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Reese’s Piece #1: Peanut Butter Eggs

April 5, 2015 / Leave a Comment

For those who celebrate it, Happy Easter! By now I hope you’ve had your fill of food and family and church (if that’s your thing) are eagerly anticipating tomorrow when all the candy at CVS is 75% off.

Now, I am not a huge candy person. When dinner is over, I’d trade dessert for a nice cheese course any day of the week. But if you follow me on Twitter, you may be aware that I do have one singular candy weakness, and that is seasonal Reese’s products:

The beauty of seasonal Reese’s products is that select seasonal Reese’s products have a far superior chocolate-to-peanut butter ratio than your standard everyday Reese’s cup. They literally have SO. MUCH. PEANUT BUTTER. If (1) you can ignore the fact that said “peanut butter” is really a 1:1 peanut butter:sugar paste, and (2) you are far enough down the paleo/low carb rabbit hole that you worship at the altar of all things nut butter, you can basically delude yourself into believing some very insane things, things like “seasonal Reese’s products are the One True Paleo Dessert Food,” and “for a candy, hey, seasonal Reese’s products are a great source of protein and when you think about it, relatively low in carbs, too!” (Don’t worry, I’m all better now).

So yeah, it has been well-documented by candy enthusiasts far more devoted than myself that the Peanut Butter Pumpkins, Trees, Hearts and Eggs are the four pillars of candy greatness to which all other candies aspire to emulate but can never achieve. I say selectseasonal Reese’s products for a reason. Around the holidays the candy market also gets saturated with “miniature” and “snack size” versions of these items with either similar or often WORSE chocolate-to-peanut butter ratios, and let me tell you that buying a bag of the wrong kind of seasonal Reese’s product can just about ruin your day.

It is a vertiable minefield out there, and I am here to guide you.

This is the first in a series of Reese’s pieces in which I will walk you through all of the products in the Reese’s portfolio and let you know the precise(ish) chocolate-to-peanut butter (C:PB) ratios so that you can make an informed decision as a consumer.

We are starting with Easter.

Now as you can see, Reese’s actually offers many Easter-themed products but we are going to ignore miniature cups, Reese’s Pieces, and bunny-shaped itesm, and focus on what’s really important: the eggs. Another note is that I inspected closely, and the “king sized” eggs were merely two regular eggs packaged together, so that item was not purchased.

My wife and I hit up a couple of drug stores and I’m proud to say we were able to hunt down every egg product, and thanks to a nifty plastic egg assortment, we were able to keep costs down to boot! Win-win. Here is what it contained:

So let’s get the tools together and dissect these things.

Item #1: The Regular Peanut Butter Egg

Look at it. Isn’t it glorious? Let’s get a view of a cross-section:

The Regular Peanut Butter Egg is a classic. I believe that in the end, the Peanut Butter Egg will prevail with the lowest C:PB ratio, because unlike the Pumpkin, Tree, and Heart, it should have the lowest surface-to-volume ratio; there are no silly nooks and crannies for extra chocolate to get caught in. It’s sleek, simple, and sexy.

Upon dissection, two regular eggs gave 39 g of chocolate and 34 g of peanut butter, for a final C:PB ratio of 1.15:1

Item #2: The Snack-Sized Peanut Butter Egg

The snack-sized egg is actually also a favorite around my household because the serving size is a bit smaller, and it makes it a bit easier to pace yourself. The regular egg, while delicious, is also a major commitment. And in cases when one is not quite enough, two are way too much. Two are always way too much. With the snack sized egg, reaching the perfect peanut butter cup serving size is easily attainable. Here is a size comparison:

The C:PB ratio FEELS similar to the regular egg….but is it?

A cross-section:

Three snack-sized cups afforded 29 g of chocolate and 23 g of peanut butter for a C:PB ratio of 1.26:1

Item #3: The Giant Peanut Butter Egg

Admit it, every time you see this you want to buy it. But you don’t, and here are two reasons why: (1) You don’t want diabetes. (2) These things are so dangerous. You have NO IDEA what the insides might hold. You are a skeptical consumer, and you know that Big Candy are bastard money-grubbers at this time of year, and that that egg could have >1 cm thick chocolate walls and hold about the same piddly amount of peanut butter as a single peanut butter cup.

Well, I am happy to report that this is not the case! Just look at this baby:

Admittedly, not exactly the C:PB ratio depicted on the box…

..but Good Guy Big Candy, thanks for not screwing us over on the peanut butter.

The Giant Peanut Butter Egg had 103 g of chocolate and 73g of peanut butter for a C:PB ratio of 1.41:1. It was also by and large the easiest to dissect and I appreciate that.

Item #4: Flat Mini Eggs

These things are bullshit. I mean just looking at them you would know there can’t possibly be any peanut butter in them. And you would be correct:

Eight of these POS petty excuses for Reese’s products afforded 58 g of chocolate and a mere 18g of peanut butter for a straight up appalling C:PB ratio of 3.22:1

Item #5: Round Mini Eggs

Wow! I literally have never seen these before. In real life they look nothing like what is depicted on the website, but I guess they are the same thing? Who knows. They are kind of like smaller versions of Cadbury eggs. They have little holes in them. They are weird. Let’s look inside:

Eight of these bad boys gave 62 g of chocolate and 31 g of peanut butter, for a C:PB ratio of 2:1. I would be displeased about this but they get a pass for being cute and the only Reese’s Egg product that is actually shaped like an egg.

