only in ny #1: bierkraft

snack: landjäeger / strudel
drink: harpoon island creek oyster stout / sixpoint sweet action

guess what time it is? it's NEW COLUMN TIME! since i live in nyc & a good percentage of you DEVOTED eat!drink!snack! readers are also here in the city, i'm introducing "only in ny," a column devoted to establishments here in the city that i've stopped in for a snack & a drink. enjoy...

i'm a beer snob connoisseur. fuck wine. fuck hard liquor. i drink beer. i drink it for the taste. i drink it for the funny things it does to my brain. it's good like that.

a formative moment in my beer drinking history:

back in college, i was in a non-sexual assault ridden frat & when we threw parties it was all shite keg beer & "punch" served in a dark basement. i was all "fuck basement beer." it's a scientific fact that milwaukee's beast tastes like ass, so i decided that if i was going to get wasted on copious amounts of beer & mack on chicks, i was going to at least enjoy getting wasted.

my solution: i carried around newcastle in a backpack, which, as a phish phan, was a staple of my outfit anyhow & helped solidify my reputation as "the hippie brother."

these days, i'm just as snobby.

Click to read more ...

#143 - you blue it!

seriously...what the heckarooney is going on with the democratic party these days? ever since obama took office back in january with democratic majorities in both houses, they've been an absolute mess, pussyfooting around when it comes to pushing through all the awesome legislation that the president promised during the campaign. at the same time, the republicans have been constantly on the attack, refusing to work with the democrats on many issues, determined to derail them at every turn. it's as if both sides of the aisle are concerned with nothing more than bickering back & forth, which is SHOCKING to see happening in our nation's capital. as a result, the democrats are getting next to nothing done these days. also TOTALLY SHOCKING.

Click to read more ...

#140 - ...the end of the year as we know it & i feel meh.

time to do some reflectin', loyal eat!drink!snack! readers! loyal readers, you're SO loyal that i'd feel bad if i lied to you & said that 2009 hasn't been the most exhausting year thus far in my 35 year existence. i think it was that way for a lot of people, so at least i'm not alone, but man, i am so ready for 2010 to begin so i can implement some sort of calendar based-psychological shift & let the happiness start rolling on in again. as that shift approaches, i definitely have a lot to be thankful for, but there's a lot going on in my world & the world at large that calls for the use of a rather large frowny face, one with non-true blood or twilight inspired fangs. 

at the start of the year, when we were inaugurating the new hope & saying goodbye to eight years of bush hell, i tried to be optimistic that obama & democratic congressional majorities would turn the country around, but twelve months later, i can't say that i'm impressed. guantanamo's still open, the health care debate is off-the-rails & the current bill is disgustingly compromised. ten percent of my friends still can't get married. we're upping the troop count in afghanistan, but that was expected, since obama did say that he would do that in the campaign. i didn't vote for him though, so i have a right to be disappointed by him.

...but there are a bunch of bright spots. despite the music industry's shortcomings, i'm as excited about music as i've ever been (year end bests to come!). the same goes for tv. for the first time in a long time, i can't count the shows i follow on my fingers alone. i need toes too! i wish i could say the same about film. as for the world of literature, 2009 marks the first year in my life that i didn't read one book...not one. instead, i spent the time that i would've usually spent reading books on the internet, reading blogs & news sites. i can't say i'm sad about the lack of books in my life this year though, because i've consumed enough media & info that my curious nature has been sufficiently sated.

i've also had an unquantifiable mess of fun in '09. there was my summer chicago trip for the pitchfork festival, where 1% of the calendar year equaled 10% of my 2009 fun. there were bunches of concerts, including multiple bday week dirty projectors shows, this summer's phish shows & ac/dc from the second row. there were the occasional visits from out-of-town friends, from the periodic todd martin visit to drop-ins by now-new orleans resident mike weber to a long weekend visit from my childhood friend & strong proponent of portland, chris dorin. as a bonus, when chris visited, he brought me a booyah amount of snacks from oregon, which will soon be featured in a january series i'm putting together on portland & their mostly-awesome snacks.

the thing i'm most thankful for at the year's end is the fact that i still have a job & as of jan 1, will have been at my job longer than any other in the past. as of november's numbers, 10% of the nation's still unemployed & throughout the course of the year, i've lost a number of co-workers to job cuts. having a job means having a roof over my head & that's something i've reminded myself of all year long. it also means that i can maintain a constant flow of tasty snacks & drinks into my belly. it means that at night, when i'm tired & done with people for the day, i can return to my abode, sit down with a snack & drink & engage with my best friend, this here blog.

