nosh nook #34 - thursday, april 30, 2009

street vending as a way to ease joblessness (link)
04.29.09 - the ny times - by jennifer 8. lee

we sure do have a pretty impressive level of unemployment these days, huh? luckily, president obama is totally stimulating the economy. go economy go! with all that stimulus action going on, you figure that if you were unemployed & came up with a non-narcotic related plan to make some money & avoid homelessness & hunger & whatnot, surely the government wouldn't prevent you from putting that plan into action, especially if it resulted in the tingling of people's taste buds, right?

not so in the nyc, reports the interestingly-named jennifer 8. lee (who coined the term "man date"). here in new york, just like the limit on the number of taxi medallions given out, there's a cap on the number of permits given out to street vendors & that number maxed out years ago. as a result, even if somebody wants to set up a street cart & bring some money in by providing us with tasty fruits or hot nuts or kebabs or such snacks, they can't...there aren't any permits left for them.

luckily, there's talk of upping the cap from 4,000 permits to 25,000 but until then, there's the black market. lee spoke with michael wells, the co-director of the street vendor project & he said that a black market permits will run you $8-12K & then, of course, you're breaking the law. his organization estimates that "about two-thirds of permits are not even used by the original owner. in addition, thousands of people sell on the street without permits."

the way i see it, we repealed the draconian rockefeller drug laws here in new york recently.  that means there are going to be crazed marijuana users out on the streets & they're going to want snacks & want them in wide variety & if access to them means the difference between putting food on a prospective vendor's table or not, the guv'ment needs to chill out...as long as they keep the vendors from getting all out of control & blocking the sidewalk with their wares & totally fucking up my flow.

snack away! #5 - deez nutz.

growing up in new hampshire, the options for local professional/semi-professional/ being-paid-in-grade-F-meat sporting events were...well let’s just say they were limited. in fact, as i remember it, the only option was the nashua pirates, the AA affiliate of the pittsburgh pirates. the reason behind this was pretty obvious: new hampshire had a total population of about 36 ^{(citation needed)}.  it may have been slightly higher than that, i’m not sure. look, i’m not a "scientist."  the point is, we at least had the pirates, and my mom would occasionally take me and a bunch of my friends to catch a game.

OK...it was me and two of my friends.

OK...one friend.

OK...i’d go with just my mom. *sigh* let’s just move on.

the pirates only stuck around for three seasons, most likely because someone in the pirates organization finally figured out where the hell nashua was. i imagine it was a quick conversation that went something like, "hey earl, did you realize we had a minor league affiliate in new hampshire?!" "no i didn’t...why did we put a team in canada?"  after that there was a dark period in new hampshire pro sports known as "nothing," which was fine by me since i was past the age where i could be entertained by below average ballplayers, but not old enough to know how awesome sports were with beer.

that brings us to the present day. new hampshire has had a resurgence of marginal and minor league sports teams, led by the manchester monarchs (hockey – l.a. kings minor league team) and the new hampshire fisher cats (baseball – blue jays AA team). the "oates" to these "halls" of the granite state sports landscape are undoubtedly the manchester freedom. who are the manchester freedom, you ask?...seriously? you asked that? dude, i provided a link. do you need me to come over and carry you to your rascal too? dag.

the freedom are part of the solution to the sport everyone has been craving: woman’s tackle football! wow. and this isn’t anything like the lingerie football league, which I could see pulling in a few bucks (i mean just look at that professionally designed website!). this is full pads and they take themselves very seriously. a friend of mine attended their first home game...he said attendance was approximately 100 people. oops.

snack away! #5 - deez nutz.
guest blogger: jay wilkinson, nashua, nh

snack: hampton farms cajun creole hot nuts
drink: woodstock inn pig's ear brown ale

we started this thing off with baseball, so what better snack & drink combo to represent that then peanuts and beer? now, i know what you're thinking: here comes a poorly-executed and predictable joke about genitalia. well you're wrong. i'm not doing it. no way. i will not sully a great snack like hot nuts. i just enjoy the taste of a couple warm and salty nuts in my mouth too much to go down like that.

the hampton farms cajun creole hot nuts were a great little find for me about a month ago at the local supermarket. these things are ridiculous. i don't know what kind of sorcery the good folks at hampton farms are employing to make these little peanut wonders, but somehow the peanuts are coated with cajuny goodness while still in the shell. the first time i bought them, i ate a half a bag in one sitting.

