TheSnackHound

Now that black friday is winding down, and you scurry back to the mall to try and find things you should have kind of bought but you forgot too, the next big shopping event is Cyber Monday.  That is they when people go back to work or stay home and surf the net to buy things that they could not find at stores they could not get to.

Charter has this unbelievable deal if your Cyber Monday will be a Monday for sure but is a little Cyber-less because your service is shady or you just moved. If you get ONE service from Charter, you will receive a $25.00 gift card.  If you buy two, it is $75.00, three (cable, internet, phone) is $150.00, and if you order the ultimate bundle, you receive a $250.00 gift card.   However, after doing so, you will receive a $250.00.  When it all works out, it is like they are paying YOU.  Well, they aren’t really because you won’t be getting a desk and a name plaque and won’t get to sit at their offices.

If you are looking for a frugal way to have what you want and want to stretch the dollars, not to mention are all wrapped up in the season of savings, don’t wait. This deal only lasts one week!

Today, I went to the mall with my two aunts, mother, and grandmother.  I never shopped on Black Friday before, but decided to go with them just for the company.  At Macy’s, I was able to peruse the Fiesta offerings in The Cellar.
Clearance Table

The clearance table featured Fiesa Ware mixed in with other Cellar favorites.  Spotted were various pieces in Evergreen.  The selection at your Macy’s may vary, but I spotted dinner plates, soup bowls, and bread plates.  There were also several packages of Fiesta cloth napkins in Sunflower. You can get this deal online also for $11.99 for a set of 4. Tablesclothes, which reversed from solid to a woven stripe were also present.

Macy’s Exclusives

There were several “Only at Macy’s” Fiesta items.  There was a boxed set that paired the large pasta serving bowl with a shaker for cheese.  This was on hand in both Ivory and Scarlett.   A large platter in Scarlett was also leaning against the table boxed.   I neglected to mention that this set is also available in Evergreen, but that one was in the Clearance section.

Among the regular display of colors there was a collection with a floral transfer.  This is Fiesta Tangerine with a Sunflower design transfer.  I was unclear whether that this was an exclusive or available elsewhere. I flipped it over just to make sure what I was seeing was correct, and it did have the HLC/Fiesta mark. I have not been able to see this anywhere only, so you will have to check it out at Macy’s Cellar!

Be careful out there!   I was told by one of the employees at Macy’s that I missed the madness this morning.  Even though traffic seemed very light after one P.M., the place was mobbed in the first few hours.

It is already tomorrow in New Zealand, but no one is preparing turkey leftovers. Well, there COULD be someone eating a turkey, but if you aren’t an expatriate American there on business filming a hobbit movie or something like that, and you are not there because you are married to someone from New Zealand, you probably are not celebrating Thanksgiving.  It did make me wonder, however, exactly what DO they eat in New Zealand?  What would have been the meal if the Pilgrims had landed there instead of in the United States? It is a long shot, but you never know…they could have decided to go the other way, sailed around Africa, and down under.

Apparently, many shellfish are consumed, such as abalone, which I have heard of, and many others, such as pipis, which I have never heard of. Pork, lobster, and lamb are also part of the menu. That seems like pretty standard fare that I could probably handle…except I won’t eat lamb.

What starts to get dicey are the other delicacies that have been concocted and apparently are national favorites. Ginger beer is native. Also, you may or may not want to try Vegemite Quiche (um…yuck?), banana sandwiches, or Afghan biscuits (which have wheat or corn flakes in it).

If I were a travel writer, I think I would do two things: invite an Elvis impersonator from New Zealand to eat a banana sandwich with me and talk about our conversation, what he could teach me about the sandwiches and what native sites we see during our visit.  Then, I would randomly find other Americans and also folks from Canada and Mexico “off the street” so to speak and act like Vegemite Quiche is the best thing ever.  In fact, I am going to say that a popular American Restaurant Chain is going to be putting them on the menu.  When they taste what it is really like, they will probably be upset with me.  I would tell them that Vegemite is the World’s Greatest Source of Vitamin E to see if that would change their cold hearts.  That would make for a good story.

