#93 - lunchability.

during the work week, as often as i can, i restore my sanity by punching a random, lucky co-worker in the face in my mind (jk! i love you all!) and leaving my office, perched high on the 24th floor (penthouse, bitches!) of the live nation building in times square for a lunchtime break. usually i walk around manhattan aimlessly for twenty minutes or so, for the ridiculous time sq sights, extreme tourist dodging, podcast listening & mile of walking exercise i get out of it. multi-tasking off the clock!

it's an opportunity to clear my head & step away from work & also an opportunity to secure foodstuffs. other than the mcdonalds immediately downstairs, my main lunch spots are the BK across from port authority, a mediterranean joint over on 44th & 10th and the food emporium. i've only hit up a few places other than that. on special days, i give my love to the wendys eight blocks away, down on 34th street.

it's also an opportunity to scout for snacks amongst all the times sq stores, although i haven't even done much of that, as it would mean having to navigate my way through the more heavily-tourist trafficked areas of times sq & i'm trying to restore my sanity, not rake it across the coals. as such, my current main snack procurement destination is the slurpeelicious 7-11 across from port authority, followed by the duane reade on the corner of 8th & 42nd.  i know...yawn.

there's also an auntie annes across the street from duane reade, but i haven't snacked there yet. i probably should try it out, since i'm an official member of the auntie annes pretzel club. i get a monthly newsletter delivered directly to my email inbox every month, with a coupon included. this month, it's for a "free 21-ounce soda or lemonade with the purchase of a new pepperoni pretzel." it's a pretzel with pepperonis affixed to the front of it!  i'm sold. auntie anne, i'll see you next week.

#93 - lunchability.
snack: doritos late night tacos at midnight
drink: sweet leaf sweet tea



without fail, i always end up ravenously hungry by the end of the work day. this past wednesday, i planned ahead & on my walk, stopped by the 7-11 and picked up a snack & drink for when the 5-5:30pm hunger came a callin'. for my snack, i broke all the rules by picking up a bag of doritos late night tacos at midnight IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON. living life on the edge is the only way to go, i tells ya.

i ended up breaking into the bag about an hour after lunch, more out of curiosity than anything. i've been saying this a lot recently, so maybe it's my new catch phrase, but HOLY CRAP. these things taste like the beef tacos of my "dad's cooking tonight" childhood experiences. dad also made good smelts. but the folks at doritos have taken whatever seasoning you use for tacos & fused it with what they learned from the beefy taste of the doritos X-13 chip (photo from my kitchen wall), an ambiguously-named chip labeled with the clue "all-american classic," that tastes like a friggin' big mac. the flavor sort of weirded me out/overwhelmed me & i couldn't eat a ton all at once...so i brought a half bag home with me at the end of the day.

btw...congratulations, doritos. you've created the most bandwidth-sucking, least user-friendly website ever. what is this secret property? is that a friggin' helicopter pad? some sort of xbox 360 fortress? a giant tv that has crashed to the ground & was just left there because well, it's a giant tv? what the f is "snack strong productions?"

ok. after discovering that holding your mouse over stuff on the secret property makes cool things happen, i decided to check out the "flavor lab." i chose it mainly based on the fact that it appears to be many sublevels below the earth, which rules, and partially because it makes the helicopter take off for lands unknown when you hold the mouse over the lair. whoa! they have segways & floating bags of chips down in the flavor lab! actually, it's not as cool as it sounds. you can see what flavors they have down here if you care.

my beverage for the afternoon was a bottle of sweet leaf sweet tea. seriously, this stuff is not good. i've tried two sweet leaf beverages now & both have had an f'd up flavor. like with the taco doritos, i ended up bringing half home with me to finish later that night.  eventually, i finished the whole bottle despite its weird ass taste, but at my own peril.  the odd taste can't be entirely because it's made with cane sugar & black tea, can it? how can i describe it?...it goes well with a chaser.

i feel bad because sweet leaf is from good ol' austin, tx and has that rosy-cheeked granny mascot on the label, but the taste is just too abnormally abnormal to ignore.  since i love baseball & our legal system (both proponents of a three-strike rule), i'm willing to give sweet leaf one more chance...but if granny fails me again, i'm putting her & her slightly-creepy cartoon grin out to pasture.

nosh nook #50 - friday, may 22, 2009

dew tour announces MATADOR by jack link's as a sponsor (link)
05.20.09 - espn.com - by press release

today in the totally celebratory & radically X-treme 50th edition of nosh nook, we have what i'm sort of looking at as my first ever follow up story. back in late march, before i developed a half-assed social networking strategy for this here blog you're reading right now & gave in to twitter, i posted this article to my personal facebook wall, doing my damnedest to ensure that as many folks as possible knew about the launch of a bold new beef snack--the MATADOR.

