#174 - double fantasy.

i'm no beatles expert. that's for sure. i am pretty familiar with their music though. i first really heard the beatles when i was a pre-teen & found abbey road amongst a box of records my dad had in the basement. i fell in love & to this day, it's still my fave beatles album & possibly my fave album of all time. since then, i've heard everything they've ever done multiple times, but my beatles cd collection only consists of sgt peppers, the beatles 1967-1970 & the beatles anthology I. i know. i'm a slacker. maybe all that will change now that the beatles' music is on itunes. [insert chuckle here]. with that in mind, other than "imagine" & the other smash hits, i know next to nothing about john lennon's solo career. with today marking the 30th anniversary of the day when he was murdered here in NYC, i decided to mark the date by familiarizing myself with his first two solo albums--john lennon/plastic ono band & imagine--and his final album, double fantasy.

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#173 - mr shawn goes to washington (pt deux).

hey there, neglected food blog. how're things going? oh yeah. i suppose that since i decided to shun you for the past month, things have probably been fairly crickets & tumbleweed for you lately. sorry bout that. things have been pretty fun for me though. thanks for asking! mid-month, to kick off my annual bday week celebration, i decided to revisit my 2008 d.c. birthday celebration with a trip down to the capitol to hang with my good friend tadley, best known round these parts for his uber-classy guest column on spotted dick. as has become the standard these days for my vacations, my time there ended up being one that was jam packed with food & drink.

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#172 - real talk.

maybe instead of constantly bashing jay leno & his insufferable chin, i should thank him for what he's done for late night TV--driven conan o'brien to TBS. after nine months away from late night, last night conan returned with andy richter once again at his side & the max weinberg seven swapped out for jimmy vivino & the basic cable band. the premiere took the top rating amongst late night shows, slightly beating out the tonight show with jay leno & i was one of the many who tuned in. as a service to you who may have missed the premiere, imma gonna break down what went down for you. of course, due to the wonders of technology, you can already watch the episode online, but wouldn't you much rather read my ramblings about it? after all, a thousand words is worth a bunch of pictures or something. i've got way more than a thousand words here.

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#171 - oh! green mountains.

hello loyal eat!drink!snack! reader! fear not. we'll get back to celebrating pumpktoberfest tomorrow with a SLASHER FANTASTICO from the 80's, but for today we're going to take a lil detour & visit my fourth favorite new england state, vermont! as i've mentioned before, i grew up in neighboring new hampshire, a state which is basically shaped like an upside down vermont. we've got the white mountains & vermont's got the green mountains. basically, the two states are like bosum buddies. although i'm sure i visited vermont as a kid with my family, i have no memories of it happening. my first & most vivid memory of vermont is traveling to burlington in between freshman & sophomore year of college to meet a friend & head to montreal (details withheld due to the debaucherous events that occurred).

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#170 - salsa slammed.

in case i haven't made it apparent, i'm cool with the folks over at nachosny. they wrote a guest post for me last summer & i cooked "questionable" nachos in their honor last september. this year, after attending may's guactacular, i started writing a nacho snack guest column entitled "a queso the munchies" for them. back in july, i ate guacamole & listened to indie rock with 200 other people on a boat on the hudson as part of their "guac rock" event. when lee (the mastermind behind nachosny) tipped me off to their next event, a salsa battle dubbed the "salsa slam," it's safe to say that i was pretty friggin excited. then he asked me if i'd like to be one of the event's esteemed judges. i was all "hellz yeah. i love judging both salsa AND people!" the best part? explaining to people that i was going to be judging a food competition, NOT a dance competition.

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