Item #6: White Chocolate Regular Eggs

I’m really not into white chocolate, but if you are, well, whatever floats your boat. Here’s a cross section:

Two of these babies gave 35g of white chocolate and 44g of peanut butter. Wait what? Two White Chocolate Eggs have more peanut butter than two Regular Chocolate Eggs? Maybe? The batteries are dying on my kitchen scale. But yeah, that is what it seems.

The WC:PB ratio on these eggs is 0.8:1. According to my dying scale, these things are more peanut butter than chocolate. Amazing.

Item #7: White Chocolate Snack Sized Eggs

Let’s see if the trend holds up:

Two of these guys yielded 18 g of white chocolate, 18 g of peanut butter. WC:PB ratio is precisely 1:1. Astounding.

Now, if you are anything like me, you are saying: wait. Is there a difference in density between white chocolate and regular chocolate? Is that skewing the measurements? So I did what any normal person would do and melted each chocolate in the microwave and measured the volumes.

18 g of white chocolate melted to just under 4 tbsp

19 g of dark chocolate melted to just about 4 tbsp

I’m not a savage or anything so I’m not about to mix metric with English units here, but the math in my head says those densities are about the same.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Here are the final rankings, this time expressed in grams of peanut butter per gram of chocolate:

Regular White Eggs: 1.25
Snack White Eggs: 1.00
Regular Eggs: 0.87
Snack Eggs: 0.79
Big Egg: 0.70
Round Mini Eggs: 0.50
Flat Mini Bullshit Eggs: 0.31

Now go forth and buy discounted candy armed with SCIENCE!

Shovelin’

March 1, 2015 / Leave a Comment

Ok here’s the deal: If you really know me well, you probably know that one of the more annoying things about me (depending on your tolerance for stupid song parodies; mine, perhaps ironically, is quite low) is that I can’t caption a photo like that and not complete the whole song.

As promised in the last post, this post is going to basically be 100% off topic. But, in thinking about it, I think I can at least tangentially relate it to food. So here goes:

This post will be tangentially about food, but it is mostly about snow. If you looked closely at the lobster pretzel packaging (and holy christ, how the hell did I miss that the lobster pretzel has “lobster powder,” “lobster extract,” and “lobster paste” listed as separate ingredients?!? I promise had I seen that it would not have gone without commentary), you might have noticed that I actually purchased and evaluated the lobster pretzel on January 23rd, but I didn’t manage to properly post about on it until today, March 1. The reason for this delay? Well, the next day, January 24, gave us a small snowstorm that marked the start of an 18-day period in which Boston set an all-time city record by receiving over 70 inches of snow. And unlike other high snow-total seasons, these 70 inches accumulated relentlessly, with basically no melting in between. For example, this is my parking lot, from which tons of snow had already been removed:

If you are friends with me on Facebook (and haven’t blocked me yet), you will know that this was one of the most distressing and distracting things I have ever experienced in my life (up until the dress happened, of course). I know, first world problems, but hear me out. I love snow, I think it is so great and magical and I get so excited when it is going to snow, but I think there is a strong possibility I will never feel that way about snow again. As Lorelai Gilmore so eloquently put it: “Snow and me. We’re through!”

Most of my angst was transportation related – the specific line I take to work basically got a big fat middle finger from the MBTA, as we were the only ones (outside of the poor unfortunate souls who take the commuter rail) that weren’t offered a replacement shuttle service for several days. That led to me waking up three hours earlier than usual to hitch a ride with my wife to work. She, after driving 30 min into the city in the gridlocked traffic (normal rush hour plus everyone else, on roads that were all narrowed by at least one lane), would then have to backtrack, and then work her way about 45 minutes north. The guilt is still strong on that one.

But the incident that nearly made me snap was actually food-related. On one particular Friday night, Friday the 13th to be exact, my wife was not going to be home until after 11PM because the class she teaches had so many snow-related cancellations she was doing makeup labs. On a Friday night. The next day was Valentine’s Day, and we had dinner plans. But groceries gotta get got, and shopping could not be pushed to Sunday because (1) only certifiably insane people set foot in Wegmans on a Sunday and (2) like sands through the hourglass, so were the snows of our February (another blizzard was forecast for Sunday morning). This is what Sunday morning looked like:

20-something-year-old me might cringe at the thought of me spending a perfectly good Friday night at the grocery store, but 30-something me actually usually really enjoys it. Few people, no lines. Better than going out, better than shopping on any other day. And lately, I have discovered that the Wegmans hot bar on Friday has a SEAFOOD station with herb-crusted salmon AND popcorn shrimp, $8.99 a pound! Cooked salmon barely weighs anything! I shouldn’t even be telling you this, you’re probably going to take it all. I think this is possibly Lent-related, and so we will now be grocery shopping exclusively on Friday nights until at least Easter. It could be a Friday-only thing, or it could be an everyday thing, but I won’t be testing it for FOMOOJF (Fear Of Missing Out On Jesus Fish).

So that Friday night I snagged a Zipcar and headed out to Wegmans to get the weekly groceries, as well as some special ingredients for my new tradition I call Blizzard Cooking, where I pick a new labor-intensive thing to make while snowed in, in order to distract myself from the fact that everyone else is eating French toast (too many carbs):

Amy Theilen’s Oven-Baked Short Ribs with Porter Beer Mop (this “beer mop,” like Amy Theilen herself, was actually kind of weird and I wasn’t sure if I liked it)

The Better Crumb’s Low Carb Corned Beef Hash

Martha Stewart’s Fresh Ricotta (double the lemon juice)

So anyways, I was in the dairy aisle, picking out organic whole milk and heavy cream for my homemade fresh ricotta, when it happened. The fire alarm went off.

