#97 - hey, good lookin'.

man. when i was growing up & reached that late junior high age when i became conscious of how i looked & what clothes i was wearing & started developing a sense of "cool," i was a friggin' nut job about my appearance. it was a weird time, a time when i would often obsess about my level of popularity, which now, looking back on it, i assess as "not cool. not loser." considering that my parents were middle class folks who both worked but had to support three kids, they did a pretty good job of catering to random my brand whims & style choices.

since an appealing face & environs are a clear asset for coolness, having the kind of skin that clearasil marketing execs probably masturbate about at night was a constant teenage frustration of mine. i fought through it with a series of distracting, often-feathered hairstyles, sometimes with pieces on the side shaved out of them. part way through high school, i picked myself up an earring too. that was pretty cool. if the hole hasn't closed up, maybe i can start rocking that look again.

i rolled through a blur of ocean pacific shirts, guess jeans, z cavarrici & skidz pants & a countless number of other name-brand-of-the-moment garments.  when i first started working, during the year when the chicago white sox changed their colors to black & white, i spent half a week's paycheck on one of their jerseys...& then wore it to my job, in a print shop, with full-on printing presses & whatnot, ruining it within a week.

i had both a sweet black adidas jacket & a long-ass trench coat that i wore with a big gold chain...right around the time i got caught trying to steal kid n play's 2 hype from lechmere (r.i.p.).  structure (now express mens) was my go-to store for a while.  i've since met a handful of gay men who shop there, so i know i was stylish.  hell, my first (insane) girlfriend even bought me this classy watch with a face that looked like stone.  when i wanted to check what time it was, i did so in style.

for kicks, after a phase where i rocked boat shoes with pegged pants, i moved onto soccer shoes (diadoras, adidas gazelles) with pegged pants.  i wore my fair share of basketball sneakers too.  shit.  now the only time i buy new shoes (or new clothes, for that matter) is when they get holes in them.  note to self: go shoe shopping ASAP.

#97 - hey, good lookin'.
snack: stretch island mango sunrise fruit leather
drink: fanta orange soda



in honor of that awesome brown leather jacket from structure that i wore for a few years back in the day when i was a teenager (before i had status & before i had a pager), tonight's snack is a stretch island mango sunrise fruit leather. i feel like sort of a slacker. i've consumed an elephant's worth of fruit roll-ups in my day, but oddly enough, have never actually eaten any fruit leather until now. it's not like fruit leather is some crazy new snack. stretch island fruit co. is almost as old as i am, having been started back in '76 on stretch island, just west of tacoma, wa.

i have to say, after all those years of fruit roll-ups, i now know what i was missing by forgoing the fruit leather. whereas a fruit roll-up is super stretchy & can be easily balled up into a projectile, the stretch island fruit leather has a firmness to it. when you bite into it, you actually bite off a definitive piece. they're only made with four ingredients--concentrates of apple puree, mango puree & lemon juice and natural mango flavor. with no added sugars or anything, it has a clean, mangoey taste & like i've stated before, i love mangoes...especially when combined with a sunrise.

to balance out the stretch island fruit co. fruit naturalness, i decided to have some manufactured fruitiness in my beverage, so i went with a fanta orange soda. there are natural flavors in it, but there's also HFCS & sodium benzoate, modified food starch, sodium polyphosphates, glycerol ester of rosin & some artificial colors. i can feel the plastics forming in my stomach! on an anniversarial note, june is the month that fanta was introduced to the u.s., way back in 1960.  looks like somebody turns fifty next year!

the orange flavor's ok, but i feel like i'm getting a bit short changed.  they used to have all sorts of crazy fanta flavors, flavors like red cream & iced tea. they even had a collins mixer. now, the most exotic they get is an apple flavor (which i must get my hands on).  the game is afoot!  anyway, you must excuse me now.  i need to go scrub the fanta from what's left of my teeth.  gotta look good, you know?

nosh nook #59 - thursday, june 4, 2009

did little debbie snacks have to be dumped? ODOT says yes (link)
06.03.09 - katu - by katu staff & news services

late monday evening, in portland, or, near the intersection of 5 & 217, a semi-truck carrying a load of little debbie snacks was speeding down the highway when it lost control & ended up on its side. what did they do with all the snacks once they had removed the truck from the highway six hours later? fun time snack party on the highway? nope. they threw those snacks in a landfill. to this i offer up a hearty nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! what a senseless waste of snacks.

yesterday, i kept coming across reports about this story. i have one of those new fandangled google news alerts set up for "snacks" & three straight alerts were about this story. of course, they were conveniently spaced around two hours apart, just long enough for the story to leave my mind & then bam!...right back in. katu had pictures of both the disposed boxes and the truck on their website, so i decided to profile their story in today's nosh nook.