That is only a fantasy, unless I won a free trip to New Zealand as I am a lot short on cash.   I would also go and find out what exactly Kiwis prefer.  It is the native bird, you know.  Maybe it would teach people that if they ate what the kiwis ate, they wouldn’t have trouble with night blindness.  If you didn’t know it, Kiwis are nocturnal.  By the way, they are darn adorable.  At least I think so.

Air New Zealand and Larry the Travel Guy are giving away two free trips to New Zealand, with flights from Los Angeles! I don’t live near there, but I think I could certainly figure that part out and make it happen. On Larry’s site, there are some great videos of New Zealand travels and all sorts of great information to prepare you for the trip. Even if you don’t win, I will bet that the info will certainly make you want to put it on your “To Do” list.

Thanksgiving is a holiday that all Americans usually celebrate, regardless of ethnicity, religion or creed.  However, there is one thing that has made the day somewhat awkward for people.   If you do not eat poultry because you are vegan, or  vegetarian, and are invited to someone’s house, graciously accept, but follow theses etiquette guidelines.

1)  Be gracious for the invite, and do not give your answer conditionally based on what they are serving.  Offer to bring a dish to pass if you are worried that there will be not enough selections for you, but don’t tell them that is why you are doing it.

2) If you do bring something, do not bring anything that is meant to replace or upstage the turkey (or ham if that is what they chose instead).  Bring something that could “go either way” as a side dish or something you would eat as a staple.

3) If you are not sure if a dish is 100% completely vegan, do not ask your hosts unless you know they are vegan.  People forget they will not explode if one drop of butter or chicken broth enters their system (unless if they have an allergy to it).  Just don’t scoop some on your plate with no lecture from you, or try a little bit of it.  Afterall, it is the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law, right?

4)  If you are a vegetarian who once in awhile partakes in wild caught fish and the rare free range chicken, do not ask your hosts, unless they are foodies and you say it in admiration “Wow!  That’s beautiful.  Is it wild caught?  I ask because the color is outstanding.”   Not everyone can afford to buy free range and wild caught isn’t always available at every store.

5) If you are the host, and the guest doesn’t want a particular dish, don’t force them or make them feel guilty.

6) If there is not much on the table that you can eat, make sure you take a second helping of a side dish, and if pressed, just say you are saving room for dessert!

It is all about sharing the meal together and not who ate what.

I have a friend, that in the 12 years I have known him, I only knew he was a vegetarian for the past 2.  The reason?  He never made a big deal out of it.  He could find something on the menu wherever we went.  If he didn’t, sometimes he would get a small salad and say that he ate a late breakfast.

Hopefully these tips will help you have a peaceful Thanksgiving!

Well, Thanksgiving is back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house this year (yay!).  They were going to move Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning breakfast to my uncle’s house.   Now that they are in their 80s, and having had a health scare two years ago, it wasn’t at their house last year.   Now, they are feeling a lot better and really missed all the fun and chaos of having twenty five to thirty people at their small 1100 square foot home.   One table is pulled up to use the window seat as seating, some people sit on the sofa, some at the table, and the rest of us grab holding chairs or eat in shifts.   Luckily, the main living areas are one big room so we can mingle cocktail party style.

Grandma called during the weekend to say that her oven is broken!  If it cannot be fixed, then she is going to have my aunt cook the turkey and bring it.  It is on life support right now, because the oven light works but the heat doesn’t come on, which would be crucial.  This morning I gave her a call because I found out what is on the slate for the Sears Pre-Thanksgiving Sale. Believe it or not, they are giving 15% cash back in the mail on any appliance you buy that is $499 and over!   Plus, I also read on the website that there is free standard delivery on many appliances $399 and over after mail in rebate!

Waying out the price of fixing her old stove versus buying a new one, less the discount, might very well tempt her to forget about Mr. Harvest Gold (at least her oven wasn’t that rusty orange that seemed to be wherever Harvest Gold and Avocado Green appeared. Orange is lovely, but that particular shade in a stove was not very slimming for it).

