nosh nook #134 - thursday, september 17, 2009

junk-food ban in hospitals puts snack cart before horse (link)
09.16.09 - the vancouver sun - by gerry bellett

true to its pacific northwest character, vancouver's a pretty progressive city. they've always been a leader in drug policy, whether it's their distinction as the first city to offer a safe injection center for heroin users or the police force's willingness to turn a blind eye toward marijuana. they love mass transit & there are no major freeways in their downtown area. the vancouver public library is a friggin work of art. their last mayor, sam sullivan, has been quadriplegic since age nineteen. it seems like a cool place. i should visit some time...check it out & stuff.

their progressive attitude extends to the world of junk food as well. as the vancouver sun's gerry bellett reports, last year george abbott (who was health minister at the time) raised a big stink about the fact that there was junk food in the vancouver general hospital's vending machines. eventually, the vancouver general hospital was declared a "junk food-free zone." abbott's since moved on to become the minister of aboriginal relations and reconciliation, but the policy's remained in effect.

here's the kicker though: "apparently nobody told the women of the hospital auxiliary." they run the gift shop & snack carts & have continued to offer "a couple of unhealthy things." luckily, the sun uncovered the injustice & told somebody at vancouver coastal health (who runs the hospital). in turn, they're "going to have to talk to the auxiliary about the changing food environment in hospitals." that's right! give those ladies a stern talking to about their "couple of unhealthy things." rules is rules, ladies. stop trying to game the system. congrats, vancouver sun. you sure blew the lid on that racket. investigative journalism yeah!

nosh nook #133 - wednesday, september 16, 2009

beloved new york diner begins move south (link)
09.15.09 - cnn - by chris kokenes

i'm a big fan of the diner food. give me a buttery grilled cheese with tomato, some greasy hash browns & an endless cup of joe & everything's all good in the hood. i'll let a gristled, crotchety, slightly aloof diner waitress with a thick accent take my order before i'd let a witty, struggling actor (like you'll find at many of nyc's restaurants) take my order any day of the week. if i'm in your establishment, i'm either drunk or hungover or lazy, so personally, i prefer less charm & more gruff with my diner.

as cnn reports, as of this monday, the cheyenne diner, a former nyc diner that used to be around 9th ave & 34th & is named after a city in wyoming is finally on its way to alabama. the former owner decided to close down the diner so he could build condos, so after 68 years in business, it shuttered its doors last april. thanks to the efforts of joel owens, an alabama businessman, the structure that housed the cheyenne diner will soon be reopening 860 miles south in birmingham, alabama, where it will become the first free-standing diner in the state. southbound!

actually, its survival is due to the efforts of michael perlman, " a 26-year old patron saint of sorts for unwanted diners." dude's so excited about diners that he goes around trying to save old timey diners that are being closed down. actually, we should thank joel owens. perlman arranged the whole thing, but owens fronted the money so they could haul the cheyenne all the way down to what i've dubbed the "civil rights belt." of course, that's only because i've just taken off my pants & belts are on my mind, but i'm sure that if the cheyenne diner's that important, it has the potential to host the first sit-in at a free-standing diner in alabama. did i mention that we have a black president now & he likes burgers?...something to keep in mind.

#127 - i ♥ contras.

hey nicaragua! happy friggin independence day! you've been independent for 188 years now! it's no 233 years, but well done nonetheless. back in the early 1800s, when you finally told the mexicans to take a hike, you were but a tiny central american country roughly the size of new mexico, a country that had endured countless years of rule by outside influences, a nation just hoping for a brighter future. these days things aren't all that much different, but it's cool. take your time developing. managua may have been destroyed in a day, but rome wasn't built in one.

sorry about that thing back in june where we stopped giving you $60 million in aid. you've got a $15 billion GDP as it is, so we figured you wouldn't miss it. i don't know if you heard, but our financial system's a little effed up these days, so whereas we here in america are more than willing to help you out, we could really use that $60 million. after all, alabama needs a bridge. i know that things have been sort of rocky between us in the past, but we promise that once we get back on our feet & decide to give you money again, things will be different. we sort of had to stop giving you money though. a marxist guerilla president? really? the marxist part is intriguing, but the guerilla part? we couldn't have our president palling around with terrorists. you know? don't make us send in the mighty contra commandos in the interest of fomenting. obama is all about change, mr ortega.

