Doctor, how'd she die?

I'm afraid she overdosed on fonts.



Seriously, Doritos? Three fonts in one name? One for each word? Really?

Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos and I were introduced this afternoon. The first chip was just okay. It was a little like a smoky bugle -- not so spicy; not so sweet. But sometimes it's prudent to keep snacking. The spice and sweetness build with multiple chips, along with a faint soy sauce-ness. The flavor grew on me.

Contrary to what I told Ethan (after but one chip), I would eat these again. Honest. I would. I just didn't realize it until I got to know them.

p.s. Did I mention how ugly the package design is?

Double your monkeys; double your glum.

Chewing this gum was a taste experience. Here's what I experienced: banana....fake banana...okay...um...banana flavored dirt....dirt...plastic bananas...plastic...plastic dirt...gross. And then I spit it out. And then I threw the rest of the gum away.

In short: Double Monkey gum is gross.

Ding dong, the bells are gonna chime...

Ginger and peanut butter are cohabiting in these Chimes Ginger Chews (peanut butter flavor). I think they might get married!

This was a gift that has been languishing in Snack Jail. I liked the package design right off (the top of the tin slides open, which is cool, and I'm a sucker for its faux olde-timey aesthetic), but I had no idea that ginger + peanut butter would = a candy worth chewing. I think I tried one months ago and was intrigued but not impressed. Now I've changed my tune. The stars have shifted and I am in love. Each one I eat is better than the last.

The candy, which is dusted with a white powder of some kind, smells more peanutty [sic] than gingery, but tastes the opposite. Soft and pliable at late-July room temperature (hot), but not melted, it resists pressure just a bit at first, but soon gives way to the teeth. And the more one chews, the more that initial smooth peanut flavor takes a back seat and the ginger's zing bursts through.



Who thinks these might be the perfect snack to enjoy while watching Project Runway Australia? Well, I do!

Another day; another dentist.

This morning: I get another filling or two.


Tonight: I enjoy a reward.



My hygienist said the "purple Listerine" is best. She said nothing prohibiting eating a bunch of Smarties first.

Sportif

Ritter Sport flavors I have tried, ranked from most to least favorite:

1. Pfefferminz – Chocolate with peppermint inside
2. Knusperflakes – Milk chocolate with cornflakes throughout
3. Marzipan – Dark chocolate with a marzipan center
4. Knusperkeks – Chocolate covering a biscuit

Ranking Pending:

Coco - Milk chocolate with a coconut cream filling (coconut flakes from Sumatra). I would have eaten this already but it melted on the way home and is now in the freezer. July heat and chocolate are not a good mix.

So many more flavors to try!

p.s. These are good because they fit into pockets of coats (in cooler weather) and small (or big, obvs) handbags and are easily broken apart into smaller component squares.

n.b. The best selection I have found so far in NYC is at the Millennium Mart on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I had never seen Ritter Sports at all until I moved to Brooklyn and had them pointed out to me (thank you, Nauser, for recommending peppermint, and Paul, for recommending the cornflake kind).

On the pitch

Chinatown Soccer Club (CSC) were clearly the best-dressed at the Adidas-sponsored Fanatic VII Soccer Tournament, so I was glad to see they won that award (Best Jersey Design) officially at the end of the day. I stitched on some of the CSC patches, so I helped, right?



Nice tassels, boys!



The guys showed a lot of vim and vigor in their games and the CSC camaraderie crossed a number of team lines in an inspiring way.



See Coach Stochl's photo essay here.

Good food was provided -- chicken, pork, veggie burgers and kebabs, potato salad, macaroni & cheese, hot dogs, burgers, and grilled corn. My snack in between games (courtesy CSC and its poet laureate Laijon) came with some advice/poetry:


All in all, a good day for food, football, and friendship.


p.s. Vigilance!

Oh, Miss Vickie.

Miss Vickie (or Miss Aquired-By-Frito-Lay), you done me wrong.


