander skarsgard) finally appears, still dressed from putting highlights in his hair.  he enters the basement where lafayette's being held & tries to take away a dude lafayette's been talking to, but the dude slaps eric on the cheek with a crucifix.  eric doesn't take kindly to this & hurls the dude around a bit before violently feeding on him...end of episode...hardcore.

#103 - truly thicker than water.
snack: boulder canyon natural foods spinach & artichoke chips
drink: samuels smith's oatmeal stout



while i watched, i fed from a totally unbloody bag of boulder canyon natural foods spinach & artichoke chips. boulder canyon's been making chips out of the centennial state for fifteen years now using a "simple family recipe" made entirely of natural ingredients.  once i started eating them, it was hard to stop.  the spinach & artichoke flavor has a delicious saltiness to it that my tongue went absolutely nuts for...& it doesn't help that i'm a total glutton.

earlier in the day, i'd broken open the bag during lunch & this dude i work with who's famous for coming into the office & sampling whatever snack may be on your desk at the moment (see snack #1 of 2008) came in saw them sitting out on my desk. his reaction--"spinach & artichoke chips? really? that sounds weird." my reaction--"is it really all that weird?  haven't you ever had spinach artichoke dip? that stuff rules." anyway, he stayed away from my chips, so that was cool.

at first, i was going to get something blood-related to celebrate the premiere--a bloody mary, something containing blood orange juice--but in the end, those were, respectively, too much work & too hard to find, so i went with a pint or so of samuels smith's oatmeal stout. sam smith makes some of my favorite beers, beers like the nut brown ale, the taddy porter & the oatmeal stout. they're totally british & have been around since 1758, which means when the old brewery was founded, peeps in britain were all like "i do say, those bloody colonists are getting to be quite the rascally scamps. a good musketing would show them. tut tut. i'm feeling a wee bit peckish. tut tut. barkeep! bring me a pint of samuel smith post haste! tut tut!"...and scene.

the oatmeal stout's a solidly thick beer, brewed with oats instead of barley. like a guinness, it's dark as hell & has a rich taste & smooth flavor--all traits that i adore in a beer. according to the sam smith website, it was "originally a drink for lactating mothers." although my mammary glands are dry as the mojave, it's still one of my favorite beers.  in fact, i probably enjoy it even more than all those drunken breast-feeding brit babies.  i do say...it's bloody good!

nosh nook #68 - wednesday, june 17, 2009

sleepwalker put on nine stone with nightly snacks (link)
06.16.09 - the telegraph

sleepwalking huh? i once worked with a guy who claimed to have both gone out dancing & had sex with his boyfriend while asleep & under the influence of ambien.  dudes & dudettes, i simply can't fathom sleepwalking, can't get it through my thick little skull (it's a thick lil' bugger!). i've been known to snore occasionally, but sleepwalking? what i don't understand is how this sleepwalking thing works. so basically one moment you're laying in bed & then the next, you're up doing random things, like a walking zombie of sorts?  hell, when i'm awake, it's hard to get out of bed. crazy overachieving sleepwalkers!

for anna ryan of blue springs, missourah, sleepwalking is a part of her everyday life. according to the telegraph, ryan "was diagnosed with sleep related eating disorder (SRED) which causes her to walk to the kitchen and eat while sound asleep." as a result, she put on nine stone (126 pounds stateside) by consuming "chocolate, cheese, meat, butter and anything she can get her hands on."...heading to sleep now...better lock up the cat!  her weight gain baffled her for years until she woke up one day to "food in the bed and a mess in the kitchen."

...so she went to a doctor & the doctor installed a camera in her home, which revealed that she was hitting the kitchen eight times a night while she slept.  obviously, she had to do something, since locking the bedroom door before going to sleep only left her with two black eyes & a broken tooth.  the solution?  medication!  it's helping her to get up less, which means less chances to dig into the bottle of smuckers goober strawberry she's holding in the article's photo.  wow...pharmies can fix anything!

nosh nook #67 - tuesday, june 16, 2009

teens try to sell fake guns to buy snacks (link)
06.15.09 - kptv (fox 12 oregon)

in oregon snack-related crime news, the other day, two teenage boys from west linn (a well-to-do suburb just south of portland) were totally up to no good. around half past noon, a witness placed a call to police, letting them know that there were two boys loitering outside a local "market of choice." sure, loitering outside of a store's not that serious of a crime, but it is when you're trying to sell guns out of a backpack whilst doing so.

as kptv reports, by the time police responded to the concerned citizen's call, the two boys were on the lam, having taken off on their bikes minutes earlier. the cops took off in hot pursuit & soon found the two boys "a few blocks from the store hiding in some bushes." these boys are young, so they probably weren't aware, but if there's one thing i've learned about cops, they always look in the bushes. hiding behind a bunch of dresses in a closet doesn't work either.

with the teens in custody, the officers examined the aforementioned backpack. inside, they found "a replica of an HK MP-5 machine gun and several air soft replicas of glock pistols."  that's right...the guns were fake...realistic looking, but fake.  it turns out all the boys wanted to do was sell one of the fake guns so they could buy some bagels.  peeps were hungry & looking for something to nosh on. instead, all they got was a reprimand, as "the officers called the parents of the 13- and 14-year-old boys and sent them home."  maybe next time, they should bring a real gun to the market & start waving it around inside.  that'd definitely get them the bagels they so desire.