At first everyone just kept on shopping like nothing was happening. If you ever learn that I’ve died in a massive grocery store inferno, don’t be surprised. Just know I was probably happily selecting locally-sourced ingredients for a low-carb corned beef hash and it was totally worth it.

About two minutes later a manager comes through, saying “come on guyyyys, we gotta evacuaaaate” with the same reluctant tone of the RA from your freshman dorm, you know that guy: “Come on guyyyys, I know I’m the coolest friendless sophomore you know but you know you can’t smoke pot with the dooooor open or I have to write you uuuuup. I know I’m cooool but there are rules guyyyyys.”

So I pushed my cart to the front of the store, left it there and walked out. We huddled in the little airlock entryway thing for a few seconds, until “Come on guuuys. You know you can’t stand heeeeere.” So we went out to the parking lot in the FREEZING FUCKING COLD to wait, and I tried to get the scoop on what was happening by eavesdropping on the employee chitchat, picking up fun tidbits like “Remember last time this happened? It was TWO HOURS before they let us back in!”

Well! I almost cried. Now, it was interesting that my wife was not there because she is the type of person who would immediately just be like “Fuck it. We’re leaving.” but I had corned beef and custom-sliced cold cuts in that cart, and I had paid for a Zipcar, and I WAS NOT GOING HOME EMPTY-HANDED. It actually didn’t take two hours, probably more like 20 minutes, but that was long enough for dozens of people to abandon their carts and take off:

Later on, when I was checking out, the SAME WOMAN who made the two hour comment was complaining about the mountain of go-backs, saying “people just don’t realize that people actually work here and have to deal with that mess.” Bitch, I think they do realize that people work here and are paid to deal with that mess. I think they also heard a person who works here say it might be two hours before they get let back in, and I think that maybe next time you should keep your fucking mouth shut and also not complain to me about go-backs which are part of your NORMAL DAILY JOB DESCRIPTION. But I didn’t say that! I just said “Yeah, I hope you don’t have to stay too much later, I guess” as my wife was dropping one of her students off at home because the makeup lab ended after his last train.

So yeah, February really sucked, but I ate some good food! And despite all that good food, with all the shoveling and the forced walking, I lost five pounds! And now it’s March! The T is sort of running again! And the snow that hasn’t been trucked away has not really melted yet, but it has shrunk a little bit! Sure they’re now nasty black ice mounds, but driving through the city is now like living in the answer key to the Snowpile or Car? game.

And now it’s snowing again! But I’m halfway happy about this snow. We are 5.6 inches away from the all-time snowiest winter in Boston ever, and I am now of the mindset that we HAVE to get those final 5.6 inches or none of this will have been worth it. I am not crazy, I JUST HAVE A WINNER’S MENTALITY (she shouted at her wife on a weekly basis).

This month also taught me that while I don’t like losing access to work, I actually don’t mind shoveling that much! It’s a good, different workout and a chance to methodically tackle a challenge and get lost in your thoughts and mentally re-work the lyrics to Rick Ross songs. Widowmaker icicles can kiss my ass, giant snowbanks can suck it, and the salt on my car that totally destroyed my USC Alumni license plate frame can eat a dick, but I am happy to report that shoveling and I are still sort of ok, despite the extra strain this winter has placed on our relationship.

Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’
Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’
Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’
Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’
Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’
Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’
Shovel, shovelin’ shovelin’

Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m, everyday I’m, everyday I’m shovelin’
Ev-ev-ev-everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Ev-ev-ev-everyday I’m shovelin’
Ev-ev-everyday I’m, everyday I’m, everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’ shovelin’ shovelin’ shove-shovelin’

Who the fuck you think you snowin’ on, I’m the fuckin’ boss
Since 1/25, white on white it’s like Hoth
I shovel wide, I shovel long, I shovel fat
Snow keeps on comin’ back, snow keeps on comin’ back
The Charles has icebergs forming, like the North Atlantic
We got them clipper systems flyin’ toward the Atlantic
Got work tomorrow, can’t shovel later
The guy parked next to me, he owe me a hundred favors
I ain’t petty neighbor, I’ll clear the whole thang
See most of my building shovels but he don’t do a thang
My roof rake, my winter tires
I’m on the shovel, show you what the news is like
When Harvey comes on I cry for a hundred nights
I got a trillion snowflakes, piled in a hundred piles

Everyday I’m shovelin’
Ev-everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Ev-everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m shovelin’
Everyday I’m, everyday I’m

Snowpiles conceal cars, walking’s still hard
Slipping real hard slipping slipping real hard
Snowpile or car? Snowpile or car?
Slipping real hard, slipping slipping real hard
This ain’t no funny shit still ruining business
I’ve got ice-walking down still slippin’ on bridges
MBTA be laggin’ and now I’m shiverin’
Old Charlie Baker just bitchin’ cuz he won’t spend shit
We’re hiring inmates to shovel out Red Line switches
They trucking snow to Billerica to be specific
Now there’s no T you know it’s bad we’re frozen sacks
So get your Sno Cat, run and clear the tracks
Mo’ plows, mo’ clothes, mo’ froze, mo’ snows

Side street driving thrills, slushy spinnin’ wheels
It ain’t snowed two days them bitches skiddin’ still
Stuck on my street cuz these suckers scared to plow down my street
T ain’t running round me, ain’t no traction round me
Pedestrians walkin’ ‘round me, see all this gridlock ’round me
Lot of box blocking round me goin’ down in Suffolk County
My speed is twenty-two, shovel cost me twenty-two
Saturday dropped twenty-two, last Tuesday twenty-two
Pete Bouchard’s latest map, 18 to 22
I see more twenty-twos, I’m out on flight two twenty-two
I’ll ditch work for the Carribean first
Ain’t got no snowblower, so my back’s starting to hurt
The forecast still says BIG SNOW them roof guys rich off BIG SNOW
Steady slangin’ BIG SNOW, arm muscles bangin’ big snow.

