nosh nook #147 - tuesday, october 6, 2009

princes launches new tuna snack product (link)
10.05.09 - talking retail

i don't know about you, but when i'm in the mood for a tasty snack & my stomach's a-gurglin', there's nothing more satisfying than a snack sized helping of minced fish. most of the time, my taste buds are all, "bring on the tuna!" but when i'm out & about & feeling the peckishness coming on, that desire increases tenfold. until now, the only way to fill my fishy desires was with starkist's lunch-to-go. thanks to technological innovations in tuna packaging, it's a whole new world now.

as talking retail reports, princes, which is "the UK's leading canned fish brand," is releasing new tuna products called "tuna bites," which are "cubes of tuna in tetra pak cartons." they're "designed to drive further growth in the canned fish category" & are available in three YUMMY varieties--in brine, in sunflower oil & with sundried tomato. canned fish. brine. mmm x 2.

why the need for a new tuna product? ruth simpson, marketing director for prince explains that "currently more than 67% of tuna is eaten at home as part of a main meal. we're confident that through new product packaging and innovation, we can encourage consumers to use tuna in new ways, and drive further value into the category." not sure what new ways you can use tuna now that it's all snack-sized? you could use it as a place to hide your stash. if you're out with friends, you could whip out a pak of tuna bites & raise everyone's spirits. guys, you could hide a pak in your pants & impress the ladies...& so on & so on. the possibilities are endless! yay tuna!

pumpktoberfest #3 - JAW'D!

pumpktoberfest #3 - JAW'D!
film: jaws
beer: arcadia ales jaw jacker



seriously. don't go in the water, yo. there's a mofoin man-eating spielbergian shark in there. believe me, you don't want to go anywhere near it or its trademark fin. if you should choose to ignore my advice & go frolicking in the water, don't come running to me asking me to help get your leg reattached. my reaction will be one of complete indifference. you'll probably bleed to death while i tut tut about how i warned you & how you should have at least noticed the jaws theme song playing whilst you surfed. roy scheider wasn't man enough to handle the shark, so they had to call in richard dreyfuss to help out! that alone should've kept you out of the water.

i mean, didn't you see the film when it came out back in the summer of 1975 & essentially created the idea of a summer blockbuster film? me either, since i was only born the previous november, but i've seen it a bunch of times since then. it's freaky. maybe it's part of why i never go to the beach. that shark is friggin huge & mechanical & oft-implied & he's been known to hang out around the waters of martha's vineyard amity island eating people. that's pretty close to where i grew up & a shark's gotta eat, so why wouldn't he one weekend decide to head north to try out some tasty new hampshire grub? my luck, that'd be the weekend when i'm at the beach. anyway, the film's like a classic & stuff, not like all this crazy gory stuff from nowadays, but still with a good amount of blood in the water. if you haven't seen it, pumpktoberfest's a perfect time to check it out. it's too cold to go in the water this time of year anyhow.

um, i'm actually more scared of the arcadia ales jaw-jacker than i am of the shark in jaws. i'm not talking about the beer though. from what i can tell from the label, the "jaw-jacker" is a scarecrow with a shark-toothed jaw enhanced pumpkin for a head. if i run into a shark in the water & he eats me, that's one thing. it happens to people every once in a while. if i meet my maker at the hands of a jaw-jacker, that's F'D UP. i don't know what kind of crazy nuclear-kellogg's creatures they have running around up in the fields of battle creek, michigan (arcadia's home), but that's some actual horror movie stuff that i'd much rather not be involved in.

the beer's not as scary. you'd think that something with a name like "jaw-jacker" would have some bite to it, but nope. as a beer, the taste is fine, but as a pumpkin beer, the closest it gets to being pumpkinlike is the slightly orange/amber color. it's made with cinnamon, allspice & nutmeg & those spices dominate the flavor. we're now three-for-three this holiday season as far as meh pumpkin beers go. hopefully i haven't awakened the spirit of the jaw-jacker by insulting its beer. if they find me dead tomorrow with an odd set of bite marks about my body & fresh pumpkin seeds splattered on the walls, please point the authorities to this blog entry. thanks kindly.

