nosh nook #166 - monday, november 2, 2009

a pizza eating feat for the ages (link)
11.1.09 - slice - by daniel zemans

pizza may have become a staple of many americans' diets, but i have a love-hate relationship with it. growing up, whether it was ellio's or a regular pie, i ate a ton of it. from evenings where my mom was working & my dad had to make dinner to pizza parties at school & birthday parties at chuck e cheese, i ate it at least once or twice a week. at some point in the last few years though, because i'd eaten so much of it over the years, i sort of became sick of it. i still have a slice or two every once in a while, but those times are few & far between & when i do eat pizza, it's usually at someone else's urging.

some people never grow sick of pizza though. take chicago's craig scharoff. as slice (serious eats' pizza blog) reports, back in september, scharoff made a claim that he loved pizza so much that he could eat it every day for the rest of his life. his business partner challenged his claim, offering up a "four-figure sum" if he ate nothing but sausage pizza for every single meal during the month of october. over the past month, the pizza-eating drama has been playing out on LTH forum, a "chicago-based culinary chat site" & as slice notes, it really was no challenge, as scharoff "made it clear by the middle of october that he was an unstoppable pizza-eating force."

this past saturday marked the final day of the sausage pizza-eating challenge & since he passed the test with flying colors, he's now a little bit richer. in addition, "he never felt sick the entire month and, as of october 29, he lost 6 pounds since the challenge began." what's even more nuts is that he claims that "he could do another 30 days if not for all the pictures and documenting he had to do." in fact, according to slice, "tonight, this great man, this pizza-eating machine, this hero to us all...tonight, he plans to eat pizza."

nosh nook #165 - friday, october 30, 2009

victory for afghanistan troops as full ration snack noodles arrive (link)
10.29.09 - wandsworth guardian - by harry miller

i've never been to war myself, but i can only imagine that when you're a soldier stuck in a war zone, there are a lot of things that you long for. as a soldier in that situation, war's not only your job but it's your life, as you're usually living in the theater, away from your family, friends & home. you're not only away from everyday life but you're also far away from everyday comforts like video games, a comfortable bed & sexy sexy loving. with so much missing from your life, sometimes it's the little things that count.

the wandsworth guardian reports that victory has finally come for u.k. troops serving in afghanistan. thank god, because that war's been taking forever. i just hope it's not one of those "mission accomplished" sort of things. hopefully not, because that victory comes in the form of pot noodles, the beloved british snack. according to the guardian, u.k. soldiers were being short-changed with their rations of pot noodles, which had arrived only half-full. as corporal dale 'windy' miller notes "pot noodles are a staple diet in afghanistan, everyone gets sent them by loved ones and well wishers but when you've been out all day and you get back, open one up and it's half full, it can be a bit disappointing." as such, soldiers started complaining.

those complaints reached the ears of the folks at pot noodle, who were "outraged that servicemen and women were going without their daily intake of noodles" & responded by sending an enormous care package of noodles to afghanistan, including "bombay badboys, chicken and mushroom and doner kabob flavoured noodle treats." fusiler scott clarke welcomes the noodles. "we all really like pot noodles so when we found out they were sending us a load of them we were all really chuffed." you hear that? the soldiers are chuffed about the pot noodles. nuff said.

nosh nook #164 - thursday, october 29, 2009

sanchez donates dogs (link)
10.28.09 - ny post - by mark cannizzaro

i don't follow pro or college football all that much, but i do follow the news & if you're a new yorker who follows the news, it's almost impossible to have not heard of the NY jets rookie quarterback mark sanchez. for now, the new york papers friggin love him. before he'd even stepped foot on the field for an NFL game, he was a multi-millionaire with a $50 million contract. since he's one of those uber-sexy quarterback types, he appeared in GQ back in may & had been dating sports illustrated swimsuit hottie hilary rhoda, who'd appeared with him in the GQ spread. in my outsider's opinion, he's basically tom brady, but not as good & with less super bowl rings and, at the moment, less swimsuit models. i'm confident he'll one day get a swimsuit model of his own.

