swiss this!

back at the beginning of june, amy (the bro's lovely lady friend) travelled to switzerland for a few weeks. while this meant that i got to pooch sit for the weekend, the real benefit was that every time amy goes on a trip, she comes back with treats for me. two years ago, it was a bag o' snacks from nicaragua & this year, it was european-made chocolates. other than cheese or chard, i couldn't think of a more perfect snack to represent the swiss. after all, they are the world's largest consumers of chocolate.

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flea at laff #2: milk truck.

snack: mediterranean grilled cheese
drink: mexican coca-cola

one of the best things about flea markets is that you can go to them & wander around for hours just looking at stuff, knowing full well that you aren't buying a damn thing. you can show up, bullshit with some old dude about the importance of gargoyles for a half hour, really show interest in a particular latvian one he has & even make up some story about how your dead uncle was latvian. then, out of nowhere you can flip the switch on him, give him the ol' "well i'm going to think about it. good day, sir" & slowly back away from his gargoyle booth. in a nutshell, i'm one of those folks who wanders around flea markets looking at stuff & never buying any of it.

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nosh nook #179 - thursday, november 19, 2009

upscale mcdonald's brings european style to nyc
(link)
11.18.09 - abc news - by karen matthews, a.p.

i've always known that mcdonald's was the hippest, coolest, most in-touch fast food joint out there. back in the 90s, they pitted larry bird & michael jordan against each other in a game of horse, with the winner getting michael jordan's big mac & the loser having to watch them eat it. so cool & totally culturally relevant. over the years, they've had their hands in some of the best movie tie-ins ever. i'm telling you, if it wasn't for the mcdonald's toys based on the film, nobody would've gave a crap about finding nemo. for the record, i still have dory & she spits water & she rules. anyway, they've been damn good about keeping up with what's radical & tubular with the world's youth & pretty much every ad campaign they spit out gets the ol' "i'm lovin it!" treatment from consumers.

their latest move: according to an abc news article taken from the a.p., mcdonald's has finally decided to bring the same chic style they've been using in france & the u.k. to the united states. after introducing the "sleek" style to european mcdonald's a few years back, they've decided that americans in chelsea, the gayest (& by default chicest) neighborhood in nyc, are finally ready for a european-style mcdonald's, complete with "outlets for plugging in laptops" & "subdued lighting." it also means that customers at the locale can now say "bye bye hard plastic seats" & "hello upholstered vinyl chairs." it makes sense. the boys in chelsea love vinyl.

paul hendel, the owner of the chelsea franchise, had this puzzling comment on the new setup. "we're becoming a more relevant type of restaurant for the younger crowd. they don't feel rushed. they're reading the newspaper, relaxed." my two cents, paul: i hear you on them not being rushed, but if you think the younger crowd is hanging out reading the paper, you need to do a bit more research. the newspaper's been dead for years, dude. you're on the right track though. a large reason behind mcdonald's embracing the loungy, european-style setup is that they finally realized that in this post-9/11 world, people enjoy taking their time & doing something while they eat. asian mcdonald's have functioned as a hangout for teens for a while now, but their cultures are WAY more advanced than ours. it's good to see that we're finally catching up though. now if we can just get a mcdonald's at MOMA, we can catch up to france.

#53 - my deutsch buddy.

last week, a non-michael jordan/michael jackson friend of mine who will be known as m.j. moved from boston to hamburg, the alleged home of the hamburglar, whose whereabouts are currently unknown. i've known m.j. for almost ten years now, since i robbed the cradle & we dated for a few years back in the late nineties/early aughts. in a reversal of often typical ex-girlfriend relations, since then, she's been one of my best/consistent friends. it probably has something to do with the dating, but i feel like she "gets me" & understands my manner & humor & shortcomings better more than anyone else, which helps.

& as of last friday hamburg time, she's living in germany. i've never been to europe myself & have always had this dream where i leave behind the u.s. & its trappings to spend the rest of my life in some european city daily lazily devouring the foodstuff & cultural contents of a quaint cafe. as such, m.j.'s transplant to germania intrigues me so.

i've known m.j. since just after she was out of high school & have known her as she's lived through both the frustration of wicked awesome post-college jobs & wicked awesome boys who are stupid enough to not treat her right and, on the flip side, the happiness of new life experiences & travels & good people. i know her as the girl who busted her ankle on two non-consecutive occasions, only one of which was non-handstand related. i know her as the girl whose charisma blew everyone off the stage. i know her as the girl whose smile you can feel through the phone. she's a lovely, energetic person who knows what's up & if you've met her & experienced her quirks (i.e.--her perpetual hiccup reflex), you're lucky to have done so.

i don't know. i guess i'll have to make a trip to germany some time.

#53 - my deutsch buddy.

snack: crunchy fajita takis
drink: grape gatorade

so m.j. left for hamburg out of jfk thursday night & spent a few days in nyc before leaving. the first night she was here, we hung out at a friend's place in queens. at one point, i made a run to the local bodega, where i picked up a bag of crunchy fajita takis. here is photo evidence, via m.j.'s flickr page. the takis are a product of grupo bimbo, a 60+ year-old mexican company who, according to their website, "is one of the most important baking companies in brand and trademark positioning, sales, and production volume around the world." this leads me to believe that they'd shiv those keebler elves before the warden even had a chance to blink. totally non-racist jk!

so these takis are friggin' weird, like weird in the sense that i had to create a new blog tag thing for them ("tube snack"), because they are neither a chip nor a cracker. they are a "rolled corn tortilla mini." three-quarters of the way down the ingredient list is "chicken fat," which, moral issues aside, seems completely unnecessary, especially given the wealth of artificial flavors these takis contain. all this aside, initially, they actually taste pretty good, but like the quesadillaness of the t.g.i.fridays quesadilla snack chips, i don't know what qualifies these as fajitalike. as a warning, consuming ten or more of them in one sitting awakens whatever it is inside your belly that makes you feel like you're on the tilt-a-whirl. anyway, as of tonight, the bag of takis is finally vanquished.

also now vanquished is the bottle of grape gatorade that has been in my fridge since thursday morning. that morning, after a night of yummy foods & beers & wines, m.j. asked me to pick up a bottle of the "light purple gatorade" when i ran down to the corner bodega. i came back with a bottle of grape flavor gatorade & it didn't really get drank & ended up in my fridge & a week later, as i'm finishing off the bottle, i now realize that with gatorade, the taste is unmistakeably vague & sugary & truly unrelated to any actual fruit, so when you think that "grape" means you're getting "purple," you're actually getting a liquid bluer than papa smurf's junk. anyway, m.j., i finished your bottle of gatorade. schade es war nicht mehr purpurrot. to germania & beyond!