The last bomb before the fall: when the buff dried up

The following is an excerpt from my new book The Last Bomb Before the Fall: When the Buff Dried Up. Oprah featured it as her book of the month on her show last week. It will be in stores around the country on Black Friday. Enjoy.

Chapter I

August 15, I remember it fondly. It was hot but not too hot, it was cloudy but not too cloudy. There breeze was just strong enough to rustle the pile of crumpled takeout bags and grease-speckled parchment wrappers on the coffee table but not quite strong enough to blow them away. The tantalizing scent of fried wafted from the pile up to my face, fluttering around in my nostrils . I knew what I had to do. Deftly, my fingers moved across the keypad of my phone, Toucan Sam-like my fingers recieving orders from my nose and not my brain.

And, the more I mull it over in my mind, I still can't decide whether it was one of these days (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlcqWQVVuU) or one of these (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzjLlqIuVhI). August 15, 2009 was the date of my final buffalo bomb from AK's.

I moved to Allston two weeks later, way out of AK's delivery range (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s). I had signed the lease so swiftly, so surely, withouth thinking or even considering the consequences. I didn't realize that my brash decision would leave me in Buff Bomb purgatory.

A month went by and I could still taste the buff, feel the burn and, when I really dug down deep, feel the full pull of its weight in my stomach, the kind rendering it impossible to gather the effort to slither off the couch save for the frantic moments of pure panic not knowing whether I'd make it to the bathroom in time to puke and/or poop. I would awake from delightful buff-town dreams only to realize that my toungue was not on fire, my esophagus did not demand long drawn out cooling breaths, my stomach was still, my small intestine was not a waterslide and my b-hole was placid. I would scream in horror, knowing that I would never develop the sauce-induced ulcer of my buffalo dreams.

Another month went by and I could barely taste the sauce. My Nintendo 64 controllers had dried, the pangs had reduced significantly and I was thinking about moving on. I tried getting takeout from Inbound Pizza because of a promising recommendation from a cabbie. He had informed me that the name is "very very clever" because it is right across from the inbound T stop. He had also informed me that the pizza is "very very well." Needless to say, I tried it and, as it turns out, the sandwich was about as inspired as the name of the establishment (not very inspired). Subsequently, I tried every takeout place in a 2 mile radius but to no avail. It was then that I made the concession that my buff bomb was out of reach and my poops were to remain clean.

This is the story of a tragedy and loss but it is also a story of triumph and rebirth. This is a chronicle of the first rays of spring after a long winter. This is a story of a young man with streak-less underpants.

Ode to a Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich

Awake, oh taste buds, awake,
And bask in the joyous flames of Hell!

Open, great jaws, open wide and do tell

A tale of a tender chick so spectacularly spicy.

Listen, old ears, and play for me a thunderous crunch;

Play me the sweet story of the sandy on which I munch.

Keep watch, murky eyes, don’t fail me now,

Signal my brain, doesn’t matter how.

Now, slender finger, without trepidation,

Scoop that mayo ‘fore it falls from this Godly creation.

Receive, grumbling stomach; my favorite receptacle,

For what’s coming your way is nothing short of a spectacle.

Lord! Behold! Such a righteous stack;

Its golden bun, gaily and delicately sauced,

Atop a fluffy garden, though the ‘berg’s not lost.

A simple duo of veggies well suits this snack.

Under that, is the golden idol.

Its suggestive breading is what makes the title.

For the juicy river of flavor that runs inside;

My lonely tongue, the only appropriate guide.

It rests on what was once a lowly bun, now mighty altar,

Transcended from white bread, now it cannot falter.

Its mayo gaze, through crispy eyes, sees all else as blighty.

Hark! For this is a gastronomical Aphrodite.

“Oh, Wendy,” they ask “please do tell”—
The bloodthirst grows stronger every nigh’
Oh, how I need that chicken when I’m high—
“Wendy, I beg you, please remedy this spell.”
Minutes seem like hours and hours like days,
Without my spice, I’m in a perpetual haze.
My dependence once led to a spicy sabbatical,
But Don’s and the King are hardly ecclesiastical.
Never again will I leave her;
I'm not so sure if I can handle the stir.
The tantalizing crunch of her crust makes me itch.
Her name is the Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT FOOD

Times change. Specifically though, home decor changes. Even more specifically, window decorations change.

Windows first became popular sometime in the middle ages, when the only people able to afford such luxuries were royalty (e.g. palaces, castles) and the church (e.g. churches). The window style of these two institutions differed drastically; castles had those slits for shooting arrows, while churches had stained glass pictures of righteous d00ds. Since then, many different styles of window attire have evolved from these primitive examples. Curtains (first appeared in the late 18th century) were, and still are, a very popular window accessory. The Venetians are famous for their annoying and noisy blinds. But the most recent development in the way of window obscurement technology are Bamboo Blinds.

Bamboo Blinds (BamBlinds) began appearing in trendy homes some time in the late 80's and their popularity rose exponentially year to year, falling off somewhere around 2004. Several reasons for this strange surge have come to light to window researchers. Our best scientists have proposed that their cheap price and ease-of-installation played a very large part. Since their extreme popularity, many people have realized that they look like tacky shit.

