nosh nook #108 - wednesday, august 12, 2009

james brown hawks miso soup in japan (link)
08.11.09 - the village voice "fork in the road" blog - by sarah degregorio

hi there village voice. i hear that your "fork in the road" food blog/column just had a cat set up their twitter account. that's cool. i'm following them. heck, i even have the fork set up in the ol' google reader so i can absorb or quickly forget the full versions of their various stories. to my surprise, tonight, i got an email letting me know that you, the village voice, are following me on twitter. that's really nice of you, especially considering that fork in the road hasn't even bothered to acknowledge me yet. can you tell them that they should follow me? send out an interdepartmental memo or something? i'd DM them myself & ask, but i'm trying to move on to web 3.0 & i'm pretty sure that doesn't involve DMs. it'll be all about the PMs, baby.

anyway, speaking of the google reader, one story from the fork in the road blog came up in my reader & it totally grabbed me by the horns & made me like get on up now & stuff. it's a blog entry linking to a youtube video of james brown hawking miso in japan. seriously, call your friends & co-workers round & queue this puppy up, give a call to your tech-savvy relatives & get them to queue this puppy up. whatever you do, queue this puppy up round as many people as possible & dream of soup. it's a gem & if the view counter on the youtube video goes above its current 240 level, we'll know peeps are actually reading either this blog or fork in the road. ah, whatever. the video...



oh james brown. what happened to you? i mean, i'm a supporter of miso soup & love slurping it pre-meal & all, but i wouldn't sell my soul for it. wait...do they even have souls in japan any more or have they advanced beyond that? they must have advanced beyond that. after all, they got james brown to sing & dance in a miso soup commercial. souls & human advancements aside, at least he inspired janet jackson to fly high. that's advanced! good god y'all!

#117 - sexy black-haired mamas.

who doesn't love a sexy black-haired mama? if you don't you're a communist. actually, there are a lot of sexy black-haired mamas in china, so i'm not sure if i still mean that or not. i mean, i sort of often have a thing for redheads & that may or may not have to do with some sort of weird freudian "my mom has red hair" thing that i don't want to get into but black hair: i enjoy it quite a bit. who doesn't? since back in the time when men were still men & wars were still wars & pinup girls were still pinned up by pins, there was bettie page, one of playboy's first centerfolds & for me, basically the babe ruth of black-haired mamas. seriously, how many black-haired women since her have to some degree carved themselves in her image? if you said "seven," aim higher.

nowadays, it seems like black-haired babes aren't doing enough to prop up the breed. sure portland, oregon's suicide girls have been around for a while now & their first book is adorned with a girl with jet-black hair, a girl who also became the logo of the site for a while. mmm. mary. rose mcgowan gave it a shot for a while but she doesn't even have black hair any more & other than that, for black-haired babes, we're now left with katy perry's faux or not faux lesbianism & vanessa hudgens' high school musical camera phone nudity (NSFW). zooey deschanel & robin tunney have tried their best, but they can only do so much. maybe i'm missing somebody besides them (does bjork still have black hair?) but they aren't coming to mind at the moment.

speaking of black hair, there's been a slight to-do in recent months over the fact that kristen stewart (one of the stars of the tweentabulous twilight movies) has died her hair jet-black to play joan jett in an upcoming movie about 70's band the runaways. scout taylor compton as lita ford! not black hair. anyway, i guess kristen stewart's hair didn't used to be that black, so TMZ has to report on that. i refuse to make a judgment on the positive aspects of such a hair color, as she just turned 18 back in april & that'd be creepy. as for her playing joan jett, the more young girls that discover joan jett the better. go jett-black hair.

...so all i'm saying is that it's going to be winter soon & i'm pretty sure cosmo recommends winter as a perfect time to dye your hair black, ladies. a lot of us think the black hair is sexy. i'm not saying that you have to venture into goth or cure/smiths territory, but i'll definitely notice you. maybe you're a bit apprehensive about making such a drastic change to your hair color. that's understandable. would it change your mind if i told you that madonna once had black hair? no? what if i told you she just dyed her hair black back tonight at the hotel suite after the copenhagen show?...that's what i thought. black is the new black.

