snack away! #8 - let's enjoying snack.

i’m not an economist. being a kanji novice and thus generally unable to read even the headlines of the daily paper, i have no chance of deciphering the business section. this leaves me ample opportunity to speculate and develop personal theories on the driving forces behind the japanese economy. i have gathered a few basic points that may actually be grounded in reality. indeed, as consumer confidence declines and americans have less and less disposable income, demand for japanese automobiles & electronics has plummeted. the effect on the industrial sector has been catastrophic.

rather than taking a sane route and studying the language with the fervor necessary to understand the complexities of reality, i have instead chosen to consider more amusing economic ideas that may or may not be rational. for instance, a good friend of mine has made the claim that the entire japanese economy is based on “可愛い” (kawaii, or cute). i must say, from looking at the clothes, toys and cartoonish foods available at my local market, this is not a farfetched idea. if it is cute, people will buy it--no matter what it is.

it may not be a cornerstone of the economy as a whole, but the snack sector is definitely one that is not going away any time soon. it’s a cultural staple of japanese life. first, there is the concept of “omiyage.” anytime a japanese person goes on vacation (even a short one), they are socially obligated to bring back small gifts for their coworkers. while there are no specific rules (at least not that i have yet divined) stating that the gifts should be in the form of snacks, this is most frequently the case. omiyage shops can be found in spades near any point of interest in japan. in fact, i think there is one down the street from my apartment and my town, while charming, is not exactly a “point of interest.”

right now i have a collection of rice crackers and sweets in my desk drawer. each piece is wrapped and each bears the name of the place from which it hails. there are sembei from shikoku, chocolates from wakayama and something i have yet to identify from somewhere i have yet to identify (i think it may be stuffed with sweet bean paste. mmmmmm!). all were found on my desk when i arrived to work this morning. apparently, a lot of people were out of town this weekend.

it’s difficult to tell which is more common in japan, omiyage shops or snack bars (スナックバー sunakku bā), more commonly referred to as “snacks.” snacks are an interesting phenomenon and they reflect heavily the peculiar way in which an ancient society like japan’s has entered the modern era. the idea is very simple. male customers visit snacks and are entertained by attractive women. the menu will generally have no set prices and the bill is arbitrary (and generally expensive).

by no means are snacks brothels or strip clubs. the staff is paid to serve, flirt and make the clientele feel at ease. it’s somewhat reminiscent of geisha culture. however, though being a “snack girl” may be somewhat of an art, it does not require the same training and meticulous preparation for which geisha are renowned. i imagine that going to a snack would be quite enjoyable, but i don’t think i’ll be doing it any time soon. the arbitrary charge is a bit daunting, the idea of paying for female attention is a bit repulsive and there is a chance that i might find an ex-student of mine working there. this is a small town. i’d never hear the end of it.

i have yet to explore the breadth or depth of the japanese snack market. the munchables aisle at the supermarket is a bit too much for me. sensory overload is not what i'm looking for when i shop--i have a hard enough time finding baking soda (conveniently located between the drano and coat hangers). lucky for my midsection is the fact that i generally tend to dislike the most popular snacky treats here. i love life in japan, but snacks are just too much of a crapshoot. there are a few delicious (and ridiculously unhealthy) exceptions. i am eating one right now.

snack away! #8 - let's enjoying snack.
guest blogger: cain gibbs, minami awaji-shi, hyogo-ken, japan

snack: umaika
drink: homemade chu-hi (shochu highball)



the chu-hi is always a great way to relax after work. it's my drink of choice when kitchen drinking. my version usually consists of three ingredients:

1) mugi shochu
2) fruit juice (today it's grapefruit)
3) mitsuya cider

i have found mugi (barley) shochu to be the most mixable variety (potato is good with hot water in winter, but has too strong of an odor to make good chu-hi, and the rice-based kind has too much flavor). It's warming in the winter and refreshing in the summer. the cider (which is sweet and carbonated, but i have yet to nail down exactly what the flavor is supposed to be) adds a crispness. citrus juices mix best with shochu, although i have enjoyed a good peach juice chu-hi on occasion.

umaika rocks my world and clogs my arteries. i am not sure if "umaika" is a general term or a brand name, but i lean towards it being a brand name, as umai can mean “exceptionally delicious” and ika is japanese for squid. this snack is indeed exceptionally delicious squid. it is essentially strips of squid jerky battered and deep-fried. opening the bag smells like low tide, but the flavor is sweet and delicate. it's the right balance of salt and sugar to accompany any sort of alcoholic beverage.