2009 was the year when this here blog & writing in general became one of the most important aspects of my life. 2009 was the year where folks started introducing me as "a writer" as opposed to "some guy who does some music industry thing." 2009 was the year where i penned thirty something columns for the amazing fuckedinparkslope, which is run by ms erica, just one of the amazing people i met this year & someone who, just a few weeks back, elegantly captured the reasons why having a blog both totally fucking sucks & totally fucking rules.

for eat!drink!snack!, 2009 was the year where i introduced a new column that's now helped me reconnect with journalism (my initial college major). it was the year where twelve folks (& my bro) blew me away with hilarious/insightful guest columns. it was the year where i OD'd on pumpkin beer for a month. it was the year where i finally decided to sort of think about what i was eating. for eat!drink!snack!, it was a good year. for me, it was meh. i'm already way optimistic about 2010 though. if nothing, we'll get the final season of LOST, a show with a title that's quite fitting for the times. once that's done though, i'm not sure what we'll do. hopefully we'll learn something about how to reset time or something.

#140 - ...the end of the year as we know it & i feel meh.
snack: blue diamond habanero bbq almonds
drink: tröegs dreamweaver wheat ale



as i sit here reflecting on the past year, i'm snacking from a can of blue diamond habanero bbq almonds that i came across this holiday season up at a nh wal-mart. i have a long & colored history with blue diamond, from their lime chili flavor that i tried out way back in january as an accompaniment to college football's '08-'09 championship game to their wasabi & soy sauce flavor, which was my #1 snack of 2008. the habenero bbq ones are one of a few slightly-new blue diamond almond flavors & from what i can tell, they're so new that they haven't had the resources to add them to their website yet. stupid economic downturn. here's to them making it onto the website in 2010.

they're aight & definitely live up to their name, with sufficient bbq flavor & sufficient spicy pepper flavor on blue diamond almonds. a year after declaring them my #1 snack, i'd still pick the wasabi & soy sauce ones over any other nuts. i don't think i could say the same thing for the habenero bbq ones, but they're still pretty damn good. they have a taste akin to a good bbq chip (which, btw IMHO is hard to find) & the habanero flavor adds a nice kick to the mix. plus, with blue diamond almonds, as long as you're a fan of nuts & near-excessive flavoring, you really go wrong. they're tasty & relatively ok to consume, with their fiber & low carbs & whatnot. if you can find them wherever it is that you live, they're definitely worth checking out.

since i started dreaming of a more-promising 2010 months ago, i'm pairing the almonds with a bottle of tröegs dreamweaver wheat ale, made by harrisburg's tröegs brewing co. tröegs has been brewing out of PA's capital for the last decade plus & at the moment, they offer over a dozen beers, all with puntastic names & interestingly-designed labels. i've tried out a couple of their beers, including their sunshine pils, which i tried out back in april. although the sunshine pils was one of three tröegs beers that won a medal at this year's GABF & promised the sunshine of pils, i still felt pretty meh after drinking it. overall, from what i've sampled of their beers, they've been good but nothing special.

as for the dreamweaver, it promises dreams but was also fairly meh. the flavor's fine & all, but it's pretty much your average, everyday wheat bear with less of a cloudy, wheaty consistency than you'd expect from a good, quality wheat beer. i drank it relatively quickly & when i was done, i had trouble thinking of anything unique about what i'd just drank. their website mentions that is has a slight banana taste, which would have been unique, but i didn't notice it at all. it's also only 4.8% ABV, so if i was looking to get shnookered (fuck it, i'm on vacation!), i'd need to down a bunch of them to reach my goal. in this economically-challenged, post-9/11 world, having to do that somehow seems wasteful.

#139 - documenting genius.

since i'm a genius myself, i feel like i'm qualified to say that the best part about being one is that if you end up going off the rails at some point, there's a good chance that folks will just chalk it up to you being an eccentric, madcap intellectual & just let you be your babbling, holes-in-your-shoes self. my favorite type of insane genius is the mad, musical type, so over the past week i checked out two films that document the lives of two such geniuses--wesley willis & lil wayne.

the first film--wesley willis's joy rides--came out on dvd last week & to mark its release, pitchfork had it available for viewing all last week, so i checked it out. the film gives us a glimpse into the life of wesley willis, the late artist from chicago. willis, who was known as much for being a for being a 300-pound schizophrenic as he was for being a prolific artist, released hundreds of songs in his lifetime. they're all simple pop songs with simple, humorous & sometimes obscene lyrics that almost always end with a company's tagline. there's "northwest airlines," which ends with "american airlines. we mean business in chicago." there's "oprah winfrey," which ends with "johnny rockets. it's the original hamburger." there's his biggest hit--"rock n roll mcdonald's"--which ends with "wheaties. breakfast of champions." obviously.

in addition to his musical output, willis also did countless ink pen drawings of chicago as he saw it, usually in extremely intricate detail. the filmmakers speak with him a lot & it's obvious that he was troubled, consumed by demonic voices that "shouted profanity at him" & as he described it, took him on "hellrides." still, until he died of complications from leukemia, he was known as a jovial guy & a prolific artist & the film does a great job of capturing both that & his mental troubles.

