#103 - truly thicker than water.

ain't it just the most wonderful time of the year for tv premieres? last week, i got the weeds season premiere & then this sunday, hbo brought back true blood. to top it all off, next tuesday is the season two premiere of a&e's the cleaner! oh wait, i don't care about that show at all, but i do love alan ball's works & loved the first season of true blood, so i'd like to discuss it for a moment...& if you haven't seen it yet, maybe i can spoil a few things for you while i'm at it.

the second season picks up where we left off, with sookie stackhouse (anna paquin) & vampire bill compton (stephen moyer) as a couple & vampire bill now responsible for a young, hot, red-headed vampire who he was forced to turn into a vampire (as punishment for killing another vampire in sookie's defense). they're one of my fave on-screen couples, as sookie is totally cute & full of southern drawl and vampire bill is all "i'm a vampire from civil war times & i talk all properlike." they pretty much get it on in every episode, which is cool with me. in fact, they get it on so much that last season, there was even a scene where bill rose out of the cemetery mud & they did it right there.

as for other characters, other than the hot, young red-headed vampire, there's this vibrating chick who showed up near the end of last season & has taken in sookie's friend & co-worker tara. there's lafayette, sookie's gay, drug-dealing co-worker, who disappeared at the end of last season & who we discover is still alive & being held captive in a dark basement with three other people. sookie's brother jason is about to join the anti-vampire church (the fellowship of the sun) as the vampires & non-vampires continue to ratchet up the debate...& it's revealed that sookie's boss, sam (a shapeshifter), has a history with the vibrating chick. so yeah...a handful of captivating storylines going on.

the premiere ended with some serious hardcore shizz...& when i say "hardcore," i mean hardcore, because that's what we basically got in the scene when sookie & vampire bill finally got it on. there was some hardcore softcore porn side nakedness & from-behind sex going on there, which i guess was helped by the fact that anna paquin & stephen moyer are apparently getting it on off-screen too...& after they got it on, we see a scene where eric (one of the older/more powerful vampires, played by alexander skarsgard) finally appears, still dressed from putting highlights in his hair.  he enters the basement where lafayette's being held & tries to take away a dude lafayette's been talking to, but the dude slaps eric on the cheek with a crucifix.  eric doesn't take kindly to this & hurls the dude around a bit before violently feeding on him...end of episode...hardcore.

#103 - truly thicker than water.
snack: boulder canyon natural foods spinach & artichoke chips
drink: samuels smith's oatmeal stout



while i watched, i fed from a totally unbloody bag of boulder canyon natural foods spinach & artichoke chips. boulder canyon's been making chips out of the centennial state for fifteen years now using a "simple family recipe" made entirely of natural ingredients.  once i started eating them, it was hard to stop.  the spinach & artichoke flavor has a delicious saltiness to it that my tongue went absolutely nuts for...& it doesn't help that i'm a total glutton.

earlier in the day, i'd broken open the bag during lunch & this dude i work with who's famous for coming into the office & sampling whatever snack may be on your desk at the moment (see snack #1 of 2008) came in saw them sitting out on my desk. his reaction--"spinach & artichoke chips? really? that sounds weird." my reaction--"is it really all that weird?  haven't you ever had spinach artichoke dip? that stuff rules." anyway, he stayed away from my chips, so that was cool.

at first, i was going to get something blood-related to celebrate the premiere--a bloody mary, something containing blood orange juice--but in the end, those were, respectively, too much work & too hard to find, so i went with a pint or so of samuels smith's oatmeal stout. sam smith makes some of my favorite beers, beers like the nut brown ale, the taddy porter & the oatmeal stout. they're totally british & have been around since 1758, which means when the old brewery was founded, peeps in britain were all like "i do say, those bloody colonists are getting to be quite the rascally scamps. a good musketing would show them. tut tut. i'm feeling a wee bit peckish. tut tut. barkeep! bring me a pint of samuel smith post haste! tut tut!"...and scene.

the oatmeal stout's a solidly thick beer, brewed with oats instead of barley. like a guinness, it's dark as hell & has a rich taste & smooth flavor--all traits that i adore in a beer. according to the sam smith website, it was "originally a drink for lactating mothers." although my mammary glands are dry as the mojave, it's still one of my favorite beers.  in fact, i probably enjoy it even more than all those drunken breast-feeding brit babies.  i do say...it's bloody good!

