#142 - tracks & snacks.

will you look at that! if you're reading this, that means that you've made it through 2009. congrats. i knew you could do it! well, not you, phil. frankly, your immortality is SHOCKING...but everyone else...i knew you could do it! since we're done with the living hell that was 2009 & already a week or so into 2010, i figured it was high time that i got on with putting together my year-end best of lists. at the end of 2008, i recapped my top ten albums, snacks & drinks of the year. this year, i'm going to keep in the same realm & offer up my top ten TRACKS & SNACKS OF 2009!

just like last year, since my main music obsession these days is mostly in the field of indie rock, all ten tracks on the list are by indie rockers. there are a ton of tracks that i could have included here, but we only have room for ten, folks. the first songs to get cut were those from other years, from miles benjamin anthony robinson's "buriedfed" to o.d.b.'s "got your money" to final fantasy's "this lamb sells condos."

from this year, there are a few honorable mentions. there's peaches' "serpentine" & morrissey's "something is squeezing my skull." in the hip hop world, there's the cool kids' "broadcasting live," vinnie scullo's "eyehearthiphop" & kid cudi's "pursuit of happiness" (with MGMT & ratatat). the last track to get cut from the list was animal collective's "my girls," which i listened to extensively for the first two months of the year before i just got plain sick of it & it fell out of favor. regardless, it still makes me happy when i hear it. so yeah...lots of good music this year. grab a snack & a drink, pull up a chair & let's get to my top ten tracks!

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#141 - where you been?

if you're a obsessive loyal occasional eat!drink!snack! reader, you may have noticed that over the last ten days, the blog portion of eat!drink!snack! has gone somewhat dormant. i'd like to say that it's because of something sweet like me being kidnapped by somali pirates or because i'm recovering from a boob job, but it's neither of those things. instead, as the holidays came on, i amazingly broke from my winter "sitting on my ass" routine & actually found myself out & about & doing things, so my time was a bit limited.

also, i decided that since the designated calendar-based demarcation was upon us, it was time for me to shake things up a bit at the blog, so for the past ten days, rather than writing, i've been brainstorming redesign ideas for the blog, culminating with a power meeting last night at my awesomely talented designer bro's greenpoint apartment. it's safe to say that there are a lot of intriguing things in store for eat!drink!snack!, stuff that'll make you go "wow. this is the best website ever made ever. screw fark." i'm planning on rolling out the first changes this month & don't want to give too much away yet, but here are a few things i've been kickin around:

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nosh nook #205 - monday, december 28, 2009

thinking of bringing leftover cookies to the office? don't. (link)
12.28.09 - globe and mail - by wency leung

for coming up on two weeks now, i've been lucky enough to have a nice vacation away from work but come next year, i'm going to have to eventually go back to reality & back to work. it's cool with me though. it's been a fairly eventful & relaxing holiday season & all but this cold weather & time off makes me go a bit semi-salinger after a while & i don't need that. a lot of people are already back at work this week anyhow & in my case, i work in the music industry, so it's not like it's a completely painful job to have to go back to. plus, when i return, there's a good chance that at least one of my remaining co-workers will bring in some sort of holiday treat for me to munch on & ease the pain.

according to the globe and mail's wency leung, if you've been thinking of bringing your leftover holiday snacks back to work with you upon your return, you probably shouldn't or you should at least read her article for tips or think about it first or something. what the article boils down to is that this time of year is a time when a lot of people are looking back on the past year, thinking about their ballooning ass/belly size & making plans for an totally healthy 2010 diet. when you start bringing in your "unwanted boxes of chocolates, unfinished tins of fudge and containers of excess butter tarts" for co-workers, you're "sabotag(ing) their nutrition plans." they hate it when you do that crap. also, please stop changing their computer desktop to a photo of fabio. it's just not topical any more.

wendy leung spoke with "karen brar, who works at a non-profit organization in surrey, b.c." ms brar used to get excited about all the holiday snackery. now she can't stand it & mentioned that "after a little while, you're eating the chocolate for the sake of eating it...and it loses its lustre. by the end of it, it's just like, 'ugh.'" still, if you want to avoid getting fat on your holiday sweets & choose to ignore the guilt of making people fat, leung also spoke with "jacqueline mackinnon, an addiction counsellor in kamloops, b.c.," who provided a few tips on how to unload your sweets. to guarantee that they move, you should put them out in the morning & make sure you do so with the lid off in a high-profile locale. people are suckers for that crap & as long as you can lay off the sweets they're bringing in, you'll actually keep your annual plan for a hot bod intact this year. good luck with that.

