snackdown! - 2.26.10

since all of our politicians apparently believe that everyone on the other side of the aisle has cooties, this week mr president gathered democrats & republicans together in d.c. to try to get both sides talking about the current health care legislation. during the televised six-hour summit, the president basically learned what he already knew--republicans just aren't going to offer anything, so the democrats have to go it alone. yay washington! it makes sense though, since it took them forever to decide whether there would be snacks on the table at the summit & whether they would be eaten on or off camera. sure it's an important issue, but it's largely symbolic of the whole health care debate. luckily, it wasn't representative of this week's food news.

• as i've noted many times on this here blog, i'm a huge fan of delaware's dogfish head breweries. i've always wanted to take a trip down to delaware to visit their brewery or their restaurant, but have never made the journey. now it looks like i may not have to. on tuesday, dogfish announced that they're coming to me & opening a rooftop bar & restaurant in midtown manhattan with mario batali, the jolly, ginger-bearded chef & food network star. until recently, i haven't had cable for years, so i don't know jack about him, but if he's smart enough to pair up with what may be the top microbrew in the country, he's cool with me. (grub street)


• are your chips not meaty enough? fret no longer, meat lover. chadwick, a british food company, has submitted a patent for "meat crisps," a snack product that would be made by pulverising meat, mixing it with an emulsion, seasoning it along with a range of binding agents & heating it in a wrapper before slicing it into thin pieces and microwaving it. they'll be lower in calories, fat & salt & if testing works out, they'll be in stores by the end of the year. the name i'm suggesting for their product: "moo crisps." brilliant, right? chadwick, you can use that name if you want...just send me a bag. (the telegraph)


• if you've ever wondered who the mad scientist behind mcdonald's creations was, this week chicagonow did an interview with dan coudreaut, the director of culinary innovation for the fast food chain. coudreaut, who started his career as a dishwasher at the four seasons, has been in his current position since 2004. he's the man responsible for the angus burger, the now-defunct asian salad & the current mcdonald's darling, the snack wrap. given mcdonald's enormous reach, when it boils down to it he's the most powerful chef in the world. it doesn't mean a thing though if he can't get mcdonald's to add that artichoke spread & asiago cheese burger they have in italy to the menu here in the states. (chicagonow)


• on tuesday, the ny times ran a piece about "snackbot," a robo chef designed by graduate students at carnegie mellon university. snackbot, who is "outfitted with a $20,000 laser navigation system," is designed to learn about robot-human interaction through serving food. i can picture it now. "hey snackbot, make me a sandwich." "hey snackbot, go get me another beer." "hey snackbot, fresh guacamole. stat!" snackbot bows his head obediently..."yes, shawn." he's not the only robot chef on the block though. the chinese unveiled the “world’s first cooking robot” back in '06 & famen, a japanese restaurant, has "two giant yellow robot arms preparing up to 800 bowls of ramen a day." it's pretty cool, as when the robots take over the world, they'll hopefully still make us dinner. (ny times)


• consolidation! yesterday, diamond foods, who's best known for pop secret & tasty tasty nuts (including my #1 snack of 2008), announced that they're buying oregon's kettle foods for $615 million. diamond, who started off as a co-op before going public in 2005, is the leading u.s. exporter of walnuts & has recently been running bizzare ads which, given this week's events at seaworld, may or may not be in good taste. for diamond, buying kettle foods is a smart investment, since they've doubled sales & increased earnings significantly over the last four years. also, their chips pretty much rule. (financial times)

#144 - port traits: intro.

oh portland, oregon. why must you tempt me so? for years now, i've been hearing about how awesome you are from friends who live there, reading about your bounty of food carts, dreaming of the benefits of your progressive transit system. at one point a few years back, i was even set on moving to you. you're really far from the east coast though, so i never made the plunge & still have yet to, but i'm still young, so you're still on my short list of "places to eventually settle down." sit tight.

as i mentioned a few weeks back, one of my childhood friends (mr chris dorin) came to visit me from portland & when he came, he brought a viking's load of portland-area vegan snacks along for me to sample. in honor of these snacks & my faraway outsider obsession with portland, over the next week or so i'll be bringing you a four-part series devoted to the snacks & "the city of roses." in it, i'll be peppering you with all sorts of knowledge about the city, mostly based on stuff i've heard & things i've discovered via the power of the google & partially based on stuff i made up. it'll be like a mini, slightly-fictional travel guide from someone who has only visited the city for a few hours in the early part of last decade. TOTALLY professional.

