nosh nook #84 - thursday, july 9, 2009

snack attack: when a pretzel and a potato chip get together (link)
07.08.09 - national post - by karen hawthorne

it's official. after years of living in fear of prejudice & hiding their taboo relationship from the world, pretzel & potato chip have decided to ignore those who would make it difficult for them by finally making it known to the world--they've gotten together...& rather than taking potato chip's last name, they've decided to merge their two names into one snackeriffic one--pretzel crisps.

according to the national post, pretzel crisps have just arrived in canada & are the offspring of a "husband and wife team, warren and sara wilson, who owns the snack factory in princeton, NJ." they're the same folks who developed new york style bagel chips, which are pretty good, so i have confidence that things will work out for potato chip & pretzel as they begin their essentially healthy life together as one snack.

it hasn't been easy for pretzel & potato chip though. people make fun of them for their looks, but as the post's karen hawthorne says, "you just need to get past the appearance. they do look like the spawn of a saltine and a pretzel, almost as if the pretzel was bleached and then flattened so it's (sic) jaunty plump curves are slim and toned." once you're past that, it's snack city for you & as hawthorne notes, the garlic flavor is so good that "you could eat an entire $4 170-gram bag in one sitting, no doubt, if you were up to your old tricks." old tricks? shit. that whole bag eating trick is so still in my repertoire.

#86 - shawny shawn's day off.

to keep my sanity intact, every once in a while, especially during the non-holiday months, i take a friday off, relax, get some random errands/adult obligations done, etc. it's like ferris bueller's day off, but with less adventure & not in chicago. this friday was one of those days. i slept in for a few extra hours, waking up around 11am after a night where, with no work ahead of me, i had stayed out past my bedtime seeing the debut performance of the W.U.T.S. (who need to get some music on their page) at vox pop, a recently-saved community-owned bar/cafe/performance space/book store/publishing assistance place here in brooklyn...since i'll be back there, more to come on that awesome place at some point.

...so i woke up at 11 & started my day with an iced coffee & the paying off of some outstanding nj taxes. they were from two months from when i moved back to new york over two years ago, so it was sort of like a closing of that "coming back to ny" period, which i suppose is a good thing...sanity & all.

i also used the power of the internet to purchase a three-day pass to the mid-july pitchfork music festival out in chicago. very excited about that. i've never been to the festival & haven't been to chicago since a 2002ish trip, when i was there for a convention of college cable tv systems. all i remember of the city was a few hour journey into the city to meet a friend at a bar somewhat near where dillinger was shot. that's it though.

...so i finally left the apartment in the early afternoon for my usually bi-monthly supercuts haircut up in downtown brooklyn. usually i get the short, frumpy east-european looking woman or the slightly older, talkative woman who's been there forever, but this time, i got a cute, young girl with glasses & a pseudo-afro who fixed my hair. most satisfying haircut of the 09 thus far. you can smell it...spring is in the air.

after my haircut & a few errands, i came home & picked up my mail. to my surprise, there was a cd-shaped package for me in the mailbox, which contained a cd from allison, who you may remember from such places as snack away! #3 & wrestling entropy. in honor of my now-impending trip to chicago, it's a mix of songs about chicago or by chicago bands (including chicago) & it single-handedly made my weekend & got a solid listen over the last few days, especially with the subway waits due to copious mta construction. so yeah...spring is definitely in the air.

#86 - shawny shawn's day off.
snack: pretzel pete spicy-hot! sour cream & habanero pretzel nuggets
drink: rogue morimoto hazelnut signature ale


my friday evening plans consisted of the long-awaited return of the missing teens (the band i'm doing some managing for) as a full band, complete with guitarist & keyboardist, but it was 4pm & i had a few hours to kill, so i picked up a beer & some pretzels to munch on during my few hour-killing. the pretzels i went with are straight outta landsdale (pa)--the pretzel pete spicy-hot! sour cream & habanero pretzel nuggets. look at that pretzel pete! he's such a pretzel-hording lil scamp!

the pretzels come in a gold bag, which is totally classy. as the diagram on the back of the box points out, a lot of thought has gone into making these nuggets as tasty as can be. a wide split in the nugget & things like flakes of parsley make it all possible. they're good...no less dry than any other pretzel, but they're buttery & peppery/spicy, which is tasty. well done, lil pete.