I like Miss Vickie's Jalepeno chips and the company's Salt and Vinegar variety, so I was excited to try the new-to-me "Creamy Buttermilk Ranch" flavor (released this year) when I spotted it on display at Subway.

They're pretty blah. Salty, yes, but there's no "buttermilk ranch" tang or spice evident. There's some "creamy," there, if by "creamy" I can mean smoothly bland with a hint of milk or cream. I appreciate the crunch and cut, and I appreciate that I can get those positive attributes in another flavor.

Spending Spree

I picked up some Spree candy for Pride weekend (a better rainbow than Skittles, imho), but didn't eat them then. I just forgot. Still, they went well with watching Boogie Nights this evening.

Red = tart, grinning, cherry bright and slick
Orange = sunny, vitamin c, righteous, pops
Yellow = sweet, lemon, taut beauties
Green = sugar-smell, lime, fresh and sweet and sour, wired-up
(Blue = nope. not in the Spree rainbow.)
Violet = grapey

Powercat

Rarr-rawr!!

Nestlé Lion: Chocolatey and knobby on the outside, crisp rice and nougatey/caramel-y on the inside. A bit thick, definitely chewy. It's got teeth!

Or: "Not unlike its namesake, kingly and yet lethargic," says an anonymous source.

I planned to eat it while listening to my new album of Bertolt Brecht's A "Man's" A Man, adapted by Eric Bentley (cool album illustration by Dan Snyder seen above), but I just got home from hanging out at a bar with a nine-day-old baby (I had wine; she had milk), it's late and I'm watching Veronica Mars episodes...so, there goes that plan.

----------

p.s. I'm having my teeth cleaned in the morning. This will help, right?

The two-bite fight

WholeFoods sells plastic tubs of "Two-Bite Brownies," but my problem with plastic tubs of things is that I can eat a whole plastic tub of things. So when I saw small packages of fewer similar brownies, I decided to try them out.

These Homestyle "two-bite brownies" (made in Canada) also claim on the package to be either the "original two-bite" or the "two-bite original" or the "original two-bite original." This reminds me. Hey, typographers, I don't like words printed in circles when it's unclear in what order they're supposed to be read. Unless it really does work in every direction. And the repetition of the word "original" in this seal seems unnecessary to me.

There are four brownies in a pouch, which is only 8 bites, but I got my money's worth in chewing. Which is not to say that these have much texture. They are very soft. That just happens to be how I like my store-bought brownies. The chocolate flavor is rich and not artificial, the brownie melts under mild pressure, the taste lingers for a little while, and best of all I haven't eaten 14 of them.

One of these days, I'll have to do a back-to-back test of the Homestyle brownies vs. WholeFoods' variety. My memory of the WholeFoods' Two-Bites is that they are a little bigger and slightly "crustier" on the outside, but that could be wishful thinking.

Someone knows me well.

That someone bought me a KitKat Chunky Peanut Butter bar while in Vienna.

Not as amazing as the peanut butter Twix bar, these pack a peanut-buttery wallop nonetheless. "Chunky" is a good adjective for this guy. The Kit Kat bar is hefty and contains a great wodge of peanut butter inside. The chocolate could stand to be a bit darker, but I'm not too mad at it.

Thanks also to Nestlé Deutschland AG.

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Today I learned that the expression is "just deserts" (as in he/she got his/her just deserts) not "just desserts." That's desert used as a noun meaning something one deserves. This is the same desert in the concept of moral desert, not the noun referring to a pudding course - which is spelled differently but pronounced the same way - or the noun meaning an area with little precipitation - which is spelled the same but pronounced differently.

The first person who used the spelling "just desserts" might have meant the pun, especially if he or she was naming a bakery with the phrase, but now I suspect many people don't know it's a pun (or simply incorrect) at all.

Mozart balls

(please open this link in another window while you read this post)

Some history may be found here. Apparently these are legally allowed to be called “Real Salzburg Mozartkugeln” but are not the "original Salzburg Mozartkugeln.”