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#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.

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#142 - tracks & snacks.

will you look at that! if you're reading this, that means that you've made it through 2009. congrats. i knew you could do it! well, not you, phil. frankly, your immortality is SHOCKING...but everyone else...i knew you could do it! since we're done with the living hell that was 2009 & already a week or so into 2010, i figured it was high time that i got on with putting together my year-end best of lists. at the end of 2008, i recapped my top ten albums, snacks & drinks of the year. this year, i'm going to keep in the same realm & offer up my top ten TRACKS & SNACKS OF 2009!

just like last year, since my main music obsession these days is mostly in the field of indie rock, all ten tracks on the list are by indie rockers. there are a ton of tracks that i could have included here, but we only have room for ten, folks. the first songs to get cut were those from other years, from miles benjamin anthony robinson's "buriedfed" to o.d.b.'s "got your money" to final fantasy's "this lamb sells condos."

from this year, there are a few honorable mentions. there's peaches' "serpentine" & morrissey's "something is squeezing my skull." in the hip hop world, there's the cool kids' "broadcasting live," vinnie scullo's "eyehearthiphop" & kid cudi's "pursuit of happiness" (with MGMT & ratatat). the last track to get cut from the list was animal collective's "my girls," which i listened to extensively for the first two months of the year before i just got plain sick of it & it fell out of favor. regardless, it still makes me happy when i hear it. so yeah...lots of good music this year. grab a snack & a drink, pull up a chair & let's get to my top ten tracks!

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nosh nook #196 - monday, december 14, 2009

boy suspended from school for selling crisps (link)
12.14.09 - bbc news

did i say that peeps were getting a little too insane with their efforts to regulate kids' nutrition in the schools or did i not say that? i believe that i did say that. i mean, it's great that they're thinking of the children, but american parents & teachers & school boards have been going all spanish inquisition recently trying to put policies & initiatives in place in an attempt to combat childhood obesity. what gets me is that our education system is FUCKED & they're worried about whether or not sally & timmy are eating cool ranch doritos for lunch. how's about you get sally & timmy involved in some sort of outdoor extracurricular activity? i did as a kid & it kept me active & healthy despite a healthy diet of cool ranch doritos. maybe if you laid off of the convenient snack food-bashing you'd have time to focus on bettering their education.

the campaign for healthy children is by no means limited to the u.s. according to the bbc, last week a 12-year old boy in liverpool "was allegedly caught selling a packet of crisps at a marked-up price at cardinal heenan catholic high school" & as a result, was told "to stay away from school" the following day. the school apparently cares about their students' health, so when they caught lil' joel bradley hawking crisps for a second time, they suspended him. screw that american three strikes & you're out shizz! take the day off, sonny! anyway, their policy must be cricket-related or something, but i don't know jack about that loony, wicket-based sport, so i can't be 100% sure.

whatever the policy is, it's focused on keeping kids healthy. head teacher dave forshaw said that "we are a healthy school and proud of it. we are committed to the health of our students and it is very rare for parents to complain about us confiscating crisps, chocolate, lucozade and coca cola." um, what the hell is lucozade? it's actually a sports drink, but it sounds like some sort of british pharmy, so i agree that 12-year old kids shouldn't be selling it at school. what i don't agree with is kids being suspended for trying to spread the wonder of crisps to their mates & making a buck in the process. maybe if lil' joel bradley had pulled a blade on a fellow classmate because he tried to steal his crisps, i could see suspending him, but the boy was just selling crisps. take away his crisps, get him into a business class ASAP & move on, snack haters.