Much to my horror and dismay, my mother "donated" about 8-9 fixtures of BamBlinds on her last visit. She must have noticed the unardorned windows in my living room and kitchen for some reason the last time she was here. Since they were free and extremely easy to install, I put them up (nail+hammer+BamBlind=all done+'good job' beer) . As soon as I got like 3 of them up, I sat down and admired my handiwork (I didn't have any beer so I chugged some errant jim beam leftover from the night before). I looked at them long. I looked at the hard. I pondered and contemplated them. At some point, I passed out, and at another point I woke up. Then I had a stream of BamBlind related thoughts:

Why the fuck do people buy these things? For one thing, they're a total pain in the ass to get up/down evenly. Did I mention they look like shit? I don't really know why exactly my mother bought these in the first place, but she clearly realized she made a terrible mistake and bought something way better. They look brand spanking new. My hypothesis: mom saw a nice display in a store, bought em, made dad install them all over the house, went back to the store, saw a nicer display of something else, repeat. This must be how I came to have them. It has to be. Maybe I should have called home less. Maybe then they'd be in my brother's apartment right now, instead. Maybe.

As I stared at my collection of BamBlinds, I thought about how bad I'm going to be making fun of these ridiculous things 20 years in the future while I raise and lower whatever futuristic window shade apparatus is popular. The future-blinds will no doubt be mentally-commanded, with the ability to change images so you can look out over whatever landscape you choose; rolling plains, snow-capped mountains, sunsets, I-93 at rush hour, under-the-sea adventure, porn, random youtube videos, etc. I have to imagine another built in feature of these blinds will be to project an image to the outside audience as well. You can make your home look like you live in a palace, a cave, a glass house, an aquariun, a porno, etc.

My God, the wonders of tomorrow.

Ranking Toothpaste: the world's most teethwhiteningest condiment

The other day, I experimented with a new kind of toothpaste, a gel. The Crest/Listerine Whitening Gel claims to be utopia in a bottle, the perfect balance between toothpaste and mouth wash. And that it may be but as far as I'm concerned, toothpaste and mouth wash are two separate and distinct entities never to be souped up into one. I was left with a rather dystopian feeling in my mouth and an unreasonable amount of residual plaque that I can only imagine plagued Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner as he had to deal with while fighting probable androids and possible nonandroids. That's some hard shit to do with an organic glue stick in your mouth. Its tarter and gingivitis controlling abilities notwithstanding, those boys over at that Crest/Listerine outfit make a pretty tasty paste.
Believe it or not, toothpaste has only recently surfaced as an acceptable condiment/late night snack. For years, toothpaste was considered very plebeian. The bourgeois looked down its collective nose at peasants as they squeezed all possible dollops of sweet fluoride nourishment out of their collective tube, not unlike the way middle class Americans now sneer at lower-middle class fatties as they wait in line at Taco Bell, languorously waiting for their supreme burritos to squeezed out of tubes and for their sour cream to be ejaculated from caulk guns. No, it was not until the 80's that the stigma started to fade away. Enter Seth Rogan.
Seth is a pioneer, albeit an unknowing pioneer-- and not in the movie industry, of course. He turned the non-toothpaste-eating world on end at sleep away camp on Lake George back in 1985. One fateful night, the 9-year-old Rogan, was lying awake in his bunk unable to drift into sweet sweet repose. Before curfew and prior to the campfire where he consumed only 4 s'mores (doublestuffed), Seth had only eaten a meagre 12 chicken nuggets (4 of which he procured from a small Jewish boy for his fruit cup) flanked by a side of mashed potatoes covered in what can only generously be described as a dollop of gravy. Needless to say, as he laid in bed, young Seth's belly was not satiated. Subsequently, he did something rather extraordinary that would shake the very foundation of the culinary world. He gingerly climbed out of his bunk and carefully opened up his trunk and removed his tube of Bubblegum Crest with sparkles, which his mother was kind enough to purchase for him after just a slight tantrum in the Walmart toiletries isle. He then worked way back into his bunk, under the cover of his lime-green Coleman sleeping bag and started to consume. Consume he did. All of it. It was so fucking good that the next day he shared his innovation with a friend of his with a similar build whose own mother often and kindly would call Rubenesque. He told a couple of other fat camp buddies who told some of their fat camp buddies, and you know how it goes. None of them ever got a cavity again and toothpaste took off.
Now, thanks to Seth and his little fat camp friends, we have hundreds of flavors of toothpastes lining the shelves of our Wallgreens. Lemon lime, chocolate, vanilla, orange, purple, strawberry, anything you want at the squeeze of a tube. And what are we to make of this Ethan Allanesque toothpaste liberty? How do you choose the proper one? Which ones are fucking atrocious?
Last year Cornell University researchers came up with a scale to measure the tastiness of these fluoride treats, the Arm & Hammer/Colgate All Purpose Whitening scale. Arm & Hammer is a 1 and Colgate All Purpose Whitening is a perfect 10. Classic and delicate. Delicious. The following are some highlights and lowlights from the study:
Lows:
Mentadent (2)-- Not enough mint and too much fluoride. Also, it comes in a container with a pump.
That shit you get at the dentist (3)-- Terrible texture and overwhelming flavor. Flavor crystals stick around in your mouth way too long.
Highs
Crest Cheesecake Whitening (8)-- Very smooth and creamy. It just slides down the back of your throat. There are hints of lemon and little crust crumbs throughout. Wonderfully done.
Aquafresh Chili Cheese Dog Tarter Control (9)-- Meaty and a little spicy. It's everything you could ask for in a toothpaste. Tip: Add a little strip of Heinz Spicy Brown Cavity Protection, for a truly cum-in-your-pants-good brushing experience.
Enjoy and brush responsibly.

Broku

Bros in the kitchen
This is my very first post
poop dart sandwiches.

Ode to Fry

Sweet Jebus Christ, I fucking love fried food. French fries, fried chicken, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, fried shrimp, egg rolls, etc., and so forth. What is the essence of fried food? I have seen the essence. I have tasted the essence. I have passed the essence and gone back for more tasty fried essence. The essence is the fried outer layer; the "skin" if you will.

