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.

nosh nook #145 - friday, october 2, 2009

web-emites take snack attack to new level (link)
10.01.09 - the age - by julian lee

wow. as far as snacking goes, australia's had a lot going on lately. just last month, four'n twenty, an australian meat pies company, announced that they were releasing snack-sized meat pies. i haven't had a chance to poll any australians, but i'm assuming the resulting effects on australian society have been nothing short of ace. now, after the introduction of another new snack product, australians, through their outrage, have banded together to enact democratic change.

back in june, kraft released an updated version of vegemite, one of australia's native foods. the update mixed vegemite with cream cheese to produce a milder flavor. when they released it, they announced a contest to name the product & according to melbourne's the age, when they announced the name of the new vegemite five days ago, people went batty. the new name--"isnack 2.0." as a result, kraft is all like, "oh, you don't like it? why don't you come up with a better one then?"

basically, you go to their website & take a survey where a series of questions asks you to pick what the new name should be by ranking "vegemite creamymate," "vegemite vegemild," "vegemite vegemate," "vegemite snackmate," "vegemite cheesybite," "vegemite smooth" & "i wouldn’t choose any of these names." i hope that last one wins. that'd look awesomely meta on a label. julian lee turned to james griffin, a director from SR7 (online risk & reputation consultants) to find out why the events around kraft's new snack product are so historic. griffin said "regardless of whether or not this is a marketing ploy by kraft, this is an example of social media determining the outcome of a marketing campaign." you hear that kraft marketing team? we know you've got aussies doing your job because you dropped the ball the first time. power to the people!

nosh nook #144 - thursday, october 1, 2009

"best of hawaii" 2009: our favorite hawaii snacks (link)
09.30.09 - hawaii magazine - by derek paiva

one of these days, i'm going to actually leave the continental united states. mark my words. until then, i'm going to continue to build my fantasy about what hawaii's actually like. here's what i've put together: aloha means both "Hello" & "goodbye." they have seventy words for snow. the waters are blue & the greens are green. there are coconut & macadamia trees everywhere. because of some sort of island sorcery, they can see into the future & had the foresight to print a birth announcement for president obama in the newspaper even though we all know that he's secretly a muslim who was actually born somewhere in deep africa. sorcery conspiracy! also, when you first arrive & get off the plane/boat, there are hot hawaiian chicks waiting on the runway to lei you. that's pretty much what the islands are all about. well, that & they like rainbows.

hawaii magazine recently came out with their "best of hawaii" issue (on newstands now!), so they've been putting sections of it up on their website. yesterday, they shared four of their "favorite hawaii snacks and our favorite places to get 'em." their first snack is poke, which was "traditionally bite-size raw fish...mixed with salt, seaweed and kukui nuts, but these days there’s no end to the delicious variations." in hawaii, you're not allowed to have a party or even a beer without poke. that's island law for ya! next up is "hawaii chips," which are "crisp, kettle-cooked slices of kalo (taro), ulu (breadfruit) and yellow and purple sweet potato." they're basically a better version of terra chips.

their third snack is musubi, which looks friggin crazy. it's often made with spam, a block of rice & some nori, but the one they mention--mana bu--makes thirty different kinds of the stuff. their last snack choice is shave ice, which is exactly what it sounds like. some ice, some flavor. some refreshment. hmm. they didn't even include crack seed in the list. must be because of the crack seed epidemic. anyway, there's a pic that accompanies the article of obama & the first daughters eating shaved ice. it's good to see that he's visiting there every once in a while to make the whole birth story look good. maybe if he goes there enough times, people will start believing that he actually was born there. i mean, i won't, but people believe some crazy things these days.