the second film--the carter--came out on dvd a few weeks back. it follows lil wayne around during the time that his last album (the carter III) was released & is directed by adam bhala lough, whose 2002 film bomb the system focused on nyc graffiti & won some festival acclaim. he does a good enough job telling the story of lil wayne. i'm only familiar with wayne based on his prolific output over the last few years & although i like what i've heard, i've never been able to understand what all the hype was about. it was that sense of "seriously...why is this guy so huge?" that made the carter an interesting film for me.

from what i've heard of his music, his beats are kind of boring, but the dude has a ridiculously intelligent lyrical vocabulary & carries a recording setup with him wherever he goes. from what i've heard of his lifestyle, dude's smoking blunts & rapping 24-7 & artists who are never sober but still manage to be both good & prolific intrigue me. the film opens with a disclaimer that lil wayne refused to do a proper interview, but regardless, after 90 minutes of seeing him in hotel rooms & on the bus, i was left with the feeling that he really thinks that he's the best rapper alive & until somebody else puts as much passion into rapping as he does, i'm not going to argue with him or fault him for smoking blunts 24-7.

so why did i enjoy these two films so much? it's largely because i'm obsessed with music & a lot of what i enjoy is made by mad musical geniuses. although the documentary i recently watched about him was totally boring, pink floyd's syd barrett & his descent into LSD insanity both make me sad & curious. when i watched the devil & daniel johnston, i was more interested in why daniel johnston has become a disturbed cult musician than in his music. artists are generally off by nature & when i get to see what makes them tick, i can't help but think that if they were "normal," it just wouldn't be the same.

#139 - documenting genius.
snack: mcdonald's grilled chipotle bbq snack wrap
drink: dixie blackened voodoo lager



in honor of the late wesley willis & his undying love for rock n roll mcdonalds, tonight i'm snacking on a mcdonald's grilled chipotle bbq snack wrap. since wesley died in 2003 & the snack wrap wasn't introduced until 2006, he never got to sample the wonder of the mcdonald's snack wrap, but i'm sure he would've wrote a sweet song about it if he'd had the chance. it'd be all like "mcdonalds snack wrap. you are healthy to the max. i like to eat you. you go good with the rock" with his signature keyboards behind it. it'd be way better than any song mcdonald's has ever used in any of their ads.

the grilled chipotle bbq snack wrap...as a snack, it's aight. i've eaten a ton of them in my day & if i had to choose a favorite snack wrap, the grilled chipotle bbq one would definitely win. since it's built back on the mcdonald's assembly line, it never comes out looking as awesome as it looks in their ads & signage, but they slather it in bbq sauce & i can easily be distracted by the right amount of bbq sauce. on top of that, they put it in a wrap. if you've been following the trends of the past decade, you know that that means that it's exponentially healthier. as far as chicken goes, the meat's pretty white & essentially acceptable, although i just saw food inc this past weekend & i'm pretty sure that the chickens that gave their lives to make my snack wrap didn't enjoy a life of struttin' in the meadow.

to pay tribute to lil wayne, i'm washing down the snack wrap with a bottle of new orleans' own dixie blackened voodoo lager. i was planning on trying out drank, the "relaxation beverage" that helps you "slow your roll" & is named after the cough syrup & soda concoction popularized by rappers like lil wayne. i stopped into hundreds of bodegas & corner stores over the past week trying to locate a can of the stuff to no avail, so i picked up a bottle of the blackened voodoo instead. it's made by the dixie brewing co, a brewery that has been around for just over a hundred years but is in bad shape these days because of what katrina & the successive looting did to the brewery. apparently their website got looted too.

i first tried the blackened voodoo just after college, when i was living with this guy named dave who was a mad genius in his own right & one of the first people i knew who picked up six packs of good beer. at the time, i was more of a "twelve-pack of red dog" sort of guy, but dave would occasionally come home with six packs of stuff like the blackened voodoo & offer a few up while we sat around & talked about the mysteries of bog butter. i remembered the blackened voodoo being a lot darker & blacker, but it's actually a dark brown sort of color & is smoother than i remembered. i'm probably just remembering it that way because i like to think that my past was darker than it actually was though. after all...a dark past is a sign of a true genius.