Huh. Okay. You're not supposed to just eat these, I gather. You're supposed to look at the inside of the sphere. They have rings of flavor with a ball of green at the center. The wrapper says they contain praline paste, almonds and marzipan (it is pistachio marzipan in the middle).

I like the chewiness of the center and the chocolate coating has a nice flavor, but everything tastes like hazelnut to me now. I couldn't really find a distinct almond, pistachio or marzipan flavor in there.

p.s. Yes, there is also a Bach cube. I need to try it, obviously.

Pairings

Not unlike cheese and wine, some record albums and snacks set each other off to a fine degree.

Sound: The Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem
Flavor: Manner Original Neapolitaner (made in Austria)
Smells: Wafery, hazelnutty
I like: perforations, grids, layers, guitar, four-part harmony
Caveat: perhaps a bit stale. Yet it says "Best before March 13, 2009?" Well, one corner of the package got torn in transit from Vienna, so maybe the exposure to air depleted its life.

Both the music and the neapolitaner are thick and heartier than they look like they have any right to be. The music's boisterous tunes are brought out by the wafers, at once flirting with crisp, yet bendy. Ballads become e'en sweeter under the spell of this snack. It all seems a bit nonsensical, but there's substance there, no matter how folksy and bracketed by "fol de diddle rye raddy rye."

Like The Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem, this product is "tough-fisted and gentle-hearted." Original Manner Schnitten mit Hasselnusscreme and lilting folk singers -- nay, the very countries of Austria and Ireland -- I just know you're going to be the best of friends.

The air smells like rotting fish and solarcaine...

and the snack is slightly stale spicy cheese puffs. They were great when fresh but didn't keep well.



Also: Sour Cream and Onion Pringles, dried apricots, apple and cheese wedges sandwiched together, spicy Cheez-Its, fresh cherries, pineapple slices, vanilla-flavored (though I can't imagine why) milk, a banana, and one Chipotle-flavored kettle chip.

Clue to my snacking location today (between 2 and 5 pm): where does every snack become filled or coated with sand?

What have I done?

I might have fallen under a diabolical spell that forced me to buy a container of "Chipwich Cookies" from WholeFoods. Not since 20-odd years ago, when I occasionally used a knife to sneak a curl of butter from the stick set out on the table before our family's dinner so that I could eat it plain, have I reached such heights of buttery excess. Maybe Paula Deen could produce something more buttery than these dangerous chocolate chip cookie sandwiches, but I have my doubts.

I do enjoy trying new snacks in the "things that carry a pile of frosting smooshed in the middle of two baked-good disks of some sort" category, including (so far) Whoopie Pies and Blondie Whoopie Pies (the former is better), but these Chipwiches were a little insane. I think Jane, who was sitting next to me at work, may even hold a grudge regarding my pressuring her into trying one. Let's just say she didn't finish it, but we did discuss its evil nature at length.

Simply put, they're extravagantly, alarmingly buttery. All signs point to butter. "Butter me up" is not just an expression here. Etc.

First of all, the cookies are so soft our first two chipwiches wouldn't come out of the container in one piece (and though they were not refrigerated in the display at the grocery store, and though it happens to be over 90 degrees F. outside today, I can't completely blame the temperature they were being held at). I did refrigerate the one pictured so that it would be represented in its original state, but whoever made these must have realized how gushy they are. Once retrieved in pieces from the package, the snack continues to fall apart as you hold it in your hand. One can't eat the mess quickly enough to avoid any fallout -- they're that sweet and that soft.

Texture is almost nonexistent, apart from the chocolate chips. Jane wondered if they might just be unbaked dough, the cookies are so soft. And the icing sandwiched between tastes like nearly pure butter with a hint of sugar mixed into it. It started to melt and drip buttery splashes onto everything underneath it almost with my first bite. And there's a lot of it.