Sorry about that. As I said previously, I can’t do the first line without writing the whole song. I had to put it on the internet somewhere, and this is where it is going to go.

Lobster Pretzel

March 1, 2015 / Leave a Comment

Hey there!

It’s been a while.

Given the long absence we should review why I do this blog. I feel this is necessary, because this post is going to be like 75% off-topic. The next post is going to be basically 100% off topic. Please forgive me. I need to get this stuff out there so I can go back to regular posting.

When I stumble across a random/weird/interesting item in the supermarket I buy it and eat it and take to Tumblr to let you know how it turns out, so that when you run across said item, you can be like, “no, I already know that sucks just by looking at it but also, Lauren told me it sucks so no need to double check.”

I’m going to make an exception with this post. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that at least 90% of this blog readership has likely never encountered a lobster pretzel, and likely never will. I also need to admit that the lobster pretzel is not something I immediately eyed and said “ooh, I wanna try that.” As a matter of fact, it looks pretty disgusting. But every week, as I walk past the shellfish bin at Wegmans and check whether there is any fresh lump crab meat without a weird sauce, there is something else there. That something else is the lobster pretzel.

I glance at the lobster pretzel out of the corner of my eye and it taunts me with its weirdness. And every so often, it also messes with my mind, because sometimes (but rarely) there are lobster rolls right next to the lobster pretzels. Those lobster rolls, SUPERMARKET LOBSTER ROLLS, are $10 a piece. The lobster pretzel is $12. My couponing mind does mental cartwheels at the mere sight of it. The lobster pretzel appears to be 8 times larger than the lobster roll, and costs only $2 more.

For those of you who don’t live in the northeast and have never encountered supermarket lobster rolls…they are an interesting thing. Like all prepared food at a supermarket, they are terrible. But they are also just bread and lobster, so they can’t be THAT BAD. If you have a hankering for lobster in the late summer/fall, you can get two for $10 at a normal supermarket and it’s actually way easier than the total shitshow that is dealing with an actual lobster and buying a pack of like 12 hot dog buns for one or two sandwiches. But $10 for a single lobster roll, at Wegmans, is just outrageous. Even by my standards. So when I glance over at the lobster pretzel, which appears to be decked out with several hunks of claw meat, it grabs my eye.

My wife catches me staring at the lobster pretzel pretty much every week. “Just buy it.” She says. “You want to try it, just buy it.”

“I don’t want to buy it though. I just want to know how much lobster is in it.”

“So buy it and weigh how much lobster is in it!”

And here we are.

Let’s start with the lobster roll.

The lobster roll (look how sad it is) is served on a proper split-top roll that was admirably buttered and toasted probably a few days ago. It is 61g of 100% claw meat, minimally dressed (if dressed at all) with some scallions and shit. At the end of the weigh-in, I ate it. I can’t complain about it. I respect it. I would never buy it again.

Now on to the main event: the lobster pretzel. The lobster pretzel is served, you guessed it, on a pretzel. After I pulled the wrapper out of the trash to recheck the ingredients, I also noticed it was supposed to be cooked but WTF if I’m going to go to the trouble of cooking a freaking lobster pretzel I’d probably just cook a real lobster. Get real, Wegmans.

The lobster pretzel has a LOT of gooey bullshit. I mean, when you are standing over it and obsessively staring at it once a week, it looks like it has a bunch of claws and other incantations of real lobster meat, but what it really has is torn up damaged claws that were obviously the lobster roll rejects, swimming in a monstrous mound of what can only be described as full-fat dairy caulking. This is not the “lobster salad” you have grown to love and perhaps be wary of; this is “lobster dip,” with such ingredients as cream cheese, mayonnaise, and mozzarella cheese. Here is the full list:

This was a real curveball for my experiment, and I did my best to weigh the lobster and the bullshit separately, but it was challenging. I came up with 71g of tore up lobster meat…

and 135 g of cheesey bullshit peppered with lobster shreds.

I tasted both, ate neither. Take a closer look. So gross.

God, this was disappointing. Oh – did you want to see the pretzel?

Yum!

Now, let’s get real. Both of these things are super gross and even though I had already blown $22 on them I would never torture myself by allowing these to be my special weekend takeout dinner. No way, no how. Every experiment needs a control, and for my control I selected the lobster Caesar salad from Legal Seafood.

Both my wife and I are huge fans and regular consumers of the Legal crab Caesar because it is much cheaper and equally delicious, but this was a welcome treat. I freaking love this salad.

The lobster Caesar had sweet, fresh lobster salad in the form of big fatty claws and it was delicious. The lobster Caesar salad had 163 g of lobster salad. I’ll estimate it was 143-148 g of lobster and 15-20 g (1.5-2 tbsp) of mayo or whatever.