The skin defies explanation. If you've never had it before, you cannot possibly understand. Any description would lead your mind astray and you would probably be disgusted. This is incorrect. However, if you have tried the skin (and if you are an American male, there is no doubt that you have and you are addicted) the mention of fry waters the mouth. Personally, if I hadn't just finished eating 25+ bufalo wings, I would need to cease writing this article and make a phone call (refer to Mr. Kinton's June 3rd Bro-Post). But, alas, my belly is full and my fry-sense satisfied. However, I'll attempt a description; golden, crispy, salty... umm... delicious... and so on.

I have no idea how they make fry. I understand that hot oil is involved, and some sort of batter, and a dipping action with a metal basket. This is all I know, this is all that I need to know. My relationship with fry is need-to-know (obviously) and this is beyond satisfactory. As far as I can tell, dipping battered food into hot oil coats the food in magical, fantastic stuff that elicits a supremely positive reaction from the taste buds.

After 3 or 4 minutes of exhaustive research, I've definitively concluded that there is no way to recreate deep-fat-fry technology within the confines of one's apartment (or parent's house). The best way to get at fried foods is to go to the source; the restaurant. This is optimal, despite all the effort it takes to move your body to the food-gettin'-place, the fry-skin is always at its absolute peak moments after exiting the hot-as-shit oil. Alternatives include ordering delivery from such fantastic establishments as AK's (should you be fortunate to be in the Roxbury-Mission Hill locale) or your best local chinese restaurant (undoubtedly Food Wall. more info on this to come in future posts). The main issue with fried food delivery is that with every passing minute, the fried food becomes soggier and soggier, grossifying its styrafoam container or making the paper bag container completely translucent. It's still very much edible and good, but the tasty-factor drops logorithmically with time. Thus, I prefer and recommend to our dear readers that fried food be enjoyed at its source.

Be warned though; eating fried foods at their peak tastiness can cause severe mouth-gullet burns for the unprepared। The best way to combat this is patience; eat all fried foods at their peak every time and your mouth will eventually develop a burn callous over the entire surface of the mouth and tongue that will protect from future burns. This takes time to develop, however. Some may take weeks, some months, others years, but rest assured that once your mouth has adapted to foods of temperature exceeding 400 degrees (Fahrenheit), nothing can stop you.

Delivery or DiGiorno?

Hunger is a bitch. Sure, food tastes good. Some food even tastes really good (hot pockets, hot dogs, and pretty much anything else with ‘hot’ in the name). Sometimes, however, increasingly violent pangs of hunger simply do not provide enough motivation to find adequate sustenance. Whether you are in bed, on the couch, or in any other room that is not the kitchen, it is often difficult to muster the energy required to achieve satiation. Even if you make it to the kitchen, it is more than likely that the long, grueling journey to the refrigerator will have rendered you physically incapable of opening a bag of marshmallows, let alone a mammoth refrigerator door. That’s some serious resistance (stay tuned for a future informational entry on how to utilize every-day household products for minimum resistance exercise to prevent complete muscular atrophy). Successfully prying the fridge door open, despite being a Herculean feat, is hardly the final obstacle. Further obstructing the potential hunger satisfaction is the fact that not every item in the refrigerator is prepared for immediate consumption. Other than fresh fruit (gross) and vegetables (super gross), most refrigerated items are housed in some kind of container. These containers must be opened and their contents often mixed with other items to be properly enjoyed. This process is difficult enough when you are already in the kitchen, but if you’re on the couch and immersed in a Deadliest Warrior marathon on Spike TV, it’s damn near impossible. If you can’t stand the hunger any longer and only five minutes remain before the climactic reenactment between the feudal Samurai and U.S. military sniper, there is only one solution: making someone else bring you food. As the poor soul in the hypothetical above is obviously unlikely to have a serious girlfriend, he would be unable to command a spouse to do his bidding. Even if the average Spike TV watcher somehow manages a romantic relationship, it is clear that the lack of respect for the bro-show watching boyfriend would preclude the already suffering girlfriend from stooping so low as to prepare food for this mongoloid. Enter delivery…

Food delivery has ushered in a new age for humanity and has eliminated the last vestiges of the hunter/gatherer instinct in all who seek its service. Able to satisfy all hunger and quench all thirst with the least effort imaginable, food delivery has allowed the human race to focus on far more admirable pursuits, such as watching television or riding motorized scooters on city sidewalks. Ordering delivery is not merely a means to an end, however. It is an art form. For example, one must be aware of the best dishes a restaurant has to offer without ever setting foot in the restaurant itself. Moreover, the sharp delivery service user should possess extensive knowledge of price comparisons between restaurants, special offers, heavy traffic hours, and how many sides of honey mustard can be obtained without paying extra. The home setting also factors in. Only the most experienced orderers are able to predict a delivery driver’s speed or a pizza chef’s backlog of orders with any accuracy, so it is of primary importance to limit transaction time on the ordering end. This can be achieved a number of ways. One oft-encountered situation involves becoming hungry while playing video games. Here, it is important to maximize production and minimize waste. In order to make the best of the time available it is crucial to always have at least one hand on the controller. Relinquishing grip for even a moment wastes time and could cause you to miss crucial items, like health or ammo. Following this no-free-hands approach, the most logical method of ordering is the speakerphone. Reaching into a pocket or onto a table requires the use of one hand, but this is allowed as it is only temporary and the other hand is still firmly gripping the controller. The left hand is recommended for the reaching because the right hand is closer to the buttons on most standard controllers. Open the phone, press the speaker button, and hit redial (because you clearly ordered from the same place yesterday). Both hands can now be returned to the comfortable confines of the controller and an order can be placed. Memorization of your address and phone number is also highly recommended to streamline this process.