less than two months later, the MATADOR beef stick is already making some pretty X-treme waves. according to espn.com (via press release), they've just signed a multi-year deal to be an associate sponsor of the dew tour, a five-city sports tour that features the largest prize in action sports--$2.5 million. it's a perfect fit for the MATADOR.  according to jack link's director of marketing, jeff lefever, "teens have confirmed that our new MATADOR snack sticks have just the right kick they're looking for and we believe our marketing activation will highlight the bold experience of the new MATADOR brand at all dew tour events this year." seriously, does this guy actually believe the boilerplate bullshit that's spewing forth from his piehole?

now, when action-driven teens are looking for just the right kick, they know just where to turn--the MATADOR. other than possessing this essential kick, the best part about the bold MATADOR experience is the fact that they spell their name IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. as an anti-capitalizationist, i applaud their X-treme willingness to flaunt the rules. that's precisely the kind of attitude i want from a beef stick. as for X-treme skater adam taylor, who's now a member of the MATADOR team that will compete at the dew games...he's "stoked."

nosh nook #49 - thursday, may 21, 2009

in mumbai, it’s mango season (link)
05.20.09 - the ny times - by kavitha rao

after the recent success of the oscar-winning film slumdog millionaire, the indian city of mumbai, with its copious slums, has become sort of a household name. since folks just love seeing the places where their favorite films are shot, mumbai's guided "slum tours" have experienced increased interest. unless you're on some sort of humanitarian mission, there's something very unsettling about taking a trip through a city's slums to gawk at the horrid conditions. if you're going to mumbai, it should be for the tasty mangoes...not for the slums.

ny times correspondent kavitha rao knows a thing or two about mumbai's mangoes. according to her "globespotters" report, it's currently mango season in mumbai (til the end of june) & while you could go pick up some mangoes, bring them home & make something delicious out of them (i suggest mango sushi), it's much cooler if you have somebody else make them into something awesome for you. there are the standard mango drinks--the familiar lassi (a milkshake of sorts), the green mango-based aam panna--but you can also find a wide variety of yummy desserts in mumbai.

since i'm not that big of a fan of pudding, i'd probably pass on the mango shrikhand. of all the treats rao describes, i'd probably have to go with the kulfi (a milkier ice cream) topped with mango slices.  it's not that i wouldn't enjoy mango & chocolate donuts or a big ol slice of mango cheesecake (from a place that madonna likes!).  it's more that you can get the kulfi with mango slices delivered.  i'm amazed that it's even possible to deliver ice cream (even slow-melting kulfi) in mumbai's scorching temperatures & there's something pretty awesome about the idea of hearing a knock at your front door & when you open said door...BAM!  ice cream.  i can only imagine the utter joy that such a delivery service must bring to the people of mumbai.

snack away! #8 - let's enjoying snack.

i’m not an economist. being a kanji novice and thus generally unable to read even the headlines of the daily paper, i have no chance of deciphering the business section. this leaves me ample opportunity to speculate and develop personal theories on the driving forces behind the japanese economy. i have gathered a few basic points that may actually be grounded in reality. indeed, as consumer confidence declines and americans have less and less disposable income, demand for japanese automobiles & electronics has plummeted. the effect on the industrial sector has been catastrophic.

rather than taking a sane route and studying the language with the fervor necessary to understand the complexities of reality, i have instead chosen to consider more amusing economic ideas that may or may not be rational. for instance, a good friend of mine has made the claim that the entire japanese economy is based on “可愛い” (kawaii, or cute). i must say, from looking at the clothes, toys and cartoonish foods available at my local market, this is not a farfetched idea. if it is cute, people will buy it--no matter what it is.

it may not be a cornerstone of the economy as a whole, but the snack sector is definitely one that is not going away any time soon. it’s a cultural staple of japanese life. first, there is the concept of “omiyage.” anytime a japanese person goes on vacation (even a short one), they are socially obligated to bring back small gifts for their coworkers. while there are no specific rules (at least not that i have yet divined) stating that the gifts should be in the form of snacks, this is most frequently the case. omiyage shops can be found in spades near any point of interest in japan. in fact, i think there is one down the street from my apartment and my town, while charming, is not exactly a “point of interest.”

right now i have a collection of rice crackers and sweets in my desk drawer. each piece is wrapped and each bears the name of the place from which it hails. there are sembei from shikoku, chocolates from wakayama and something i have yet to identify from somewhere i have yet to identify (i think it may be stuffed with sweet bean paste. mmmmmm!). all were found on my desk when i arrived to work this morning. apparently, a lot of people were out of town this weekend.