So what’s the best deal?

Wegmans Lobster Roll: $10 for 61g of lobster (bonus bun): 16.3 cents per gram
Wegmans Lobster Pretzel: $12 for 71 g of lobster (bonus pretzel and miscellaneous cheese products): 16.9 cents per gram
Legal Seafoods Lobster Caesar Salad: $20 to add ~147 g of lobster (Caesar salad underneath priced at an extra $6.95): 16.3 cents per gram for the lobster straight up / 18.3 cents per gram for the whole shebang including UNLIMITED FREE ROLLS.

So there you have it. I was wrong. The lobster pretzel is not a backdoor access point for bargain-basement lobster. It is actually as disgusting as it looks, and slightly more expensive to boot. So disgusting, in fact, that not only did I not eat it, but then I tried to give it to the cats and they both sniffed it and walked away. These two cats are literally garbage disposals.

The lobster pretzel is not good. It is not right. You shouldn’t buy it. I didn’t need to tell you that. You may very well go your entire life without needing to have been told that. But daggum it, now you know. In case you should ever encounter a lobster pretzel in your daily travels, I have given you all the advice you need. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. Avoid lobster pretzels. Instead, treat yo’ self to a $30 salad because it’s freaking delicious.

That felt so good. Now that I have the lobster pretzel off of my computer, deleted from my camera, erased from my brain, and out of my life forever, I promise to maybe post more soon.

Egg Nog

December 24, 2014 / Leave a Comment

Too many carbs

Just kidding! Let’s talk about egg nog.

Today is December 24th, aka Christmas Eve, aka National Egg Nog Day. Egg nog is a very divisive holiday beverage. Some people love it, more people can’t stand it. If you can’t stand it, I really don’t get you at all and this post probably isn’t going to interest you much so you can move along, have a Merry Christmas and I promise I’ll review some sort of snack food or cheese product again soon.

Ok now that they are gone, seriously WTF is going on with all of these people who don’t like egg nog? It has so many things going for it:

(1) It is DELICOUS. The flavor is like cream and eggs and vanilla and nutmeg and cinnamon and if I gave you a cookie and said it tasted like those things you wouldn’t turn it down don’t even front

(2) It raises existential questions about what its flavor really is and how Starbucks is able to infuse it into seasonal lattes

(3) It goes great both with booze and without

(4) It screams Christmasy merriment

(5) It could, in theory, have raw egg in it if you want to pretend to live dangerously

(6) It looks like milk (which, ahem, you should be drinking more of Mz. Brittlebones) so you kind of feel like you are doing something right when you drink it, even though you totally aren’t and stop thinking that, for real.

For a nog lover such as myself, there is only one bad thing* about egg nog and that is the dangerous combination of it having like a bajillion calories and me not being able to stop drinking it once I start.

Well, this year I was surprised to learn that there is a second, lesser known dispute among us, the minority noglovers, and that is the question of hot versus cold egg nog. Yep: hot egg nog is a thing. I know. This was brought to my attention by my dear friend, former roommate, Curious Shopper enthusiast and noglover April, who recently posed the hot vs cold egg nog question on Facebook. Granted, the responses were like 99.5% cold and then this one dude who said hot, but no matter. My curiosity was sufficiently piqued. I was determined to try hot egg nog.

In the spirit of nog curiosity I also ran through some new and old nog products I have been curious about at some point or another. I’ll get the reviews out of the way first before we start heating stuff up. Here is a summary:

Hood Classic Golden Eggnog

This is the default regular egg nog. There is nothing weird or interesting about it, but I have been drinking so much coconut nog I needed a standard control egg nog against which all other egg nogs could be judged. The one disclaimer is that there were a LOT of regular (and light) egg nogs to choose from. A girl can only purchase and consume so many egg nogs, and this is the one I went with. Also note the unique spelling of “egg nog” as “eggnog,” and oh god I have fallen down the rabbit hole of nog controversies, get me out of here.

Wegmans Holiday Egg Nog

I wasn’t planning on buying this one but when I saw the price I couldn’t not buy it. What is so great about this egg nog that warrants charging $5 more per gallon for it? I had to know. The answer: fat content? whiteness? I don’t even know.

So Delicious Nog Coconut Milk

I have long been a fan of this stuff. Non-dairy nogs are great in concept because they are calorically reasonable and are thus a more responsible vehicle for nog flavor. If you are looking for a healthier nog experience I think this stuff tastes way better than “light” egg nog and has less fat and calories to boot. I think they have also added a new emulsifier or two in the past couple years, because this year’s alcoholic mixability is much improved compared to the curdled disasters of Christmas past. Another recent change is the packaging, and this is one area where I do not approve.

I am conditioned to think that food containers that bulge out like this are harvesting botulism or listeria or leprosy or something, and So Delicious really needs to rethink this new box pronto.

Rice Dream Rice Nog

OK, if the descriptors “brown” “watery” and “rice flavored” didn’t already clue you in, I’ll just say that this product is bullshit and leave it at that.