Another situation that would leave the world helpless without the blessing of delivery is faced when you are watching a movie and it looks like Ryan Phillippe is totally about to win the heart of the sexy, yet shy class nerd। The video game speakerphone method outlined above does not apply here for two reasons. The first reason is the noise factor. You might be watching Phillippe making his move and fall into a heated battle with the person on the phone about whether they can substitute jalapeno poppers for fries. The next minute, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is slow dancing with the hot nerdy chick and you have no idea what happened to Phillippe. The other reason for avoiding the phone is the 95% chance that you’re totally baked and couldn’t follow the plot of a Care Bears movie, let alone coherently order a buffalo bomb pizza and onion rings. Luckily for the stoner, and the restaurant employee on the other end of the phone line, food can be ordered for delivery online. This allows both free customization of the many items on a restaurant’s menu at the click of a mouse and full concentration on the inevitable slap-fight between Ryan and Freddie. You might have to pause the movie to get the food when it arrives, unless a roommate mistakenly thinks the door is for him, but this is a small price to pay for otherwise avoiding all contact with humans and refrigerators.

Death by Breakfast

Dear Jimmy Dean,
America called. It wants its predictable insulin levels back.

Sincerely,
American Diabetes Association of America

Proper Preservation Methods

"Great article in the times today about canning seasonal fruit and veggies at home. I'm dying to try it out; strawberries and artichokessound particularly appealing. Anyone with me?"

Above is an excerpt from our inferior sister site, Crows in the Kitchen. It is a terribly written piece and extremely dry but I was able to look past the obvious problems in syntax and lack of character development to pull out a useful topic for conversation on our blog; food preservation. It's important-- And, I'm not talking about preserving fresh fruits and vegetables here. That ish is easy. Jam some berries or fava beans in a mason jar and close that shit. Oh no, no, no, what I'm talking about here-- and guys out there, I know you're gonna wanna read this-- is what to do with those two extra slices of pizza or that recently opened bag of chips. Believe it or not, these are items that can be reused if taken care of properly.
There are two main methods of preservation that I'll go over today, refrigerating it and bagging it (note: you can also aluminum-foil-it, but that's advanced and is for another day.). Let's start with refrigerating it.

That last slice of pizza is sitting right in front of you, it's unwavering peperoni gaze staring you right in the grill. You want to eat it but you're too full, and on the other hand, you don't want to waste a specimen like that. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were some way that you could save that piece for some later date? Well, the answer, my friend, is refrigerating it. First, grab the lid of the box and close it, encasing the slice on all sides. Then, open up your fridge and try sliding the box in the remaining head room between the items on the top shelf and refrigerator's ceiling. This is valuable real estate. Doesn't work, you say? Try jamming the box harder, shuffling the condiments around if you have to, but be wary of the Frank's Red Hot that's resting precariously on the edge of the shelf. And, if that doesn't work, the next step is to drop down another shelf and try that (note: this is usually a shorter shelf, good for jam, cream cheese and items like that, so there might not be much head room). And, if that doesn't work, then drop down yet another shelf and jam (note: try not to spend any time reorganizing the items on the shelf as that will take way too much time.) After that attempt, a lot of people make the mistake of believing that their fridge is full-- not true. Try moving the bottom "crisper" drawers, which are reserved for fruits and vegetables but are more than likely empty or filled with decaying fruits and vegetables. Take them completely out and jam your pizza box in the empty "crisper" slot. Now at this point you have properly preserved your remaining slice and have the option to access it at any time you so choose. On to bagging.

The verb to "bag" can mean to take a bag less or naked item and physically place it in a bag, but that's not what I'm talking about here. And, although it is an effective preservation method as well, it's a little more advanced a method to get into in this tutorial. To bag is a level 2 preservation method as is aluminum-foiling-it. The bag verb that I'm talking about here is to take an existing bag and to seal it through crinkling, rolling or folding. This method is especially effective on potato chips but can also be used on corn chips, breakfast cereals, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits and a whole host of other dry/crispy items. Once the item is opened and you want to stop eating and not throw the rest of the bag out, you have to 'bag it up' again so it becomes reusable. Take the bag, holding it at the opening, and slowly roll the top down towards the bottom, folding it at least a couple of times (note: if you don't stop rolling once you have reached the remaining contents of the bag, you may end up with little tiny crushed half or even quarter chips that aren't even worth eating and will most likely just get trapped in between your couch cushions.) And that's it, you're ready to put your dry food item back in the pantry, unless of course, your bag is in some kind of box-like enclosure. In that case, you will need to add a step to the process and push the bag back down into the box-like thing and close the flaps, minding the tabs and slots. Now you can put that shit in the pantry.

I hope that you found this post helpful. These methods help me avoid multiple trips to the store per day and make me feel just a little greener. I hope they do the same for you.

Ranking Toothpaste: the world's most teethwhiteningest condiment

The other day, I experimented with a new kind of toothpaste, a gel. The Crest/Listerine Whitening Gel claims to be utopia in a bottle, the perfect balance between toothpaste and mouth wash. And that it may be but as far as I'm concerned, toothpaste and mouth wash are two separate and distinct entities never to be souped up into one. I was left with a rather dystopian feeling in my mouth and an unreasonable amount of residual plaque that I can only imagine plagued Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner as he had to deal with while fighting probable androids and possible nonandroids. That's some hard shit to do with an organic glue stick in your mouth. Its tarter and gingivitis controlling abilities notwithstanding, those boys over at that Crest/Listerine outfit make a pretty tasty paste.

Believe it or not, toothpaste has only recently surfaced as an acceptable condiment/late night snack. For years, toothpaste was considered very plebeian. The bourgeois looked down its collective nose at peasants as they squeezed all possible dollops of sweet fluoride nourishment out of their collective tube, not unlike the way middle class Americans now sneer at lower-middle class fatties as they wait in line at Taco Bell, languorously waiting for their supreme burritos to squeezed out of tubes and for their sour cream to be ejaculated from caulk guns. No, it was not until the 80's that the stigma started to fade away. Enter Seth Rogan.