i discovered this on a bus trip to fukui when the vice principal of my school handed me a beer and a cup of umaika at 7AM on a saturday morning. that was quite a trip. ask me about it sometime. for now, I should go. i have a sack of fried squid and a carton of shochu, and they aren't going to disappear without a little help from yours truly.

cain is from tennessee. once he lived in boston. now he's in japan teaching high school english. he often has impressive hair.

snack away! #7 - free market snackin'.

we at the pursuit cast put on a regular podcast about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. we're neither republican, nor democrat - we just try to do the right thing. we started it because we felt like no one in the regular media expressed a sane viewpoint about politics and philosophy and continue it as a way to get our thoughts out there. we're trying to make friends with like-minded people, not initiate conflict with people who don't feel the same way. so far, it's been successful. if you care to listen and have an open mind - we'd love to have you check out an episode or two. it gives us a chance to share a bit of ourselves outside of our day jobs.

we (frank and mike) over at pursuitcast.com work very hard at our day jobs. that's plural - jobs - we are involved directly in the operations, or oversight, of several companies each. in addition, we both have board seats at a cloud computing and IT cost reduction service and an agronomy project aimed at developing stable economies in places where currency is neither accessible nor viable (names withheld to protect the innocent). we're working out some details in nigeria, india and vietnam as you read this. our work is very fulfilling. however, this pace leaves very little opportunity for leisure time. we're pretty much all grind, all the time.

after you've given us a listen, it's pretty clear that we're those unapologetic free market types...sometimes shockingly so to the innocent bystander. backyard barbecues, should we ever get the chance to attend them, can turn into an episode of family feud pretty quickly. i guess that's part of the reason behind the podcast, so that we may avoid sharing our politics in polite company and just refer them to our link to subscribe. we're real outcasts in that, being of a free market persuasion, we feel that we are justly entitled the fruits of our labor, and that taxes are an intrusion into our liberty. the tax rate is way too high. this, coupled with our schedule, precludes us from doing something we both consider essential to our happiness...drinkin' and snackin'.

it is a common misconception that we free market types only drink essence of bunny rabbit and snack on the delicate and tasty souls of lost and exploited children. however, nothing could be further from the truth. we're real capitalists with morals and values rooted in the golden rule, although we hear that the souls of children are a delicacy at some institutions on wall street. when we're not out on the grind, we like to kick back and have some good conversation over a drink and snack, so without any more jibber-jabber - here's what it's like to snack pursuit cast style...

snack away! #7 - free market snackin'.
guest bloggers: frank speiser/mike perrone (the pursuit cast), new york, ny

snacks: shake shack cheeseburger / nobu next door california roll
drinks: dun bheagan 26-year-old scotch / 1938 macallan / tesseron lot 53
cigars: montecristo D LE 2005 / padron 1964 anniversario series



the pre-game - we don't get this kind of downtime very often, so we're not going to crack open a pabst blue ribbon and crush the empty and comically recyclable can on our chests. actually, mike may do that, but it'd be on someone else's chest, and somehow he'd get away with it. normally, we prefer to transition from sharply-focused capitalists to relaxed family men via the consumption of a good scotch whisky. again, we don't get a lot of time for this, so we're not talking some urine-esque johnny walker red nonsense.

we're going to kick things off with a dun bheagan 26-year-old scotch. it's got a welcoming, nutty and caramel-like flavor that makes you almost forget that someone proposed a bill that would further limit the amount hard work and savings you can pass on to your children...yet again. we drink this either straight or with two ice cubes depending on the weather. it's about this time in the process that we'll probably start talking about some of the funny things our kids do and what we hope to teach them some day. we're now among friends and life is good...then we'll have another, because we can.

the main event - after we've managed to take the edge off, we're in full snack mode. brace yourself.

we're all for job creation, so we're not going to get something off-the-shelf. we're going to hire a courier and each grab a single cheeseburger from the shake shack - and not that johnny-come-lately shake shack uptown in manhattan on 77th and columbus. we're keeping it real with the madison park original. we're also picking up a california roll from nobu next door on franklin and hudson. of course, we tip extra if the food gets back to us at the right temperature. we're going to pair that up with a 1938 macallan that was bottled in 1973. this might give pause to all those connoisseurs out there that think thar be a travesty to drink a scotch from 1938 with a cheeseburger and a sushi roll, and we concede it is irregular. however, it's also time and money we earned so we highly recommend that you kiss our asses.

the tint of fruit and spices is exceptional in the 1938 macallan - especially to two guys who don't swill some half-dewars/half-water concoction at 5:45 p.m. every day. it's a real treat. the apple notes in the macallan (and you really can taste 'em) make for a nice compliment to the burger (apples and burgers go great together) and the spiciness allows you to rotate in a bite of nobu's sushi roll to cleanse the palate. try it, and then don't tell us about it later.

