SELF REFERENCE
Mar. 12th, 2010 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amand_rYou can ignore this. Or LOL.
LINK: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/newfood/
Chocolate-Dipped Altoids
Submitted by Rebecca Bowen
Half the fun of Altoids is tossing them in the glove box, forgetting about them, and reuniting with the candy two months later while checking for a map and flashlights, only to remember you've never used the glove box appropriately. But whatever, you have Altoids! You're so happy, you give them away to just about anyone. Chocolate-dipped Altoids do not work in this scenario. You will open your glove box to find twice the sadness: not only did you fail at storing practical, life-saving items in your car, but there's also melted chocolate all over the fucking place, which is impossible to remove without coming out of there looking like you've got shit all over your hands. And if you try to offer what's left of them to anyone, let's say to the person you're asking for directions because you don't have a goddamn map, you'll probably get pegged as a fecal perv and stay lost forever.
***
Popsicle's Long Lasting Slow Melt Pops
Submitted by Mike Balzer
Could someone just tell me what bees use to saw their wood? The suspense is fucking killing me.
***
Orbit Mint Mojito Gum
Submitted by Mary Turner
Having bought it by accident at a gas station and being too far down the highway to consider returning to swap it out, I unwrapped the gum and tried a piece. It does taste like a mojito, if instead of rum one used dog-ear medicine, and if instead of lime one swirled a green Dum-Dum around in the glass and left it to sit by the side of a highway. It tastes enough like a mojito that if I were nauseated from drinking too many mojitos and my friend gave me a piece of this gum, I would punch her in the tits. Hard.
***
Dongpo Rou
Submitted by Benjamin Gaulke
This pork dish, literally "Dongpo's meat," is named after the great 11th-century Song-dynasty poet Su Dongpo, who, as a bureaucrat and engineering genius, was responsible for the construction of a causeway across the West Lake, in Hangzhou. Supposedly, he fed the workers his eponymous delicacy in order to give them strength and energy. The other, probably apocryphal, genesis story of this dish is that Su one day was bored and decided to stew some pork. He then got distracted by a game of chess and left the pork in the pot for too long. He returned to find the meat incredibly tender and succulent. This was a benign disaster matched only by Louis Pasteur's failure to cover the petri dish where he subsequently discovered penicillin.
Every Chinese person I have ever eaten Dongpo rou with has insisted that it is very healthy and good for me. Considering that it is a solid cube of pork and more than 50 percent fat, I completely disagree. Dongpo rou is the most disgusting and delicious food I have ever eaten. Timid Americans often refuse it, which means more for me. I have pounded down three of these 3-inch cubic, greasy delights in a row. A friend of mine claims that Dongpo rou tastes like brownies. If so, it is the perfect combination of meat and dessert. I marvel at the sophisticated origin of such a seemingly philistine dish; it would be like discovering that Einstein invented the Hot Pocket. Su Dongpo was a truly great man.
***
Go-Go Taquitos
Submitted by Brianna Privett
Crestline is a small town in the mountains above the Inland Empire region of Southern California. Ten years ago they installed a McDonald's at a location formerly occupied by three eighty-foot tall pine trees. It's never quite been able to compete with that stronghold of a 7-11 that's been around for thirty years and stays open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week through snowstorms and wildfires alike. There's nothing else open around the clock for miles... it is an oasis of fast food and convenience in the middle of the most populated desert on earth.
When the Go-Go Taquitos appeared on the endlessly rolling bars of the hot dog warmer last year, I altered my steady diet of dollar brownies and Arizona iced tea to try them out. I'd previously lost about fifty pounds through absolutely no effort of my own (but a fabulous effort on the part of my pissed-off gallbladder) and the women in my family have since made a habit of quizzing me about my slimming technique. I like giving them a new answer each time—olive oil, chickpeas for breakfast. A spiritual fast every third Monday.
