HER Energy Drink

Lynnafred, like many students and gamers, loves energy drinks.  Monster drinks are aimed point-blank at her demographic, and even the more broadly-peddled Red Bull has its appeal for her (though what she really seeks out is Red Bull Cola - I think she might even be preparing a review of it.) 

So, when I saw four-packs of Her [brand] energy drink at Ocean State Job Lot, I grabbed one of each style - regular and "diet" - I just had to buy them.  I knew Lynnafred would get a laugh out of the packaging if nothing else (she's pretty sharp at seeing through marketing bullshit) and if the drinks were any good that would be a bonus.

The drink itself isn't spectacular, but it's not really awful either.  It's marketed as "pink lemonade," though poured out into a glass it isn't particularly pink, it's just sort of "cloudy beverage" colored.  The lemon flavor behind it all is kinda authentic, but there were some slightly skunky notes that we all thought were odd.  In other words, it just tastes pretty much like most energy drinks.

Along with more calories than a 12-ounce Coke, a slender 8½-ounce can of Her contains taurine and B-vitamins and caffeine and all the other stuff regular ol' energy drink is loaded with.

So it's just more of the same ol' same ol', but this time wrapped up in pretty babydoll colors and slender girlish cans and loads of condescending pink marketing that as much as says, Hey girls, here's an energy drink just for you so you don't have to drink that nasty ol' boys Monster, tee hee!

It reminds me of the ad campaigns for Virginia Slims cigarettes, back in the prehistoric times when tobacco companies were allowed to broadcast jingles:

You've come a long way, baby,
To get where you got to today,
You've got your own cigarette now baby,
You've come a long long way.

Yeah, baby.

Vintage Sunday: Bonomo Turkish Taffy IS BACK

Of all the candies that were available when I was a kid. I remember Bonomo Turkish Taffy most fondly.  I don't know why - maybe because of their intense and ubiquitous advertising which ran well into the 1970's, or because Turkish Taffy was a standard feature of so many childhood Christmas stockings and Easter baskets, or maybe simply because it became unavailable for so long when it was discontinued years ago.  Whatever the reason, memories of Bonomo caused me to keep an eye open for it at every specialty candy store I visited for many years, without success.  Eventually I found out that the company had at one point been bought out by Tootsie and production had ceased in the late 1980's.  I had no idea that Bonomo had been resurrected as an independent company until a casual browse through my local Five Below store.  

THEY HAD BONOMO ON T3H SHELF!!  I was there with my big sister Fran and my wife Maryanne, digging Five Below's cool and fun pop cultural swag when I spotted it, and all three of us pretty much had the same reaction : OMG BONOMO TURKISH TAFFY GET SOME!!!!!1!  I picked up a pack of chocolate and a pack of vanilla and would have gotten the banana and strawberry flavors too, if they had any.

I'm happy to report that it's just like it was back in the day.  It still "tastes like ice cream," as the old ads used to say.  (Tastes like really cheap ice cream, but the ads never did specify the grade of ice cream, so I give them a pass.)  And it's still got that "brittle-chewy" makeup, so slapping the package sharply onto a tabletop still breaks the taffy into pieces which then soften in your mouth to a chewy-but-not-very-sticky consistency.

So, why was Turkish Taffy gone so long from the collective sweet tooth?  The original company, founded in 1897 by Turkish immigrant Albert Bonomo, was a candy manufacturer on Coney Island making saltwater taffy for sale to tourists.  In 1945, the founder's son Victor came up with "Turkish Taffy," made from a batter of corn syrup and egg whites that was boiled and then baked.  Turkish Taffy quickly became the company's star product. 

In 1980, the Tootsie Co. bought Bonomo, and within a few years discontinued Turkish Taffy, saying that "tastes had changed" and demand had fallen off.  

Today, Classic Caramel LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of candymaker Warrell Corporation, is making and distributing Bonomo Turkish Taffy using the original recipes, manufacturing process, and flavors.  Track some down - there's nothing like it.

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Minees: A Great Deal at Dollar Tree

These are Minees.  They're little cookies which come in small lunchbox-sized packages, ten packages for a dollar, in five different flavors: chocolate with chocolate creme, chocolate with banana creme, chocolate with vanilla creme, vanilla with vanilla creme, and vanilla with strawberry creme.  I get them at Dollar Tree; it's one of the Tree's regular items and they're almost always in stock.