luckily, i had picked up the rogue morimoto hazelnut signature ale to combat cotton mouth. rogue has recently rebranded their hazelnut brown nectar (featuring a communist-looking figure on the front) to the morimoto brand, featuring some sort of samurai. it's a well-done brown ale that's much more flavorful & not as harsh as a newcastle...not really something i see a communist drinking, to be honest, so i support the switch to the composed, asian stylee.

by the time i was done with its 22 oz & had a bit of pretzel pete coursing through my veins, i was good & ready for a full on rock & roll show. james call & erotic photo hunt (the missing teens mastermind's solo project) opened up, followed by full-on rock from psycho rainbow, who i had seen before but absolutely loved for the first time on friday night (check out "penny penny" & this rockin' live action & this stripped-down live action if you're so inclined). then the missing teens returned with a seriously awesome show & (i think) i got my video camera to work & (hopefully) taped the whole thing. i'm so happy they ditched the singer + ipod + couple of instruments approach in favor of a full band sound. it sounds so damn alive it's not even funny.  tons of people came out & rocked their faces off & peeps made some money! friday night melted into saturday morning with beers & conversation & this awesomeness.

part deux of weekend amazingness coming tomorrow! my life is so inspiring exciting! interesting neat full of events!

nosh nook #27 - tuesday, april 21, 2009

woman's snacks gain popularity (link)
04.19.09 - cincinnati enquirer - by ryan clark

people find inspiration everywhere--from celebrities, from their religion, from excessive post-pet death depression baking. marilyn baker's dog died five years ago & she found the inspiration to bake her own pretzels, a snack that she named "zels." five years later, last tuesday, her zels ended up on rachael ray as the "snack of the day." my rachael ray knowledge is relatively limited, so i had no idea such an item existed until now, but based on her indie rock tastes & the fact that her face is on boxes of wheat thins, i'm going to assume that being named that is a good thing.

as ryan clark reports, marilyn, a covington, kentucky area woman, has seen an increasing amount of success spring forth from her initial grief. at first, she sold her zels at the gift shop at the medical facility she works at. these days, she has her own place in covington--the yankee doodle deli--and the pretzels are now sold in over 120 locations...& now there's the rachael ray thing.

zels actually sound pretty tasty & since they're pretzels, they're esentially good for you. there's a spicy flavor, a honey flavor & a cinnamon flavor. the yankee doodle deli even has treats for your dog, whole wheat snacks called "karma's kookies." if there's one thing i know about dogs, it's that they love whole wheat & if you buy some of these for your dog, a portion of the proceeds will go towards a dog park that he or she will likely never see.  luckily, he or she will never know the difference either way.

#77 - chinatown.

why are chinatowns always so friggin full of way too many people & way too many weird smells & general batshit insanity? you might have a chinatown in your city, but i can't see how it could possibly hold a candle to the craziness of nyc's. of course, this assumes that i have no readers in shanghai & that the chinese government would block my blog anyhow.

for those of you who have never been to nyc's version, let me attempt to break down how chinatown works here:

the main street through chinatown is canal st, which runs from the holland tunnel on the west side to the manhattan bridge on the east side. back in the day, it actually was a canal, built to drain a disease-ridden pond into the hudson river. the area near the pond eventually became five points (the area made famous in gangs of new york).

nowadays, canal st is a major commercial way & the sidewalks are filled with tons of chinese people & tables with jewelry & blankets with bootleg dvds & copious bags of trash & slack-jawed tourists walking through it all in a daze, oblivious to the fact that their slack-jawedness inconveniences the other 300 people within the 10 foot radius around them, as those other people are usually trying to walk to other places.

the platforms at the canal st subway station are often scary places packed with so many people that you get the feeling that you (or a slack-jawed tourist) could very easily get bumped onto the tracks & into the path of an incoming train. boarding a rush hour q train here is often as close as you can get to a japan subway-style crush.

throughout chinatown, there's a lot of the same. TOO MANY DAMN PEOPLE! AND BOOTLEGS! AND BINS WITH WEIRD FLOPPING FISH! AND SKINNED CHICKENS IN THE WINDOWS OF PLACES! i don't mind the last three things as much the first.