right about now, we're probably talking about how nancy pelosi looks like skeletor, or how "conservative" talk show host mark levin sounds like that angry guy in the grocery store yelling at canned goods. everything seems funnier after three to four glasses of great scotch. we're also glad to remind someone that we employed craftsmen in the culinary and whisky industries--not some mass-production sweatshop--and that we've done our part to lower the price for the next marginal customer who wants to order the same snack by making it easier for the proprietors of these fine establishments to expand, should they choose to do so.

the post game - you should know that when we're snacking (or doing anything), we're not going to half-ass it. you don't just snack and run...not on our watch...so what we're going to do is wrap this thing up with a cigar and a cognac. if you didn't know what you were doing, you might go with the tesseron lot 29 cognac (bottled in 1929). that lot is for suckers. 1929 was the year of the sucker (YOTS) until 2008 came along. the real deal is the tesseron lot 53 (bottled in 1953). the candy complexion and dark fruits of the flavors offer enough depth to compliment the cigars we're sparking up to finish this off.

this next part is where mike and frank differ. we're not going to have the same cigar. that assumption is just impolite...we're not communists, after all. mike's going with the montecristo D LE 2005 for its even draw and the fact that it finishes well. they are mild, creamy cigars that don't pull any surprises on you. frank, on the other hand, is going to get contra with it and go with the padron 1964 anniversario series, live and direct from nicaragua. these are little more potent, but one of these still fits well with the tesseron 53 and the cocoa flavors that kick in after the halfway point are kick-ass, to use the technical term. the flavors shift and morph as you get through the cigar. it's a great way to end the snack session and remind us of why we work so hard at trying to provide real, measurable value. hank rearden's not walking through that door, people.

oh yeah, another thing - neither one of us is going to smoke a cuban cigar. they're overrated flavor-wise and the construction has since been replicated by master cigar makers at both padron and montecristo. besides, the castros can bite us; that semi-colon is for you - fidel.

the conclusion - it's great to know that there are people who take so much pride in their trade and we're happy to buy their unique products. the drinks, snacks and cigar we've chosen come from the work of people who sought to make a unique and different mark on life. their self-determination led them to be able to offer such a unique taste experience that we're willing to spend our money (and thus our own time) to go out of our way and get their products. instead of common, commodity state-issued rations of alcohol and meals, the market provides a way for us to earn some discretionary income and then spend that on some unique products that only the talents of specific people with dedication and drive can bring to the market. we also employed someone who is likely getting a start in this country in picking these products up for us and if they did a good job, we're happy to be able to tip even more. it's a start, but we know that it's just a stepping stone.

if we had just a 1% reduction in our tax burden, we might snack like this once a week. maybe with more claim to our own income we would see more competition for great scotch and burgers and bring the prices down for everyone. sounds like an idea for a future podcast, and with that we're back to work. thanks to mr. pyro for having us on. keep snacking, brother.

frank & mike are big fans of the free market. please catch them on the pursuit cast by subscribing via itunes at: http://tinyurl.com/pursuitcast or visiting podcast.com: http://podcast.com/show/139477/The-Pursuit-Cast/.

snack away! #6 - one out of five doctors...

i have a love/hate relationship with snacks. i love to eat them. i hate that before i can decide to bring said snack into my home, i need to calculate the damage that would be done if i were to eat the whole bag. lately the hate had been winning and the evilness of snacks had been avoided.

that is until about a month ago. i was asked to write a guest snack blog. not a big deal, right? i’ll just go buy a snack, write my blog, and that will be it. ahh, but it has to be the perfect snack. damn my perfectionism!

the downward spiral began when i entered the snack row at trader joes. i had already had a failed attempt at a local "healthy" food store, when i purchased chile pineapple tidbits, a ridiculously spicy snack. once i regained my ability to taste again, i found myself in the trader joes snack row. now i do LOVE trader joes, probably more than is natural, BUT my love does not extend to the snack row.

don’t get me wrong, the snacks are yummy and creative and generally healthier than your average chip, but, again, not if you eat the whole bag in one sitting. it’s like the fat free cookie problem, which i believe is responsible for 25% of obesity! as a pediatrician, i feel the need to "practice what i preach" and eat how i tell my patients to. somehow i feel they will know! therefore, i blame you, shawn, for the copious snacks filling my once snackless cabinets and the distinct lack of "real" food in my home.  this, of course, makes me a hypocrite (and approximately four lbs heavier than last month!). however, i thank you, with a twinge of sarcasm, for the discovery of a new snack...