Having eaten more than one today (only in the interest of reporting to you via this site, of course), I won't need another for, oh...probably ever. Okay, I can't promise I'll never eat one again (I have a short memory when it comes to the realization that massive amounts of icing can be bad for my health), but I have concluded that I shouldn't. Eat one. Ever. Again. Sandwiched cookies are simply too dangerous a vehicle when their passenger is buttercream frosting. Maybe I'd be safer switching over to "frosting-on-the-top" items next time I'm perusing desserts at WholeFoods.


One last observation from the ever-wise Jane: "maybe these aren't a summer snack."



p.s. I had to eat some savory Nic Nacs to clear my palate before moving on to dinner.

Mulberry memories

I lived in Dubuque, IA from the age of 5 until I was 15. Our yard was a great place to snack. We had two apple trees (one red delicious; one yellow delicious) that put out fruit every other year. Sometimes Dad had to burn the tentworm nests, which was exciting and scary. And sometimes we got paid to pick up apples under the trees (parents, think carefully when you set your per apple price. There are more rotten apples under that tree than you think).

We also had sour grapes growing along the edge of the garden (which we did not plant) and wild chives, which we used to trick my next door neighbor Lisa into eating grass (by telling her that's what we were eating and, boy, was it good!).

We had a big vegetable garden and tomato plants on top of the hill for much of my childhood, too. And there were currants that were great made into jelly but sour and good right off the bush. There was also a large mulberry tree in the side yard.

I ate a lot of mulberries in and under that tree. I learned to avoid the green and overripe berries in favor of the perfectly plump, purply, finger-staining fruit. I don't remember them having an amazing flavor, but they were on our tree in abundance and it is fun to eat something you've just picked off a tree. Especially if you've climbed that tree, pretending you've run away from home, strung up a rope with clothespins on it to pretend you're living there kind of like the boy in My Side of the Mountain, and are enjoying the idea that you will now forage for food for a living.

I had never seen a white mulberry until I bought the ones I tried today. They claim to be "The Turkish Delight" (not to be confused with the Turkish Delight eaten in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I assume) and are much sweeter than the dark mulberries I remember. A tad too sweet for me, actually. "The berries are an excellent source of Vitamin C and iron," claims the package, so that's good, but they taste a little like raisins, which fruit I don't exactly love. I won't hate eating more of these (in granola, maybe), but I don't think I will be buying them to snack on regularly.

Sedate snack mix. Oh, I'm sorry -- "nut blend."

Pardon me. Would you happen to have any snooty-looking snack mix?

The company website is not entirely off-putting. And I like the idea of truly healthy snack mixes for hiking, camping, home, and car (etc.). I agree with them that there are a lot of underwhelming snack mixes out there. But, honestly, I feel like too much effort went into packaging this one -- and it kind of backfires.

Sahale Snacks Nut Blend Socorro Macadamia Nuts with Hazelnuts, Mango, Papaya + Southwestern Chipotle come in a package that is too brown for me, and while I expect that the shape of the container is a nod to pouches of ready-to-heat food for sale at camping supply stores, I don't love it. We're so sophisticated, according to the name and copy, but it is also kind of shaped like a tuna pouch and can barely stand on its own. My hand got a little stuck in there. Perhaps I am supposed to be using a dipping spoon, rather than my sooty paws? Do they make collapsible dipping spoons for camping?

Before I looked at their website and got their gist, the slogan, "snack better" struck me as condescending and a bit preachy (I snack just fine, thank you). I feel the colors, photo, name, and font all says they're marketing this (unnecessarily) as a "mature" snack.

Plus: not spicy enough. And double plus: one of the kinds of nuts tastes weird.

I mean, it's not that bad. But, look alive over there!

The other flavors are called Valdosta, Soledad, Sing Buri, Ksar, snd Dauphine. Hmmm.

It all adds up to a case of "too bad" because before I looked at their website, my gut reaction ran along the lines of: Where's my monocle? Whither my mustache wax? I shall eat them whilst pick-nicking on my Turkish rug. I will be wearing something flowing and ethnic-looking from the J. Peterman collection.

et cetera.

Inspiring

("Midnight Snack" photo credit: TWiNKiE CHAN. Posted with permission.)