I bit into the Buffalo Chicken Go-Go Taquito with no expectations; anything called a taquito is already advertising that the meat is probably unidentifiable, the cheese nearly non-existent, and much depends on the addition of guacamole or salsa for a superlative taquito experience. The filling was lukewarm and posed no threat to my skin if some should squirt out the other end. The spice was minimal, and the chunks of meat were slightly less grey than I'd have accepted, which put the Go-Go Taquito firmly in the "good" category. Inspired by this rousing success, I made the Go-Go Taquito the center of my midnight meals for three solid months.
My aunts asked me at our last family dinner if I'd been going to a new gym. I flexed my guns, rippling from the exertion of cramming my two daily Steak and Cheese or Monterey Chicken Go-Go Taquitos into my mouth on the drive home through the winding pine-needle littered highways and replied "No, no... just clean, healthy living."
***
Blueberry Beer
Submitted by Becky Adnot Haynes
Hiking in Maine, my sister kept asking, "Are these blueberries?" before pulling things off of plants and eating them. She must have developed a taste for the stuff, which may or may not have been blueberries, because at dinner in town that night she immediately zeroed in on a 'Blueberry Beer' on the menu. "Is it very, very blueberry-y?" she asked our waiter. "It's fairly blueberry-y," he replied. He did not tell us that there would be actual blueberries floating in the beer, which tasted a lot like Bud Light. I drank four pints.
***
Pho
Submitted by Emily Garber
It recently came to my attention that the Vietnamese noodle-and-broth dish spelled "pho" is not pronounced "foe," as I had always assumed, but "fuh." This was a heartbreaking revelation, because it shattered my dreams of opening hit restaurants called Pho Fo' Sho' (free Cristal with every bowl!) and Faux Pho (Pho Sho's vegan spin-off).
However, my discovery did give me the courage to order pho for the first time, from a food cart near my office. I walked up to the booth proudly, with confidence. "I'll have the...number four," I said, totally chickening out. But soon my prize arrived, steaming hot and tucked securely into a plastic bag.
I spirited the pho back to my desk and unpacked it. An abundance of vegetables greeted my eyes, and a delicious aroma wafted to my nose. I took a spoonful of broth and immediately burned all my taste buds off for the next three days. But it was delicious. I kept spooning. Best of all was the accompanying plastic bag containing a variety of kick-it-up-a-notch bounty: hot sauce, plum sauce, a lime segment, a bristling stalk of Thai basil, and enough bean sprouts to keep an Asian family full of phytochemicals for a month.
I dumped everything in and began eating in earnest. Bite after bite of chewy tofu, plump mushroom, and crisp celery vanished into my mouth. Bliss.
Suddenly, halfway through, I looked down. No vegetables were in sight. Instead, I was faced with an enormous mass of flavorless, soggy noodles. I began to regret squandering my plastic bag of treasures so soon. And why didn't I mix any of the mushrooms or celery down to the bottom? My salad days, as it were, were over. Anyway, I ate it.
All I can say is: pho that.
LINK: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/newfood/
Chocolate-Dipped Altoids
Submitted by Rebecca Bowen
Half the fun of Altoids is tossing them in the glove box, forgetting about them, and reuniting with the candy two months later while checking for a map and flashlights, only to remember you've never used the glove box appropriately. But whatever, you have Altoids! You're so happy, you give them away to just about anyone. Chocolate-dipped Altoids do not work in this scenario. You will open your glove box to find twice the sadness: not only did you fail at storing practical, life-saving items in your car, but there's also melted chocolate all over the fucking place, which is impossible to remove without coming out of there looking like you've got shit all over your hands. And if you try to offer what's left of them to anyone, let's say to the person you're asking for directions because you don't have a goddamn map, you'll probably get pegged as a fecal perv and stay lost forever.
***
Popsicle's Long Lasting Slow Melt Pops
Submitted by Mike Balzer
Could someone just tell me what bees use to saw their wood? The suspense is fucking killing me.