I know what you're thinking - Dollar Tree, junky food, probably pretty bad stuff.  Sometimes, the knock-off food products at the dollar store really are nasty.  Not this time, though.  Minees are great - the cookies are fresh and crispy, the filling isn't sticky-sweet, it's just right, and the individual packs encourage limits on snacking - after all, each of the ten packages weighs in at just 1¼ ounces and carries 165 calories.  (No, it's not health food, but it ain't bad, either.)

My wife and I both brownbag it for lunch;  we work at places where it's really inconvenient to go out at noon.  When I tuck a pack of Minees into her kit, it's like handing off a little piece of sunshine, because everyone loves cookies.

Happiness for a dime.  It should be so easy all through life.

Check Out This Other Guy's Blog

Here's some Dave Trivia:  Up until I was in my mid-20's, I had a grandaunt who lived near Pittsburgh, in Ross Township.  Every summer from the time I got my driver's license to the year she passed away, I would drive with my grandmother out to Western Pennsylvania to visit Aunt Helen.  I'd do some house repairs and chores and things for her while we were visiting, and in my free time I'd explore the area.  It's been a long time since I've been back, but I've got a lot of great memories stashed there.

So it was pretty cool when I got an email from Bryan, proprietor of Pittsburgh Eats, a relatively new blog covering Pittsburgh-area chow and assorted strange eats.  I got a big kick out of reading his review of Sir Pizza, a now-franchised pizza restaurant which was just a single Ross Township joint back in the day.  It was also only about 5 miles from my aunt's place and I used to go there at least a couple times every summer.  (It's not anything like the pizza I'm used to around here, but it's decent in its own way and at the time they were pretty cheap, too, which had its own special appeal when you're 17 and earning minimum wage.)

I look forward to checking out new Pittsburgh Eats posts.  Good luck, Bryan!

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Poland's Finest Pickled Vegetables

Poland's Finest All Natural Pickled Mixed Vegetables Assortment is a kind of pickled salad which are fairly common in Eastern Europe but still a little unusual here in the US.  The "Poland's Finest" brand name is new to me, but the concept isn't - I shop regularly at a couple of local Russian markets and you'd be amazed at the variety of different pickled salads on the shelves.

Anyway, this assortment caught my eye for a couple of reasons: the veggies were whole rather than the more common sliced or shredded, and the jar was topped of with two big red ripe tomatoes.  Pickled ripe tomatoes was a new one on me.  I bought the jar, brought it home, and stuck it in the fridge to chill.

We enjoyed the salad a couple of days later as a side dish with kielbasa.  As we unpacked the jar we found:

• cucumber
• tomato
• carrot
• celery
• cabbage
• large hot red paprika pepper

The salad was awesome.  Sometimes I find that European picklers use too much sugar in their brine, but this was not the case here.  Everything was crispy, fresh, and delicious (except for the tomatoes which were not "crispy" by their very nature.  But they weren't mushy, either - they were firm and flavorful, like they had been cold-pack pickled right out of the garden.)  And, thanks to that bigass paprika pepper in there, the salad was spicy hot.  I really liked it, though Maryanne found the heat factor a little much for her (she is not a chilehead.)

Now I just gotta get back to Ocean State before they sell out of this stuff...

A Cheap Bastard (Me) Goes To McDonalds

I have never made a secret of my appreciation for McDonald's Sausage McMuffin With Egg.  It is the pinnacle of breakfast sandwich creation.  Say what you will about Mickey D's horrible, fatty, unhealthy menu (which, let's face it, is most of it) the Sausage McMuffin With Egg is a good choice to start the day:  It's a simple and decent breakfast in sandwich form, and when you break it down into components - 1 egg, 1 sausage patty, an English muffin, and a single slice of cheese - it's a fairly normal breakfast, not that much different than you'd make for yourself on a weekend morning.

Even so, I don't indulge in them very often.  Partly this is because I can't really burn off breakfast by sitting in an office for eight hours.  But partly, it's because I really don't want to spend $3.50 or so to buy an egg, a sausage patty, and an English muffin.  You see, I can be a Cheap Bastard.

