#100 - happy anniversary!

this monday was my parents' thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, meaning that in just over five months, i'll be turning thirty-five. they've stuck it out even though they haven't always had the most normal relationship, but i congratulate them. they seem to be trying hard at making this growing old & retiring thing work. if they had never met back in the early seventies, some marty mcfly shit would happen & you wouldn't get the chance to read this right now & that'd be a tragedy on the level of the great boston molasses disaster of 1919. holy molasses! that's tragic!

yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of eat!drink!snack! [insert fanfare here]. when i first launched the blog last june, i was just hoping it'd be a way to get me to write more. after yesterday's second meditation was posted, i'd written my 100th "meditation" column since the blog's launch. those pieces have definitely evolved over time. of the two columns i've added, the weekday "nosh nook" snack news item/journalism critique has got me in the habit of being informed about what's going on in the food industry and i've been consistently delighted by the weekly "snack away!" guest columnists, some of whom i didn't even know had writing skillz.

my top five fave topics from the last years' columns are, in no particular order:

• snack away! #5 - deez nutz. - guest blogger wilky wilk almost had to cancel on me at the last minute, but he came through with a reminder of his verbal hijinx. i urge him to bring back clownbaby.com (his old blog site) or some new incarnation ASAP.
• #52 - bcs bs. - doing a live rundown of a sporting event was one of those experiments i wanted to give a whirl. now that i've done it, i'm ready to live-blog the 2012 election. i'm looking in your direction, cnn.
  
• #74 - 1974. - in honor of my birth year, i looked into the events of 1974 & soon discovered that there was a lot of violent stuff happening...i guess that's any year though. plus, i was reminded how much yoo-hoo sucks.
• nosh nook #50 - friday, may 22, 2009 - thanks to the folks at jack's links, i now know that MATADOR is the most extreme meat stick on the market. radical teens crave it for snack consumption.
• nosh nook #12 - tuesday, march 31, 2009 - the headline said it all..."prostitute paid with chicken snacks." sad story. hilariously-phrased.

over the next year, i have a ton of random ideas for the site, both columnwise & otherwise, some of which will actually pan out & you'll notice over the coming months. esperanto month? maybe. insect thursdays? possibly. an off-off-broadway musical? if you're lucky. the world is my oyster or dumpling or something! so yeah, seriously folks who drop by...thanks for reading.

#100 - happy anniversary!
snack: joyva jell ring
drink: naked gold machine juice smoothie



with the anniversary & whatnot, i was totally jellin' late last night, so i decided to treat myself to a three-pack of joyva jell rings. they're a simple candy--chocolate covered raspberry jelly rings. they're made by the joyva corp, a local company who crafts their magical jell rings right here in scenic bushwick, brooklyn. i guess that makes me some sort of locavore or something.

biting into these things was a much more pleasant experience than i'd anticipated. the jell's not all that weird & it's a little firmer than i expected, which is somewhat of a plus. i definitely wouldn't want some watery smuckersesque nonsense squirting out all over the place with every bite i take. well played, joyva. i'm a fan of fruit & chocolate pairings and since the raspberry is currently vying for the top spot on my fictional "best fruits to pair with chocolate" list, i really dug the jell rings.

since i'm currently addicted to smoothies but still too lazy to make my own, i'm pairing the jell rings with a naked gold machine juice smoothie. naked's become my go-to smoothie & i generally stick with the "machines." in terms of how often i get the different kinds, it's the first time i've tried the gold machine, but the green machine's my current favorite at the moment, followed by blue, with red holding down third place. i usually struggle with justifying the price, which ranges between $3-$5 depending on where you are in the city, but in the end, i never complain, as without fail, naked smoothies have been giving me energy & bringing me back to reality on a regular basis recently.

the gold machine is made up of one golden kiwi (which sounds like an indy jones quest item), one banana, two apples, a hint of passion fruit & pineapple & a bunch of vitamins & healthy stuff. it's a little sweet, even for me, but regardless, i have to put it on the same level of tastiness as the blue machine. it's going to be tough to knock off the green machine though.  as weird as it looks, i can't get enough of it.  it's like the smoothie equivalent of ben stiller.

nosh nook #39 - thursday, may 7, 2009

smoothie king passes 600th store milestone (link)
05.06.09 - wsj marketwatch - press release

it looks like the smoothie has finally made it in this crazy, mixed up world. smoothie king, the self-proclaimed king of smoothies, continues to expand faster than a waistline on all-you-can-eat apple pie day, as they've now opened over six hundred locations worldwide. according to entrepreneur magazine, this makes smoothie king the 37th fastest growing franchise in the country. 37th! i wonder how well the thirty-six franchises ahead of them are doing.

when it comes to smoothies, i guess i'm a bit out of touch.  i never even noticed that smoothie king exists until now, even though they apparently have a bunch of locations just here in nyc alone. as tasty & as healthy as they may be, a custom-blended smoothie just isn't one of those things that i look for when i'm out & about, but if there's room for six hundred locations worldwide, people must feel differently.

according to smoothie king founder/ceo steve kuhnau, "we provide products that contribute to the health regimen of our guests, something more important than ever in these stressful times." this is seen as one of the main reasons that the franchise has been so successful in expanding. the other reason that the release states is that "the shaky job market has caused people of all walks of life to reevaluate their career goals."  personally, i have trouble envisioning someone thinking to themselves "gee, this economy is awful & i might lose my job.  i should totally open a smoothie king," but if it's in a press release, it must be true.