***
Orbit Mint Mojito Gum
Submitted by Mary Turner
Having bought it by accident at a gas station and being too far down the highway to consider returning to swap it out, I unwrapped the gum and tried a piece. It does taste like a mojito, if instead of rum one used dog-ear medicine, and if instead of lime one swirled a green Dum-Dum around in the glass and left it to sit by the side of a highway. It tastes enough like a mojito that if I were nauseated from drinking too many mojitos and my friend gave me a piece of this gum, I would punch her in the tits. Hard.
***
Dongpo Rou
Submitted by Benjamin Gaulke
This pork dish, literally "Dongpo's meat," is named after the great 11th-century Song-dynasty poet Su Dongpo, who, as a bureaucrat and engineering genius, was responsible for the construction of a causeway across the West Lake, in Hangzhou. Supposedly, he fed the workers his eponymous delicacy in order to give them strength and energy. The other, probably apocryphal, genesis story of this dish is that Su one day was bored and decided to stew some pork. He then got distracted by a game of chess and left the pork in the pot for too long. He returned to find the meat incredibly tender and succulent. This was a benign disaster matched only by Louis Pasteur's failure to cover the petri dish where he subsequently discovered penicillin.
Every Chinese person I have ever eaten Dongpo rou with has insisted that it is very healthy and good for me. Considering that it is a solid cube of pork and more than 50 percent fat, I completely disagree. Dongpo rou is the most disgusting and delicious food I have ever eaten. Timid Americans often refuse it, which means more for me. I have pounded down three of these 3-inch cubic, greasy delights in a row. A friend of mine claims that Dongpo rou tastes like brownies. If so, it is the perfect combination of meat and dessert. I marvel at the sophisticated origin of such a seemingly philistine dish; it would be like discovering that Einstein invented the Hot Pocket. Su Dongpo was a truly great man.
***
Go-Go Taquitos
Submitted by Brianna Privett
Crestline is a small town in the mountains above the Inland Empire region of Southern California. Ten years ago they installed a McDonald's at a location formerly occupied by three eighty-foot tall pine trees. It's never quite been able to compete with that stronghold of a 7-11 that's been around for thirty years and stays open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week through snowstorms and wildfires alike. There's nothing else open around the clock for miles... it is an oasis of fast food and convenience in the middle of the most populated desert on earth.
When the Go-Go Taquitos appeared on the endlessly rolling bars of the hot dog warmer last year, I altered my steady diet of dollar brownies and Arizona iced tea to try them out. I'd previously lost about fifty pounds through absolutely no effort of my own (but a fabulous effort on the part of my pissed-off gallbladder) and the women in my family have since made a habit of quizzing me about my slimming technique. I like giving them a new answer each time—olive oil, chickpeas for breakfast. A spiritual fast every third Monday.
I bit into the Buffalo Chicken Go-Go Taquito with no expectations; anything called a taquito is already advertising that the meat is probably unidentifiable, the cheese nearly non-existent, and much depends on the addition of guacamole or salsa for a superlative taquito experience. The filling was lukewarm and posed no threat to my skin if some should squirt out the other end. The spice was minimal, and the chunks of meat were slightly less grey than I'd have accepted, which put the Go-Go Taquito firmly in the "good" category. Inspired by this rousing success, I made the Go-Go Taquito the center of my midnight meals for three solid months.
My aunts asked me at our last family dinner if I'd been going to a new gym. I flexed my guns, rippling from the exertion of cramming my two daily Steak and Cheese or Monterey Chicken Go-Go Taquitos into my mouth on the drive home through the winding pine-needle littered highways and replied "No, no... just clean, healthy living."