#117 - sexy black-haired mamas.
snack: route 11 mama zuma's habanero chips
drink: lagunitas lucky 13 ale



in the spirit of spiciness, the other night, i had a bag of route 11 mama zuma's habanero chips. i picked them up last weekend on a late night park slope stop off at reis 100, the sandwich shop that just opened up next door to 5th ave's bar reis. the place features a hundred crazy tiny sandwiches, including one with honey, brie & apple, one with white anchovy, pickled carrot & daikon, spicy mayo & cilantro and another with bahn mi tofu, pickled carrot & jalapeno & cilantro. they're tiny but perfect for munching on while you get drunk with other park slopers on the back patio at bar reis. so...the chips. they have a bunch of gourmet-type chips hanging on the wall next to the counter at reis 100, so i grabbed a bag of these for later.

while i was waiting for my sandwiches, a man who at first appeared to be completely normal entered & walked up to the wall of chips. after a few minutes of staring at the chips & occasionally touching them, the dude left empty-handed. two minutes later he was back at the front door, staring in at the wall of chips. after a minute or so of that, he came back in, walked up to the counter & asked the girl working, "how much are the chips?" after she told him that they're $1.50, he surveyed the wall for another minute or so, grabbed a bag, plunked down his cash & left. i suppose you had to be there, but it was seriously the most dramatic chip-buying scenario i've ever witnessed. i'd hate to be with that dude when he's buying a home appliance.

so...the chips. holy crap they're hot. they're so hot & covered with habanero & other spices that after only two chips, with the saliva buildup in my mouth, i was able to faithfully recreate the sounds of a well-bubbling bong. speaking of sounds, route 11 potato chips are so damn hip that they have their own jingle. it's a rocking lil rockabillyesque number about "riding down the road to potato chip heaven" with a bag of route elevens. it gave me the power to make it through this bag of route elevens, but true to her name, mama zuma definitely got her revenge the next morn.

since the chips were so damn hot, accompanying fluids were an absolute necessity. i paired the chips with a 22 oz bottle of lagunitas lucky 13 ale with its black-haired mama on the front & although it helped, i eventually had to bring in a glass of water as well. it provided some additional relief, but nothing short of a fire extinguisher would've subdued mama zuma's habanero flames. i'd picked up the lagunitas from bierkraft a few days back & while there, i discovered that last tuesday, the folks from lagunitas were in town from cali doing a beer tasting there. i've been to the store on past tuesdays & from what i've discerned, females go to these tastings, so i totally missed out on an attempt to meet my future wife. i could've been all, "yeah, i blogged about lagunitas just the other day. i'm a blogger. [pause] i know. it's sexy."

so...the beer. it's a "mondo large red ale," with a copper look, a pleasant, almost sweet smell & a very full flavor, which in this case means it's pretty damn hoppy...definitely not a beer for those who can't handle the hops. lucky (13) for me, with this snack-drink pairing, the hops definitely helped aid in the battle against the habanero fury. i figure it's good practice since from what i gather, black-haired mamas are just as feisty as red-haired mamas. either way, i'm now prepared for fury, even if it means habanero & hops breath.

the musical fruit: movement #4.

the musical fruit: movement #4.
song: "blue diamonds," the long winters
fruit: blueberries
guest blogger: allison felus


photo from the original long winters-blueberry connection flickr page

when i was first introduced to them in early 2004, i quickly became smitten with the long winters. i spent many happy evenings that summer walking home from work listening to when i pretend to fall on my portable cd player. (portable cd player! this is pre-ipod, people! you know i was committed to the rock if i was carrying around a portable cd player and a small sleeve of disks everywhere i went.) depending on how fast i was going, i could basically get from "blue diamonds" through "prom night at hater high" by the time i was unlocking my front door. the band continues to be one of my faves, one of those groups that i will unquestioningly go see whenever they're in town, and i will buy whatever albums they release. all their stuff is great in its own way, but when i pretend to fall is probably their masterpiece (so far). it's just an immaculate stunner of an album. friend of the band and general man-about-the-internet merlin mann says in this video, "it stands up to repeated listens like...like a dylan record. i mean, it's really, really good"; he even used that awesomely sneaky rhodes piano figure from album-opening track "blue diamonds" as the theme music to the merlin show (now sadly on hiatus).

unlike the kind of big "here i am, world!" album opener that grabs you by the lapels and insists you pay attention, "blue diamonds" has a patient, insinuating charm. it's the perfect tone for telling this oblique story of some sort of criminal act gone wrong and also shows masterful restraint on the meta-level of the album's sequencing. any other band probably would have kicked the album off with that sublime organ whine, chugging drums, and honking horn section at the beginning of "scared straight," which follows, but the production team knew it was smartest to reel listeners in here. this song also contains some of my favorite lyrics ever penned by el-dubs impresario john roderick: "you make a gang sign framing your face," "it feels like this is happening in tree time," "these chickens are fish in a barrel." he also sings, in the first verse, "delight at my first try at being sly." which i invariably do every time i hear this song, knowing that it's going to set me off on a musical journey that remains as fresh five years on as it did when i first heard it in '04. it's left intentionally unclear where these blue diamonds are being smuggled from, or for what purpose, so i can only assume they're headed straight into our hearts.

which is a good ultimate destination for all the much talked about antioxidants in blueberries. filled with vitamins a, c, and e, blueberries consistently rank high on lists of easily accessible, often-overlooked, non-exotic superfoods. apparently a small serving--enough to cover the top of a bowl of cereal--gives you "1,773 international units of vitamin e." (international units! ooh la la! whatever those are.)