nosh nook #146 - monday, october 5, 2009

mcdonald's restaurants to open at the louvre (link)
10.04.09 - the telegraph - by henry samuel

the french hate a lot of things. they obviously hate americans, but they also hate head scarves, uncultured cultures & deodorant. even though they hate americans, with the exception of one dude, they pretty much all love mcdonald's. in fact, they love mcdonald's so much that they're the country with the second most mcdonald's in it, behind the united states. i'm going to assume it has a lot to do with the french fries. you know what they call french fries over in france? "frites." i know! you know what they call a big mac over there? oh, never mind. anyway, mcdonald's is celebrating its 30th anniversary in france & they're doing so in grand style.

to celebrate, they're opening up their "1,142nd gallic outlet" & their artsiest location yet "a few yards from the entrance to the country's mecca of high art and the worlds most visited museum," the louvre. according to the telegraph, museum staff are sort of peeved about having such a symbol of evil global consumerism in such close proximity to the mona lisa. one art historian said, "this is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum." unpleasant? personally, i think there might be something artistic in seeing the venus de milo whilst the smell of sizzling meat & frites wafts past your nose.

the mcdonald's is going to be part of a food court featuring world cuisine (mcdonald's = america) & in the next three years, a new ticket booth will be erected right nearby. the same peeved art historian noted that "the first thing visitors will likely see when they arrive are big golden arches." what's wrong with that? i believe andy warhol said it best when he said "the most beautiful thing in tokyo is mcdonald's. the most beautiful thing in stockholm is mcdonald's. the most beautiful thing in florence is mcdonald's. peking and moscow don't have anything beautiful yet." c'mon, france! don't you want something beautiful right at the entrance to the louvre? andy would've wanted it that way.

the musical fruit: movement #18.

the musical fruit: movement #18.
song: "serpentine (i don't give a…pt. 2)," peaches
fruit: peach

when i first heard peaches' song "fuck the pain away," off of 2000's the teaches of peaches, her first album under the name peaches, i had no idea what to make of her. i still don't. i've never been all that into the electroclash club bangers she serves up, but i am intrigued by a woman singing the lyrics "fuck the pain away" repeatedly over dance beats. she's from toronto & was roommates with feist for a while. her persona is one of those "gender-bending" burlesque types, with an album called fatherfucker & songs like "diddle my skittle," "shake yer dix," "fuck or kill" & "boys wanna be her." even with my low tolerance for dance beats, i occasionally bop my head to her stylings.

peaches put out her fifth album, i feel cream, back in may. it opens with "serpentine (i don't give a…pt. 2)," which is my jam on the album. it's got a deep bass beat & her rapping about her beard, moustache & mullets & how sexy she is. in the chorus, she sings "i don't give a fuck if you're calling me. i don't give a fuck if you're mauling me. i don't give a fuck if you fall for me. i don't give a fuck if you're following me. serpentine serpentine. never straight line serpentine." it sets the tone for the rest of the album, which is forty plus minutes of her typical hot dance beats & sexually-tinged lyrics. stuff like "peach'll reach around, wrestle you to the ground & take you to regina. big trouble in little man-gina." um, yeah. whatever you say, peaches. just don't peg me when i'm not looking, ok?

peaches, like pears, are one of those fruits that i'm most used to eating sliced & out of a can full of syrup. it's the way i consumed them for pretty much all of my childhood. once i moved out & moved beyond canned fruits, i sort of left the peach behind. usually, if i have the choice, i get a nectarine instead. they're just better & not as fleshy. yesterday, when i went out & actually decided to pick up a peach for breakfast for the first time in a long time, i thought to myself that since it has that fuzzy, fleshy, slightly-thick skin, there must be some special way to peel the peach to get the maximum amount of fruit out of it. all i had to do was search the internet to find out what that special way was.

