nosh nook #163 - wednesday, october 28, 2009

modesto snack shack: big dream starts tiny (link)
10.27.09 - the modesto bee - by marijke rowland

man, the nyc department of education has really been going crazy recently in their fight against obesity in the schools. it's all part of them trying to get in line with a wellness policy they created back in june. a few weeks back, they signed a new contract to overhaul the school system's vending machines. now they've decided to crack down on bake sales as well. they're making it so peeps can't make any money. sorry, chess club. why don't you try selling bags of m&ms on the subway like those nice teens trying to get uniforms for their football team?

in california, education & snacking are a whole different animal. as the modesto bee reports, cedric & alivia king, a home schooled brother & sister from modesto, recently opened the "snack shack," a "lemonade stand on steroids," on their front lawn. kids love steroids! since they're home schooled & according to cedric, have "free time now," they had their dad build them the snack shack, which opened three weeks back, jack. from the shack, they're selling items like gum, candy, chips, soda & energy drinks that they've bought in bulk at costco.

their house is located right across the street from the high school, where you probably can't buy the stuff they sell at the snack shack, so they get some foot traffic (about twenty people a day). their mom says they're getting a permit & making it all legal. once that happens, cedric's all about pouring the money back into the business, but alivia wants to be able to buy a pet snake. hellz yeah, little girl. let me guess...your brother's the nerdy one? she also likes working at the snack shack better than doing schoolwork for some reason, but unless she continues working for herself, i bet she'll one day rethink that stance.

the musical fruit: movement #19.

the musical fruit: movement #19.
song: "spongebob squarepants theme song," painty the pirate & kids
fruit: pineapple

kids these days! give em a crazy, colorful cartoon & an overly happytastic theme song & you're golden. back in my day, we rocked out in front of the TV whilst the sesame street theme song filled us with carefree 70's joy...sunny days, sweepin the clouds away, etc. that was all we needed, really. these days, the kids are all TOTALLY AMP'D on sugar & soda & the interweb, so theme songs like that of sesame street just don't cut it anymore. they need MAXIMUM HAPPINESS in their theme songs.

in the ten years since the show's first episode aired, the "spongebob squarepants theme song" has become one of the most annoying & well-known tv theme songs in existence. kids love it almost as much as they love moon pies & electronic video games! sung by painty the pirate & a bunch of kids, it encourages kids to "drop on the deck & flop like a fish" because they're SO FRIGGIN EXCITED about spongebob. it makes sense. i mean, the dude's not only filled with joy, but he's absorbent, yellow, porous and lives in a pineapple under the sea! if you ask me, he has it pretty sweet. in case hearing the theme song every single time spongebob airs isn't enough for your kid, the track's available on spongebob's greatest hits. MAXIMUM HAPPINESS!

pineapples are tasty & tropical & perfect on the end of a toothpick. personally, i prefer eating them to living in them. if given the option, i wouldn't turn down the opportunity to live in one, but if it was under the sea, i'd probably have to pass. unless they threw in a free set of gills or one of those underwater helmets worn by spongebob's friend sandy cheeks, i just plain wouldn't be able to breathe properly, which would make it hard to fully enjoy my pineapple abode.

since actually purchasing a pineapple & cutting it up my damn self is way more of an undertaking than i'm willing to go through, i decided to take home this can of dole pineapple slices from my office. it'd been sitting around the office since some time last year, when we moved our offices from brooklyn to times sq & it came along. i'm not sure where it originally came from, but for the past year, it's been passed around, living on one desk after another for a few days before moving on to a new & exciting locale. when i cracked it open, i was fully expecting to find something nuclear inside. to my surprise, it was actually still fresh, so i took a few & baked them with chicken, took a few & ate them as a snack & took the rest & set it aside so that one day, i can build myself a pineapple home of my own...on land, of course.

nosh nook #141 - monday, september 28, 2009

can't knock the fruit snack hustle (link)
09.27.09 - detroit free press - by oneita jackson

when you're a kid growing up on the mean streets of detroit, you've got to do what you can to get by. whether it's honing your rap battle skillz or lifting a bunch of copper piping from abandoned homes, you do what you can to bring a little money in. sure you could join up with a gang & peddle crack, but whereas you get to make friends & meet interesting people, that route tends to be a tad bit dangerous & illegal. if you want to avoid going the gang route, but don't have lyrical skillz or agile, copper-thieving hands, there is another option for you: walk around with a box of snacks, offering them to the hungry residents of detroit.

the detroit free press' oneita jackson recently ran into a group of snack-hocking kids on the neighborhood streets & decided to give them a piece of her mind. when a group of kids approached her with a box of welch's fruit snacks & a six-year old asked her," would you like to buy some candy for my football team?" she responded with "no, i don't want any of your high-fructose corn syrup snacks." after questioning them a bit, she determined that they didn't even play football. lying, sniveling kids! i bet they don't even know what an end run is.