#77 - chinatown.
snack: walky walky chocolate creme covered pretzel bits
drink: foco dragon fruit juice drink


on saturday, i met up with my brother at hong kong supermarket (in chinatown) & picked up a bunch of stuff, including but not limited to prawn crackers, rock candy that comes in pieces so big a hammer is required & a tag team of dumplings and dumpling sauce.

today, i dug into my chinatown booty. for a snack, i'm having walky walky chocolate creme covered pretzel bits. they're a japanese product & as you can see from the photo above, the packaging is awesome & coffee cup shaped. the bits look a bit like rabbit turds, but they have a nice dark chocolatey smell & the lid of the package flips open like a portable coffee cup, allowing you to drink them as if they were willy wonka's loveable nerds...sort of like a bunch of pieces of chocolate pocky. definitely tasty.

i'm having a foco dragon fruit juice drink, made in thailand, along with the rabbit turds. when i first poured it into a glass, i was definitely a bit frightened, as white chunks & pulp & black seeds of dragonfruit fell into my glass & floated around for a while before settling on the bottom. i'm glad the chunkiness has settled, because that means i don't have it sliming its way into my mouth as i try to enjoy the fruity dragonfruit taste.

in conclusion, the chinese grocery store has lots of weird, scary-looking junk, but some of it actually tastes good...i gotta be honest though...i can't finish this dragonfruit drink. those chunks have officially skeeved me out. sorry, thailand. i don't prefer feeling like somebody forgot to strain my drink.

#64 - you could be heroes.

readers! on the honor system! raise your hand if you liked heroes at the end of season one. keep it up if you still liked heroes at the end of season two. the end of the first half of season three? how about where we are now, halfway through the second half of season three? any hands still up?

i go back & forth on whether or not i like it any more. here it is wednesday & i'm just getting around to watching this past monday night's episode. yeah i've been slightly busy, but usually i at least end up fitting in an irrational 1am viewing or something even when i'm busy, but these days, i could care less how quickly i catch the week's episode. their "to be continued..." at the end of every episode should be the thing that makes me go, "OH SNAP! i can't wait til the next episode! must troll internet for advance information!"...but it doesn't. instead, it makes me think, "oh. that's it?" then i yawn & go look at internet porn in an attempt to get my excitement levels back up.

if you give your characters the decision-making skills of an eight-year old & make them do things that are just plain stupid...you could be heroes.

if you make your characters spell out their feelings in every blatant which way possible short of writing them on a chalkboard & shining a floodlight on it...you could be heroes.

if you bank a good portion of your television franchise on two sub-par actors (milo & hayden, i'm looking in your direction)...you could be heroes.

if you keep making every single friggin season lead up to a catastrophic, city-destroying explosion...you could be heroes.

if you're basically in your fourth season, which is when the 4400 started to get lame & got canceled & therefore you're on notice in my book because you're also starting to become a bit lame...you could be heroes.

#64 - you could be heroes.
snack: snyders chocolate fudge covered pretzel rod
drink: sunkist soda

on the other hand, in the snacking world, simple & straight forward is much more successful & appealing to me. while i watched heroes, i chomped on a snyders chocolate fudge covered pretzel rod. snyders is based in hanover, pa, which may be the snack capital of the world, as it's also home to utz potato chips. rumor is that sometimes the two companies get together & rumble in the town square with pipes & chains & buckets of acid. anyway, the chocolate fudge covered pretzel rod is simple & tasty & i wolfed it down. it was sort of like deep throat, but with more chewing.

since i was feeling that i gotta feel those good good good good vibrations, i washed the rod down with a tall, cool glass of sunkist soda. sunkist is so intertwined with oranges that they don't even have to use the word "orange" in their soda name. sunkist = oranges. say no more.

i haven't had sunkist in a while & i think that contributed to how much i enjoyed drinking it...like, it was really tasty. like, it's possibly the most i've enjoyed a glass of soda this decade. like, wow. i'm serious. i'm wishing i had some more right now...not heroes though. that can wait.