Old New England Classic Egg Nog

I stumbled across this alcoholic egg nog in the liquor store and couldn’t not buy it. This product is absolute perfection from the standpoint of my laziness, and let’s just get this out of the way: it tastes absolutely fine. However, there are a couple of things that weird me out about this stuff. First: I am skeeved out, in general, by any dairy product that for some reason does not need to be refrigerated on store shelves. Bailey’s and certain permutations of Coffeemate, as well as I’m sure many other products I can’t currently think of, are like this. It is not right and I do not understand it. Second, this stuff is: “Made with Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Rum, Brandy, and Blended Whiskey.” On what planet is it really necessary to put four different types of alcohol into cheap storebought EGG NOG, let alone two different types of whiskey? This is just unneccesary and totally undistinguishable in the final product. Also, while we are at it I’m pretty sure that once you mix Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with Blended Whiskey, you get a little thing called Blended Whiskey.

Hot Egg Nog

And now, with all that out of the way we get back to the point of this post: hot egg nog. For this experiment, I went with the expensive stuff, because if you know April, you know that April is worthy of the expensive stuff. Per her advice, I heated it carefully with constant stirring in a saucepan on the stove* which essentially resulted in a vote for cold egg nog because under normal circumstances I can barely bring myself to heat food in a saucepan on the stove, let alone a beverage.

The Verdict: This stuff was fantastic. I was actually blown away, because not only was the flavor amazing, it was also completely familiar: hot egg nog tastes precisely and unequivocally like the cold ice cream/hot pie interface of apple pie a la mode. While I can’t say I’ll make it all the time, I suggest that anyone who is the least bit curious try warming up their egg nog one of these days because it is a flavor worth the effort.

Merry Christmas everyone!

*As it turns out the second bad thing about egg nog is its ability to form a plasticized residue on any piece of glassware or cookware it touches, which REALLY pisses your wife off when you sample / cook like eight different kinds of egg nog and then leave the dishes in the sink overnight.

Flavored Potato Chips: Thanksgiving Edition

November 26, 2014 / Leave a Comment

A very happy Thanksgiving to my blog readers! I hope you have safe travels, a great time with friends and/or family, delicious meals, and I also urge you to try not to eat anything TOO adventurous. Thanksgiving is a day for tradition, not for weird-ass food mashups.

The days leading up to Thanksgiving, well…thats another story. What now?

Thanksgiving Feast flavored potato chips? DON’T MIND IF I DO!

Methods/materials:

You can find these Boulder Canyon Thanksgiving Feast-themed potato chips at Target if you are as lucky as I am. I have never heard of Boulder Canyon before, but mad props them for conveniently packaging all four of these weird flavors together in an appropriate serving size for tasting (looking at you, Lays). We tried one bag of chips per day in “meal order” alternating savory/sweet/savory/sweet.

Results:

Stuffing

Holy crap. These chips taste like stuffing. What is the flavor of stuffing? Butter? Bread? Parsley? Onions? Celery? Celery. I have no idea how these chips pull off tasting like stuffing but I am going to guess it has something to do with celery. Final answer, celery. Really, really delicious chips.

Cranberry

These chips were bizarre. At first they didn’t really taste like anything. They were just mildly sweet chips with freaky pink powder on them. Then I ate more and more, and I started to kind of taste cranberry, but that makes no sense. Cranberry is not a flavor that sneaks up on you. Cranberry is an in-your-face flavor. Cranberry doesn’t mess around. Do these chips taste like cranberry? I’m still not sure. Were they good? I’m still not sure. Were they bad? I’m still not sure. I AM sure that based purely on the color, I don’t ever want to eat them again.

Turkey and Gravy

I was skeptical. I have had a prior experience with poultry-flavored potato chips and I was not impressed. But holy crap, once again. These chips taste like turkey. No joke, these potato chips taste like turkey. I felt like Violet freaking Beauregard eating these chips. I’m not as crazy about turkey as I am about stuffing, so I’m not over the moon about these things so much as I am really impressed by them.

Pumpkin Pie

These chips were not only pretty good, they also led me to completely rethink the failure that was the Lays cappucino chip. That chip MIGHT have been good if they had just made it sweet! The pumpkin chips are sweet with cinnamon and nutmeg, and are definitely the most addictive of the four Thanksgiving flavors. The off chip that isn’t sweet tastes weird and lame like the cappuccino chips, but they are few and far between. A++ would recommend.

Discussion:

The final verdict is that these things are probably the most impressive flavor mimickry I have ever observed in a potato chip. I’d advise trying three out of four of these Thanksgiving chips if you are into that kind of thing!

Too Many Carbs

November 25, 2014 / Leave a Comment

It takes a lot to make a stew
A pinch of salt and laughter, too
A scoop of kids to add the spice
A dash of love to make it nice, and you’ve got
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Too many

It takes a lot to make a stew
When it comes to me and you
And him and her and the baby, too

Too many Carbs, it’s true
The saying goes, it’ll spoil the broth
Honey, I think that’s not true
Well, maybe too many Carbs will spoil the broth, but they’ll fill our hearts with
So much, so much lo-o-ove
Too many Carbs
A family is like a soup
Everyone adds an extra scoop
Mix an ounce of smile so sweet
A dash of cool to add the heat, and you’ve got
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Too many
It takes a lot to make a stew
Especially when it’s me and you
And him and Steve from corporate, too
Too many Carbs, it’s true
The saying goes it’ll spoil the broth
Honey, I think that’s not true
Well, maybe too many Carbs will spoil the broth, but they’ll fill our hearts with so much, so much lo-o-ove
So much lo-o-ove
They’ll fill our hearts with lo-o-ove
Fill our hearts with lo-o-ove
Too many Ca-a-arbs
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Takes a lot to make a stew, I couldn’t face these streets without you
A dash of crime to add some spice
This city’s like a pressure cooker turned up to high
Too many Carbs, too many Ca-a-arbs
Some people say it’ll spoil the broth, but that’s not the American way
Too many Carbs
Too many Carbs will serve a helping of freedom and resist the forces of evil
Too many Carbs
It takes a lot to make a stew
A pinch of salt and laughter too
A scoop of kids to add the spice
A dash of love to make it nice, and you’ve got
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Too many—
Carbs

Too many Carbs

Too many
It takes a lot to make a stew, especially when it’s me and you
And him and her and the baby, too
Too many Carbs, it’s true
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Too many
It takes a lot to make a stew, a pinch of salt and laughter, too.