I haven’t looked at ovens in awhile, but saw that there are many that are more streamlined or a better fit in kitchen’s like hers.  The oven is not at the end of the row of cabinets, but there is a space in the middle for it.  The current one that she has sort of doesn’t lay flush with the cabinets and sort of screams, especially since her fridge and dishwasher are much newer than old reliable.

Of course, I am not sure if we can get delivery unless we go right away tomorrow.   When I last purchased from Sears, I managed to get it at the end of the next day. However, I have three uncles that have trucks.  If she cannot get it delivered until Friday or Monday, that won’t be a dealbreaker, because she is going to need it for Christmas.   Christmas is usually breakfast at her house, and with so many willing to pitch in, Grandma will be waited on hand and foot.  You may be able to move a cooked turkey, but something gets lost in the translation when pancakes are cooked ahead of time and carried over the snow.

I think that Reed’s Ginger Brew is the best Ginger Ale that ever was. I first tried it when I spotted it at Trader Joe’s about eight years ago. Being an afficianado of the ale, I was curious to try it. After that, anything other brand tasted like bubbly high fructose corn syrup, which it probably was. It has a lot of bite, and there is actually REAL GINGER ROOT in the ingredients. Everyone thinks I am kicking back with a beer, but when they see the label, they know its not true.

My grandfather used to say ginger ale and a good pretzel is the cure all for everything. I sort of half believed him as a kid, but I think it was because he was referring to the real stuff and not the paltry, water excuse for ginger ale that they peddle nowadays.  If he was talking about the real stuff, I certainly would agree.  When you drink it, all hint of emerging sore throat and stomach upset seem to be gone.  Ginger has a way of doing that anyways, otherwise I just like it so much that it has a placebo effect on me.

Anyways, after five years of having no establishment near me that sold it, people thought I was slightly insane.  A store near me started carrying it and I scooped it up like a mother scooping a lost child out of a ditch, happy to be reunited.   I raced up to the cash register with a “so proud of myself” sort of smile that the cashier must have thought I just won the lottery or a nice young man in a fine white suit was looking for me in aisle twelve, ready with the straight jacket.  Either way, I won’t be embarrassed because I won’t go to the same cash register next time and my glee will be a bit more subdued after the initial reunion.

That’s my story.  Do you have any food or beverage that you are a little irrational about?  I think i am addicted.

Once in awhile, I have talked about all the crazy diets that are out there. I remember that my mom decided in the early 90s that she was going on the Cabbage Soup diet because Madonna allegedly did it, and she had great success. It was the blandest soup in the world, and you also had to eat one other food during the day, such as all lettuce that one day, or all beef, or all tomatoes. I don’t know what it was out to accomplish, aside from spiking cabbage sales at the grocery store, and replicating the diet of someone with influenza who drinks clear broth but has a strange food craving in the afternoon.  I don’t remember my mom losing much weight.  She may have lost five pounds, but it was probably from malnutrition and not because of the healthfulness of the diet.

Another diet I heard of was from an actress who played Karen Carpenter who only ate steamed vegetables so she could get real skinny and believable in her role, but be sort of healthy. Veggies are healthy, but if that is all you eat, maybe you would binge on pizza and potato chips after that.  I know I probably would be sorely tempted.  I did hear that if you don’t eat a food in a long time you can stop craving it, however.

One I found that actually makes sense for people who want to still be able to participate in regular life activities and not be blown over with a brisk wind as their energy is completely drained.  The Flat Belly Diet. It involves eating foods like nuts, avocados, and chocolate, that are high in antioxidants, and what I usually associate with those foods: “good fats” Like Omega 3’s.

For a very limited time, the originators are offering bloggers an opportunity to receive a book on the subject and to try and review the diet for free. That is a very generous offer. As you know, if something is a good thing, word of mouth is what helps spread the word to people who would benefit by it.  If you are like my family, however, if it is not so good, it somehow ends up being tried anyhow.