about an hour later, i decided to take my contacts out. there was no hand-washing in the interim. for those of you without contacts, coating your fingers with any sort of hot sauce or powder and then sticking one of the aforementioned fingers in your eye is a good way to come up with new curse words. that night, i came up with "poopsticks" and another one i won't print here, as it's basically a slight to the queen of england, a large breed of dog, and a popular confectionary treat all-in-one. look, i don't know who reads this thing.

where was i? oh yeah...hot nuts are the nuts of the gods and go great with beer. i chose a local brew that i tried for the first time this weekend, woodstock inn pig's ear brown ale. i'm not ashamed to admit i chose it because of the name. i'm a simple man, but it was actually a fine beer and i'll likely go back for more in the future. the hot nuts are not local, though, and i urge you to go out and find some if you enjoy the whole peanut-in-the-shell experience.

jay wilkinson is a 34-yr old new hampshire native who has lived there his whole life. except for that year in the circus where he cultivated his love of peanuts and his legendary hatred of clown culture. seriously, anyone who becomes a clown is just masking underlying and disturbing sociopathic tendencies. get help, freak. did you know that penn of penn & teller went to clown college? i know, right?! i bet you that dude has killed a few drifters in his day.

nosh nook #33 - wednesday, april 29, 2009

arson suspected after snack wagon destroyed in blaze (link)
04.28.09 - berrow's worcester journal (uk)

it's a sad day at a layby off the A38, near droitwich, a town just south of birmingham, in the u.k., where a mobile snack bar was apparently deliberately set on fire & left there, obviously by heathens. what man or woman has such a gaping hole in their heart that they are driven to the senseless destruction of snacks?  that man or woman is not a man or woman i'd like to meet...barbarian.

...so the berrow's worcester journal, who's responsible for this article, is the world's oldest newspaper, as they've been around since 1690, when they were still taxing americans over there & i'm pretty sure there were actual barbarians.  i bet they didn't even believe in truth, justice & the american way back then...that's how long ago it was.  now that is some old-timey newspaper business business.

as of press time, the mystery remained...whose mobile snack bar was it & why did somebody do that to the poor defenseless snacks? i figure it's one of three situations:

• it was owned by someone & they are likely crying into their pillow about its destruction & the possible loss of livelihood.
• it was an orphan cart & ran into some trouble & nobody loved it but the system.
• the owner is part of an elaborate scheme to defraud investors & insurers through a well-calculated arson/abandon snack annihilation scheme.

i have my fingers crossed for the third choice.

nosh nook #32 - tuesday, april 28, 2009

biz news: one snack for man and beast (link)
04.27.09 - loudon times - by jason jacks

down in virginia, they seem to do things a little bit different, whether it's the hippies in charlottesville, the yuppies outside of d.c. or the folks in the hills. i've never been able to put my finger on it, but when i'm there, although the state is cool & i enjoy myself, something just seems a bit off. in leesburg, a town of almost 30,000 about an hour west of d.c., a woman has embraced this slightly-off virginia spirit with a new snack invention.

as jason jacks explains, "marisol fernandini-gaffney has devised an organic cookie made from oats, honey, flour and several other simple ingredients. it's tasty enough to satisfy the snack-attack needs of most mammals."  after some local distribution, she is now selling the cookies online under the name "toats."  they're both organic & green manufactured, so yay for naturalness.  that's toats awesome.

i suppose it makes sense that we could share snack foods such as organic cookies with other mammals, but therein lies that virginia spirit i spoke of.  while it's pretty neat that you & your dog can enjoy the same treats, that doesn't necessarily mean that you should.  there's something slightly unsettling about it.  anyway, since the idea came from virginia, i'm not all that surprised.  i just shrug it off...those crazy, oddball virginians.