I already knew that Twinkie Chan crochets the most tasty scarves that I never get to buy because they sell out so quickly or go for more money than I can relinquish on Ebay.

But today I discovered that she also has a clever blog about eating "yucky" food. Check it out: I Eat Yucky Stuff!

This woman is über adorable and snack-savvy. She has an awesome tattoo featuring ice cream (especially visible in the video on Chinese snake gall medicine), is as stylish as all get-out, and will admit openly to what she's eating. Did I leave out fearless? She taste-tested dog food! I jolly well heart her.

I mean, and now we're back to her incredible crochet, once I knit a scarf with novelty yarn that looked a little like lettuce (pictured below). But it's not like you look at it and want to both eat it and wear it forever . I can't even aspire to the fab craftiness that is Twinkie Chan.

Fireball: 2 pieces (1 edible)

Taking into account only spell damage, cast time and points in Improved Fireball, the following equation computes the DPS of Fireball. In this equation, d is the amount of Fire spell damage, B is the base Fireball damage, and X is the number of points in Improved Fireball.

(d + B)/(3.5 - 0.1*X)



Unrelated (?): today I found out I need 7 fillings to replace old sealants on my teeth. To be fair, I hadn't been to the dentist in 6 years until recently. I'm two fillings richer so far!

Ooh, that li'l baby!

Remember when I knit a baby wrap sweater and baby blanket (you probably don't; I wasn't writing about snacks back then) in organic, undyed cotton for a certain couple's baby shower? Today I spent all day at the hospital waiting for the baby for whom I knit those to be born.

And at 5:11 pm she finally was! Happy birthday, Hero!

So, today was not about snacking. It was about waiting and hoping and good vibes and a gorgeous baby and an inspiring, tough (and beautiful) mother and amazing, focused (not bad-looking himself) dad. They are three of my favorite people in the world, even if I just met one of them.

Still, I did snack while I waited. I mean, I had to keep my energy up! Sadly, I was too nervous and excited to eat a real meal until I got home, so snacks were a medical necessity. I chose: a peach smoothie (finished before I got into the hospital), Clif Bar (Chocolate Brownie), 1/3 of a garlic pickle, a swallow of celery soda, Dirty Chips (BBQ flavor), Coke, water, Advil, a multi-vitamin, part of a bagel, 4 really old Altoids, and a slightly under-ripe plum (fruit was a nice change of pace, even if it was a bit sour).

They came from Vienna

Clarky's Paprika

When I was a kid I did not realize the spice paprika has a flavor. I thought it was just red to sprinkle on deviled eggs. Maybe the paprika in our spice cabinet was really old. Now I know that paprika can be spicy, smoky, and/or sweet. It can also (still) be just plain red.

I am fond of Clarky's Kartoffelchips Paprika. They are like shorter shoestring potato chips and, yes, they have less flavor than I typically would appreciate. Yet I want to eat them by the handful even though they arrived in this country in an open bag with some of their number already having been consumed.

Fruchtgummi

Haribo Saure Pommes (Extra Sauer)

Procured in Vienna, these are sour gummy Belgian fries with grainy sugar coating them. The five colors have different flavors, but they all taste reminiscent of gummy grapefruit pieces to me. My flavor guesses are:

Yellow: grapefruit/lemon flavor
Green: grapefruit/lime
White: grapefruit/ pineapple
Red: grapefruit/cherry
Orange: orange (tastes least like grapefruit)



The fries are shaped like trapezoids -- so different sides have different thicknesses, which adds to the illusion of their being hand-cut -- and they "give" easily upon being bitten into. They seem softer than some gummy products. I enjoyed them a lot, but would be more likely to call them "sour" than "extra sour." The sugar on the outside of the fries is not as rough as on other sour gummy items. And I like the novelty of the Belgian fry design. If only I were eating them out of a paper cone.

Eaten while listening to: Isobel Campbell's album Milkwhite Sheets. I wish she'd added a little more sour to her sweet.

D: "These taste fresher."
J: "Than what?"
D: "Than American gummis. Don't you think?"
J: "Mmm."