#102 - friday night shenanigans.

this past friday, i was relaxing around the apartment post-work & got a phone call from my pal mike weber. i know mike from back in my days at ny press, where i was an ad sales dude & he was an illustrator & eventually, the art director. his ny press cartoons were always densely amazing, but the moment he's infamous for is when his draft cover of the paper, with the placeholder headline "joes blows fucky fuckball" accidentally went to press, prompting a massive half-assed attempt at a recall by the publishers. we hang out fairly often these days & recently he's created the "interactive social contract," a "user generated database of philosophy and law." basically, you create laws & the community-at-large votes them up or down. the interface/navigation on the site is pretty damn awesome.

mike's one of those outgoing, gregarious types, someone i definitely enjoy hanging out with (except for during his EXTREMELY belligerent moments), as he makes friends with folks wherever he goes, which provides a nice complement to my initial shyness & recent introverted nature towards people. i have a vivid memory from a few years back of exiting a bar to join him for a smoke & finding him outside, already chatting with two cute girls.  as i stepped outside, he remarked, "shawn, i've found us wives." that definitely broke the ice. we've been trying to perfect the making friends & meeting fine ladies team technique for a while now (i've been extra introverted until recently), but i think we finally got it down on friday.

...so after not hanging out for a little while, he just got a new phone & new bike, so decided to make his way down to park slope for some almost-summer drinking fun on the neighborhood's bar patios. our first stop was at commonwealth, home of the best jukebox in all of brooklyn. people are friendly there, but are often engrossed in the group of friends they come with. we didn't make any friends on the patio, but did spend a little bit inside chatting with three sisters, two of who were cute twins. mike got one of their numbers & when we were leaving, we got in a conversation with a girl out front, who mike exchanged numbers with. future park slope hanging out buddies?

after a few drinks there, we made our way down the street to the gate, one of the neighborhood's best locales for both tasty beers & a decent crop of attractive & interesting park slopers, who fill the patio during the warmer months. we never made it out to the patio, as mike struck up a conversation with two girls near the bar. they were cool, but after a while of chatting, one was tired & although she toughed it out for a while, they eventually they took off...& mike got one of their numbers. more future park slope hanging out buddies? we'll see. if so, it's already shaping up to be a pretty fun summer.

#102 - friday night shenanigans.
snack: valor dark chocolate with orange
drink: oskar blues brewing mama's little yella pils



when mike first showed up to my apartment, we were just going to head straight out to the bars, but there were only five minutes left in game seven of the pittsburgh-detroit stanley cup final & i was engrossed, so i ran downstairs to let him in & we headed back up to watch the rest of the game. i only had one beer left in my fridge, so we split that & finished what was left of a bar of valor dark chocolate with orange. valor is a spanish company who, if their website is any indication, enjoys loops of soothing spanish guitar.  who doesn't though?

mike & i both had the same reaction to the valor bar. it has an odd gumminess to it, due to the gelatinous orange pieces sprinkled throughout the bar.  luckily, we both enjoyed the gumminess & the dark chocolate.  personally, i enjoy it when the fruit's that prevalent in the mix.  anyway, it made for a nice, quick snack while we watched the last few minutes of the game.

i poured that only beer--a oskar blues brewing mama's little yella pils--into glasses & we split that as we watched the red wings lose the stanley cup to the pens.  oskar blues is a colorado based company that makes a solid series of canned beers & out of the ones i've tried, my favorite is the dale's pale ale. on top of being the tastiest canned beer i've ever had (sorry, guinness), it's part of a specific positive brooklyn backyard cookout experience from a few summers back...& it's hard to top nostalgia when it comes to choosing a beer.

as for the mama's little yella pils, it has more flavor than most pilsners, which are often essentially malty water.  the only drawback was that it was so light & smooth-drinking that we were both done with our respective six ounces within a matter of minutes, even before the hockey game ended.  as such, we had to spend a good five minutes sitting there on a friday night without a beer.  it's not something i'm proud of.  on the other hand, our meeting people teamwork from that evening...now that's something to be proud of...meeting people is easy!

#99 - in the weeds.

last night, after weeks of mary-louise parker beckoning at me from the sides of buses & subway walls & random places on the internet, the fifth season of weeds finally began. at the end of last season, she & the family were living down by the border, in san diego. nancy (parker) has just revealed to the tijuana mayor/crime boss (esteban, played by demian bichir) that she's pregnant with his child & he's just revealed to her that he knows she's been talking with the FBI about his drugs/guns/women smuggling tunnel from tijuana to san diego. her brother-in-law has fallen in love with her and her two sons are both growing & selling pot. kevin nealon's doug wilson character is still a stoned child trapped in an adult's body & celia hodes (elizabeth perkins) has been kidnapped by her estranged oldest daughter down in mexico while her ex-husband & youngest daughter are enjoying life, free of her insanity.

the "little boxes" theme that we heard during the first three seasons is now long gone from the opening credits. in its place are opening shots with a pot leaf & the words "weeds. created by jenji kohan" creatively worked into the frame. the first episode's opening shot was of a woman in stirrups & that faded into a shot of the ultrasound, so by all indications, this season's going to have a bunch to do with babies & the parent-child dynamic. probably drug smuggling & other craziness in there as well.