Seth is a pioneer albeit an unknowing pioneer-- and not in the movie industry, of course. He turned the non-toothpaste-eating world on end at sleep away camp on Lake George back in 1985. One fateful night, the 9-year-old Rogan, was lying awake in his bunk unable to drift into sweet sweet repose. Before curfew and prior to the campfire where he consumed only 4 s'mores (doublestuffed), Seth had only eaten a meagre 12 chicken nuggets (4 of which he procured from a small Jewish boy for his fruit cup) flanked by a side of mashed potatoes covered in what can only generously be described as a dollop of gravy. Needless to say, as he laid in bed, young Seth's belly was not satiated. Subsequently, he did something rather extraordinary that would shake the very foundation of the culinary world. He gingerly climbed out of his bunk and carefully opened up his trunk and removed his tube of Bubblegum Crest with sparkles, which his mother was kind enough to purchase for him after just a slight tantrum in the Walmart toiletries isle. He then worked way back into his bunk, under the cover of his lime-green Coleman sleeping bag and started to consume. Consume he did. All of it. It was so fucking good that the next day he shared his innovation with a friend of his with a similar build whose own mother often and kindly would call Rubenesque. He told a couple of other fat camp buddies who told some of their fat camp buddies, and you know how it goes. Toothpaste took off.

Now, thanks to Seth and his little fat camp friends, we have hundreds of flavors of toothpastes lining the shelves of our Wallgreens. Lemon lime, chocolate, vanilla, orange, purple, strawberry, anything you want at the squeeze of a tube. And what are we to make of this Ethan Allanesque toothpaste liberty? How do you choose the proper one? Which ones are fucking atrocious?

Last year Cornell University researchers came up with a scale to measure the tastiness of these fluoride treats, the Arm & Hammer/Colgate All Purpose Whitening scale. Arm & Hammer is a 1 and Colgate All Purpose Whitening is a perfect 10. Classic and delicate. Delicious. The following are some highlights and lowlights from the study:

Lows:

Mentadent (2)-- Not enough mint and too much fluoride. Also, it comes in a container with a pump.

That shit you get at the dentist (3)-- Terrible texture and overwhelming flavor. Flavor crystals stick around in your mouth way too long.

Highs

Crest Cheesecake Whitening (8)-- Very smooth and creamy. It just slides down the back of your throat. There are hints of lemon and little crust crumbs throughout. Wonderfully done.

Aquafresh Chili Cheese Dog Tarter Control (9)-- Meaty and a little spicy. It's everything you could ask for in a toothpaste. Tip: Add a little strip of Heinz Spicy Brown Cavity Protection, for a truly cum-in-your-pants-good brushing experience.

Enjoy and brush responsibly.

Whiskey and Unfiltered Cigarettes A La Forged Perscriptions

Everybody eats. Everybody. So what can be so great about something that everyone does? Nothing, obviously. You've always prided yourself on your individuality, so here's a little insider tip on how to maintain it: When eating inevitably becomes a rote affair that renders you a worthless and trite sheep, do as I do: relinquish your will to hunger suppressing drugs.
It is every man's desire to eat, but must we always succumb to that foolishness? Of course not! And you shouldn't. If you think about it, even food well suited to this blog demands far too much effort, EZ-Mac and Stouffer's Beer Battered Chicken included. You probably miss the good old days when you were fed through a tube in your stomach, the days when you could lounge in the water all day. What self-respecting man, I ask you, would compromise his dignity by chewing? We want masturbation, not mastication! So, why not take a walk to the Spanish market on the corner and ask for what life is really all about? A bottle of Jack Daniels and a carton of Unfiltered Camel Cigarettes.
Also, fasting is a religious experience. So it's dually good.

Strange Russian Herring Dish - "Shuba"

Now, my writing is often laced with sarcasm, but this is all more or less true.
I consider myself an excavator of strange dishes, an exploratory diner, if you will. So when I discovered this particularly strange little dish on a venture to Brooklyn, I abruptly exclaimed, "This excavation is supporting evidence for the claim that I am excavator of strange dishes. Alas, I am truth sayer. Alas, I am all that is man." And as all that is man, as any man who can claim unerringly to be all that is man, I've little desire to know the "recipe" of any dish, let alone one as unpalatable as this one. So if you're looking for the recipe, I'd suggest you find a more fertile section of the internet, one showing better promise to yield the harvest which you seek. It is true, I know virtually nothing about this dish, except that it contains herring, and is neon pink, a color generally better suited for stuffed animals than food. The taste... is truly revolting, but if you want to be like me--you probably don't, but I will proceed assuming the off-chance that you do--you will wish to claim the title "excavator of strange dishes". So if you want to try Shuba (pray child, change your mind if you do) then you must follow my instructions to the letter. Step one: Meet a girl on the internet with a Russian family in Brooklyn. Step Two: Go to the birthday party her family is throwing for her. Step Three: Immersed in a strange circumstance where you understand not one word being exchanged, eat Shuba. Step Four: Stifle urge to vomit then smile at crazy mother. Step Five: Go Home. Step six: Receive phone call from internet girl informing you that she is moving to a small country you've never heard of before and has changed her name to Pantera because she thinks she's a panther now and she much prefers her other suitor who is a sorceror and a wolf. Step Seven: Be informed by her that a fortune teller has foreseen your death which is soon to come. Internet girl believes that this information can save your life, but she would have withheld this information from you if you did not apologize to her. ... Psh, women. Step Eight: You realize that internet girl, in her own mind, would have let you die if you did not praise her, even though you were pretty damn nice and all the whole time.
Step Nine: Spend a fortnight questioning your judgement.
Step Ten: See Wade Boggs Fried Chicken.