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Idea: salty gummis

What I Ate at the Giglio Festival: Vol. 3

The best snack I ate at the festival was actually scouted by Dan and Matt.



These are fresh plantain chips served with salsa (medium cup only $2). The chips were made on the spot, shaved into a giant vat of oil. They came out wafer thin, crispy, not at all greasy and still warm. The salsa was mild but a good accompaniment. The festival lasts another week or so. If I go back it won't be for the dancing of the structure. It will be for more of these.



It figures that the booth with the least flash and signage would be the one with the best treat.

What I Ate at the Giglio Festival: Vol. 2

I think this was my first time trying the deep-fried Oreos. But I can see where I might have had one and forgotten. They actually aren't all that memorable.

Matt like these, and more power to him. At least he tried one (Dan ate half of one, but no one else would bite). But he only ate one. I ate two and a half. That makes me an expert, right? I really think these fried too slowly or at too low a temperature. I might have enjoyed them if the cookie inside had still been a little crunchy. Instead, I found it melted into a sort of sogginess - and the whole thing was just lukewarm and sweet. I like soggy Oreos, but I assumed the point of frying them would be to play textures of dough and cookie and cream against each other.



We've now visited 2 of the 3 snacks I had at the Giglio Feast last night in Brooklyn. Stay tuned for the third -- also fried, but not so sweet!

What I Ate at the Giglio Festival: Vol. 1

One is a zeppola.

Two or more are zeppole.



I've never bought less than 6, but I share them with my friends.



The best ones aren't too oily from their bath in the fry-vat. These were pretty good. The girl serving them up (they are shaken in a bag with powdered sugar before you get them) had interesting eye makeup. That's how I chose the booth I bought from over the 3 or 4 others I saw advertising zeppole. I was encouraged by friends to do a taste test from multiple booths and determine which was the best, but that seemed like a lot of fried dough to ingest. Maybe next time.

One last thing: powered sugar is dangerous. Don't inhale when you take a bite. Be prepared to get some extra sugar on your fingers, mouth, clothes, and feet.

Questions and clues:

Where did we go tonight?









What did we eat there?









And did powdered sugar get everywhere?





(to be continued...)

Fresca

If you're in search of "refreshing" on a steamy day, the Watermelon Agua Fresca from Taco Bite near the post office is a good choice. Ripe watermelon becomes liquid with ever so little coaxing. Bonus: straw wrapper art!



To cool me off further, a window air conditioner dripped into my lap from overhead as I sipped. And two fire hydrants had been opened across the street, much to neighborhood children's delight.

In other news, my shrimp quesadilla contained broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. It didn't need all that. The tortilla was crisped perfectly and the shrimp tasted great.

The Kid's Menu

The past two weeks, every single thing at the Farmer's Market in Union Square has been bee-you-tee-full. I want to buy and take home and consume everything in sight. I hauled all of this home today (except for the garlic, which was already at home) so I could make an induction dinner for Ms. R, who should be having a baby soon. Soon! I mean, when you're ready, kid, but - for real - soon!

I read that some people think pineapple and eggplant (not necessarily in combination) can jumpstart labor. Ditto spicy foods. And red raspberry leaf is one of the teas that women in their third trimesters are encouraged to drink (it ripens the cervix), though it does not induce labor. No matter how much of this is true, it adds up to one good excuse for a dinner party. And she has to give birth to that li'l baby sooner or later.

So we had:

• Bacon-wrapped jalapeño thingies* (spicy)
• Eggplant curry on brown rice with fresh yogurt (spicy + eggplant)
  
• Butter-braised radishes (just because the radishes looked amazing at the market)
  
• Pineapple slices (see paragraph above)
  
• Red raspberry leaf iced tea (see paragraph above)
  
• Blueberry, sour cherry, and strawberry crumble (um...because I had fruit I needed to use)
  

If this menu brings on a baby, I'm going into business cooking dinner for overdue pregnant ladies.


* You must make these