nosh nook #155 - friday, october 16, 2009

crumbs of reality needed in madison (link)
10.15.09 - the journal times - editorial

whether it's pepper jack, cheddar or gouda, people in wisconsin friggin love their cheese. packers fans wear those silly cheese wedges on their heads at games. their economy's always been largely based on dairy farming & according to the wisconsin milk marketing board, the state produces "over 2.4 billion pounds of cheese each year, over 25 percent of all domestic cheese." thassa lota cheese. that's like 90,000 elephants or 300 million babies or nine million baby elephants worth of cheese. folks basically can't live without the stuff. it coats their pockets & innards.

in fact, some badgers like cheese so much that, as the journal times reports, there's a bill (SB 327) that's been introduced to the wisconsin state legislature that would make cheese the official state snack. by declaring it the state snack, it would mean that by law, the wisconsin blue book would have to mention it alongside the state song, ballad, waltz, dance, beverage, tree, grain, flower, bird, fish, animal, domestic animal, wildlife animal, dog, insect, fossil, mineral, rock, soil, fruit, and tartan. really? they have a state tartan? anyway, the journal times thinks that it's a silly item for legislators to be dealing with, what with the horrible recession & all.

they wonder about what lesson such legislation teaches our kids about adult priorities & then they ramble on about that for a little bit before ending on some comment about "the escapist fantasy available on television every night." um, ok. if anything, wouldn't kids find it kind of cool that there's a state snack? wouldn't it help instill wisconsin pride at a time when the economy sucks bad enough that college graduates are probably better served by leaving the state for greener pastures? wouldn't it give at least a tiny boost to the currently embattled $12 billion dairy industry? wouldn't it just be sweet to get to DECLARE A STATE SNACK? stop being such grinches, journal times. it is the economy, stupid.

the musical fruit: movement #20.

the musical fruit: movement #20.
song: "fireworks," animal collective
fruit: strawberries

if i was to name the one indie band who i've yet to see live but most long to see, it's animal collective. they're a band made up of four dudes (avey tare, panda bear, geologist & occasionally deakin) known for their psychedelically-happy songs & supposedly energetically trippy live shows. a typical song revolves around a repetitive beat that, once countless layers of instruments & vocals & sounds are added, becomes part of a bouncy anthem that you can't help but sing or shout along with. they tend to either go that route or just get all wacky psychedelic. they're originally from baltimore & even though (based on what i've seen on the wire) baltimore's pretty fucked up, with acts like them, ponytail & dan deacon, it produces some pretty solid indie acts.

for the last few years, my favorite animal collective song has been "fireworks," off of their 7th studio album, strawberry jam. the album itself is full their typical trippy stuff, but for me, it was the first time they came through with an album i found more appealing than annoying. "fireworks" appears midway through, right after the six & a half minute "for reverend green" & at almost seven minutes, is the longest song on the album. it doesn't feel long though, because it's always building & changing & bouncy. the lyrics are a bit nonsensical, but there are mentions of "eating with a good friend" & frightened babies pooing. you can't beat either of those things. if you like watching fireworks, you can't beat the video either. sparkly!

my strawberries are much better looking than the ones on the front of the album. those ones are SMASHED & smashed BUT GOOD. mine were fresh & red & almost 100% bruise-free. to be honest, they looked so good i almost didn't want to eat them. so yeah, i like strawberries a lot, might even call them a top five fruit. they're not without their drawbacks though. for starters, unless you're picking them from your own personal strawberry patch, they ain't cheap. to make matters worse, a lot of the time, after you've shelled out your hard-earned cash for a basket of fresh, store-bought strawberries, the fuckers end up rotting before you have a chance to eat them all. you have to move quick with the strawberries.

if you get them while they're still nice & fresh, they're so friggin good. i sat there for an hour the other day with a big bowl of strawberries & one by one, grabbed them by the stems & went to town, tossing the lousy stems over my shoulder into the trash as i ate. i was totally in the zone. in the interest of full disclosure, i must note that like apples & pears, strawberries are actually a fruit imposter, a "false fruit" if you will, since the fruit doesn't come from ovaries. it's cool with me. i don't need ovaries to make my fruit taste better. speaking of ovaries, i could get into the slang connotations of the word strawberry, but i won't. n.w.a. & urban dictionary have already covered that territory just fine.

nosh nook #154 - thursday, october 15, 2009

cooking with beer (link)
10.14.09 - npr - by kevin d weeks

it's amazing what they're doing with beers these days. making pumpkin beers is one thing, but there are beers made with rice, coffee, bacon, watermelon & rainwater. there's beer brewed in barrels made of paraguayan palo santo wood. i hear that angelina jolie's coming out with a beer made from the rice & tears of orphaned kids just in time for the holiday season. with so many choices of beer, there are also a range of things you can do with your beer--drink it, shotgun it, spray it in the air to celebrate your softball championship, consume it through a funnel, pour it on the curb for your homie. the possibilities are endless.  

npr's kevin d weeks loves cooking with his beer. people are always cooking with wine, so why not beer? he notes that "ancient egyptian and sumerian physicians considered cooking with beer a healthy practice." these days irish & belgian (& occasionally german) cooking uses beer as an ingredient. we irish also use beer as a mouthwash, but that's besides the point. pretty much any beer will work, but he suggests that you "avoid india pale ales." as it is, that's my mantra in life. weeks also recommends pairing your beer with sweet vegetables or putting some in marinades & desserts.