this past weekend, sanchez & the jets were out in oakland for a game against the hapless raiders & since the raiders are awful, the jets ending up blowing them out 38-0. by the fourth quarter, the jets were relaxed, so much that the tv cameras caught sanchez eating a hot dog on the sidelines, which is apparently a sports ettiquette no-no. he's young & didn't know any better, but according to the ny post, he's trying to take his silly mistake & "turn it into a positive" by donating "500 hot dogs and 500 hamburgers through a&p supermarket to the community soup kitchen of morristown, nj." i'm not sure why he chose morristown of all places, but he's probably made a lot of folks happy. i can't wait to see what he donates when he gets caught out late one night with a hooker.

head coach rex ryan feels that sanchez has handled the hot dog incident fine, but since he's "an old-school football guy," he's still sort of disappointed in his rookie quarterback. "it is unfortunate. we have a great game, run for 300-some yards, have a breakout game, a 38-0 score, get a shutout, and now the focus is on the hot dog." don't pat yourself on the buck that much. you were playing the raiders. i heard that they lost to a high school team two weeks back. can you really blame the media for focusing on a hot quarterback eating a hot dog?

nosh nook #163 - wednesday, october 28, 2009

modesto snack shack: big dream starts tiny (link)
10.27.09 - the modesto bee - by marijke rowland

man, the nyc department of education has really been going crazy recently in their fight against obesity in the schools. it's all part of them trying to get in line with a wellness policy they created back in june. a few weeks back, they signed a new contract to overhaul the school system's vending machines. now they've decided to crack down on bake sales as well. they're making it so peeps can't make any money. sorry, chess club. why don't you try selling bags of m&ms on the subway like those nice teens trying to get uniforms for their football team?

in california, education & snacking are a whole different animal. as the modesto bee reports, cedric & alivia king, a home schooled brother & sister from modesto, recently opened the "snack shack," a "lemonade stand on steroids," on their front lawn. kids love steroids! since they're home schooled & according to cedric, have "free time now," they had their dad build them the snack shack, which opened three weeks back, jack. from the shack, they're selling items like gum, candy, chips, soda & energy drinks that they've bought in bulk at costco.

their house is located right across the street from the high school, where you probably can't buy the stuff they sell at the snack shack, so they get some foot traffic (about twenty people a day). their mom says they're getting a permit & making it all legal. once that happens, cedric's all about pouring the money back into the business, but alivia wants to be able to buy a pet snake. hellz yeah, little girl. let me guess...your brother's the nerdy one? she also likes working at the snack shack better than doing schoolwork for some reason, but unless she continues working for herself, i bet she'll one day rethink that stance.

nosh nook #162 - tuesday, october 27, 2009

cheesecakes vs cheese steaks (link)
10.26.09 - the ny times - by jennifer 8. lee

woo hoo! game one of the world series is tomorrow night! championship yeah! are you friggin pumped, philly? i wasn't on your side for any of those NBA conference finals back in the 80s, but i'm on your side this time! that's because you're taking on the yankees & those douche nozzles are my sworn enemies so i'm supporting you! their douchiness is your gain, phillies! fyi, it's the world series, so you need to use a bounty of exclamation points or you won't be taken seriously as a sports journalist! steve phillips, for instance, didn't use enough exclamation points. ha!

so yeah, go phillies. win your senators some cheesecake. according to the ny times, "if the yankees win the world series, new york senators charles e. schumer and kirsten e. gillibrand will get a supply of philly cheese steaks. if the phillies win, pennsylvania senators arlen specter and bob casey will win a supply of junior’s cheesecakes." maybe if the phillies win, junior's will throw in a free mouse for the PA senators! senator specter feeds on baby mice anyhow. well, at least he does if he still has room after eating a 543 calorie, 37g of fat slice of junior's cheesecake. surprisingly, that's actually less than his state's cheese steak, which has 690 calories & 29g of fat.

as the times points out, the best part about the whole world series wager is that senator gillibrand "was just railing against obesity monday morning at a rachael ray event." maybe it's just a friendly wager & we shouldn't look into it that much, but maybe gillibrand's PR people should coordinate her messages better? if they did, glen caplin (her chief spokesman) wouldn't have to call back the times & utter the words, "the senator believes in everything in moderation, except winning world series titles." um, nice save glen but GO PHILLY! BACK 2 BACK!