But you know what?  Thanks to McDonald's dollar breakfast menu, I can enjoy a Sausage McMuffin with Egg while still being a Cheap Bastard.  Check it out - breakfast for me and a friend at work for about $2.25:

Here are two Sausage McMuffins - English muffin, sausage patty, and cheese.  They're on the dollar breakfast menu.  I picked them up on my way to work.

Here are two eggs, fried in rings for the proper size and shape, which I made at home before leaving for work.  They cost about ten cents each.

And here are the Sausage McMuffins set with the homemade eggs, turning them instantly into Sausage McMuffins With Egg.  Total cost each:  $1.10 (compared to the full menu price of $3.50 each.)

Oh, and Ronald McDonald, if you're listening:  I would never have even thought of doing this if you hadn't tried to charge me $2.50 for a fried egg, you greedy facepainted freak.

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Frankie's Original-Style Horseradish

Frankie's Original-Style Horseradish is produced by a local company, Saw Mill Site Farm in Greenfield MA.  I like to make my own horseradish because there is nothing as kickass as freshly grated homemade root. 

Trouble is, the stores around me haven't always got fresh root in stock, and so I sometimes need to buy the prepared stuff.  There are several brands I like - I really should do a comparison of them all sometime soon - but I'm always willing to try a new one, particularly when they're local.

I picked up a jar of Frankie's at Arnold's, a meat market in East Longmeadow MA.  It was very fresh; the color was creamy white and there were no strange ingredients, just horseradish root, vinegar, and salt - just like homemade.  It had a good strong nose and a nice horseradish flavor, but for my taste it was a little on the weak side.  My wife Maryanne thought it was "okay," but that's not actually saying too much - she can't take spicy heat but she can eat horseradish so strong that a teaspoon of it would make Batman cry for his mommy.

I have no complaints about the quality or freshness.  It's clear that Saw Mill Site Farm takes great care and pride in their product.  For average horseradish eaters, Frankie's is a good choice for a flavorful zip without risk of being overwhelmed.  And I would never hesitate to use it in a sauce or a salad as an ingredient.  But pass on it if you prefer your horseradish to attack your sinuses with a +20 Vorpal Sword.

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Pierogi by Delicious Fresh Piergoi Inc.

I love pierogi - those little Polish dumplings that vaguely resemble ravioli.  Living in an area with an historically large Polish ethnic population, there are a couple of local sources for excellent handmade pierogi practically at my doorstep.  Pierogi Queen, made in Enfield CT at a local Polish deli, is famous in my hometown for having the absolute best ones, and Millie's, made in nearby Chicopee MA are a close second.

And yet, I'm still occasionally willing to take a chance on unfamiliar brands.  Recently, these were pierogi made by Delicious Fresh Pierogi Inc. from Roselle Park NJ.

Now, if you've got the stones to call yourself "Delicious Fresh Pierogi Inc." your product had better be pretty good.  And they are.  We tried two varieties, Potato & Cheese and Potato & Spinach.  Both of them were indeed delicious, though the Potato & Cheese version used cottage cheese in the filling rather than the more traditional farmer's cheese.

Delicious Piergoi Inc has a pretty wide distribution network including ShopRite, Stop & Shop/Giant, Whole Foods, Wegman's and Harris Teeter.  If you see them in one of your local stores fear not, they will not disappoint you.

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Dragonfruit

Lynnafred took this shot of dragonfruit the last time she was at Dong's in West Hartford.  Just thought I'd share.

More Pocky

Awhile ago, I did a post on a collection of Pocky I'd eaten. Well, I'm back again with two more flavors: Strawberry Custard Cake and Chocolate Banana Cake.

The Chocolate Banana Cake have a lot more flavor than the regular chocolate banana flavored ones that I tried before. These seemed to have a more "natural" tasting banana flavor instead of the typical, noticibly artificial sort. The chocolate on these was also more pronounced, giving it an equal standing with the banana instead of letting it get overshadowed. They were good.

The Strawberry Custard Cake ones were heavenly, however. Milky and rich and full of strawberry flavored goodness, these are my new #1 favorite Pocky flavor. It was like biting into vanilla custard topped with fresh strawberries...except, you know, on a Pocky biscuit stick.