#140 - ...the end of the year as we know it & i feel meh.

time to do some reflectin', loyal eat!drink!snack! readers! loyal readers, you're SO loyal that i'd feel bad if i lied to you & said that 2009 hasn't been the most exhausting year thus far in my 35 year existence. i think it was that way for a lot of people, so at least i'm not alone, but man, i am so ready for 2010 to begin so i can implement some sort of calendar based-psychological shift & let the happiness start rolling on in again. as that shift approaches, i definitely have a lot to be thankful for, but there's a lot going on in my world & the world at large that calls for the use of a rather large frowny face, one with non-true blood or twilight inspired fangs. 

at the start of the year, when we were inaugurating the new hope & saying goodbye to eight years of bush hell, i tried to be optimistic that obama & democratic congressional majorities would turn the country around, but twelve months later, i can't say that i'm impressed. guantanamo's still open, the health care debate is off-the-rails & the current bill is disgustingly compromised. ten percent of my friends still can't get married. we're upping the troop count in afghanistan, but that was expected, since obama did say that he would do that in the campaign. i didn't vote for him though, so i have a right to be disappointed by him.

...but there are a bunch of bright spots. despite the music industry's shortcomings, i'm as excited about music as i've ever been (year end bests to come!). the same goes for tv. for the first time in a long time, i can't count the shows i follow on my fingers alone. i need toes too! i wish i could say the same about film. as for the world of literature, 2009 marks the first year in my life that i didn't read one book...not one. instead, i spent the time that i would've usually spent reading books on the internet, reading blogs & news sites. i can't say i'm sad about the lack of books in my life this year though, because i've consumed enough media & info that my curious nature has been sufficiently sated.

i've also had an unquantifiable mess of fun in '09. there was my summer chicago trip for the pitchfork festival, where 1% of the calendar year equaled 10% of my 2009 fun. there were bunches of concerts, including multiple bday week dirty projectors shows, this summer's phish shows & ac/dc from the second row. there were the occasional visits from out-of-town friends, from the periodic todd martin visit to drop-ins by now-new orleans resident mike weber to a long weekend visit from my childhood friend & strong proponent of portland, chris dorin. as a bonus, when chris visited, he brought me a booyah amount of snacks from oregon, which will soon be featured in a january series i'm putting together on portland & their mostly-awesome snacks.

the thing i'm most thankful for at the year's end is the fact that i still have a job & as of jan 1, will have been at my job longer than any other in the past. as of november's numbers, 10% of the nation's still unemployed & throughout the course of the year, i've lost a number of co-workers to job cuts. having a job means having a roof over my head & that's something i've reminded myself of all year long. it also means that i can maintain a constant flow of tasty snacks & drinks into my belly. it means that at night, when i'm tired & done with people for the day, i can return to my abode, sit down with a snack & drink & engage with my best friend, this here blog.

2009 was the year when this here blog & writing in general became one of the most important aspects of my life. 2009 was the year where folks started introducing me as "a writer" as opposed to "some guy who does some music industry thing." 2009 was the year where i penned thirty something columns for the amazing fuckedinparkslope, which is run by ms erica, just one of the amazing people i met this year & someone who, just a few weeks back, elegantly captured the reasons why having a blog both totally fucking sucks & totally fucking rules.

for eat!drink!snack!, 2009 was the year where i introduced a new column that's now helped me reconnect with journalism (my initial college major). it was the year where twelve folks (& my bro) blew me away with hilarious/insightful guest columns. it was the year where i OD'd on pumpkin beer for a month. it was the year where i finally decided to sort of think about what i was eating. for eat!drink!snack!, it was a good year. for me, it was meh. i'm already way optimistic about 2010 though. if nothing, we'll get the final season of LOST, a show with a title that's quite fitting for the times. once that's done though, i'm not sure what we'll do. hopefully we'll learn something about how to reset time or something.