peeps in oregon have been asking questions & pointing fingers over the disposal of the snacks. why would they throw out all that perfectly "good" food? sure, the snacks were likely loaded with HFCS & other such junk, but they're still food on some level & food banks could've used at least a portion of them. as katu reports, "an oregon food bank manager raced to salvage the cargo but it was too late. it had already gone to the landfill."  mckee foods blames the ODOT for rushing the clean up & tainting the food.  the ODOT says both mckee foods & the insurance company told them to toss it.  either way, it's gone now.  amazingly enough, through it all, little debbie has managed to keep smiling...although she looks like she might be a little bit stressed out.

snack away! #10 - nacho mama's nachos.

every winter, new yorkers walk begrudgingly from their homes to the subway to their work, slipping on slush all along the way. they ask themselves why they’re not living somewhere warmer. they forget the “sun and fun” of the rest of the year. then suddenly, the groundhog predicts the spring, trees begin to bloom, and even more suddenly, the summer comes.

we’ve just entered june and the weather has been amazing so far this spring. we’ve already had three sunny, ninety-degree days. summer in new york means so many things to so many people. on top of the parks being filled beyond capacity, events are happening all around: red hook ball field's open, central park hosts summer stage concerts and even the brooklyn kids switch from skinny jeans to skinny shorts. one more thing unique to new york, or at least dense urban areas: rooftop parties.

...so when we (nachos NY) were invited to a rooftop party in williamsburg celebrating nachos, we jumped on the L train with avocados and chips in hand. a lot of credit has to go to cathy erway of not eating out in new york. she set up the wonderful combo for the evening--fresh veggies on the nachos and nicey-and-spicy margaritas. we can’t give her all the credit though. when it came time to fire up the grill, we got down and dirty with the guacamole and were ready to pile it on.

snack away! #10 - nacho mama's nachos.
guest blogger: rachel anderson (nachos NY), new york, ny

snack: white & blue-corn nachos with asparagus, cheese, ramps & tomatoes
drink: spicy margarita



on white and blue-corn tortilla chips, we freshly shredded some smoked cheddar and jalapeño jack cheeses. i am not normally a fan of the white cheese on my ‘chos but the spiciness of the jalapeño jack made me forget my prejudices for one night. in addition to the cheese, we threw on some tomatoes, asparagus, and ramps for good measure.

with all the ingredients ready, we threw that baby on the grill to cook. the grill gave our dish a smoky flavor, but we did have an issue with burnt chips. if you are going to utilize the grill for nacho-related goodness, be aware that the bottom of your pan can burn quite easily.

to go with our delightfully smoky 'chos, our bartender (and owner of the apartment) set up a lovely bar made out of a shelving unit in his apartment. being that this party was planned slightly ahead, he was able to infuse a tequila with a hot pepper, giving us a special spicy margarita. this duo gave no relief to the tongue.  it's summer in the city though, so we say "bring it on."

rachel anderson is the senior correspondent of nachos NY, a blog dedicated to the hunt for all information nacho.  check them out at nachosNY.com.

nosh nook #58 - wednesday, june 3, 2009

starbucks revamps bakery food ingredients (link)
06.02.09 - reuters - by lisa baertlein

when it comes to shopping with a conscience, starbucks has always been one of my main nemeses. over the years, i've definitely done my fair share of starbucks bashing, but have also made my fair share of starbucks purchases. without fail, i end up with one or two starbucks gift cards per year, which leads to me making a few trips a year. this usually snowballs into me going back even after the gift cards have run out & as a result, i end up spending actual money there as well. occasionally, i'm just buying coffee, but since the flavor's a bit too rich for my tastes, i'm usually spending money on their baked goods & sandwiches.

as lisa baertlein reports, at the end of june, starbucks will be overhauling its menu & offering customers healthier food options. this means that they'll "begin selling baked goods without high-fructose corn syrup or artificial flavors and dyes," items like a banana walnut bread made from only eleven ingredients & a reduced fat very berry coffee cake that's twenty percent fruit. these efforts even come with their own clever tag line--"real food. simply delicious."

starbucks' food division has constantly struggled, but they hope that making a push toward using healthy, all natural ingredients in their foods will allow them to finally right that ship. michelle gass, starbucks' executive VP of marketing, noted that "food has always been the achilles' heel of this company...that statement will be long buried after we launch this program." it's funny, i always thought their achilles heel was their inflated prices...or their until-recent practice of flooding the market with starbucks...or their anti-unionization tactics. apparently it's not. it's their pumpkin bread.