now that i think about it, i can't believe they haven't made contra into a movie yet. don't agree with me? go play the game for ten minutes & come back to me with a new answer, please. actually, i have to be honest with you. i like the game a hella lot, but i don't know how i'd feel about a movie adaptation, so if you're pro-contra movie, you probably shouldn't look to me to be your leader. you should look to this guy. he's got a petition signed by 22,000 people & is hoping that they make it with arnie & sly in the starring roles. since schwarzenegger's almost done being the governator & sly's back in shape, i say go for it. get michael bay to direct & blow shit up!

in celebration of the contras, today, indie darlings vampire weekend announced that their second album is coming out...four months from now...like in a whole different year. the name? contra. the concept? ten songs of twee pop with a closing song called "i think ur a contra." the album features a girl in a polo shirt on the front cover, so you can probably expect an album of songs you can wear a collared shirt to, something you can play over & over again at your frat house next semester. i kid though. i'm actually interested in hearing it. i just have a snarky reputation to uphold.

#127 - i ♥ contras.
snack: viveli happy snack bag o' snacks
drink: nieto senetiner 2006 malbec



in honor of our friends who exist below us, i decided to have myself a little south central fiesta. earlier this summer, amy, the bro's aforementioned girlfriend, went on a little vacay down nicaragua way & when she returned, the bro was all "amy brought you back a treat." when he told me that, it made me so happy that i can only explain it in this way...a few years back, one of my ex-girlfriends traveled to italy & visited vatican city. whilst there, she picked up a set of rosary beads blessed by the pope himself & brought them home for my mom, who's still a devoted roman catholic (but not in some sort of creepy way). it was a totally unexpected gesture & i'm a big fan of those. amy's gift turned out to be a happy snack bag o' snacks from viveli, a company based in nicaragua.

it comes in a neat lil' yellow mesh bag that's stylishly tied with a matching yellow bow. tastefully done. inside, there are a total of thirty-two wafer rolls. half of them are chocolate & come in blue two packs with a smiling yellow fish on the front. fish love chocolate. the other half are four packs with chocolate (again?), fresca, limon & vainilla flavors. i'm not sure what "vainilla" is, but i bet warren beatty would like it. amy picked up a bag for herself as well & warned me ahead of time that some of them might be stale. luckily, i didn't detect that much staleness. amongst the non-chocolate flavors, i prefer the limon. the vainilla's a close second, but true to its name, its showy-ass flavor lingered in my mouth for quite some time after.

for my beverage, i went classy with a bottle of nieto senetiner 2006 malbec that i took home as part of my bountiful snack party doggie bag this past saturday. it's made by an argentinian company, so i'm going to act all retroactive & consider it my two-month, six-day late tribute to argentine independence day. a bottle goes for under $20 & as far as i could tell, it was well worth it. if i was independent myself & bought my own bottles of wine, i'd pay up to $21 for a bottle of this stuff.

since it's a malbec, it has a really dark red color to it. after years where i shunned red wine, i can say that i'm finally more of a fan of red wine than i am of white wine. so yeah...this one's dark. i tend to characterize dark wines as extremely rich & often harsh, but this one was rather smooth. according to their website, it spent "a year in french oak barrels," which sounds like it's probably a good thing to do to wine. i finished it over the course of three nights this past week & can safely say that if you drink dark red wine every night for three nights in a row, you definitely notice it in the mornings. since i'm a gentleman, i'm not going to say how you'll notice, but i will say that you'll be quite surprised.

the musical fruit: movement #13.

the musical fruit: movement #13.
song: "the night before christmas," alvin & the chipmunks
fruit: black plum

when i think of christmas songs, most of the time, i'm thinking of alvin & the chipmunks. bing crosby croons & shizz, but the chipmunks rule. "christmas time is here?" that's my jam. i knew this guy through miss mj who could sing the hell out of that song all chipmunk style. alvin! simon! theodore! those munks really know how to get into the spirit & have mischievous fun with it at the same time. i used to watch the cartoon all the time & have been listening to them since i was a kid, so i guess they're pretty old by now, which explains why those other guys played them in their 2007 film & will reprise their roles in the upcoming squeakquel...out on christmas day! are you ready to get munked?! jason lee, justin long & david cross are.

