snack away #13 - my puerto rican last meal.

another week, another new guest blogger! today we've got a TOTALLY INTERNATIONAL post from the eatinist bitch, who heeded my call for guest bloggers just days before she left NYC for a few days vacation in puerto rico. she was all "i'll write something about the snacks & drinks down there" & since i don't have a budget to fly columnists to puerto rico, i was totally for the idea. so yeah. enjoy & read her blog & stuff. it's the eatinist, bitch.

so i went to puerto rico two weeks ago in a stunning display of last minute traveling and proceeded to have one of the best vacations ever. i could go on forever about the landscape and the people...but you know the only thing that matters is the food.

seeing as that my friends flew back a day early, my last day in isabella (the town i stayed in) was spent by my lonesome. i wanted something tasty and quick for my last meal there and i knew something tasty would be found at the beach front plaza, villa pesquera. there are a ton of little restaurants and bars, but i picked one stand that i had been eying during my stay. i can't remember its name but i can damn sure remember what i got...

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snack away! #12 - obama drama.

snack away! #12 - obama drama.
guest blogger: jason rodriguez, washington, d.c.

snacks:
- eye of round & brisket pho (pho 75)
- half-smoke & chili fries (ben's chili bowl)
- burger & cajun fries (five guys)
- medium-rare burger, topped with applewood bacon, cognac mushrooms, roasted garlic, bleu cheese & heck sauce with cheesy tater tots on the side (ray's hell burger)
- pizza with white garlic sauce, spinach, ricotta, fontina & mozzarella (the italian store)
- birthday cake made with devil’s food, orange flavoring, raspberry icing & smothered in chocolate truffle (heidelberg)
- chorizo corn dog (eat bar)
- roast beef & brie wrap with a side of tabasco onion rings (lost dog cafe)

drinks:
- diet grape soda (ray's hell burger)
- malbec (eat bar)
- dead guy ale (lost dog cafe)

when my wife called last week to tell me that the presidential entourage was staging a block from our apartment my first response was, "please don’t tell me he’s eating at pho 75. i don’t want to imagine my life without some eye-of-round and brisket pho." my response would have been different five months ago. i would have dropped whatever i was doing and headed home as fast as possible for a mere glimpse of the man who’s nothing short of a hero to me. but that was when obama’s movements about the district were exciting and didn’t necessarily infer that one of my favorite eateries was about to be bogged down by a weird brand of people who chose their restaurants based solely on whether or not the president decided to stop there for a power lunch.

mr. president – i can forgive you for ben’s chili bowl. Honestly, i never really had any right to eat there in the first place. i’m not going to lie – i never ate there pre-U street "renaissance" (re: gentrification). in the interest of full disclosure, i didn’t even know about ben’s chili bowl until several years after my move to DC. like all DC-area transients from a decade ago, i was told to avoid U street and i did, without question. whenever i go to the chili bowl i feel like a treasure hunter that’s going into some pyramid, stealing a golden cat, and kicking a mummy for good measure. so it makes no sense to look at all of the new customers there and say that they’re ruining the chili bowl. i was part of the original movement to ruin the chili bowl when i went in there for a half-smoke and chili fries several years ago.

and, mr. president, i have no problem with you eating at five guys burgers and fries. there are plenty of them around and i tend to eat at the georgetown or courthouse location and not at the downtown one you and biden ate at. i haven’t seen a mad flux of people at my usual five guys and i can still get in and out, burger and cajun fries in hand, in 5 to 10 minutes.

but, mr. president, why did you need to eat at ray’s hell burger? how did you even know about ray’s hell burger? it’s tucked away in a strip mall that’s tucked away between the courthouse and rosslyn metro stations – it’s in no-man’s land, mr. president. the establishment doesn’t even have a sign in front of it. i talk to long-time DC (and arlington) residents and tell them about ray’s hell burger and they usually respond, "what’s that?" and the thing is – despite its relative obscurity – there were still considerable lines, occasionally out the door, during weekends and weeknights.

and then you ate there.