#87 - man things.

after a long but lovely friday, i woke up on saturday morning with a lighter hangover than expected & the first relatively obligation-free schedule in some time. to start off my day, i sat down with a glass of iced coffee & a bagel and finally got around to watching the first episode of the first season of fx network's rescue me. i'm still on the fence about denis leary in general, but from what i got from the first episode, i've got some good, manly TV watching ahead of me.  it's also set fairly soon after 9/11, so there's that whole aspect.  i know it screwed things up for a lot of people here in the city, especially the ground zero & rescue workers (a group that now includes a number of people who have developed respiratory problems or mental issues because of what they went through on that day), so seeing how they handle that intrigues me.

eventually, i had to leave my house & head into manhattan for a 3pm meeting with a co-worker whose blog i'm helping him set up (go squarespace blogger platform!). we met up at a bar in murray hill appropriately called "the hill," which is not to be confused with that stupid mtv show. we chose the place for its combo of wifi & flat screen tvs, necessary for nfl draft watching. to be clear, re: flatscreens, i was not the one interested in which offensive tackle would go first, but i'm now aware that the OT who fit that description was a guy named jason smith & the rams took him with the #2 pick. while we were about a beer into our power meeting, a group of ny cares people, fresh from the annual "hands on ny day," converged on the bar & i was reminded how last year, that was me. this year, i'm a heartless non-philanthropist.

as we wrapped up our power meeting, it dawned on me that i was around the corner from my newly-reunited via facebook college friend's midtown apartment. since it was a beautiful weekend day, i assumed that he'd be holding court in the outdoor seating at the bar at the base of his apartment...& i was correct, so when the power meeting was done, i went & hung with him & a few of his friends for an hour or so. as a result, i discovered that he & his three friends agree that it's always sunny & philadelphia (another fx show) is basically a gift from god.  mission accomplished.

while there, another friend had sent me a message letting me know that he & his girlfriend were in prospect park with a third dude.  he suggested that i come by. after the previous 24 hours, i was feeling all social for once & we still had a few hours of sunlight left & i enjoy looking at the lovely ladies in the park, so when i was done with my outdoor patio drinking, i headed back to brooklyn & prospect park to join my park-going pals. we hung out & admired the scenery for a little bit before the aforementioned girlfriend headed back home to rest up for a sunday morn bridal shower & the rest of us headed back to my apartment to chill out with a few beers & what have you.

my roommate was hanging out at the apartment for the evening & as that made four of us dudes hanging out & drinking beers, eventually the inevitable happened--a late night, drunken game of risk.  usually, my approach is to control australia early & sweep out across the globe from the southwest hemisphere.  this time, i got cocky & decided to switch it up by coming out of japan & slowly controlling asia.  i got up to kamchatka easily enough & even made my way across the bering strait into alaska before being repelled back into asia by sarah palin & her helicopter wolf hunting skills.  after that, my strategy, much like her 08' ticket, went down the tubes super quickly.  eventually, i was the first one eliminated.

#87 - man things.
snack: good health natural foods chilean lime avocado potato chips
drink: troegs sunshine pils


as i accepted my fate as a risk spectator & saturday became sunday, i ran to the store & grabbed a snack & another beer to ease the pain.  when i returned to the apartment, i broke open the bag of good health natural foods chilean lime avocado potato chips & watched as the remaining three battled it out for control of the globe.  as a rule, potato chips are a pretty manly snack, but when they're cooked in avocado oil & sprinkled with chilean lime, i think that skews toward metrosexual manly.  let me check...according to my manual, those two ingredients put it in the 95th percentile of metrosexuality...so there you have it.

the chips are pretty darn good.  as the back of the bag explains, avocado oil does some sort of junk with cholesterol that's good for you when you cook chips in it.  as it is, avocados are the bomb-diggity tastewise & there's a very subtle bit of that in the chips. as for the lime, it's mixed in with a bunch of other stuff but gives the chips a hint of additional flavor.  by the time the risk game wrapped up, i had made a serious dent in the bag...& finally finished them off tonight.

i cracked open the troegs sunshine pils (from a company out of central pa) to accompany the chips.  at this point, it had already been a joyful, solid weekend & although i'm not much of a pill person myself, i figured that a little bit of the "sunshine pills" could only be helpful.  it's nothing all that mind-blowing, especially after a couple of earlier beers, but it lives up to its name with a sunny, light, pilsner taste...no increased sense of euphoria though...although by the time 2am rolled around & i headed to bed with the windows wide open & the air flowing through, i did have a peaceful sleep & some crazy-ass dreams.  thanks for capping off the night, mr. sunshine.