it’s difficult to tell which is more common in japan, omiyage shops or snack bars (スナックバー sunakku bā), more commonly referred to as “snacks.” snacks are an interesting phenomenon and they reflect heavily the peculiar way in which an ancient society like japan’s has entered the modern era. the idea is very simple. male customers visit snacks and are entertained by attractive women. the menu will generally have no set prices and the bill is arbitrary (and generally expensive).

by no means are snacks brothels or strip clubs. the staff is paid to serve, flirt and make the clientele feel at ease. it’s somewhat reminiscent of geisha culture. however, though being a “snack girl” may be somewhat of an art, it does not require the same training and meticulous preparation for which geisha are renowned. i imagine that going to a snack would be quite enjoyable, but i don’t think i’ll be doing it any time soon. the arbitrary charge is a bit daunting, the idea of paying for female attention is a bit repulsive and there is a chance that i might find an ex-student of mine working there. this is a small town. i’d never hear the end of it.

i have yet to explore the breadth or depth of the japanese snack market. the munchables aisle at the supermarket is a bit too much for me. sensory overload is not what i'm looking for when i shop--i have a hard enough time finding baking soda (conveniently located between the drano and coat hangers). lucky for my midsection is the fact that i generally tend to dislike the most popular snacky treats here. i love life in japan, but snacks are just too much of a crapshoot. there are a few delicious (and ridiculously unhealthy) exceptions. i am eating one right now.

snack away! #8 - let's enjoying snack.
guest blogger: cain gibbs, minami awaji-shi, hyogo-ken, japan

snack: umaika
drink: homemade chu-hi (shochu highball)



the chu-hi is always a great way to relax after work. it's my drink of choice when kitchen drinking. my version usually consists of three ingredients:

1) mugi shochu
2) fruit juice (today it's grapefruit)
3) mitsuya cider

i have found mugi (barley) shochu to be the most mixable variety (potato is good with hot water in winter, but has too strong of an odor to make good chu-hi, and the rice-based kind has too much flavor). It's warming in the winter and refreshing in the summer. the cider (which is sweet and carbonated, but i have yet to nail down exactly what the flavor is supposed to be) adds a crispness. citrus juices mix best with shochu, although i have enjoyed a good peach juice chu-hi on occasion.

umaika rocks my world and clogs my arteries. i am not sure if "umaika" is a general term or a brand name, but i lean towards it being a brand name, as umai can mean “exceptionally delicious” and ika is japanese for squid. this snack is indeed exceptionally delicious squid. it is essentially strips of squid jerky battered and deep-fried. opening the bag smells like low tide, but the flavor is sweet and delicate. it's the right balance of salt and sugar to accompany any sort of alcoholic beverage.

i discovered this on a bus trip to fukui when the vice principal of my school handed me a beer and a cup of umaika at 7AM on a saturday morning. that was quite a trip. ask me about it sometime. for now, I should go. i have a sack of fried squid and a carton of shochu, and they aren't going to disappear without a little help from yours truly.

cain is from tennessee. once he lived in boston. now he's in japan teaching high school english. he often has impressive hair.

nosh nook #48 - wednesday, may 20, 2009

sweet smell of success (link)
05.19.09 - the beacon news - by mike danahey

it's candy time, people! in chicago, yesterday marked the first day of north america's largest candy & snack trade show--the all candy expo--hosted by the national confectioners association (NCA). it's a three day event where industry folks gather together & just like at E3 or the north american international auto show, show off their groundbreaking new candies & treats. sadly, i'm not in chicago this month, so i'm not attending. also, i'm not an industry member (yet) and it's one of those industry-only shindigs.

as mike danahey explains, around 13,000 industry folks are expected to descend upon chicago's mccormick place for this year's all candy expo. according to the NCA, it's a good time for the industry. last year, sales figures rose for such delights (sugar-free gum aside) as gourmet chocolate, dark chocolate, sugar-free gum, licorice and gummies/chewy candy. i definitely helped contribute to those gourmet & dark chocolate numbers.

like with any trade show, you have a mix of companies at the expo, from industry giants like mars or hershey to little start-ups trying to make a name for themselves. danahey mentions one start-up in particular--illinois-based landgarten usa--which deals in things made with organically grown soy beans, almonds & pumpkin seeds. it's run by thomas gratz, a man who started the company after the economy started sucking. good for him.  on the flip side, the industry giants use trade shows such as this to unveil new products. as a result, we can finally sleep easy knowing there's now a coconut m&m (barf).