HAVE A SUPA SHUBA DAY, Bros!

Doritos 3Ds, We Hardly Knew Ye

Sometime in the Mid-Late Nineties up until the early turn of the millenium, FritoLay Inc. produced a snack-chip that would forever change my life. Of course, if you've read the title of this post, you already know I'm talking about the enigmatic Dorito 3D chip. This is one of the greatest displays of snack food technological improvements to date (with respect to Combos).

A Dorito 3D is like a regular Dorito chip in that it holds a triangular shape, but this chip is not held in check by the boundaries of two simple and paltry dimensions. Rather, the Dorito 3D is puffed up and inflated in the center, in a ping pong ball-sized shape so that there are 3 corners of the triangle jutting out the side. The purpose of these 3 little cones is presumably to give the chip structural integrity so that it can survive the arduous journey from the Dorito 3D Factory directly to your hungry gullet.

Now you have a sound mental image of what these little heavenly snacks look like. Comtemplate the taste: they had 3 different flavors if I can recall correctly. Nacho Cheesier, Jalepeno Awesome-sauce, and... um... Fried Chicken. The flavors weren't the best part of this chip. Nay, the best part was undoubtedly the texture. I've always considered myself to be a texture man. Who among you doesn't appreciate a good texture? Exactly. No one. And that's why these little chips fucking rule. The wall of the chip is extremely thin but thickens upon reaching the cone making for a perfect crunch, every time. Even when you get to the bottom of the bag and all you have are those little broken up chip-lets of discarded cones, you are still satisfied with the sweet, sweet crunch.

Anyway, I spent most of my late-middle school, early highschool years playing a shit-ton of computer games with my equally socially-impaired nerd friends. StarCraft, Halflife (Counter-Strike), Worms Armageddon; I could go on forever, baby. These events could, and would, last all through the night. I don't know about you, but if you've ever played StarCraft for 6 straight hours, you pay a price. A price in hunger. Fortunately, snack-food technology had caught up to us at this point and all we needed to do was sink our sweaty mitts into a bag of 3Ds and grab like 7-8 of them and cram 'em all in our respective snack-holes at once. The noisy compaction of all these chips at once was so damned gratifying, so damned satisfying, you felt like you were on top of the world. That's when you hit them with the carrier rush (or Deagle head shots for those CS fans).

So what happened to the Doritos 3Ds? This question has been plaguing me ever since I took my eye of the proverbial ball. Sometime in the early-middle of high school I found myself looking more at girls and less at my kills-to-death ratio. Sometimes these things happen. After some time I thought back to my simpler, fancy-free days as a super-gamer-nerd and I thought to myself, "Holy shit, those 3D motherfuckers were good." I went out to get a bag only to find that they COULD NOT BE FOUND ANYWHERE.

Devastation.

I haven't seen a bag in ages. I haven't heard that crunch of satisfaction in so long. Sometimes, I don't even know why I go on. After some exhaustive research, the internet has assured me that they are gone for good. One forlorn snacker going by the handle cannibus is just a plant writes "They were too extreme for most people". I think that there is more truth to this message than our cannibus-smoking friend lets on; The world simply wasn't ready for a snack chip with some fucking attitude (by attitude, I'm referring to it's pingpong ball w/cones shape).

So what's next? I say, bring the boys home. Time has passed, and the need for the 3D Dorito is stronger than it has ever been. Wars, famine, recession, pestilence, swine flu, tv commercials; these things are tearing the Earth apart at the seems. I have a dream, friends. I have a dream of puffed-up doritos that crunch in beautiful syncrony, that boldly satisfies the unsatisfied man (or woman). In my dream, they rain from the sky. (I realize that if Doritos 3Ds did indeed rain from the sky, everyone would have to immediately seek shelter from their deadly cones, but bear with me). Everyone reaches out their hands, opens their mouths and lets the Dorito usher in a new ago of prosperity and wonder. And deliciousness.

How can you help? Well, some guy started an online petition to bring back the awesome. I didn't sign it because that shit is lame, but isn't it time that you should?

Fuck You I Love Instant Pudding

I'm a man of action. I have little patience for anything, ESPECIALLY waiting. I don't like waiting for anything. I don't like waiting in lines, I don't like waiting on hold, and I sure as shit don't like waiting to eat pudding. Thankfully, the good Lord has mercifully bestowed upon us Instant Pudding; a delicious treat that requires no brain activity at all, so you can concentrate on all sorts of more important things. 

"But why not just buy snack packs?" you ask, in a whining tone. This is a very valid question; Snack packs are both delectable and exquisite, but let me ask you this: have you ever faced an entire bowl of snack pack pudding? Let's face it; it's just not economical to sit and eat like 24 snack packs in one sitting. This is where Instant Pudding is the right choice. Sometimes you just want to eat 4 lbs of chocolate-gelatin-milk without opening little packages every 3 seconds. Also, the snacker can face severe and occasionally life-threatening tongue-related injuries from licking too many snack pack foil tops. Indeed, snack packs are more appropriate in moderation and for getting that pudding fix on the go. 

Anyway, here's how you make a huge bowl of luscious, rich, Instant Pudding:

Step 1: Reach way the fuck back into your pantry/cabinet unit, past the never-opened corn starch and the opened-all-too-long-ago cashews and grab that little box. Verify you've grabbed Instant Pudding and not Raid Ant Traps. Good job.

Step 2: Pour that dust into a big bowl. Make sure you inhale the fine powder deeply to prep your body for the deliciousness it will soon receive. 