A scoop of kids to add the spice, a dash of love to make it nice, and you’ve got
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Too many
It takes a lot to make a stew, when it’s made of me and you, and him and her and the baby, too, too many Carbs, it’s true

This is the story of CARBS — Cybernetic Artificially Refined Bakedgoods of Sugar — defending humanity against Beast Rebels of the Hellscape. When it comes to the future, you can never have too many CARBS.

[Robotic] Too many Carbs, too many Carbs, too many Carbs

You can’t talk that way. That’s your sister. That’s a fine how-do-you-do. Laugh track. Oh, look at the neighbors. They’re not gonna fit in here. Ha. Ha.

This is the worst case of intronitis I’ve ever seen. You can even hear the theme music.

And the thing is, we have no idea how contagious this strain is. Now, look …

A pinch of salt and laughter, too.

No.

A scoop of kids to add the spice.

A dash of love to make it nice.

Kill me.

And you’ve got
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

KILL ME!

Too many Carbs

To make a stew
Especially when it’s me and you
Fill our hearts with so much love
Too many Carbs, too many Carbs, too many Carbs, too many Carbs, too many Carbs, too many Carbs

It takes a lot to make a stew
Too many Carbs

Especially when it’s me and you

Too many Carbs

Him and her and the baby, too
Too many Carbs, it’s—

It takes a lot to make a stew, especially when it’s me and you.

Too many Carbs, too many Carbs, too many Carbs
Too many Carbs will spoil the broth, but they’ll fill our hearts with so much, so much lo-o-ove
So much lo-o-ove
Fill our hearts with lo-o-ove
Too many Carbs

Too many Carbs

Fill our hearts with lo-o-ove

Honey, I’m h—

Too many Carbs!

It takes a…

Weird Coffee

November 16, 2014 / Leave a Comment

I promised a while back that I would make a weird coffee post.

I was going to try butter in coffee, and then bread cheese in coffee, and then I was going to be done, and it was going to be terrific. I tried both, then I tried both a second time because I realized I hadn’t gathered sufficient photos the first time, and now I have to admit I do the butter in coffee like every other weekend because I happened to try it the same week I also started regular Saturday AND Sunday excercising and I am 100% atttributing the fact that I now feel AMAZING on weekends to the butter in my coffee and not the two hours of cardio + sleeping in and not working as much.

So there I was, all ready to post this post, and then the freaking Food and Wine Magazine Twitter account (the Food and Wine Magazine Twitter account will one day kill me) sends this freaking tweet about people drinking coffee OUT OF BELL PEPPERS.

JUST STOP! STOP DOING WEIRD THINGS WITH COFFEE AND LET ME MAKE THIS POST!

I am just going to tell both you and Food and Wine magazine this one time, and I want you to pay close attention. I am making the executive decision that I am not going to the store to buy a bell pepper for the purpose of drinking coffee out of a bell pepper. If, someday in the future, I happen to have a spare bell pepper, and am drinking coffee, and glance over to the bell pepper whilst drinking said coffee, and I have the energy and desire to then hollow out the seeds and ribs from a bell pepper while keeping it in a shape that could hold a beverage, I might ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT of drinking the coffee out of the bell pepper. But that’s it.

This is the weird coffee post, and you are going to like it, with or without coffee in a bell pepper.

So yeah, butter in coffee is pretty tasty. I mean, it basically sits on the top and then coagulates about midway through and becomes super gross if you don’t have a utensil to skim the flotsam and jetsam off the top, and you’re really just drinking melted butter for the first half of the mug (because chemistry), but when you think about it, it makes sense, right? The oils are what make French pressed coffee and Americanos so delicious, and those are my two favorite forms of coffee. So this is just like double bonus coffee with a chaser of melted butter. Sold.

Bread cheese in coffee is also surprisingly fantastic. It just works. I don’t know why, and I want to know why. Should I be eating more salty things with my coffee? Should I be eating more cheesy things with my coffee? Or should I just leave well enough alone and occasionally eat bread cheese with my coffee because bread cheese is a unique snowflake? I’ll go with door number three.

The Ez Factor

This isn’t really a cheese post, but I do have to point out that Ezra regularly tries to figure out WTF is going on with the butter coffee which most definitely affects (read: ruins) the relaxing weekend coffee experience.

(Untitled)

November 9, 2014 / Leave a Comment

I told you I knew where this was going.

(Untitled)

October 21, 2014 / Leave a Comment

Making maple something rice pudding, Ina Garten just called Maker’s Mark “reeeally good bourbon.” I’d dial back on the E’s there, I.G.

Night Cheese Part VI: Cheese Scraps, or How I Learned to Stop Penny-pinching and Love Whole Foods

October 21, 2014 / Leave a Comment

This is less of a review, and more of an ode. An ode to the cheese scraps bin at Whole Foods. If you like cheese, and you are not aware of the cheese scraps bin at Whole Foods, you need to be. Now, spare me the “Whole Paycheck” snark.