the chipmunks' version of "the night before christmas" is a definite gem in their catalog. whereas pretty much all of the chipmunks' christmas songs feature alvin, simon & theo chirping away, their version of "the night before christmas" features dave doing a borderline scat version of the song with the chipmunks providing sparse backup vocals & encouragement. when he jives about how "visions of sugar plums danced in their heads," you can really picture those plums dancing, all beatnik-like. if you're a fan of the chipmunks & check out the link to the song, you should probably let it play once "the night before christmas" is done. it's followed up by a hip-hop version of "witch doctor," complete with alvin yelling "go go go!" "funkytown" comes after that & it's tolerable, but if you get to "had a bad day," you've gone too far. they've actually created a more deplorable version of that song. i didn't think it was possible.

here's the honest truth. it's been a long ass time since i've had a plum, so a few weeks back, when i had myself a plum for the first time in a coon's age & a black plum at that, i was SHOCKED. i could've sworn these things were orange on the inside. these ones are friggin whitish-yellow on the inside. the internet doesn't help clarify whether all plums are like this & i don't know any plumologists, so for now, in my mind, all plums now have whitish-yellow interiors. mind blowing! it's like when i learned the truth about what was really going on with boy george, but less fruity.

i'm cool with the black plums. they've got a skin that's very similar to a cherry in both color & texture, which is all good in my book. as for the fruit, it's slightly tart, but deliciously sweet. i've actually had one each of the last two days. i launched this column back last month both to fill a need to write more about music & to get myself to eat more fruit (after neglecting it for so long). it's worked thus far & it may sound weird to folks who regularly opt for fruit over crap, but i'm glad i "discovered" the black plum. it's definitely my favorite discovery from the last month & a half. i'd be lying (& coy) if i didn't say that i plum like them.

nosh nook #132 - tuesday, september 15, 2009

hostess cupcakes celebrate 90 years as america's favorite cupcake (link)
09.14.09 - reuters

let's get one thing straight: hostess cupcakes rule. from their distinctive, slightly-unnatural cream filling to that swirl on the top, they're basically the pinnacle of mass-produced cupcakes. that's a scientific fact. they're so special that i've come up with a perfected method for eating them. i start with one solid bite that takes out about of third of the cupcake, giving me a good taste of the cake, cream & icing while still leaving me with a good amount of cream filling. from there, i chew off everything on both sides of the swirly icing, leaving me with the maximum amount of swirliness & cream filling for that last bite. it's become such an ingrained habit that i can't eat them any other way. so yeah, i like them quite a bit.

in case you forgot to mark your calendar, yesterday, hostess issued a press release reminding us that it's time to celebrate the cupcake's 90th birthday. in its lifetime, the hostess cupcake has both become "the best selling snack cake in history" & the one that's accumulated the most fun facts! did you know that the identity of the hostess cupcake's inventor is a mystery? they don't even know who invented it. what u.s. city consumes the most hostess cupcakes? memphis, followed by st. louis, cincy, vegas & louisville. on a completely unrelated note, memphis, vegas & louisville are #11, #4 & #10 on men's fitness' 2009 list of the fattest cities. did you know they have a mascot named "captain cupcake?" it's true. dude has a periscope & epaulets & everything. i remember the commercials from my childhood. at one point, he & twinkie were the jordan & pippen of hostess.

hostess cupcakes may be 90 years old, but they're totally tech savvy, with a twitter account & a facebook page. my grandfather turns 90 in less than a month & although he rules, as far as i know, he doesn't have either of those. of course, he's not run by a billion dollar corporation either. with hostess, i actually follow their twitter account & although it's fairly boring, if you want to be as cool as me, you should probably do the same. now if they could just manage to bring their web page into the 21st century, then they'd be totally hip.