Poptart Change Chat

Name Equals Jess: yo the island is traveling through time now
Name Equals Jess: cause someone turned a big wheel
Name Equals Jess: inside the core of the island
Name Equals Jess: everyone is getting nose bleeds
damar86: there was a movie with ashton kutcher like that
Name Equals Jess: the nose bleeds?
damar86: yeah, and the island
damar86: no not really
Name Equals Jess: no were you talking about the butterfly effect
damar86: yes but i didn’t have the effort to keep going
Name Equals Jess: so they have single packs of pop tarts now
damar86: what took them so long really
Name Equals Jess: like, the actual serving
Name Equals Jess: which is good cause it makes me feel a lot o less guilty
damar86: come to think of it, i never really felt up to eating 2 poptarts anyway
Name Equals Jess: i feel good about this change

Oh god.

http://consumerist.com/5140117/is-this-the-worlds-best-airline-complaint-letter

O Nom Nom Nom A

So, what’s on the plate for our new president’s lunch? A host of game birds, hot dogs for the little ones (am I the only one who sees Biden sneaking a dog?) , and a massive sigh of relief for all that are involved, including of course the caterers:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/a-mission-to-serve-lunch-in-the-capitol/

Presidential Recipes!

Digging through the internet, I found this great compendium of presidential recipes!
http://blogpublic.lib.msu.edu/index.php/2006/02/20/white_house_presidential_recipes_through?blog=5

Also, George Washington’s  beer: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1591417

NYT Delight: Roasted Broccoli With Shrimp

Having not cooked in a while, I ended up reading an article in the New York Times that really made my mouth water. It was about roasted broccoli with shrimp. Having roasted cauliflower before, I knew what roasting did to veggies: brought out their warm, sweet flavors. Doing this with broccoli and adding the needed protein of shrimp made for a really, really quick meal:

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/dining/141arex.html?scp=1&sq=broccoli%20and%20shrimp&st=cse

Dogfish Breweries and the American Beer

Sorry, this was way too difficult to shoot for another beer .gif

Just finished reading a stupendous article from the New Yorker about Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Breweries and maker of “extreme” beers. I recommend it for home brewers and beers snobs alike, as it touches on things like his thought process for inventing new beers or even re-inventing old ones from ancient texts and chemical analysis of petrified tomb hooch. It also has a fair bit about the history of brewing in the US, and why we’re getting the micro brew boom today.

My favorite two ideas in the somewhat lengthy and culturally through article (it is the New Yorker, don’t forget) :

1) American macro beer lost its flavor around the turn of the century because the generational palate had grown up on cheap sweats and coca cola and didn’t like bitter, among other reasons.

2)Beer is brewed, wine is made; Wine can happen naturally if you leave out juice and is expected to vary from vintage to vintage , but beer is coaxed into being through elaborate man-developed processes and precise science to be the same again and again.

Read the article here.

Bourbon BBQ Update

Garbage plate in all its glory, with a side of fries and chili mac.

From our interweb traffic statistic pages, it seems like our Bourbon BBQ review is quite a popular read. The other week when my friends wanted to take a White Castle run, I convinced them what they really wanted instead was a pile of chared meat with pickled onions and hot sauce.

Bourbon is still holds all of its wood-panled, checkered table cloth, paper towels instead of napkins charm (as well as apparently adding free wi-fi for whatever reason), but the prices have seen a slight bump up. Understandable in an era of rising food prices and still keeps them within the range of cheap, good food. I paid 2-3 dollars more for the wonderful garbage plate then I did when the review was written last year, but just took more advantage of the free refills of RC cola to make up for it. Something about the sweet cola tang of RC cola that makes the spicy beef go down.

Shots for Bordem: The Train Simulation

I’m going to start out by saying you shouldn’t do this. It was a bad idea, influenced by beer and severe bordem, that shouldn’t be repeated unless you desire punishment. Or maybe some excitment.

My roommates and I had a habit of trying to find the worst possible youtube videos, and one day we stumbled upon real-time screen cap videos of people playing Microsoft Train Simulator. With no added sound. Why would anyone want to watch this crap? Oooo cool, he pulled into the side track to let the freight train go by… for 5 minutes. This deserved its own drink:

1 part Kahluha for the track
1 part Vodka for the fuel
1 part chocolate whey protein body-building powder for the gravel

Shake over ice, drink immediately before it congeals/settles/turns.

Imagine taking shots of sickly sweet chocolate sand, and you’ll understand why you should/should not do this. Toot Toot.

Holiday Cross-Over

Something about this just tickles my ironic funny bone… the idea of haunted gingerbread houses! I’d be a fun thing to do at a party, and it’s easier to find massive amounts of small candy for cheap this time of year. Plus there is something sexy about the browns of gingerbread decorated with blacks and oranges.  Hit up google image search for some ideas, but I first saw haunted gingerbread mansions here.

Review: The Gilded Otter / New Paltz

 

 

SUNY is like a giant squid stretching its arms across the towns and cities of New York, touching each of them with the infectious ink of college life. My favorite SUNY to visit is SUNY New Paltz, because it has a beautiful surrounding town that manages to be both artsy and truly local in ways which are, unfortunately, difficult to find around Ramapo.  

Climb some apple trees after the break…