Actually, you know what? You had to go there with the “Whole Paycheck,” didn’t you? Let’s go. U-turn. Change of plans. This is now a review of Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is awesome. For reference, my wife and I are former grad students and sometimes-couponers who operate on a strict weekly grocery budget. We also love food and lots of it so that weekly budget is possibly larger than your average weekly grocery budget, but whatevs. We have a tendency to get into food ruts, so we try to cycle through Trader Joes, Wegmans, Whole Foods, Costco, and sprinkle in the occasional Peapod delivery or Shaw’s run for pantry staples. Stick to one till we get sick of it, move on to the next. Works well for us.

Everyone knows why people love Trader Joe’s. Wegmans has achieved cult-like status in the Northeast (still not 100% sold on that one). Costco is Costco. They all have their pluses and minuses. But why is everyone always hating on Whole Foods?

Here are the areas in which Whole Foods kicks ass:

Vegetables. In order to achieve the simultaneous goals of (1) eating a lot of food and (2) making at least a half-assed attempt at either maintaining or losing weight, we eat massive amounts of vegetables, and there is NO PLACE ON EARTH WITH BETTER VEGETABLES THAN WHOLE FOODS. With the exception of Trader Joes, they are within ~30 cents a pound of everywhere else that we shop, and they are hands-down, across-the-board more flavorful and delicious. When Whole Foods vegetables are on sale, they are way cheaper than most of the other places we shop and I almost feel like I am stealing something because of the quality.

Meat. We bought meat exclusively at Whole Foods for about a year after watching Food, Inc. I still check the flyer weekly to see if our favorite meat & seafood items are on sale (grass-fed Au Poivre burgers and Bell & Evans coconut-crusted free range chicken, be still my heart). They give you a little number to indicate how much your animal was tortured before slaughter, and I like that. And the less-tortured meat just tastes better. Way, way better. It’s not psychological, it’s reality. Deal with it.

The Cheese Scraps Bin. In case this hasn’t yet been made abundantly clear, I freaking love cheese. I love smelling cheese, I love tasting cheese, I love looking at cheese. I love heating up cheese and seeing what happens. I love sharing a small cheese course with my cat after dinner. Going to Whole Foods and seeing a fully stocked cheese scraps bin gives me a giddiness on par with Christmas freaking morning. Within the confines of this magical bin, you can try whatever the hell cheese you want for under $5/piece, usually under $3/piece, sometimes under $2/piece, are you kidding me?!?! And you never have to throw any moldy cheese away because the Whole Foods Cheese Scrap is the One True Appropriate Weekly Cheese Quantity for a 33-year-old woman and her 10-lb cat.

Hamentaschen. Unfortunately I am not Jewish, but thanks to Whole Foods, Purim can still be my second Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Here are the areas in which Whole Foods doesn’t necessarily stand out amongst the pack:

Prices. Yes, fine, Whole Foods is slightly more expensive than other stores. But I have been paying a lot of attention to this for a couple of years now, and the old chestnut “you get what you pay for” most definitely applies. So what if we spend a couple dollars per pound less on lettuce at Wegmans or Costco? We have to throw it out by Wednesday because by then it is a minefield of random disintegrated rotten mush-leaves. And then what happens? One of us has to stop at Whole Foods after work to buy replacement lettuce. Mmm hmm. Same goes for carrots. Wegmans baby carrots are slime-balls midweek. Avocados? Ok Costco wins here, their avocados are wonderful… but so are Whole Foods avocados! Wegmans and Trader Joe’s avocados are cheaper, sure, but they look like deflated footballs (in both physical form and interior color) by the time they finally ripen. In fact, the only place that can compete with Whole Foods on vegetables (or, more accurately, vegetablestheymightcarrybutonlyifyouaresolucky) is Trader Joe’s. And the Trader Joe’s Tradeoff is that for better or worse, you are also buying all of the rest of your groceries at Trader Joe’s. Your lettuce is wilting in a sealed plastic bag, their suppliers are hush-hush-secret so you have no idea where the fuck that chicken came from, they are still out of limes and no, they don’t carry that kind of vinegar* so don’t bother asking.

Hot bar and prepared foods. Don’t buy that shit. It’s patently mediocre.**

Lastly, here are the areas in which Whole Foods sucks:

Low-carb-bread-slash-wrap-style-thing options. Don’t really exist at Whole Foods. At least not ones that taste good. Makes my lunches difficult. Kind of a bummer.

Kettle Corn. They have awful, nightmarish store-brand kettle corn. Seriously, it’s just the worst.

That’s about it.

So there you have it. If my family can stay within the exact same grocery budget*** shopping at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Wegmans (not at Costco. Never at Costco.), so can you. Whole Foods haters need to step off.

Now that you know how I feel, either refrain from insulting Whole Foods in my presence or prepare to suffer the consequences.****

————————————————————

* PLAIN REGULAR WHITE VINEGAR

** Exceptions: potato salad, sesame tofu, roasted butternut squash with cranberries. Ok so maybe it’s not “patently” mediocre, but most of it does not taste as good as it looks.

*** Sales flyer, coupons and cheese scraps. The only reason this is possible is sales flyer, coupons and cheese scraps.

**** There are no consequences. I never say a single goddamn word when people insult Whole Foods in my presence. I just glower in silence and craft passive-aggressive blog posts in my brain.