Step 3: Add a variable amount of  cold milk. It says exactly how much to add on the package, but fuck it, it'll probably come out awesome no matter what.

Step 4: Throw that shit in the fridge and do something else for about 20 minutes. This is the most difficult step for most. What do you for 20 minutes? Well, fortunately, this is just enough time to get about 3 or 4 Super Smash Bros. games under your belt. Isn't that great? 

Step 5: Eat that pudding, mother fucker.

Now you know all of my pudding-related secrets, or at least most of them. Remember: sharing is for pussies.

Mayonnaise: Harmless Condiment or Scourge of Society?

Mayonnaise. For some, the very mention of the word sends a cold shiver down their spine and instantly triggers the gag reflex. For others, it stops them dead in their tracks, transforming them into panting, drooling zombies satisfied only by a dollop or two of the gooey white substance. Still others wonder, perhaps like you dear reader, what all the fuss is about over such a seemingly innocuous complement to deli meats. Well, if you stop whining for one second I’ll tell you what all the goddamned fuss is about.
Proponents of mayonnaise (known colloquially as ‘mayo’) base their argument on two basic principles. First, they argue, it is delicious. This part of their argument is highly subjective and therefore quite difficult to refute. Retorting with ‘it’s not delicious,’ or even the more stinging ‘it totally sucks and makes you a fatass,’ accomplishes little more than the ignition of a childish debate that is impossible to win. This study clearly has higher aims than relegating itself to such sophomoric mud slinging and so we move on to the second prong of the mayonnaise advocates’ argument.
Focusing on the more scientific aspects of the mysterious condiment, the proponents claim that the basic ingredients of mayonnaise, eggs and vegetable oil, are harmless and consumed by healthy people every day. It logically follows, they assert, that mayonnaise itself is a perfectly healthy product fit for human consumption. The rebuttal to this assertion may not be obvious to the layman, but ignoring it may have dire consequences for it makes the grave mistake of assuming that two harmless products, when introduced with one another, will constitute an equally harmless product. An example of this logical flaw can be found by examining the three substances known as sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. These compounds present little danger alone and can often be found in high school science labs across the country. Mix the three together, however, and you have a substance responsible for the slaughter of countless human beings across hundreds of years: gunpowder. Does mayonnaise possess a similarly devastating power capable of annihilating the entire human race? Perhaps not. But I, for one, am unwilling to find out. Tread carefully dear readers…

Wade Boggs Fried Chicken

I want to share with you one of my favorite recipes of all-time. This one was bestowed upon me by my good friend Wade Boggs. Wade played for the Red Sox from ’82 to ’92, and during that time we shared a very special bond. Wade, as it’s commonly known, had a special pre-game meal, or ritual, that I was lucky enough to share with him on a number of occasions. Wade’s ritual was eating a plate of fried chicken before every game. Silly as it sounds, it actually worked. Wade would finish his 18-year career with a robust .328 lifetime average, thanks in part to his hearty pre-game plate of chicken.

Fried chicken, or pollo frito as the Mexicans call it, is an American classic and Wade’s recipe, as he shared with me, is as good as any I’ve ever had. A delicious, juicy piece of chicken surrounded by a crispy fried exterior-- there ain’t nothing better. I’m getting hungry just writing about it. So, let’s get started:

Alright, first, leave Fenway Park through the players’ entrance and head East on Lansdowne Street. Take your first right, onto Ipswitch Street which will turn into Van Ness Street. Stay on that until you see Kilmarnock Street, then take a right on that. Next, you’ll want to take a left at Brookline Avenue, which you should stay on for almost a mile until you hit Francis Street. Take a left there and travel for a few furlongs until you hit the big intersection with the Stop and Shop and the 7/11. That’s Huntington Avenue. Cross the street and take a right. Kwiki Pizza will be right there (Note: if you run into Dara’s Wine and Liquor, you’ve gone too far). Don’t let the name fool you, walk up to the counter and order 5 pieces of fried chicken from the man with the unibrow. This is an important step because if you accidentally order the pizza then the recipe won’t come out right and will surely taste awful. Before the transaction is over, make sure to ask for “lots of hot sauce.” This is also an important step, it’s also the final step. Now you can sit down and enjoy your crispy and delicious all-American treat!

Note: the whole recipe should take about 20 minutes by foot and about 5 minutes by car.

Louisiana-Style Bulgarian Meat Paste Medley

This old-timey, deep-south Slavic favorite has been a staple of Mardi Gras and Balkan-region Orthodox celebrations alike since the advent of the modern printing press, though some historians argue that the recipe has origins dating back to the fall of the great city of Constantinople (or Tsargrad as it is known by the Slavic peoples). The story goes that the great Emperor Constantine, faced with the inevitable destruction of his beloved city, was afforded the opportunity to save but one relic from the fiery inferno that threatened destruction of his entire homeland. That relic, it is said, was the original recipe for Louisiana-Style Bulgarian Meat Paste Medley scrawled on a withered scroll of papyrus. Many highly decorated scholars have credited Constantine’s preservation of this sacred recipe as the most important achievement of his entire reign as Emperor – narrowly edging out his pivotal role in the global spread of Christianity. Perhaps more impressive than his heroic feat in rescuing the recipe from the grips of the mighty blaze was that the dish itself, which had been in the Emperor’s family for generations, prophetically referenced the yet-unfounded sovereign states of Louisiana and Bulgaria. This Nostradamic mystique only adds to the allure of this tantalizing dish that has ravaged the very souls, and colons, of all who have dared to indulge. So, without further pause, I present to you the hallowed recipe in all of its original, unadulterated glory:

Ingredients:
Note: unless otherwise indicated all measurements are based on the volume of the hollowed out skull of an adolescent mountain goat (roughly 4 oz.)

