Category: Food & Drink

New Devilment

Food & Drink

…I mean development. As though Twinkies were not bad enough, the Hostess Baking Company has launched Bouncers.

“Wait, Kim… you mean like bouncing boobies?”

No.  I mean mini-Twinkies presented in sealed three-packs, but glazed — as though regular Twinkies were not sufficiently enticing.  (They kinda do look like mini-boobies, though.)

Of course, this being a full-service blog, I had to test them (so that my Loyal Readers won’t have to).

Verdict:  more than two (their “suggested servicing size” is three) will leave you “OMG-I’m-gonna-hurl” nauseated.

I had six.  Because Science.

Food Break

Food & Drink

Reader Mike L. sends me disgusting stuff like this — ugh — which forces me down a branch line of thought, basically to help me get rid of the taste of vomit.

I spend a lot of time talking about how much I love Britishland foods (fish & chips, meat pies, sausage rolls etc.) but I have to say that I’ve also come to love me some Tex-Mex dishes, e.g.:

and:

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the kitchen.

Gastro-what?

Culture, Food & Drink

I think the decline of Western civilization can said to have started in earnest when the word “gastropub” became an actual thing instead of a nonsensical word made up from the last tiles in a Scrabble game.

Now they’re even being ranked.  Fach.

Here’s what I want to see on a pub menu, in no specific order:

  • fish & chips
  • steak (+mushroom, +onion or +kidney, by choice) or chicken pies
  • toasted (“grilled”, in Murkin) cheese, chicken, bacon or steak sandwiches
  • chips / “fries” (in a basket)
  • eggs to order
  • mixed grill* (for the super-hungry)
  • cheese, chicken, steak, beef, bacon etc. on a fresh roll with condiments to taste
  • simple salad (for homosexualists, veganists and women — some overlap)
  • …can’t think of much else, really.

If you aren’t satisfied with anything from the above, you have no business being out of the house.

Best of all, this simple and honest menu is going to be cheap, instead of noisettes d’agneau au poivre  costing fifty bucks a portion.  Savings can thus be applied to the real business of a pub:  booze.

And if the pub’s “chef” (a contradiction in terms, surely?) gets oh-so bored preparing the same basic stuff every day and feels “unfulfilled”, he needs to quit, open up a “fine dining experience” in his own restaurant and go out of business in six months like all those other trendy establishments.

Just stay out of my damn pub.

*

Coup De Grâce

Food & Drink, Friends and Family

I said yesterday that the three-day orgy of food (a.k.a. family Christmas feasts) was over, that I’d eaten enough for twelve Ethiopians and drunk enough for four Irish navvies, etc. etc. etc.

I lied.

Or rather, I forgot that we’d promised to take Brother-In-Law for some Mexican food for lunch yesterday.

And that we’d planned on dinner with Doc Russia and his exquisite wife later last night.

So of course we did both:  quesadillas, fajitas, chimichangas and so on, accompanied by the usual margaritas (at Gloria’s);  and beef short ribs, pineapple sponge cake with ice cream, and whiskey plus red wine (at Doc’s).

I now look and feel like Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote, understand how an actual python feels when it’s swallowed, say, a large pig, and I have lost the will to live.

Here’s a picture of a gun to keep you all happy:

And please excuse me while I go off and groan for a few hours.

Blown Out

Food & Drink

Aaaaargh.  Thanksgiving, schmanksgiving;  when it comes to extended gluttony (at least in our family), nothing begins to compare with the Three Days Of Christmas.

Christmas Eve “snacks” (if you can call a long dining room table FULL of finger foods and a huge charcuterie board “snacks”, plus of course booze);  Christmas morning brunch (full English plus cinnamon rolls, and mimosas);  and then the pièce de résistance, the Boxing Day Roast Beast, with enough wine to drown a walrus.

I don’t want to see any food until at least tomorrow, and not even a sniff of booze until New Year’s Eve.