i tried to get a burger there several weeks ago. it was at around 7:30pm on a sunday and i was expecting a slight line. i was going to get it medium-rare, topped with applewood bacon, cognac mushrooms, roasted garlic, bleu cheese, and heck sauce. i was particularly hungry, so i was probably going to get some cheesy tater tots on the side. wash it all down with a diet grape soda. it would have been heaven, mr. president. the line, however, was out the door and down the block. i walked to the end of it only to hear some woman saying, "i’m sure they have veggie burgers." she was sure ray’s hell burger would have veggie burgers. ray’s - a place that’s basically a counter, a meat grinder and a grill. a guy wearing a butcher’s apron is pushing sides of beef into the grinder while you’re ordering. pre-obama, ray’s would have never attracted the kind of person who was sure they’d have veggie burgers. it might sound ridiculous, but the very fact that that woman was one of the thirty-or-so people in front of me in line made me kind of sick. i haven’t made my way back to ray’s since.

mr. president – let’s not lose site of one thing. you are awesome. there’s really no other way to put it. i think your decisions since entering office have been mostly rock solid and even if they all end up killing us somehow, at least i can say you’re working you ass off. and i can understand how being awesome means that you’d eat at places like ben’s and five guys and ray’s. but, please, in the future – if you have the hankering for some pizza with white garlic sauce, spinach, ricotta, fontina, and mozzarella – send an aide to the italian store instead of showing up with your crew. if you want to get sasha and malia a birthday cake made with devil’s food, orange flavoring, raspberry icing, and smothered in chocolate truffle call heidelberg and see if they’ll deliver to the white house. and if you think a date night consisting of a fantastic malbec paired with a chorizo corn dog would be the way to go, consider cooking it yourself before going to eat bar – michelle would appreciate the sentiment and it would save the taxpayer some money while you’re at it.

that’s all i’m saying. it’s great to have a president that appreciates the district and likes to explore some of our quirkier little eateries. but i swear to god, if three months from now i walk over to lost dog cafe to get myself a roast beef and brie wrap with a side of tabasco onion rings and a pint of dead guy ale and there’s a two-hour wait to be seated, i will vote for crist in 2012. at least he’ll be too busy hitting the tanning salons to eat out all the time.

jason rodriguez lives in arlington, va with his coincidentally newlywed wife robin, two dogs, four cats, and a quaker parrot that he hates with a passion. his 2007 graphic novel postcards: true stories that never happened is all acclaimed & whatnot.

snack away! #11 - my life as a rice cracker.

there is a specter haunting my life and its name is arare--a japanese rice cracker i’m sure you’ve all come in contact with without ever knowing its proper name.

arare are a little crispy snack made from glutinous rice and seasoned with soy sauce. often you see them wrapped in seaweed. they sell them at corner stores as “oriental mix” and they give them away like pretzels at some bars in chinatown.

my early life, as is the case with most people, is remembered in much the same way i remember dreams. little images stick around and others vanish with no real sense of rhyme or reason. much of modern psychology is based around what exactly it is we remember and what we forget. i wonder what a psychiatrist would make of how much of my memory is filled with rice crackers.

one of my first memories was the bulk isle in the local supermarket of my childhood home, boulder creek, CA. my mother would pacify me during grocery store trips by letting me get arare from the bins. the store called them “bar mix” for some reason. i called them chinese snacks--a mistake i wouldn’t really correct until i’d actually been to japan.

years later I’m in 5th grade at a hippie public school in santa cruz. my mother’s boyfriend brings me a big bag of chinese snacks. even at that age i wonder if there’s something wrong with their relationship. is he trying to win me to his side?

a little bit farther down the line and i’m in the tokyo airport with my dad, my stepmother, and my grandmother. the woman behind us is very happy to see a little white boy eating such a japanese snack. "much better than potato chips" she says. the ones i was eating were made in kyoto at the world’s best arare shop. when i get back home, i don’t call them chinese snacks anymore.

snack away! #11 - my life as a rice cracker.
guest blogger: damian lanahan-kalish, san francisco, ca

snack: arare japanese rice crackers
drink: nama sake

 
arare image from cansimage france / photo from shugtastic (via flickr) / nama image from ratebeer.com

next thing i know i’m in junior high. i spend my weekends in santa cruz, just looking for reasons to not be in boulder creek. every time i go to santa cruz, i make a special trip to a very specific longs drugs to buy my favorite brand of rice cracker--one that comes in a red and orange bag with a boat on it. later, i would find out it’s the best because it has the most MSG.