#140 - ...the end of the year as we know it & i feel meh.
snack: blue diamond habanero bbq almonds
drink: tröegs dreamweaver wheat ale



as i sit here reflecting on the past year, i'm snacking from a can of blue diamond habanero bbq almonds that i came across this holiday season up at a nh wal-mart. i have a long & colored history with blue diamond, from their lime chili flavor that i tried out way back in january as an accompaniment to college football's '08-'09 championship game to their wasabi & soy sauce flavor, which was my #1 snack of 2008. the habenero bbq ones are one of a few slightly-new blue diamond almond flavors & from what i can tell, they're so new that they haven't had the resources to add them to their website yet. stupid economic downturn. here's to them making it onto the website in 2010.

they're aight & definitely live up to their name, with sufficient bbq flavor & sufficient spicy pepper flavor on blue diamond almonds. a year after declaring them my #1 snack, i'd still pick the wasabi & soy sauce ones over any other nuts. i don't think i could say the same thing for the habenero bbq ones, but they're still pretty damn good. they have a taste akin to a good bbq chip (which, btw IMHO is hard to find) & the habanero flavor adds a nice kick to the mix. plus, with blue diamond almonds, as long as you're a fan of nuts & near-excessive flavoring, you really go wrong. they're tasty & relatively ok to consume, with their fiber & low carbs & whatnot. if you can find them wherever it is that you live, they're definitely worth checking out.

since i started dreaming of a more-promising 2010 months ago, i'm pairing the almonds with a bottle of tröegs dreamweaver wheat ale, made by harrisburg's tröegs brewing co. tröegs has been brewing out of PA's capital for the last decade plus & at the moment, they offer over a dozen beers, all with puntastic names & interestingly-designed labels. i've tried out a couple of their beers, including their sunshine pils, which i tried out back in april. although the sunshine pils was one of three tröegs beers that won a medal at this year's GABF & promised the sunshine of pils, i still felt pretty meh after drinking it. overall, from what i've sampled of their beers, they've been good but nothing special.

as for the dreamweaver, it promises dreams but was also fairly meh. the flavor's fine & all, but it's pretty much your average, everyday wheat bear with less of a cloudy, wheaty consistency than you'd expect from a good, quality wheat beer. i drank it relatively quickly & when i was done, i had trouble thinking of anything unique about what i'd just drank. their website mentions that is has a slight banana taste, which would have been unique, but i didn't notice it at all. it's also only 4.8% ABV, so if i was looking to get shnookered (fuck it, i'm on vacation!), i'd need to down a bunch of them to reach my goal. in this economically-challenged, post-9/11 world, having to do that somehow seems wasteful.

nosh nook #204 - friday, december 25, 2009

roadie food goes rock star (link)
12.24.09 - chicago tribune - by christopher borrelli

oh the foodie. although i despise the term & prefer to not refer to myself as one, since i love food & have a blog that largely focuses on snackable food & drink, i suppose i can't deny that i'm a foodie. that doesn't mean that you can call me that without painful repercussions though. over the past decade, we foodies have been largely responsible for changing the way many folks think about food. because of our fascinations with tacos & burgers & cupcakes & whatnot, normal everyday food has become more than a simple means of sustenance. it's become something to reflect & obsess upon, something to praise, something to spread the word about. 

thanks to foodies, over the last decade, the chicago food scene's gone through a transformation. as the chicago tribune's christopher borrelli explains, "the decade in casual dining in chicago was the story of casual dining this decade" & "food snobbery became democratic," as foodies helped turn unpretentious food into a "respectable, grown-up pursuit." in chicago, there's hot doug's, which turned the hot dog into haute cuisine & great lake, which just last month was called "the best pizza 'i have ever eaten in my entire life'" by peter meehan of the new york times. places like these & foodies' worship of them made it so that you could comfortably write about comfort food.

borrelli notes that because of the rise of foodies in chicago, "big, gushy, not-subtle deep-dish pizza began to lose its hold on chicago's imagination, replaced by thinner, artisan crusts from follia and spacca napoli and others, with seasonal toppings and chefs obsessed with flour." also, "a bar with cherry-wood ambience and an ambitious menu was now a 'gastropub.'" while gourmet magazine went out of business, lthforum.com became a major hub for chicago-area foodies. as we head on into 2010, i can only assume that changes like these will continue to come. after all, the economy's still in shambles & until that changes, glorifying five-star restaurants just won't have the same appeal as pointing out where the best tacos are. as a "foodie," that's just fine with me.