#96 - badly breaking.

back in march, as part of tv month, i sat down to take in the season two premiere of amc's breaking bad, starring bryan cranston as walt, a chemistry teacher turned meth dealer via the discovery of lung cancer. after an amazing season one, it had firmly cemented itself as a show which, if not my favorite show, was definitely in my top five. this past sunday night, after twelve episodes filled with insanity & surprises & continued exploration into walt's psyche, they finally brought season two to a close.

i'd been looking forward to the season finale for a while. they opened the season with a vague scene in walt's backyard, with shots of a charred pink teddy bear floating in the pool & sirens in the background. with each episode, they've revealed more & more about this vague scene & every week since, i've been striking up conversations about the show with friends & co-workers, none of who actually follow the show. i've chatted up my roommate about it. he watched the entire first season with me, so he at least had a frame of reference, but hadn't seen very much of the second season. on one hand, these conversations were me being a nerdy fan boy trying to spread the love, but on the other hand, it was me working out what i'd seen, as i tried to fit it into the larger story of a man who gets cancer, the actions he takes because of it & the impact they have on those around him.

as we entered the final episode, all the craziness of the meth-dealing & cooking has seemed to subside & walt's life actually seems to be developing some semblance of stability for once. to me, it looked like they were setting up a card house of calm (wasn't this a peter gabriel album title?) that they could then brilliantly knock down in the last episode, as they revealed what's up with that vague first scene of the season.

i'm assuming that a lot of people haven't seen this show & i'm hoping that everyone in the world eventually will, so i won't divulge what we now know (or don't know) about the mystery scene. i will say that this though: by the time the final credits came on screen, i was experiencing some serious tv blue balls. it wasn't as anticlimactic as the sopranos' series finale, but it definitely left me feeling empty. i've since thought about it more & have started to come to terms with it, establishing that based on what we now know about the mystery scene, walt's actions are--both directly & indirectly--having much wider-sweeping consequences than he can even fathom.

i can live with that, but for now, the show's on break. sigh. there's already a third season in the works, but that's not happening until next year, when we'll already be a few months into the time that i've already started referring to as the "post-35th birthday" era. double sigh. luckily, season five of weeds starts up next monday, so i can continue to get my weekly fix of average american family folk fumbling their way through the drug trade, while i supplement that with a weekly dose of mary-louise parker (mmm). on a related note, ms. parker turns 45 in august, giving hope to the idea that there's hotness post age 35.

#96 - badly breaking.
snack: 7 select scorchin' hot crunchy curls
drink: harpoon leviathan big bohemian pilsner



as i took in the finale, i dug into a bag of 7 select scorchin' hot crunchy curls, which i'd purchased a few days earlier at my local port authority area 7-11. they're only $1.99 for an 8.5 oz bag, which compared to many bags of chips, is a helluva deal. the bag even feels heavier. i guess that's gravity for ya. since i was busy watching the show, i didn't stop long enough to notice if there were any jesus-shaped cheese curls in the bag, but i did come across a few shaped like penises. they're pretty damn good for something made by 7-11 and as such, i found myself popping them into my mouth one after another...but not without serious consequences. these mofos are without a doubt WICKED SCORCHIN' HOT.

other than listing "spice extract" in the ingredients, the bag doesn't really go into how they make them so damn hot. the flavor & aftertaste both reminded me of buffalo sauce, but that could have just been a result of color & mouth-burn association. the crunch was so satisfyingly burning that i couldn't stop the rapid consumption. i mean, i wasn't sweating or anything, but at one point i seriously considered fixing myself a bowl of blue cheese to dip them in.

instead, i decided to try putting out the cheese curl fire with a beer--a harpoon leviathan big bohemian pilsner. it's part of their limited edition "leviathan" series, a line of beers designed to offer harpoon drinkers a greater flavor experience, something that is greatly needed when it comes to harpoon. today, i was chatting with a co-worker who'd visited the harpoon brewery up in boston this past weekend & eventually, our conversation led to "actually, harpoon's not really that great of a beer." for me, harpoon has always been a respectable beer (along with sam adams) that i drank a ton of when i was in college in boston, just discovering microbrews. beyond that, i don't usually search it out, really only drinking it if it's the best choice available.

the leviathan series is a different story. although it's a pilsner, which is typically extremely light on flavor, the big bohemian pilsner has a nice, rich hoppy flavor to it. as far as counteracting the effects of the cheese curls goes, it didn't help very much, but it was still enjoyable.  unlike with a harpoon i.p.a., the big bohemian is the sort of beer i'd actually choose over others.  that's something i haven't been able to say about a harpoon since back when i was college...over ten years ago.  sigh.