fast forward to the end of high school. i’d moved up to mill valley to live with my dad. everyday after the school i’d hang out downtown at the depot. i’d hang out with friends, drink coffee, try to get people to buy me cigarettes and i’d eat rice crackers. my friends teasingly called them "happy snacks" because the only brand mill valley market carried were called hapi. i never called them this. it was an inferior brand.

five years later, i’m living in new york city, in astoria, queens. i’m very exited about the variety of rice crackers at sunrise mart on 9th st., but even better, they have my favorite brand at the korean market just four blocks away. astoria truly is the happiest place on earth.

now i’ve been back in the bay area for about five years. two years ago i found out, after a long period of bad digestion, that i couldn’t eat wheat. no more bread, pasta or beer. but I could eat arare...they're rice crackers after all. i live just a mile or so from berkeley bowl, where you can buy my favorite rice crackers in large family size bags.

i think everything is going to be okay.

postscript
i got so carried away there writing about rice crackers that i forgot to mention a beverage in my post.

first off, i’ll start by telling you what i can’t drink. a wheat intolerance means that you can’t eat bread, pasta or burritos but it also means you can’t drink beer. this was a huge adjustment for me because i used to drink a lot of beer.

i can still drink wine and hard liquor but as any fan of beer knows, on a hot day or when you're tired that’s just not the same. sometimes i drink cider but all the sugar in that shit makes me almost as sick as the wheat.

a few months ago i made a surprising discovery. i was at the sake tasting room at the takara sake factory in berkeley. the sake expert there (who gives you all your tastes) pulled out a little green bottle of sake called nama, an unpasteurized draft style* sake he said was very much like drinking beer. i was skeptical. sake may be brewed in similar ways to beer but it tastes nothing like beer.

to my delight and surprise, my skepticism was quickly proven ill founded. there was something about this little sake in a green bottle that made it truly refreshing in the way only beer could be. the quality proved nearly impossible to pinpoint. it tasted nothing like beer. the alcohol content was nearly twice that of beer. still, it had something about it that just felt relaxing in the way only beer can.

*nama sake is an unpasteurized sake, so you need to drink it pretty soon after opening. that’s why it comes in little bottles.

20 years ago, high on a hilltop, a stray bolt of lightning from an unexplained source - there was not a cloud in the sky - struck a lone female physics professor and her boyfriend, a bongo playing weed merchant, and when the smoke cleared, one figure remained: cloaked in black, the master of all he purveys, damian lanahan-kalish, owner of over 100 thoroughbred ponies and pervert extraordinaire. he's also a founding member of sleepwalkers theatre, mishap productions & brandywinecooking and the writer of gotprojects.blogspot.com.

snack away! #10 - nacho mama's nachos.

every winter, new yorkers walk begrudgingly from their homes to the subway to their work, slipping on slush all along the way. they ask themselves why they’re not living somewhere warmer. they forget the “sun and fun” of the rest of the year. then suddenly, the groundhog predicts the spring, trees begin to bloom, and even more suddenly, the summer comes.

we’ve just entered june and the weather has been amazing so far this spring. we’ve already had three sunny, ninety-degree days. summer in new york means so many things to so many people. on top of the parks being filled beyond capacity, events are happening all around: red hook ball field's open, central park hosts summer stage concerts and even the brooklyn kids switch from skinny jeans to skinny shorts. one more thing unique to new york, or at least dense urban areas: rooftop parties.

...so when we (nachos NY) were invited to a rooftop party in williamsburg celebrating nachos, we jumped on the L train with avocados and chips in hand. a lot of credit has to go to cathy erway of not eating out in new york. she set up the wonderful combo for the evening--fresh veggies on the nachos and nicey-and-spicy margaritas. we can’t give her all the credit though. when it came time to fire up the grill, we got down and dirty with the guacamole and were ready to pile it on.