the first episode definitely got me excited for the new season. there's a great scene where nancy & esteban are in a mexican doctor's office & nancy has no idea what's going on because everyone's speaking spanish & we see her forced to forgo her independence because of esteban's forceful insistence that she let the doctor determine whether she's really carrying his son. there's a running joke throughout where celia's daughter tries to get people, one after another, to pay a ransom for her mom & each one turns her down. there's also a weird scene near the end where nancy's sitting in an outdoor mall & a flash mob forms, breaking into a dance number. she asks a kid next to her what's going on. he replies, "a flash mob" & she asks, "why?" his answer--"because it's cool." i'm not sure where they're going with that one, but ok. i'm intrigued.

it's been a solid series through the first four seasons, largely due to the ever-changing supporting cast. guillermo diaz is still on the show & still awesome as guillermo. it seems like so long ago that martin donovan was on the show, but along with albert brooks last season, page kennedy during the first three & short appearances by zooey deschanel & mary-kate olsen, the supporting actors are often what makes the show so different from season to season & even from week to week. this season, jennifer jason leigh is part of the cast (as nancy's sister), so we've got that to look forward to once she shows up. i hope she pulls some single white female shit. that'd be sweet.

#99 - in the weeds.
snack: campo de montleban cheese & new york style everything bagel crisps
drink: smuttynose imperial stout



i'm friggin' fancy like nancy!...only because it rhymes though. with my weeds, i'm having campo de montleban cheese & new york style everything bagel crisps. i picked up the cheese yesterday at bierkraft (the local gourmet beer, cheese & eats spot) after first giving their cheese descriptions (& prices) a good once over. in the end, i went with the campo de montleban because it both is made from the teats of three mammals--a goat, a cow & a sheep--and is only $14.95 a pound. no way was i paying $30 a pound for some cheese, especially if i was just going to eat it while watching tv by myself. $30+ cheeses are strictly for engagements with the ladies.

it's a spanish cheese (la mancha) & isn't one of those stinky cheeses that you eat to show people you have a refined palette. if i was a cheese expert, i'd probably say that it has a partly sharp taste & a firm but slightly creamy texture. since most of the bagel chips were conveniently broken into smaller pieces already, i cut the cheese up into little squares & paired the two up. the sharpness of the cheese & the saltiness of the everything bagel chips make a nice combo.

for my beverage, i went with a smuttynose imperial stout, straight from good ol' portsmouth, nh. it's one of smuttynose's big beer series, which, according to the label, consists of "big beers in big bottles, released seasonally in very limited quantities." this one comes out in mid-february, so it's relatively fresh. the label also suggests pairing it with "fresh fruit & rich cheese on a cold, winter's night or lay it up & savor it with a friend for a special summer treat." i took one part of that recommendation to heart.

since it's a stout, it's a dark beer with a rich flavor. after a while with the cheese, it came in handy for getting the cheesy taste out of my mouth, but by the end of the bottle, after 22 oz, i was imperially full. sometimes i enjoy the big, flavorful beers, but at times like tonight, they're a little too much to handle...but since this one's made by fellow new hampshirites, i'll let it slide this time. sometimes you just have to live free or die, folks.

#96 - badly breaking.

back in march, as part of tv month, i sat down to take in the season two premiere of amc's breaking bad, starring bryan cranston as walt, a chemistry teacher turned meth dealer via the discovery of lung cancer. after an amazing season one, it had firmly cemented itself as a show which, if not my favorite show, was definitely in my top five. this past sunday night, after twelve episodes filled with insanity & surprises & continued exploration into walt's psyche, they finally brought season two to a close.

i'd been looking forward to the season finale for a while. they opened the season with a vague scene in walt's backyard, with shots of a charred pink teddy bear floating in the pool & sirens in the background. with each episode, they've revealed more & more about this vague scene & every week since, i've been striking up conversations about the show with friends & co-workers, none of who actually follow the show. i've chatted up my roommate about it. he watched the entire first season with me, so he at least had a frame of reference, but hadn't seen very much of the second season. on one hand, these conversations were me being a nerdy fan boy trying to spread the love, but on the other hand, it was me working out what i'd seen, as i tried to fit it into the larger story of a man who gets cancer, the actions he takes because of it & the impact they have on those around him.

as we entered the final episode, all the craziness of the meth-dealing & cooking has seemed to subside & walt's life actually seems to be developing some semblance of stability for once. to me, it looked like they were setting up a card house of calm (wasn't this a peter gabriel album title?) that they could then brilliantly knock down in the last episode, as they revealed what's up with that vague first scene of the season.

