only in ny #2: van leeuwen

snack: giandujia chocolate ice cream
drink: hot chocolate

as a child, i loved ice cream. i grew up in a household where we sat down to dinner almost every night & at the end, if we'd finished everything on our plate, we'd get dessert. 90% of the time, that dessert was ice cream. even nowadays, when i go back home to visit, there are two or three cartons of ice cream in the fridge & my parents still have a bowl of ice cream after almost every dinner. personally, i haven't kept the same enthusiasm for ice cream & lately, i've only had it a couple times a year tops. it's a great treat & all, but it's cold & at some point in adulthood, i chose to embrace my lifelong hatred of the cold & i guess ice cream sort of got pushed to the side.

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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.

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#146 - move on.

full disclosure: i ♥ brooklyn. other than my childhood home in nh, i've lived here longer than in any other locale & although there's a good chance that i won't eventually settle down here, for now it's become what i refer to as my "home." since moving here almost a decade ago, i've lived in three different places & with each move, i've moved closer to manhattan. this past weekend, after a three-year run in my park slopish apartment, i reversed that trend & moved way south into a new place in dyker heights, a hood that many brooklynites would likely have difficulty pinpointing on a map.

sunday was moving day & for once, i was actually packed & ready to go a day ahead of time. the day started quite early, when my bro & i woke up at the ass-crack of dawn (7am) to make a 9am pickup time for a pickup truck he'd rented through zipcar. if there’s one thing i can say about choosing a vehicle for your move, it’s that if you choose to go the u-haul route, you’re a sucker. every single time i’ve rented from them, some sort of debacle has ensued--flat tires, u-haul locations that decided to close early on my moving day, missing hand carts, etc. this time, largely thanks to my bro's assistance, everything went absolutely swimmingly & by the early afternoon, i was already back at the new apartment & getting settled. best. move. ever.

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#126 - nacho party.

...so it's been some fifteen months since i first launched eat!drink!snack!, my first serious venture into the big, bad, highly trendy world of food blogging. during that time, i've also become a huge google reader junkie. it began harmlessly enough with a few news blogs & those of a few friends, but after a while, i added a bunch of random blogs & eventually, i became enthralled with the number of food blogs out there. when i first started eat!drink!snack!, i hadn't even considered that there were a ton of folks out there who were just as obsessed with food as i am. there were the newspaper & magazine based food blogs (the village voice's "fork in the road." ny magazine's "grub street," the l.a. times' "daily dish"). there were a handful of blogs from random peeps like myself (taquitos.net, the ethicurean, not eating out in ny), each featuring a uniquely different take on why food is totally friggin awesome.

nachos ny quickly became one of my favorites among the food blogs. it's based out of brooklyn & stands as a testimony to their undying love of nachos. in the main columns, they take you to different spots in nyc as part of a quest for the perfect nachos. they do it so you don't have to. i mean, who has time to eat that many nachos? they do! that's who. that's not all they do though. they take nachos & apply it to all aspects of life. there's the chos & shows series, where they grab some chos & see a show. they ran a contest back in may where they gave away a sweet handmade nacho ring. there are occasionally inspiring nacho quotes. they even have nacho t-shirts. why do i tell you all this? because it's a site that embraces the (somewhat attempted) eat!drink!snack! philosophy: "food is part of everything." that's right. i have a philosophy. i'm like marx or something.

back in june, they made a guest appearance here on eat!drink!snack! as part of my "snack away" column, with a column about brooklyn summer rooftop fun with nachos. i promised to return the favor at some point with a guest piece for them & even came up with what i consider the most hilarious idea ever, but as of right now, due to a combination of my slacking & my desire for perfection, that piece is still in a holding pattern over the nachos ny airport. i'm hoping i can land the plane before the guvment passes this health care bill i keep hearing about. in fact, i promise i will. i know, you're all "you lie!" but you're just wrong & should probably apologize to me. the race is on!