nosh nook #66 - monday, june 15, 2009

restaurateur fed his whimsy, and diners, with huge menu (link)
06.14.09 - the washington post - by joe holley

here in new york, there's this place, shopsins, that's somewhat of a new york legend. at one point, someone even made a film about it--i like killing flies. run by one kenny shopsin, it's known for both its insanely long menu & quirky, insanely-tempered owner. it existed for years as a diner in greenwich village until they were priced out of the neighborhood & eventually landed in their current space, a stall in the essex market. it's the sort of joint where you'd be as likely to be shamed & kicked out for using your cell phone as you would be to get a buddhaboy (a sandwich with brussel sprouts, haricot vert, puff rice & gruyere).

in gaithersburg, md, there's a similar place called roy's place, a restaurant which was run by owner roy passin for 54 years until he passed on a month ago today. as joe holley reports, roy's place has a "20-page menu featuring 206 sandwich combinations, almost all of them created and whimsically named by roy passin himself." the list includes such items as the "the forever ambler, or the importance of being ernest," "the joel t. siegel" & "the pretty kitty in love with claude dog." although there's no way he could be as crazy as kenny shopsin, roy was also known as someone who was "random and creative" while also being "loud and profane."

patton oswalt has this one bit about crazy chefs called "great food is prepared by psychos." in it, he talks about how he used to worship insane musicians, but now worships insane four-star chefs, folks who imbue the experience of their restaurants with nutty, OCD characteristics like "every day our kobe-rubbed beef is read the book are you my mother? by a guatemalan child."  the crazy long menus of roy passin & kenny shopsin fall into this same category of quirks...& people want that quirkiness in a restaurant.  if they didn't, we could just slap up mcdonald's after mcdonald's & just call it a day.

#102 - friday night shenanigans.

this past friday, i was relaxing around the apartment post-work & got a phone call from my pal mike weber. i know mike from back in my days at ny press, where i was an ad sales dude & he was an illustrator & eventually, the art director. his ny press cartoons were always densely amazing, but the moment he's infamous for is when his draft cover of the paper, with the placeholder headline "joes blows fucky fuckball" accidentally went to press, prompting a massive half-assed attempt at a recall by the publishers. we hang out fairly often these days & recently he's created the "interactive social contract," a "user generated database of philosophy and law." basically, you create laws & the community-at-large votes them up or down. the interface/navigation on the site is pretty damn awesome.

mike's one of those outgoing, gregarious types, someone i definitely enjoy hanging out with (except for during his EXTREMELY belligerent moments), as he makes friends with folks wherever he goes, which provides a nice complement to my initial shyness & recent introverted nature towards people. i have a vivid memory from a few years back of exiting a bar to join him for a smoke & finding him outside, already chatting with two cute girls.  as i stepped outside, he remarked, "shawn, i've found us wives." that definitely broke the ice. we've been trying to perfect the making friends & meeting fine ladies team technique for a while now (i've been extra introverted until recently), but i think we finally got it down on friday.

...so after not hanging out for a little while, he just got a new phone & new bike, so decided to make his way down to park slope for some almost-summer drinking fun on the neighborhood's bar patios. our first stop was at commonwealth, home of the best jukebox in all of brooklyn. people are friendly there, but are often engrossed in the group of friends they come with. we didn't make any friends on the patio, but did spend a little bit inside chatting with three sisters, two of who were cute twins. mike got one of their numbers & when we were leaving, we got in a conversation with a girl out front, who mike exchanged numbers with. future park slope hanging out buddies?

after a few drinks there, we made our way down the street to the gate, one of the neighborhood's best locales for both tasty beers & a decent crop of attractive & interesting park slopers, who fill the patio during the warmer months. we never made it out to the patio, as mike struck up a conversation with two girls near the bar. they were cool, but after a while of chatting, one was tired & although she toughed it out for a while, they eventually they took off...& mike got one of their numbers. more future park slope hanging out buddies? we'll see. if so, it's already shaping up to be a pretty fun summer.

#102 - friday night shenanigans.
snack: valor dark chocolate with orange
drink: oskar blues brewing mama's little yella pils



when mike first showed up to my apartment, we were just going to head straight out to the bars, but there were only five minutes left in game seven of the pittsburgh-detroit stanley cup final & i was engrossed, so i ran downstairs to let him in & we headed back up to watch the rest of the game. i only had one beer left in my fridge, so we split that & finished what was left of a bar of valor dark chocolate with orange. valor is a spanish company who, if their website is any indication, enjoys loops of soothing spanish guitar.  who doesn't though?

mike & i both had the same reaction to the valor bar. it has an odd gumminess to it, due to the gelatinous orange pieces sprinkled throughout the bar.  luckily, we both enjoyed the gumminess & the dark chocolate.  personally, i enjoy it when the fruit's that prevalent in the mix.  anyway, it made for a nice, quick snack while we watched the last few minutes of the game.

i poured that only beer--a oskar blues brewing mama's little yella pils--into glasses & we split that as we watched the red wings lose the stanley cup to the pens.  oskar blues is a colorado based company that makes a solid series of canned beers & out of the ones i've tried, my favorite is the dale's pale ale. on top of being the tastiest canned beer i've ever had (sorry, guinness), it's part of a specific positive brooklyn backyard cookout experience from a few summers back...& it's hard to top nostalgia when it comes to choosing a beer.

as for the mama's little yella pils, it has more flavor than most pilsners, which are often essentially malty water.  the only drawback was that it was so light & smooth-drinking that we were both done with our respective six ounces within a matter of minutes, even before the hockey game ended.  as such, we had to spend a good five minutes sitting there on a friday night without a beer.  it's not something i'm proud of.  on the other hand, our meeting people teamwork from that evening...now that's something to be proud of...meeting people is easy!