snack away! #6 - one out of five doctors...
guest blogger: aimee parow, phoenix, az

snack: buccaneer joe’s unburied treasure sour cream & onion corn puffs
drink: fresh & easy cucumber flavored water

upon entering trader joe’s for my snack quest, i found a somewhat familiar snack bag, however with a green stripe. you may be familiar with the unburied treasure white cheddar flavor (a really yummy knock off of pirate's booty), however this new bag was sour cream & onion flavor!

now where do i start? true to the original white cheddar flavor, the base of puffy corn is light and airy, dissolving in your mouth. the sour cream & onion flavor is not overwhelming and is evenly distributed over all pieces. it leaves a slight aftertaste of sour cream and probably some really rank breath. it will definitely keep the creepy, stand-too-close friend at a more appropriate distance. this may just be the perfect sour cream and onion snack.

they are also relatively healthy (which every doctor likes!) with 140 calories, 5g of fat, 2g fiber (who doesn’t love fiber?!) and 3g protein in a rather large 2.5 cup serving. also there is no MSG, my arch enemy...definitely a better choice than the hot cheetos staining the lips and fingers of the children of phoenix.

in order to compensate for the fact that i’ve eaten 2 ½ 3 4 servings of the snack while writing this, i chose to go with a no calorie drink--fresh & easy cucumber flavored water. i’m not sure who's the genius who came up with this one or why no one told him/her that cucumbers don’t HAVE any flavor. not surprisingly, it tastes like water with a very, very, very, very slight aftertaste of cucumber. i’m not really seeing the advantage over water.

all in all, the combination of very flavorful snack and flavorless drink worked very well. it also came with minimal guilt, provided the rest of the bag remains in my cabinet until at least tomorrow. diet starts tomorrow.

aimee parow is a pediatrician who lives in phoenix with her two dogs (lona & gypsy) & a stray cat named max, who lives on the porch. she enjoys exotic foods & gadgets and is an M.D. who is one part E.R., two parts S.C.P.A., one part M.L.B. & no parts MSG.

snack away! #5 - deez nutz.

growing up in new hampshire, the options for local professional/semi-professional/ being-paid-in-grade-F-meat sporting events were...well let’s just say they were limited. in fact, as i remember it, the only option was the nashua pirates, the AA affiliate of the pittsburgh pirates. the reason behind this was pretty obvious: new hampshire had a total population of about 36 ^{(citation needed)}.  it may have been slightly higher than that, i’m not sure. look, i’m not a "scientist."  the point is, we at least had the pirates, and my mom would occasionally take me and a bunch of my friends to catch a game.

OK...it was me and two of my friends.

OK...one friend.

OK...i’d go with just my mom. *sigh* let’s just move on.

the pirates only stuck around for three seasons, most likely because someone in the pirates organization finally figured out where the hell nashua was. i imagine it was a quick conversation that went something like, "hey earl, did you realize we had a minor league affiliate in new hampshire?!" "no i didn’t...why did we put a team in canada?"  after that there was a dark period in new hampshire pro sports known as "nothing," which was fine by me since i was past the age where i could be entertained by below average ballplayers, but not old enough to know how awesome sports were with beer.

that brings us to the present day. new hampshire has had a resurgence of marginal and minor league sports teams, led by the manchester monarchs (hockey – l.a. kings minor league team) and the new hampshire fisher cats (baseball – blue jays AA team). the "oates" to these "halls" of the granite state sports landscape are undoubtedly the manchester freedom. who are the manchester freedom, you ask?...seriously? you asked that? dude, i provided a link. do you need me to come over and carry you to your rascal too? dag.

the freedom are part of the solution to the sport everyone has been craving: woman’s tackle football! wow. and this isn’t anything like the lingerie football league, which I could see pulling in a few bucks (i mean just look at that professionally designed website!). this is full pads and they take themselves very seriously. a friend of mine attended their first home game...he said attendance was approximately 100 people. oops.

snack away! #5 - deez nutz.
guest blogger: jay wilkinson, nashua, nh

snack: hampton farms cajun creole hot nuts
drink: woodstock inn pig's ear brown ale

we started this thing off with baseball, so what better snack & drink combo to represent that then peanuts and beer? now, i know what you're thinking: here comes a poorly-executed and predictable joke about genitalia. well you're wrong. i'm not doing it. no way. i will not sully a great snack like hot nuts. i just enjoy the taste of a couple warm and salty nuts in my mouth too much to go down like that.