eventually, they decided to be honest with her & told her that they were "out here trying to make money so we can buy some clothes and stuff...so we don't have to do other stuff." with "head cocked, eyebrows arched & nostrils flared," she responded with "other stuff like what? you mean like hustle?" um, yes oneita. what did you think they were talking about? starting a hedge fund? once they were being honest with each other, they "had a good conversation about education, life, money and personal responsibility." i'm sure the kids loved that, especially since they clear about $50 apiece from selling the fruit snacks & when they were sitting there getting lessons on life from a detroit free press columnist, it cut into their money making time. i would've been all "time is money, lady. smell you later. we've got to get our fruit snack hustle on."

nosh nook #113 - wednesday, august 19, 2009

where little chefs learn the art of slicing and dicing (link)
08.18.09 - the ny times - by ann farmer

kids do the darndest things! sometimes they're all chill & relaxed & reading a book or mesmerized by a dvd featuring thomas or dora or whoever kids are obsessed with these days and sometimes they're running around all batshit crazy, knocking things around while barking like a dog & declaring that they're king/queen of the lizards...at least that's what i assume kids would do if i ever interacted with any. the other thing about kids: you have to feed them or they die. it's true! they don't get their nutrients via photosynthesis, folks.

luckily for peeps in brooklyn with kids, there's now a way to channel those kids' energy into an activity that ensures that they won't die of starvation. as the ny times' ann farmer explains, emily rios, a "licensed clinical social worker, educator and self-professed 'foodie'” started the creative cooks culinary center last year to teach kids about food & specifically how to prepare & cook different dishes. she "treats the culinary arts as an anthropological adventure." kids love anthropology!

rios teaches the kids how to make a wide range of dishes from around the world, dishes such trinidadian "doubles," "arroz con pollo," "pastelitos" & "a vegetarian dish called buddhist delight." exotic! she knows when to curb the etocism though. as the article mentions, she "could have done something with salted codfish this week, but (she) knew they wouldn't like it." well duh. it's salted codfish. in addition to teaching kids how to cook, she takes them on culinary outings around the city. they've visited chinatown's mahayana buddhist temple, a caribbean market & a tortilla factory. a tortilla factory? lucky kids. when i was a kid, we never got to visit a tortilla factory or make trinidadian dishes. hell, i didn't even know that sushi existed until some time around high school. kids these days are so advanced!

#25 - kids these days.

the other night, i was on the phone with a good friend who lives on the other side of the country & we got to talking about how we always see kids these days round our respective cities guzzling red bulls & monster energy drinks & whatnot, leading us to believe that they either have no energy & need the drinks to function properly or that they are seriously amp'd all the time, which actually explains a lot of behavior i encounter on the subways. those kids are all full of sugar & guarana & roots & junk.

there's this triad of kids i've seen multiple times on the train. they have a boom box & they dance & clap & spin & flip the tiny one in the air & he kicks the ceiling when he hits the top of his arc, which usually brings at least one gasp & the attention of pretty much everyone in the car. those kids are probably sooooooooooo high on energy drinks & funding their habits by performing on the train. it explains a lot, actually.

when we were kids, we didn't have energy drinks & we were off doing sports & running around our suburban yards & going on scouting excursions just fine thank you. sure, now that i'm all grown up & perpetually tired from late nights & long days, i take in a lot of caffeine myself, occasionally in energy drink form, but i'm an adult, who can obviously handle my caffeine intake.

these are kids we're talking about though. where is the regulatory system/religious group who should obviously step in & speak out against such consumption? we're in an election season, people!

#25 - kids these days.
snack: smuckers uncrustables peanut butter & strawberry jam sandwich
drink: sparks

so it's saturday late afternoon/early evening & i'm feeling a bit run down from an early wakeup & the rare doing of things before noon & realizing i could go down one of two roads at this point. i could settle down for a couple hour nap & still have the evening ahead of me when i awake or i could guzzle the sparks that i bought on a whim the other night & ride the alcoholic energy drink snake. i chose the road paved with sparks, figuring that if i crash & burn once the caffeine & malt liquor has worked its way out of my system hours from now, so be it.

for me, sparks is a beverage that i often feel should not be. i liken the taste of a sparks to that of an orange willy wonka bottle cap, meaning that its flavor is fruity with a chalky, tooth-decay-enveloping aftertaste.

shortly after i moved to nyc, sparks was introduced to the city, specifically to hipsters & often in brooklyn. it was one of the first markets sparks was available in, i assume. i was going to a boatload of concerts at the time & quite often, there was free sparks available, to give hipsters a little shake to their step. now i think they just do coke instead.

anywho, if you drink more than one, you will probably get sick. one evening after work, i saw ted leo during cmj at the now defunct rothko. i didn't have time to grab dinner & was likely broke & so took advantage of the free sparks on hand. by the end of ted leo's set & my second sparks, i was 95% sure that some part of my stomach had eaten a less fortunate other part of my stomach. for a brief moment, i felt like i could identify with kurt cobain. luckily, tonight, i am older & wiser & only have one on hand.

along with the sparks, i'm snacking on a smuckers uncrustables peanut butter & strawberry jam sandwich. it tastes fine. it's basically what you'd get if yo moms made up a bunch of sandwiches one night all crispin glover style & then stored them in the freezer for you, rationing them out to you one at a time, asking you if you'd like a pb&j and when you say "yes," telling you to wait 30-60 minutes so she can thaw one out. maybe yo moms has a court order preventing her from using knives. if so, these smuckers joints are right up your alley.