nosh nook #143 - wednesday, september 30, 2009

hostess offers 'monsters vs. aliens' treats (link)
09.29.09 - brandweek - by elaine wong

you really can't beat solid movie tie-ins. without them, i wouldn't have been able to drink out of a sweet empire strikes back glass every day for most of my childhood. sure there are a lot of lame tie-ins & promotions out there, but for every crappy little disney toy there are more than enough awesome muppet movie glasses. i suppose my examples of cool movie tie-ins are a bit dated & glass-focused, but i'm hoping that you get the point regardless. if done right, movie tie-ins can lead to some promotions that kids will be thinking about twenty-five years down the road. i'm not sure this is one of them though...

as brandweek's elaine wong reports, hostess & dreamworks have teamed up to promote yesterday's release of the monsters vs aliens dvd & blu-ray. they launched an "instant-win match game" on the hostess website yesterday where you go to the website, enter a ton of personal information & play a game of memory. if you win & get randomly picked (you won't), you win ONE MILLION DOLLARS! you can buy a TON of snack cakes with that kind of scratch. as if a miniscule chance at a million dollars wasn't enough, "hostess is also selling two limited-edition monsters vs. aliens snack cakes. one, called monster cakes, are chocolate hostess cupcakes topped with blue icing and blue sprinkles. b.o.b. cakes, made with blue hostess sno balls, are made to resemble the movie’s gelatinous blue blob." it's perfect timing. with the halloween pumpktoberfest season upon us, monsters are en vogue. anyway, that sno ball one's genius. you can't go wrong with a sno ball or a blob.

david leavitt, the vp of snack marketing at interstate brands (hostess), is excited about the promotion & loves puns as much as he loves giving away a million dollars. wong refers to a statement leavitt issued, where he said "with hostess' 'monsters vs. aliens'-themed snack cakes and the chance to win $1 million sweepstakes, we know this will be a 'monstrous' promotion." well put, david. so yeah. million dollars. snack cakes. i guess there's a movie in there somewhere too. you should probably buy it now that it's available for home consumption...or maybe you can wait until you win A MILLION DOLLARS and buy 50,000 copies of the dvd. fyi, if you prefer, you can get it in a package with b.o.b.'s big break in monster 3D. that means 50,000 free copies of that too! it sounds like a gripping film. b.o.b.'s apparently the blob. i bet he gets into all sorts of animated mischief.

nosh nook #142 - tuesday, september 29, 2009

new documentary on local food movement has oregon-heavy cast (link)
09.28.09 - the oregonian - by scott learn

oh oregon, bastion of progressiveness, lover of ducks, home to the most strip clubs per capita in the country. i visited you for a month back in 2002 & from what i saw of your quaintish downtown area, you were fairly green (colorwise) & relatively artsy looking. i've always heard good things about you & for a brief while, i even considered moving across the country & becoming a portland resident. you have free downtown public transit & make an effort to limit sprawl & keep your boundaries intact. as part of the 2008 veggie awards, you were named "veg city taking over the world." i love junk like that. you're so durn progressive, portland!

case in point: the film ingredients, which is a "who's who (of) oregon's locavore movement" & made its debut in portland this weekend. as the oregonian's scott learn writes, the film has strong roots in oregon. the producer & cinematographer, brian kimmel, is from portland. in the film, there are appearances from a range of oregon farmers, chefs & agricultural specialists who paint a picture of the "benefits and challenges of buying food from local producers." there have been a million-and-one films about food recently, so i'm interested in seeing whether they cover any new ground or just reinforce what's already been said.

either way, it's a cause i'm fully behind. as learn mentions, larry lev, a "specialist in agricultural marketing and alternative food systems" who's in the film, lays out the benefits of eating locally. lev notes that "some local products may cost more than food transported from large-scale commercial operations...but the products can have superior taste, and the money shoppers spend stays in the area. shopping locally also helps keep agricultural land from being developed...and leads to closer relationships between farmers and consumers." one of the clips in the trailer points out that there are now so few independent farmers in the u.s. that it's no longer listed as an occupation choice on the u.s. census forms. it's sad that we've become so removed from our food sources, but what's even sadder is that until recently, most people didn't really care. maybe another film will change that.