get this though: the nachos ny people aren't just pasty-skinned schlubs hiding behind their computer monitors punching away at their keyboards. they actually get out & have nacho parties, events where lovers of nachos congregate & drink beers & eat nachos & probably make out or something. i say "probably" because i've missed the last two nacho parties, once because i was in chicago & once because i was lame. next wednesday's where i redeem myself though, as they're holding their el grito de delores fiesta party at bell house, a few blocks away from my apartment. there's the requisite beer & food, but if you hate those things, you can't hate the other thing--a grito contest. what, you're so uncultured that you don't know what a grito is? well, johnny/sally backwoods, a grito is a mexican mating call...& it's friggin crazy! i tell you what. ladies, if you see me there & say the code word ("swine flu"), i promise to make out with you. don't say "swine flu" to me if you don't mean it! see you wednesday!

#126 - nacho party.
snack: eat!drink!snack! experimental nachos
drink: modelo especial



recently, i haven't exactly been doing my part to further the nacho cause here at eat!drink!snack! in fact, the only nacho-related post in the history of the site is that guest blog from nachos ny. it's not like i dislike nachos or something. it's actually quite the opposite. it's just that making them takes a lot of effort if you don't want them to suck & most of the time, i hate effort. last night though, i had a change of heart & decided to whip up a plate of eat!drink!snack! experimental nachos. i didn't want to make any run of the mill nachos though. i wanted something weird but tasty. that's just how i roll.

let me break down the experimental nachos for you...instead of using your basic corn chips, i went with a bag of those fritoesque wise bar-b-que flavored corn chips. for my toppings, i started by taking some chicken & baking it in some bbq sauce for a spell. i heated up some black beans & corn, chopped up a mix of red onions, tomatoes & jalapeno & sprinkled what i later learned was an insufficient amount of jalapeno monterey jack cheese on top. oops. total price of ingredients = $7.67. BAM! overall, except for the fact that the corn chips got a bit soggy in areas, i think the experiment was a success. in the interest of full disclosure, i must admit that after finishing about a quarter of them, i switched to using a fork. i'm pretty sure that's some form of nacho blasphemy, but it just helped get them in my mouth that much faster, so i hope the nacho gods will forgive me.

since i was filling up on nachos, i obviously had to pair it with a mexican beer, so i went with the modelo especial. you can get one of these 24 oz cervezas at the third string corner store near my apartment for a buck seventy-five. that's just over eight cents an ounce, which is a total bargain. the modelo especial firmly says "poo poo" to those snooty american microbreweries, with their "exceptional flavors" & fifty cents per ounce prices & whatnot. they don't need to use terms like "mouthfeel" & "fine lacing" to describe their beer. poo poo indeed.

...so the modelo especial comes from grupo modelo, the same enormously large mexican company (63% of the total mexican market share) that makes negra modelo, which i actually sort of enjoy, especially as far as mexican beers go. as for the especial, i think they may have misnamed it, because it's nothing special by a long shot. let me provide you with the names of a few comparable beers. bud light. coors light. miller lite. it's better than the beast or natty light. i'll at least give it that, but only that. it's no corona though. it's more like water than that. i guess it's more designed to get you drunk to the point where you bellow mexican mating calls at the top of your lungs. maybe i should think about drinking a few before heading to wednesday's nacho party. it'd probably help my make out skills too. remember, ladies..."swine flu!"

#125 - saturday night's alright for snacking.

...so last saturday, my bro & his girlfriend amy hosted a little housewarming shindig at their new apartment up in greenpoint. about a week earlier, i'd received an email from amy informing me that on the following saturday, she & the bro would be "making lots of snack food and desserts" & that i "should come over." snack party! as an experienced snacker (& brother of one of the hosts), i immediately marked that shizz down on my calendar. by the time saturday rolled around & amy sent out a follow up email that read "i just made 10 desserts and 3 different kinds of pasta salad in about 14 hours yesterday," i knew it was on.