***
Blueberry Beer
Submitted by Becky Adnot Haynes
Hiking in Maine, my sister kept asking, "Are these blueberries?" before pulling things off of plants and eating them. She must have developed a taste for the stuff, which may or may not have been blueberries, because at dinner in town that night she immediately zeroed in on a 'Blueberry Beer' on the menu. "Is it very, very blueberry-y?" she asked our waiter. "It's fairly blueberry-y," he replied. He did not tell us that there would be actual blueberries floating in the beer, which tasted a lot like Bud Light. I drank four pints.
***
Pho
Submitted by Emily Garber
It recently came to my attention that the Vietnamese noodle-and-broth dish spelled "pho" is not pronounced "foe," as I had always assumed, but "fuh." This was a heartbreaking revelation, because it shattered my dreams of opening hit restaurants called Pho Fo' Sho' (free Cristal with every bowl!) and Faux Pho (Pho Sho's vegan spin-off).
However, my discovery did give me the courage to order pho for the first time, from a food cart near my office. I walked up to the booth proudly, with confidence. "I'll have the...number four," I said, totally chickening out. But soon my prize arrived, steaming hot and tucked securely into a plastic bag.
I spirited the pho back to my desk and unpacked it. An abundance of vegetables greeted my eyes, and a delicious aroma wafted to my nose. I took a spoonful of broth and immediately burned all my taste buds off for the next three days. But it was delicious. I kept spooning. Best of all was the accompanying plastic bag containing a variety of kick-it-up-a-notch bounty: hot sauce, plum sauce, a lime segment, a bristling stalk of Thai basil, and enough bean sprouts to keep an Asian family full of phytochemicals for a month.
I dumped everything in and began eating in earnest. Bite after bite of chewy tofu, plump mushroom, and crisp celery vanished into my mouth. Bliss.
Suddenly, halfway through, I looked down. No vegetables were in sight. Instead, I was faced with an enormous mass of flavorless, soggy noodles. I began to regret squandering my plastic bag of treasures so soon. And why didn't I mix any of the mushrooms or celery down to the bottom? My salad days, as it were, were over. Anyway, I ate it.
All I can say is: pho that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 05:28 am (UTC)To be fair, I primed the wheezy laughter earlier by watching The Ricky Gervais Show.
That Mojito gum is vile.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 04:17 pm (UTC)I will vouch for the 7-11 Go Go Taquitos. That is EXACTLY how it went for me. Now I live where there are no 7-11s and I think I miss them the most.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 06:17 pm (UTC)It's the random visuals that strike me funny. The green dum-dum lollypop in a coffee can left by the side of the road, that kind of thing. I know I haven't laughed this hard in two years, so thanks for the post. You and Ricky Gervais will make me pass out laughing sooner or later.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 06:30 pm (UTC)Maple Hill "Pumpkin Crunch" Fragrance Oil
Submitted by Michaelanne Petrella
A few weeks ago, I purchased a tiny bottle of oil called "Pumpkin Crunch" from a local farmer's market and it has changed me. I bet you think you know what it smells like, but you're stupid and don't even know. Maple Hill "Pumpkin Crunch" Fragrance Oil an amazing full-on smell celebration of the ages. It is, of course, inedible but that hasn't stopped me from eating the potpourri that I drowned that stuff with. I put it in my boyfriend's bath and he immediately scooped up a handful and TASTED HIS BATH WATER. Five drops makes the entire room smell good. It saddens me to have to exhale the stuff. This "Pumpkin Crunch" oil told Yankee Candle to suck it. I've even rubbed it inside my nostrils; it smells like Little Debbie and Harry London made pumpkin pie together and then they held hands and prayed over it while it cooked. This oil makes heroin seem like dog shit.
I feel her pain because I had an Elizabeth Arden bath gel once (20 years ago) called "Ocean" or something. I had an orgasm in my nose and parts of my lizard brain every time I lathered up. I cried the day I finished it and discovered it was discontinued. I will never forget you, aqua-blue shower gel....
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 06:45 pm (UTC)OMG HAAAHAHAHA.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 04:26 am (UTC)