the hampton farms cajun creole hot nuts were a great little find for me about a month ago at the local supermarket. these things are ridiculous. i don't know what kind of sorcery the good folks at hampton farms are employing to make these little peanut wonders, but somehow the peanuts are coated with cajuny goodness while still in the shell. the first time i bought them, i ate a half a bag in one sitting.

about an hour later, i decided to take my contacts out. there was no hand-washing in the interim. for those of you without contacts, coating your fingers with any sort of hot sauce or powder and then sticking one of the aforementioned fingers in your eye is a good way to come up with new curse words. that night, i came up with "poopsticks" and another one i won't print here, as it's basically a slight to the queen of england, a large breed of dog, and a popular confectionary treat all-in-one. look, i don't know who reads this thing.

where was i? oh yeah...hot nuts are the nuts of the gods and go great with beer. i chose a local brew that i tried for the first time this weekend, woodstock inn pig's ear brown ale. i'm not ashamed to admit i chose it because of the name. i'm a simple man, but it was actually a fine beer and i'll likely go back for more in the future. the hot nuts are not local, though, and i urge you to go out and find some if you enjoy the whole peanut-in-the-shell experience.

jay wilkinson is a 34-yr old new hampshire native who has lived there his whole life. except for that year in the circus where he cultivated his love of peanuts and his legendary hatred of clown culture. seriously, anyone who becomes a clown is just masking underlying and disturbing sociopathic tendencies. get help, freak. did you know that penn of penn & teller went to clown college? i know, right?! i bet you that dude has killed a few drifters in his day.

snack away! #4 - all the dick in d.c...

throughout high school and college, i worked at a supermarket in nh as a stock clerk so i certainly know my way around the aisles. i knew where everything in grocery was; i probably still do for my high school store. stuffing? aisle 2: veg. kleenex? aisle 14: bulk paper. beef bullion? aisle 3: spag. hell, i even knew the tricky stuff. capers? nice try. aisle 8: glass. i was also familiar with the really weird things that people rarely bought and i'd only stock a case of once a year... potted meat product, nutella, mrs. dash? who buys this crap? (ed note: hell yeah, nutella!)

a few weeks back it was under somewhat peckish circumstances that i found myself behind the cart at my local fashionable-sweatpants-yuppie-supermarket in suburban washington d.c. i had picked up my normal assorted veggies and meats and breads and was banking a hard right into aisle 5: ethnic/imported foods...might as well grab some kind of funky sauce to douse the chicken with one evening. while i examined a jar of curry to make sure it would make me sorry i bought it the next day, a can i hadn't stumbled on before caught my eye.


spotted dick indeed. if you're going to stump me on a grocery item, it better be ethnic and it better be something i'd never eat. bonus points if there is an intercontinental sexual slang innuendo. after some examination and research, it is apparently some sort of british canned pudding priced at a decidedly ambitious $5.99 per can. american. now mind you, i wouldn't characterize myself as a fan of dick by american definition, so it never crossed my mind that i might buy this version, but two weeks and one guest blog invitation later, here i am in the kitchen with a can opener ready to crack open this little tin of love from the venerable heinz corporation. somehow i don't think this qualifies as one of the 57 original heinz varieties.

snack away! #4 - all the dick in d.c...
guest blogger: todd martin, washington, d.c.

snack: heinz spotted dick sponge pudding
drink: twinings english breakfast tea

so it's about 4:00 and i'm thinking a british snack would hit the spot, so i'm breaking out the heinz spotted dick sponge pudding. the directions instruct me to open the top of the can, run a knife around the perimeter, turn upside down, and open the other side to push the product out. i would soon find that the last two steps are not necessary as a brick of dick immediately smashed onto my counter as soon as i turned the can over. not encouraging.

it smells decent enough - more like a canned cake-like confection with raisins as opposed to a pudding. bill cosby would seemingly not approve. i did not realize there was cooking involved and am ill-prepared for this event. according to the directions, i now have the option to steam or microwave this thing. in the interest of time, i go with the latter and also toss in a mug of water with the hope that the spotted dick aroma doesn't turn it into something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. i'm not exactly sure what made me go all cheeky with the beverage as well, but what the heck.


hey, you know what? not bad! it's cakey and warm and wholesome. really sweet. i would guess the spices include molasses and cinnamon, maybe even pumpkin. i never thought i would like it at first glance but it just goes to show you never judge a dick by its cans. the twinings english breakfast tea complimented it well, perhaps a bit over-steeped but good nonetheless. i have some dick saved for the girlfriend on thursday and you might even find this on my grocery list in the near future.

todd martin is a struggling architectural designer in washington d.c. you should totally have him redo your kitchen.