when i arrived around 9pm, the gathering was already in full swing, with an apartment full of people hanging out, chatting, snacking & drinking. when i first arrived, since i didn't know anyone outside of the hosts, i gave my full attention to the bountiful snack spread which consisted of at least fifty different choices & ranged from hor d'oeuvres such as bacon wrapped scallops & a variety of pasta salads to desserts like black bean walnut brownies & chocolate cream cheese filled cupcakes. each dish featured a printed card next to it displaying the name of the dish & applicable symbols (a broccoli for veggie dishes, a piece of wheat in a circle with a line through it for gluten-free). SO obsessive compulsively/professionally done.

eventually, i decided to interact with actual humans & it turned out that amy & the bro have some interesting/cute friends. there was this one couple who were huge fans of daddy yankee & shakira. the dude did his best to convince me that if i ever make it to europe, since i consistently stay up til all hours of the night/morn, i need to go to barcelona. to be honest, as long as there are bottles of wine and cafes to waste my hours in all hemingway like, i don't care what city i visit. another couple i chatted with had been taken aback by all the crazy woodworking items my brother created that filled the apartment (a skateboard rack, his bed frame, his desk, etc) & since the dude works with my bro doing woodworking, the girl was all "you should get motivated & make a bunch of stuff for our apartment." sorry bout that, dude...better get crackin'.

here's what i learned from the gathering...when hispanic people are out riding the train at one in the morn with their kids in tow, it's just "part of the culture." the daddy yankee/shakira lovin' dude filled me in on that & he was hispanic, so i guess it's true. i also learned that if you have a moped & try to park it on the streets of greenwood, the neighbors will totally freak out & call the fire department because they smell gas. that apparently happened to two of my bro's friends earlier in the day. beyond that, i discovered that people seem to find what i do for work interesting on some level...& that level actually has nothing to do with my job. the first question i often get is "do you get free concert tickets?" that's usually followed up with "have you met so & so musician?" doesn't anybody want to know about content management? so yeah, the snack party was both tasty & educational...food for thought.

#125 - saturday night's alright for snacking.
snack: mint brownies & marshmallow rice krispie treats
drink: goose island lamar street organic pale ale



i brought home a veritable bounty of treats from the gathering, including a bag of cookies with homemade mint brownies & marshmallow rice krispie treats in it. with all the snacks available, i hadn't got around to trying either of them whilst at the snack party, so when i finally got around to eating them, it was like the party was still going...like on & on til the break of dawn & whatnot, but with me as the only one in attendance at the party. there was music & all, but nobody to talk to about my job.

according to my bro, the mint brownies were "an experiment," but to me, they tasted like a perfected recipe, with their tasty minty bits sprinkled throughout. i'm kind of disappointed in myself for bringing home so few of them, but have decided to soldier on anyhow. as for the marshmallow rice krispie treats, they were all moist & chewy & full of krispieness. i'm pretty sure there was no HFCS in them, which means they were better for me than the packaged treats put out by kellogg's themselves. definitely solid, tasty baking in both cases. well played, amy and/or bro.

since the bro doesn't drink & amy hardly does, i also left with a full six pack of assorted good beers. there were two goose island lamar street organic pale ales in there, so i broke open the first one within fifteen minutes of returning home but saved the other one to have along with the bag of cookies. i may be constructing a fictional memory, but if i remember correctly, the organic pale ale was goose island's other offering at july's pitchfork festival, but i was so wrapped up in their 312 urban wheat that i never even got around to trying it. i haven't found any evidence of a lamar st in chicago & goose island doesn't care enough to put the organic pale ale on their website, so i'm not sure where the name comes from. it's probably a tribute to the senior senator & one time long shot presidential hopeful from tennessee or something.

since i'm partial to beers with an assload abundance of flavor, i'm not the biggest fan of pale ales, but the goose island organic one is one of the better ones i've tried. i mean, it wasn't amazing or anything, but since so many pale ales are as boring as the last three wilco albums, i consider it good. still, it wasn't anything special, especially compared to goose island's other brews. it has a somewhat sweet, somewhat hoppy taste to it, but not really. regardless, if you take stock in my blog ramblings, it's definitely worth checking out, but if you notice that there's a sierra pale ale or dale's pale ale sitting on the shelf next to it, you should probably get one of those instead. compared to them, the goose island's just too loosey-goosey.