i'm assuming that a lot of people haven't seen this show & i'm hoping that everyone in the world eventually will, so i won't divulge what we now know (or don't know) about the mystery scene. i will say that this though: by the time the final credits came on screen, i was experiencing some serious tv blue balls. it wasn't as anticlimactic as the sopranos' series finale, but it definitely left me feeling empty. i've since thought about it more & have started to come to terms with it, establishing that based on what we now know about the mystery scene, walt's actions are--both directly & indirectly--having much wider-sweeping consequences than he can even fathom.

i can live with that, but for now, the show's on break. sigh. there's already a third season in the works, but that's not happening until next year, when we'll already be a few months into the time that i've already started referring to as the "post-35th birthday" era. double sigh. luckily, season five of weeds starts up next monday, so i can continue to get my weekly fix of average american family folk fumbling their way through the drug trade, while i supplement that with a weekly dose of mary-louise parker (mmm). on a related note, ms. parker turns 45 in august, giving hope to the idea that there's hotness post age 35.

#96 - badly breaking.
snack: 7 select scorchin' hot crunchy curls
drink: harpoon leviathan big bohemian pilsner



as i took in the finale, i dug into a bag of 7 select scorchin' hot crunchy curls, which i'd purchased a few days earlier at my local port authority area 7-11. they're only $1.99 for an 8.5 oz bag, which compared to many bags of chips, is a helluva deal. the bag even feels heavier. i guess that's gravity for ya. since i was busy watching the show, i didn't stop long enough to notice if there were any jesus-shaped cheese curls in the bag, but i did come across a few shaped like penises. they're pretty damn good for something made by 7-11 and as such, i found myself popping them into my mouth one after another...but not without serious consequences. these mofos are without a doubt WICKED SCORCHIN' HOT.

other than listing "spice extract" in the ingredients, the bag doesn't really go into how they make them so damn hot. the flavor & aftertaste both reminded me of buffalo sauce, but that could have just been a result of color & mouth-burn association. the crunch was so satisfyingly burning that i couldn't stop the rapid consumption. i mean, i wasn't sweating or anything, but at one point i seriously considered fixing myself a bowl of blue cheese to dip them in.

instead, i decided to try putting out the cheese curl fire with a beer--a harpoon leviathan big bohemian pilsner. it's part of their limited edition "leviathan" series, a line of beers designed to offer harpoon drinkers a greater flavor experience, something that is greatly needed when it comes to harpoon. today, i was chatting with a co-worker who'd visited the harpoon brewery up in boston this past weekend & eventually, our conversation led to "actually, harpoon's not really that great of a beer." for me, harpoon has always been a respectable beer (along with sam adams) that i drank a ton of when i was in college in boston, just discovering microbrews. beyond that, i don't usually search it out, really only drinking it if it's the best choice available.

the leviathan series is a different story. although it's a pilsner, which is typically extremely light on flavor, the big bohemian pilsner has a nice, rich hoppy flavor to it. as far as counteracting the effects of the cheese curls goes, it didn't help very much, but it was still enjoyable.  unlike with a harpoon i.p.a., the big bohemian is the sort of beer i'd actually choose over others.  that's something i haven't been able to say about a harpoon since back when i was college...over ten years ago.  sigh.

nosh nook #52 - tuesday, may 26, 2009

just another beer? not to those in laos on a mission to create a global buzz (link)
05.25.09 - the ny times - by emily rauhala

here in the u.s., it's hard to go through a day without coming across the budweiser brand name. in laos, the pseudo-equivalent is beer lao, a rice-based lager that enjoys immense popularity in its own country, but is essentially unknown outside of the pacific rim. while i can get budweiser at pretty much every place that sells beer, i have to go to specialty stores to find beer lao.

they have high hopes that the beer lao name will soon be known beyond asia & are definitely getting help from the american press. back in january, npr ran a story about the lao brewery's aspirations for global domination. now there's this story, by the times' emily rauhala, that focuses on laos brewery's quest for expansion. although they're backed by carlsberg, a huge danish brewer who owns a half stake in the company, they're utilizing grassroots efforts to help build the beer lao brand. as rauhala explains, one of their growth techniques is "building a network of fans-turned-distributors who import and sell the beer in select markets." it seems to be working out for them so far (they expect 10% growth this year).

i tried beer lao a few weeks back & to be honest & it wasn't really anything all that special. since it's from laos, it seems exotic at first, but basically has the same boring, watery consistency that you'd find in a budweiser. as beer marketing consultant randy mosher notes in the article, “this is very much one of the international-style pilsners that happens to be brewed in exotic locations. fizzy yellow beers tend to be all the same.” a fizzy yellow beer? hell, in america, that's enough to make you the king of beers.