#137 - you down with ODB?

i'm not sure how many of you are aware of this, but in order to enter the wu-tang, you must bring the ol' dirty bastard type slang. it's true. ODB said so on "da mystery of chessboxin'," off the wu-tang clan's debut album enter the wu-tang (36 chambers). if you're looking to bring the ol' dirty bastard type slang, all you have to do is put some marbles in your mouth & go on an offbeat, occasionally sung rant. the rest will take care of itself. ODB, who died of a drug overdose back in november of 2004, would have been 41 this past sunday. in honor of his birthday, i spent a good part of the day hanging out at my apartment whilst blasting his two solo albums from my tiny apple speakers & doing a bunch of head boppin'.

his 1995 debut album, return to the 36 chambers: the dirty version, is my favorite of the two, with tracks like "shimmy shimmy ya" & "brooklyn zoo." on it, you get a bounty of half-sung, half-rapped lyrics like "cause I create rhymes good as a tasty cake." there's even a song with him singing the chorus to "somewhere over the rainbow." obviously. over four years later, he released his second album, nigga please, with plain white album art featuring nothing but a photo of him jheri-curled up like rick james. it's a funkier album at times & features two neptunes' produced tracks. the first is a sweet cover of rick james' "cold blooded," which is perfect for ODB, who loves to get to warblin' every once in a while. the second is "got your money," which was the album's only single & also helped introduce the world to kelis, who we've since forgotten about.

by that second album, he was getting into a lot of good ol fashion trouble, which led to the four year wait between albums. we're talking arrests, gunshot wounds, drug possession, life as a fugitive, jail time...all that good stuff. in 97, he took a limo to the welfare office to pick up his check, all while an mtv crew filmed him. remember the 1998 grammy awards, when he took the mic before shawn colvin gave her acceptance speech, rambled for a bit & declared that "wu-tang is for the children?" that was awesome. it was like my generation's "imma let you finish." that was around the same time when he starting calling himself "big baby jesus," just one of many pseudonyms he used over the years. so yeah, his rapping was epic but his behavior was too...sad but entertaining.

his legacy lives on. this past tuesday, a new, posthumous ODB album entitled message to the other side (osirus part 1) came out on money maker entertainment. the record was created from the wu-tang vaults & features a ton of guests, including the RZA on a quarter of the tracks. it even comes with a bonus DVD. i'm extremely skeptical of posthumous albums. they're often culled together from existing material, which is often sparse. plus, i'm of the opinion that wu-tang productions have declined in quality over the years, so there's a good chance that the album could be absolutely awful. hopefully it's not though. ODB doesn't need some lame posthumous album sullying his reputation like that.

#137 - you down with ODB?
snack: dirty chips funky fusion flavor
drink: arrogant bastard ale



since sunday was ODB day, i chose to snack on a bag of funky fusion flavor dirty chips while i listened to his albums. the funky fusion flavor's one of a few new flavors that dirty chips just put out (along with smoky chipolte & pesto parmesan). according to their website, which appears to have been designed some time back in the nineties, the funky fusion flavor "defies description! a little sour, no, a little sweet, no, a little salty, no, a little creamy, no, a little tangy, no........just enjoy!" dear dirty chips. your use of punctuation is too radical even for my tastes. NINE commas in one sentence? what is that? a triple ellipsis? seriously though, unless the owner has a thirteen-year old daughter & she's writing copy for the website, you should probably watch it with the punctuation. thanks.

since i'm a professional, despite dirty chips' claim that they defy description, i'm going to attempt to describe them. i figure it's the least i can do, so here goes: they taste sort of like a spring roll from a thai restaurant. see? that wasn't so hard. they definitely have an asian flavor to them & in classic dirty chips style, that flavor is in abundance. there's a lot going on with them. it's like an EXPLOSION of funky fusion. as for the texture, you can't beat the crunch of a dirty chip. still, even though they're kettle cooked & all natural, they're slightly greasy & full of a bunch of fat & sodium. health concerns aside, i definitely enjoyed them though.

to complete sunday's ODB tribute, i had a 22 oz bottle of arrogant bastard ale along with the funky dirty chips. the arrogant bastard's made by stone brewing co., who brews out of sunny san diego. a little known fact about san diego (home of the padres & ron burgundy): discovered by the germans in 1904, they named it san diego, which of course in german means a whale's vagina. i guess that the devilish dude on the front of the bottle is the arrogant bastard. he's kind of a lil bitch. in order to access his website, in addition to certifying that you're 21, you have to certify that you're "not a fizzy yellow beer drinking ninny here under false pretenses." according to the front of the bottle, i'm not worthy of drinking it. screw you arrogant bastard devil mascot. you don't know me.

the arrogant bastard's beer is decidedly less arrogant than his website & bottle. the ale pours with a dark reddish-orange color & a rich, hoppy smell. with the abundance of hops & all the bastard's talk about arrogance, i was expecting a harsh taste, but it's actually pretty smooth & drinkable & it's definitely something that i'm going to return to in the future. i'm pretty sure it's not something ODB would have drank, but i wasn't really in the mood for a 40 oz of old english this weekend. forty ounces are more of a summertime thing for me. anyway, at least it's brewed by someone who believes in carrying on the good bastard name. i think that'd make ODB proud.