• 4 goat skulls of freshly slaughtered thigh of baboon (preferably from the mountainous region)
• 8 goat skulls of cured and salted stallion (if stallion unavailable, donkey is a savory substitute)
• 2 goat skulls of tree sloth
• 2 goat skulls of ground sloth
• 2 goat skulls of flying sloth (much more difficult to find; use extra tree sloth if necessary)
• 1.5 heretic skulls of heathen intestine (very important to use the heretic’s own skull to handle his/her intestines because the satanic organs would sear right through the supple skull of the adolescent goat)

Directions:

• Add all ingredients, except intestines, to a large cauldron
• Leave the room and direct a peasant or slave to add the intestines to the cauldron, as even the slightest mishandling of the heretic’s devilish parts could trigger massive spontaneous combustion
• Re-enter the room with a large staff anointed with holy water and mash all ingredients into a paste
• Add tears of the heretic to taste
• Enjoy with your favorite tortilla chip (Tostitos with lime recommended)

Serves 15-20 peasants and serfs or 3-4 noblemen of the aristocracy

Sweet, Sweet Hot Dogs

Hot Dogs. Two words that will stop me dead in my tracks, allowing my tongue to loll out of my mouth and drool to dribble off my chin. But what is it about these magical, weiner-shaped mystery packages that makes so special, so much more unique than, oh, let's say iceberg lettuce (not that I'm knocking iceberg lettuce, that shit is great as a burger garnish, etc.). Well, let's delve deep into the wonderful world of hot dogs:

Hot dogs (or as the Native Americans called them, maize dogs) are indigenous to American Soil and have been cultivated for at least 3,000 years. Anthropologists studying the Pueblo Indians have uncovered fossilized hot dogs (maize dogs) within the guts of mummified sacred tribal leaders dug up on various anthropological digs and teenage joy rides; obviously, they have been delicious for far longer than the white man can conceive. Hot dogs grow on bushes that resemble rhododendrens in schlong-shaped bunches of 10. Never more. Never, ever less. The Hot Dog Tree is known in the scientific community as Calientus lupus and is taxonomically located within the Sausage genus. Indeed, hot dogs are very closely related to their cousins, the Sausage and the Keilbasa, although their biological ranges are quite different. It is generally agreed upon among evolutionary Hot Dogologists that these wonderful species share a common ancestor dating back to the Late Cretaceous and there are some crackpot theories that their evolution led to the artery-clogged downfall of the dinosaurs, or at least the fat ones.

So where do hot dogs come from today? To answer this question, I went  the grocery store and stared blankly at meat isle until I was politely asked to leave. After quietly vacating, all of the answers came to me in a hallucination I had, a day-dream if you will. Hot dogs are farmed all over America and the rest of the Earth in almost exactly the same fashion as the Native Americans, grown in bushes in bunches of 10. Interestingly, the hot dog bush must be grown in direct proximity of the hot dog bun bush, which only grows buns in bunches of 8. Dedicated Hot Dogologists have been hard at work for centuries to solve this great mystery of life, but the truth is as elusive as ever. Anywho, the hot dogs and buns are grown together on massive farms, a few of which are visible from outerspace, or at least from innerspace and middle space. They are protectively and hermetically sealed and shipped all over the country where they can be purchased for a nominal fee in your food jobber. You can acquire them in the same fashion that you would get some doritos, or Mt. Dew, except that hot dogs are located in the meat isle because they must be kept cold for some reason. 

So! Now you have a 10 pack of delicious HDs and an 8 pack of tasty buns. That is great. You can cook the hot dog in a variety of ways; you can grill them, boil them, microwave them (preferred) or just eat 'em cold. If you freeze them and then cut them up into little medallions, they even make fantastic ice cubes in fancy cocktails! 

So now that you know more about the history of hot dogs, you can truly enjoy their heritage with every bite. 

Next week: How to relish your relish - Dressing your Hot Dog up for a night on the town!

Sumptuous Cheddar, Chicken and Broccoli Hot Pockets

For my first post, I want to share with you a recipe handed down from my grandmother which I love and I know you will too. It's essentially a crispy, buttery "pocket," if you will, filled with a creamy melted cheddar, chicken and a delicate broccoli compliment. Now, this recipe is not for a novice in the kitchen but it will come out well if you follow these steps closely. You'll need first to run down to your local market and locate the freezer section. There should be an entire door dedicated to the "Hot Pocket" (It will most likely be located next to the Totino's Pizza Rolls, which i'll post about later). Open up the door and grab yourself a box of cheddar, chicken and broccoli hot pockets and be careful not to select the "Lean Pockets" (ewww) or the "Crossaint Pockets." Take them home and make sure you get them into the freezer before they thaw out. This is important.

When you're ready to start prepping your delicious cheddar, chicken and broccoli pockets, you'll need a plate and a microwave. Open up the box and remove one of the Hot Pockets from the plastic wrapper. Subsequently, open and assemble the cardboard sleeve, making sure that the tab is fixed securely in the slot. Next, insert the pocket into the sleeve, minding the writing that says "this side up." Place it on the plate with "this side up" facing up, open the microwave and place it in. Now, set your microwave for 2 minutes on "high" and press "start." (Note: if you place both on the plate, you will need to up the time to 4 minutes otherwise you'll get some parts that are hot as shit and some that are still frozen.) Once the timer goes off, remove the plate from the microwave and take the pocket out of the sleeve. Let it rest for a minute or two to prevent you from burning the shit out of the roof of your mouth. Now, if you've done it right you should have a delicious pocket that bursts with flavor running down your chin when you bite it. 

Note: If you have edges that are hard to the tooth, you've cooked it too long and if it is cold in the middle then you haven't cooked it long enough. 

Hope you enjoy!