that's when i came across this video, which, when i watched it, had a commercial before it for cotton, featuring a song by zooey deschanel. it's the fabric of her life. mmm. zooey. cotton. her life. once the commercial ends, there's a video with some other jonathon stewart, where he demonstrates how to peel a peach. you blanch the peach (put it in boiling water for 45 seconds, drop it in a bowl of ice water to stop it from cooking) & peel it. shazzam! that's too much work for me though. he also suggested a microwave technique, but i try to not microwave my fruit. it just seems weird. in the end, i just sliced it up & peeled it as i went. it was peachy, but i'm still convinced that nectarines are the peachier fruit. sorry, peach. you're just not as sweet.

pumpktoberfest #2 - whoa, man.

pumpktoberfest #2 - whoa, man.
film: evil bong
beer: wolaver's will stevens pumpkin ale



i'm an ardent supporter of the tv show weeds, but as far as marijuana-themed movies go, they're pretty hit or miss. dazed & confused, pineapple express, friday and harold & kumar go to white castle worked because there's a lot more going on in those films besides weed. i've yet to see half baked or how high. smiley face was only occasionally funny. i don't think i've ever watched a cheech & chong film & if i did, it was when i was ten & it was on local tv, so i didn't get whatever drug references trickled through the censoring. in 2006, before cheech & chong reunited last year, tommy chong "starred" in a "hilarious" marijuana-themed horror film called evil bong.

the film centers around alistair, a nerdy type who moves into an apartment of stoners. shortly after he moves in, one of the stoners sees a crazy bong for sale in some magazine, decides he must have it, orders it & it arrives a few days later. it's huge & oddly shaped, but they go to town with it. one day, one of the dudes smokes off it & gets sucked into a weird strip club universe, where he's killed. this keeps happening to people & as it does, the bong keeps changing shape until it develops the face shown on the dvd cover. in case you're wondering, the answer is "yes." the bong is voiced by michele mais, who plays justice in the broadway production of rock of ages.

tommy chong doesn't show up til near the end & it's revealed that he's the original owner of the bong. that's when the real evil happens. as crazy as it is, the least believable aspect of the film is this one scene where it's the middle of the day & they're all sitting around wanting to smoke, but one of the dudes is all "i'm out. we'll have to wait til tomorrow." really? a room full of stoners in the middle of the day are out of weed & can't remedy that situation? suspension of disbelief GONE. if you like the sort of films they show at 1am on usa, you'll like this film. as for me, evil bong was ok, but i'm probably not going to bother checking out the sequel--evil bong II: king bong--which came out on dvd in july. that's just too much bong, even for me.

since it's from vermont & they totally like bongs up there, i'm pairing the film with a wolaver's will stevens pumpkin ale, which is part of the "farmers series" of beers put out by wolaver's organic beers, an otter creek beers brand. it's apparently the "first & only organic pumpkin beer." who says pumpktoberfest can't be progressive? you're probably thinking "as long as you're not paranoid & don't have an evil bong, i bet this film would probably go well paired with a couple of massive bong hits." you wouldn't believe how well the two go together. like pumpkin pie & whipped cream, i tell ya. regardless, massive bong hits are neither a drink nor a snack, so they have no place as part of a pairing.

...so wolavers has will stevens' recipe for pumpkin ale. he's apparently the farmer who grows the pumpkins & his beer is "brewed with pumpkin & spices." the spices are the most prevalent part of the taste, but there's a faint trace of pumpkin in it. it's better than our first pumpktoberfest brew, the shipyard pumpkinhead. after two beers though, i've yet to try anything mindblowing since pumpktoberfest began & nothing that lives up to the standard set by the pumking on pumpktoberfest eve. hell, even evil bong was more mindblowing than the first two beers i've tried. sorry, will stevens. i'm sure you're a very nice guy who grows outstanding pumpkins, but you need to tell wolavers to put more of your pumpkins in their beer. more money for you. more taste for us. everyone wins next holiday season...just think about it.