#70 - rise & shine, america...& get naked!

on monday morning before work, i woke up early to watch the previous night's second season premiere of amc's breaking bad, which is, if not my favorite currently-running show, is definitely in my top three. i might even go as far as to say that it's better than that other, advertising-themed amc show.

the quick lowdown plotwise: bryan cranston plays walt, a former high school chemistry teacher who has been diagnosed with cancer & decides he needs to make a ton of money for his family as quick as possible, so he partners up with one of his former students & starts cooking & selling crystal meth. he totally won an emmy award for best actor in a drama for the first season.

the first season started with quite possibly the craziest pilot episode ever and after seven episodes, ended with walt & his partner, jesse pinkman, selling a bunch of blue-colored crystal meth to tuco, a loco drug dealer from juarez. after tuco tests out the meth himself, he loves it & tells them that they will bring him the same amount every week in exchange for $70K...& then he proceeds to beat one of his two associates to death with his bare hands as walt & jesse stand there in shock. then his other associate grabs the beaten associate's limp body & drags him into the truck before he & tuco drive away & the season ends.

[EEK SPOILERS!!!] the second season opened with a black & white scene of walt's backyard. after a few establishing shots of the empty yard, the camera sets on the pool & an eyeball floats onto the screen. sirens start to blare in the background as the eyeball floats through the pool & gets sucked into the drain. as the camera pans to the bottom of the pool, we see a bright pink bear floating beneath the water. as the camera follows it, we see that it is missing an eyeball & one whole side of it is charred. sirens continue to blare in the distance & screen goes to the title sequence. wha!!!???

the next scene is the last one from the first season--the drug deal with tuco. as the episode continues, we see walt try to force sex on his pregnant wife, jesse freaked out that tuco is going to kill them any day now, walt deciding they should make ricin to kill tuco before he kills them, walt's brother-in-law (a DEA agent) trying to bond with him by sending him a phone pic of a dead guy from a crime scene (& it just happens to be tuco's other associate). walt figures that they're next, tells jesse to flee town & starts to panic himself.

the episode ends with walt sitting on the edge of the bathtub & on the edge of tears while his wife takes a bubble bath. just as he is about to break down & reveal to her everything that's happening with him, jesse calls walt's cell phone & then pulls up in front of walt's house in his car. walt runs out to the car, leans on the window & asks jesse "what the hell are you doing here?" tuco pops up in the back seat with a gun in his hand & urges walt to get in. walt has no choice, so he does....& they drive away, ending the episode. it's quality television. i want it to be next week right now!

#70 - rise & shine, america...& get naked!

snack: bear naked all natural fruit & nut granola
drink: naked orange mango motion juice smoothie

i did a little snacking that monday morning with a bag of bear naked all natural fruit & nut granola. i picked the bag up about a month ago. by that, i mean that someone in my building received it as a sample, tore open the box to see what it was & left it there on the floor below our mailboxes, still inside its packaging. i picked it up off the ground & relocated it to my kitchen cupboard until this monday, when i again relocated the contents, this time to my mouth whilst watching breaking bad. on the back of the package, it urges me to "try with milk, yogurt or just bear naked." it was early in the morning & i had no milk or yogurt & totally read it wrong. turns out i could've kept my clothes on whilst eating my granola after all.

other than a fleeting love affair with mueslix back in the 90s, i've never been the biggest fan of granola-based things. occasionally, i'll buy some yogurt with one of those packets of granola on top, but other than that, nada. too dry. this bear naked fruit & nut granola, with its raisins & cranberries, isn't as dry as some granolas i've had though, but i probably should have heeded their advice & mixed it in with something liquidy.

as it was, i at least had the naked orange mango motion juice smoothie to drink along with it. on the label of this drink, it lets me know that they "understand [my] need to get naked." never in my life have my food & drink combined their efforts so skillfully in an attempt to get me to take my clothes off.

i don't usually buy these smoothie drinks since they're so damn expensive, but i went for it with this one. it's definitely tasty stuff & by the time breaking bad was over, i had some solid energy coursing through me from the granola & smoothie consumption, which just goes to prove that you don't need crystal meth to get your day going. john & carol tate of massillon, oh...i'm totally looking in your direction.