since he's apparently a fancy lad, the first thing weeks ever cooked with beer was welsh rabbit. cooking welsh rabbit's a bit more effort than i'm willing to make, but he does provide a few manageable beer recipes in the article, recipes for beef carbonade, dill & beer quick bread, patatas bravas and guinness & chocolate cake. i try to avoid beef, but the bread, potatoes & cake sound damn good, especially the chocolate cake. guinness has a chocolatey taste as it is, so i can only imagine it inside of a luscious chocolate cake. maybe one day i'll get off my ass enough to bake one myself. then i can stop imagining.

pumpktoberfest #7 - it's just a thriller.

pumpktoberfest #7 - it's just a thriller.
film: jacob's ladder
beer: saranac pumpkin ale

if there's one type of horror film that really gets inside my head, it's the "psychological thriller." back in the day, hitchcock made a career out of them & nowadays, it's why people fall in love with m. night shyamalan's (obnoxious) films over & over. back in 1990, adrian lyne (who also did fatal attraction, flashdance, lolita & indecent proposal) came out with jacob's ladder, starring tim robbins as a vietnam vet/postal worker (jacob) who's seeing things & whose life is all flashbacky crazy. when he returns from vietnam, where he was bayonetted & his entire unit went nuts, strange things start happening to him. over the course of the film, the story moves between him in vietnam & him in a couple scenarios home in NYC.

i was sixteen around the time it came out, so while it left me seriously disturbed, i didn't really understand the story until years later. everybody in vietnam was killed & his kid (an uncredited macaulay culkin) is totally dead & jacob's having major flashbacks & freaking out & having to take ice baths to avoid dying. there's this one scene where he's in the bergen st F stop & he walks onto the tracks as a train's coming. at the last minute, as he gets out of the way, he looks at the passing subway cars & sees ghostly figures pressed up against the windows. freaky. there's another scene where he's being wheeled through a mental hospital & there's a dude repeatedly smashing his head up against a window to the point where a pool of blood has formed on the glass. also freaky. anyway, the film has a sweet pyschological twist. i won't say anything about it other than that biblically, jacob's ladder is the ladder to heaven. didn't know that? huey lewis & the news knew it. so should you.

today's pumpktoberfest quaff is the saranac pumpkin ale, made by the matt brewing company, a utica, ny based company that's been around since way back a few years after the civil war. i actually had one of these the other night & my first impression was "meh," but their pumpkin ale has a SUPER SPOOKY pumpkin on the front of the label & utica's the "second chance city," so i decided to give it a second chance tonight. my taste buds must be in a better mood tonight than they were when i first tried it, because i sort of enjoyed it the second time around.

it's a brownish brew & as far as pumpkin beers go, it's slightly better than tolerable. in addition to the pumpkin, it's brewed with cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger & vanilla. you'd think with so many flavors in the mix, it'd be a clusterfuck pumpkin mess, but the spices aren't ridiculously overwhelming & like with many of saranac's beers, even if the flavor's nothing thrilling, it at least has some flavor to it. the pumpkin flavor's sort of noticeable & with this beer, that was enough for me. maybe i was just hallucinating the pumpkin taste because of all the other flavors, but i swear i tasted it. it was there, man. i'm telling you. i'm not crazy. somebody's following me. ask my vietnam buddies. they're following them too. you've got to believe me. the pumpkin was there, man.

nosh nook #153 - wednesday, october 14, 2009

cracker jack: the seventh-inning snack (link)
10.13.09 - the ny times - by john branch

it's been a few years since i've taken myself out to the ball game & it's been even longer since i've bought me some peanuts & cracker jack whilst in such a setting. apparently i didn't care if i ever got back...to a ball game that is. in recent times, i haven't picked up a box of cracker jack outside of a ballpark setting either. it may be "the original snack mix" & may have celebrated its 100th birthday last year, but i'm a crunch n munch guy all the way. i do have to give the snack credit though. it's sold at every major league baseball stadium & has remained a popular ball game snack for quite some time now, largely aided by its inclusion in the lyrics to "take me out to the ball game."

in yesterday's ny times, john branch took a look at the long time game time snack & examined where it is today, in an age where pretty much every year, a couple teams open a new, modern ballpark filled with quirky throwback junk & fancy new concession menus. branch notes that "baseball fans can buy rocky mountain oysters (bull testicles) in denver, crab cakes in baltimore, cheese steaks in philadelphia and fish tacos in san diego." you've been able to get an "ichi-roll" (named after the right fielder) at seattle's safeco field for years now. with options like that, why bother with stupid cracker jack?

kevin haggerty (the aramark guy who oversees fenway's concessions) puts it this way. "it does still have relevance. it's part of the ballpark experience. it is still a good snack. it sells well. it holds its place in the sales mix. and it's in the song." haggerty uses the word "it" a lot, but i guess he knows what he's talking about. fenway sells 1000 bags (bags? wha?) of cracker jack at each game. in the real world, cracker jack actually trails crunch n munch in terms of sales ($22.8M to $17.6M for the year ending 9/6), but for now, as long as they don't change the lyrics to "take me out to the ball game," i think they're going to be ok. they're owned by frito-lay after all & those dudes have a stranglehold on the sports snacking environment as it is, based on their promotion of doritos alone. plus, if a ballpark ever did something stupid like try to switch to crunch n munch, fans would rebel...well, at least the stupid yankees ones would.