snack away! #10 - nacho mama's nachos.
guest blogger: rachel anderson (nachos NY), new york, ny

snack: white & blue-corn nachos with asparagus, cheese, ramps & tomatoes
drink: spicy margarita



on white and blue-corn tortilla chips, we freshly shredded some smoked cheddar and jalapeño jack cheeses. i am not normally a fan of the white cheese on my ‘chos but the spiciness of the jalapeño jack made me forget my prejudices for one night. in addition to the cheese, we threw on some tomatoes, asparagus, and ramps for good measure.

with all the ingredients ready, we threw that baby on the grill to cook. the grill gave our dish a smoky flavor, but we did have an issue with burnt chips. if you are going to utilize the grill for nacho-related goodness, be aware that the bottom of your pan can burn quite easily.

to go with our delightfully smoky 'chos, our bartender (and owner of the apartment) set up a lovely bar made out of a shelving unit in his apartment. being that this party was planned slightly ahead, he was able to infuse a tequila with a hot pepper, giving us a special spicy margarita. this duo gave no relief to the tongue.  it's summer in the city though, so we say "bring it on."

rachel anderson is the senior correspondent of nachos NY, a blog dedicated to the hunt for all information nacho.  check them out at nachosNY.com.

snack away! #9 - newton's law of figs.

yep, it’s true--there's a recession going on out there, and like pretty much everybody else, i got canned. the good news for me is i was able to land a new gig within a few weeks thanks to an esoteric computer chip programming skill (the details of which are far too boring for a snack blog).

it was when i was between jobs, wandering the streets of boston (and maybe i had consumed a few cold ones) that i talked to shawn about guest snack blogging. i had a lot of time of my hands and had just thoroughly enjoyed reading about todd’s spotted dick (soon to be followed by wilk’s hot nuts) and i wanted in on the action.

fast forward a week and i was working at the new job and all of a sudden i didn’t have much time to think about interesting things to write about. brain was busy digesting new corporate secrets, trying to find where my printouts were being sent to and coping with having to use a shared bathroom instead of the solo units we had the luxury of at the old place.

furthermore, i realized i don’t really even eat snacks. i mean, an apple and a glass of water at 3pm in the afternoon is pretty wild for this guy. what i am basically telling you is this here blog had a pretty good chance of never happening, but as luck would have it, i forgot to grab my apple on the way out this morning and so i wandered down to the cafeteria and bought a little snacky snack.

snack away! #9 - newton's law of figs.
guest blogger: chris leduc, newton, mass

snack: fig newtons
drink: starbucks tazo zen tea (with a little squirt o’ honey)



when’s the last time you had a fig newton? for me it was a least 15 years ago. i remember wondering as a kid what the frig a newton was. why on earth would a cookie be named after the metric system unit for force? what? your kids don’t use the metric system? well fast forward those 15 years and now i live in the city of newton, a rather pleasant if not slightly boring boston suburb which is actually a collection of approximately 13 individual villages rather than one central downtown area. i say approximately because these villages have no official borders and it is hard to even get an official list of what they all are...so i did what any reasonable person would do and went straight for the best places to get indisputable facts: wikipedia...and it was while perusing the wikipedia page about newton that i stumbled upon an answer to that 15 year old question: the fig newton is named so because it was invented right here.

...so it was a no brainer that i grabbed the fig newtons when i saw them in the vending machine today. i paired them with a hot cup of tazo zen tea (with a little squirt o’ honey) from the pseudo-starbucks in the lobby. one thing i noticed right away is that these things are messy. the cake outer part crumbled all over the place and i had quite the mess. biting into the newton, you get a very sugary blast of fig. anyway, i assume it's fig because that’s what it says on the package and i’ve never had a fig in its natural state.

overall, i’d say it was pretty gross and i think i am all set with the fig newton for another 15 years. the aforementioned grossness didn’t stop me from wolfing down both newtons and 200 calories later, i was wishing i had selected a cold beverage to cleanse the cake residue in my mouth. the tazo tea had cooled enough by this point and i found it very refreshing and generally zen-like as advertised.

i don’t regret getting the newtons, as it was a nice trip down memory lane, but the next time i get a little hungry at work, i think i’ll go with a bag of chips.

chris leduc is a jumbo who does something with computers & has been responsible for approximately 17,000 funny moments over his 33+ years. he will sing "cracklin' rosie" for you at the drop of a hat. one time, he saved money, bought car.