even if you think all this business about superfoods is bullshit, it's hard to deny the no-nonsense appeal of the blueberry. unlike cherries which must be pitted, strawberries which must be denuded of their green tops, and raspberries and blackberries which can occasionally feel grainy thanks to their tiny hairs and tiny seeds, the blueberry is exceedingly low maintenance. give 'em a quick rinse, and they're basically ready for action. you can make them into a pie--raw pies are deceptively easy to throw together and so healthy you can eat them for breakfast (check out an all-purpose recipe here). you can chuck 'em into the blender with a banana, some water, a tablespoon of almond butter, a dash of vanilla, and a sweetener like medjool dates or agave nectar for a thick and creamy and brightly colored shake/smoothie. or, of course, they're delightful to munch on by the handful, whether from a bowl (if you're fancy) or straight from the pint container (if you're lazy and eager to commence with the snacking, like me). speed and ease are always of the essence if you're on the run from the law, as any good jewel thief would tell you.

allison felus likes to turn people on to the long winters any chance she possibly gets--like here and here. she sometimes talks about other stuff too at wrestling entropy.

nosh nook #107 - tuesday, august 11, 2009

nyc cupcakes: bakeries, cafes, a hotel and a truck (link)
08.10.09 - san jose mercury news - by beth harpaz

gotta be honest, folks. i'm still sick of the cupcake craze. maybe it's because i've never seen sarah jessica parker bite into a cupcake from magnolia bakery nor have i been to said establishment. it's not that i hate cupcakes, i'm just sick of hearing about them. remember that episode of happy days where the fonz strapped on a pair of water skis & leapt through the air over a shark to prove a point? that's what cupcakes have become here in nyc.

beth harpaz of the san jose mercury news breaks down the nyc cupcake craze for us right in her opening sentence--"this city is crazy for cupcakes. there are cupcake classes and cupcake tours, lines down the block at cupcake bakeries, a cupcake tea at a five-star hotel, and a cupcake truck with 6,000 followers on twitter." according to melanie underwood, who teaches cupcake classes at the institute of culinary education, "you'd think it would reach its peak but it hasn't—people are still into cupcakes, and i don't see it slowing down." awesome...looking forward to cupcakes really taking off.

harpaz also gives a rundown of the places stoking the nyc cupcake craze flames. magnolia's the most well known culprit, but there's also cupcake cafe, which has been around for over twenty years. there are vegan cupcakes (babycakes nyc), a cupcake truck (cupcakestop), cupcakes made with miso & tofu (kyotofu) & a hoighty-toighty $25 cupcake tea (the ritz-carlton). basically, if you're into cupcakes, there are no shortage of options, but really, i think it's about time that we moved on from the cupcake & started a new, exciting dessert craze. my vote is for spotted dick. if i don't see spotted dick on the lips of food bloggers by this time next year, i'll feel seriously let down.

nosh nook #106 - monday, august 10, 2009

sweet snacks could lead to higher shopping bills (link)
08.09.09 - the local

sometimes i wish i was a full-time researcher dude, someone who gets paid to develop crazy tests & perform them on people. i'd be all "test subject A" & "hypotheses" & "control group" & then i'd peer into people's psyches & come up with conclusions & whatnot. i'd have a sexy assistant & we'd have an on & off relationship, one that'd be characterized by numerous witty arguments where we'd analyze each others' behavior & draw conclusions based on our findings. it'd be hot enough for usa, but not hot enough for hbo.

at germany's friedrichshafen university (also known as "zeppelin university"...their school motto should totally be "we get the led out!"), researchers have used their special research powers to find a link between sweets & shopping. as the local ("germany's news in english") reports, "researchers at friedrichshafen university say eating sweet things makes people more willing to spend money on shopping, after looking at chemical reactions in the body and brain - and their relation to behaviour." see! that's research that i never would have thought to do nor would i have thought was actually necessary, but that's what researchers do!

here's what these researchers did...they gave one group of people sugar water & another group water or nothing at all. then those groups of people were "asked to say whether they felt the prices of a number of everyday shopping items were fair – and if they said no, were asked to name what they felt would be a fair price." the folks with the sugar water rated the prices as fair more often than those in the other group & suggested fair prices that were higher than those given by the non-sugar water folks.

it's all because the sugar led to the brain producing serotonin, which makes people all crazy. regardless, marketing researcher peter kenning said that "supermarkets which might decide to offer shoppers a chocolate bar for free at the door might be wasting their time" and was quoted as saying "i would not go so far as that at the moment. the research into the exact mechanism will keep us busy for a little while yet." that's too bad. i mean, why do research if you can't use it for devious means? you know?