the fifty states project #5: NY.

if i ever see that car commercial again, the ad with the new york yankees' derek jeter tooling around in a ford whilst jay-z's "empire state of mind" plays in the background, i might have to take a hostage. don't get me wrong. i ♥ new york. i'm indifferent to fords. though i hate derek jeter as a yankee, i respect him as a player. what gets me is that friggin' song. i know it's got the state nickname in the title & all, but it's been played SO often & in SO many places that we risk opening a black hole if we continue to revisit it. let's instead honor new york by co-opting "across 110th st." since interpol's now irrelevant, maybe they can sell off "NYC?" i'd even tolerate the sting version of "englishman in new york" for a while if it meant putting "empire state of mind" to bed. of course, all of these songs are about new york city & not new york state, but that's ok, because new york state is pretty much all about new york city anyhow. deal with it, schenectady.

but i kid...sort of. i suppose there are one or two other things of note outside of NYC's five boroughs. there's a bunch of junk upstate. the first time i ever visited the state was back in the mid-80's, when, because i'm TOTALLY SPECIAL, my mom's parents took me & not my crummy brother & sister up to cooperstown, the village a few hundred miles north of NYC that's home to the baseball hall of fame. we toured the hall & my grandfather told me how he used to have one of those weird-looking old-timey gloves that were on display throughout the place. at one point, i ran the bases at doubleday field, eventually rounding third & sliding into home at the peril of my slacks. then i begged my grandparents to buy me the complete set of 1984 fleer baseball cards until they finally gave in. it ruled 10x harder than my later trip in a rented minivan with the whole family to the canadian border & niagara falls.

there's a bunch of cool nature-type stuff like the falls all over new york. "ithaca is gorges" & shizz. my personal fave is bear mountain state park, which is just north of the city. i've visited a number of times & even checked out the zoo once. it houses injured animals & at first i was all "what the hell? they've got a hawk in a zoo? that's f'd up" then i noticed that he only had one wing & would be TOAST if he tried to survive in the wild. um...what else is worth mentioning? out on the western edge of the state there's buffalo. i don't know it at all but i hear it's really cold & sorta artsy & has a terrible football team. between NYC & buffalo, there's syracuse, where i almost went for college until i learned it was really cold there too. i've been to albany on multiple occasions & maybe i have a warped sense of the place since much of my time was spent near the arena & the bus depot but boy is that place a shithole. if it wasn't for the fact that it's home to the state capital, i'd suggest razing the whole mess & starting from scratch. heck, maybe we'll get lucky & our state politicians will do that for us.

...& what lovely politicians they are. in recent times, they've had a ton of problems getting along & balancing the state budget. earlier this summer, they at least managed to make NY the largest state in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage. seriously, mr cuomo. way to waste no time. comparatively, in 1987 your father mario cowardly bowed to pressure from north syracuse school children & declared that the apple muffin was the official state muffin. apple muffins suck. other than that, all we've got for official state foods here in new york is the state fruit--the apple. it's pretty lame. let's step it up mr cuomo. get a backbone & enact legislation declaring an official state snack. all we need is some school children to support the bill. anybody reading this know of any NY kids who'd want to learn about how the guv'ment works? i might even let them pick out the snack we legislate for, although i'm going to be subjecting them to a lot of funnel cake imagery & you know how impressionable kids can be when it comes to treats.

...but enough about snacking legislation...this is a pretty awesome state to live in. i don't own property or have kids in school, so it might be the absolute worst state to be a responsible adult in but for a decade now, i've called it home. though this future's far off, i've even started fantasizing about living in a cute lil' house in a cute lil' town upstate, something like woodstock, someplace where i could just CHILL...but still someplace close to the city fo sho. either that or i'll become a hippie & move to the west coast. for now, new york represent.

snack: chocolate pirate's booty
drink: sixpoint sweet action

since new york city is pretty much the chocolate booty capital of the world, i picked myself up a bag of chocolate pirate's booty, the cocoa-dusted version of their wildly-popular, oddly-shaped puff snacks. they're manufactured by pirate brands' team of enslaved, enchanted booty elves, a motley crew of artisans overseen from the pirate brands headquarters in sea cliff, NY, a village of 5K out on the north side of long island. next year, pirate brands will celebrate their 25th anniversary, a fact that's definitely a testament to the idea that you can create a whole line of hippy-dippy, all-natural snacks catered to what's now become the whole foods crowd & people will buy them by the bunches. 

though the chocolate booty looks like a pile of yellowed turds, each bite is magically delicious. the cocoa's "peruvian cocoa" & there's "madagascar vanilla" (that i couldn't really taste) in the ingredients, so like a belt temporarily owned by ricky "the dragon" steamboat, they're TOTALLY intercontinental. there's a nice amount of cocoa on each piece but it's used in a way where it's not overpowering at all. texturewise, it reminds me of the top of tiramisu. as for the rice & corn puffs, they're light & fluffy and each piece sort of dissolves in your mouth as you bite into it. the combo of this dissolving puff texture & the powdery cocoa results in a slightly-addictive snack. basically, i'd never really thought of pirate's booty as anything special until now...well, actually i still don't think pirate's booty is all that good but i'm definitely getting another bag of the chocolate booty ASAP. 
 
to me, no beer represents new york better than a sixpoint sweet action, made by red hook's sixpoint brewery. this summer's been a big one for sixpoint. ever since they first started brewing back in 2004, you'd only been able to get their beers in bars or at places that fill growlers. then, this memorial day they released four of their beers in 16 oz  cans. since the release, i've brought four packs of the cans to a number of summer gatherings & between the great flavors & the uniquely designed cans, they're total conversation pieces...which is a bonus given that i often suck at striking up random conversations. cool-looking beer cans are an ice breaker, i suppose.

the sweet action's my favorite of their beers & definitely the one that i've ordered the most out at bars. poured from a can, it's a slightly hazy, orange-yellow beer & according to said can, it's supposed to give you a blend of bitter & sweet tastes. there's a sweet, citrusy component to it that's more up front in the taste & the bitterness is more noticeable in the aftertaste. it's yummy as hell & here's the thing about it: there are a ton of unidentifiable flavor notes in it. one of my friends swears she tastes cocoa when she drinks it. i think she's crazy but you get the idea. it's a beer with a complex flavor. for those of you in the NY area, you need to try one. for those of you elsewhere, here's to hoping sixpoint comes to your neck of the woods soon.