In my case, my weight isn’t far off as far as what charts say it should be, but I can never seem to get my stomach to cooperate like my legs do the past few years.  I would really like to start a diet or more so an eating lifestyle that gives me good building blocks in my food to be able to gain lean muscle and conquer the battle of the bulge.  When you are short and have a small frame, five pounds looks like you have gained 10-15.  I will let you know if I am selected to review the diet, and I hope you will do the same if you are the lucky duck that gets the chance!

My sister was hospitalized for many extended periods of time when she was what is known now as a tween.  The best part of it is that there was a Robot at the hospital that would carry medications to the different floors.  The nurses at the stations would take the right medicines out of it when it got to their floor.  The Robot would ride up and down the elevator all day.  My uncle wondered what would happen if he jumped in front of it.  The Robot just asked him to move.   She was there long enough for us all to have a turn at harrassing the robot.  Unfortunately, it didn’t understand if you asked it to bring you a rootbeer or an ice cream sundae.  It only dealt in meds and only said about four things.

Oh, yes, the worst part about it was that she was in the hospital.  It was really tough being there the one year because she missed Halloween and had Thanksgiving at the hospital too.  That bites.

When she was feeling better and was released, she came home with a big trauma.  She had post traumatic stress about jello. Whenever she saw it, she wouldn’t merely say that she had to much of it at the hospital every single day.  She would sometimes cry, or often scream “Get it out of here! I hate Jello!”  It was similar to someone with a deathly fear of spiders.

There was a strange phenomena, though.  While she had an aversion to the jiggly wiggly stuff, she was okay with Pretzel Jello, a staple of family gatherings.   I am not quite sure why.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

2 Cups of broken or coarsely chopped pretzels (That is for normal people. My family uses whole mini pretzels)
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese
2 cups of. sugar
2 (3 oz.) packages of  Jello. Normally anything red, but be creative!
2 cups of  pineapple juice
2 small boxes of frozen strawberries

Put the pretzels and the melted butter in a pan, bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees.  It usually looks better with broken pretzels, but our family is “special.”  In that case the butter just sort of coats them versus it looking like some sort of mixed up spread. Then, you mix up the cream cheese with the sugar IN A DIFFERENT CONTAINER and then you spread this over the pretzel/butter combo.   But oh, yeah, you have to take it out of the oven first. The pan with the pretzels and butter i mean.

Then, you take the pineapple juice and boil it and then dump the jello in there. Don’t already make the Jello, you just want whatever powder that is in the package to go in. Then, you take the frozen strawberries and out it in there with the juice and jello.  Once that is all mixed up, you go back to the pan and put that stuff on top of the cream cheese layer.

Now things get really dicey.  You are supposed to put Whipped Topping on top of it next.  My family, as I say, is a little different, so you just go ahead and ad ANOTHER layer of whole pretzels to the top of it. After you went through all the steps, stick it in the fridge. The Jello that has been violated by the strawberries and pineapple juice needs to set up.

I think I discovered why my sister can eat this. It may contain Jello but it doesn’t look like Jello. I didn’t know why I didn’t think about pouring Jello powder into a cup and saying it was Kool-Aid mix to see if she would figure it out when we were kids. Oh, that probably would have been mean, just like someone baking bugs from the yard in Brownies and asking you to try it, but not telling you there were bugs in it.

Do you believe my cousin already took her kids to see Santa this year?  Yeah.  When I was little, Santa was nowhere to be seen until December 8th, or at the VERY earliest Thanksgiving weekend.   It seems like not only Santa is trying to cofuse, me but so is Sears.  They are starting the Sears Black Friday Sale NOW instead of waiting until after Thanksgiving. Next thing I know they will be putting out the Valentine’s teddy bears.

They just need to put the breaks on this fast moving sled!Among the deals they have a  Samsung 8.1 Megapixels 3X optical zoom digital camera that is slashed to $99.99 before the $20 instant savings.  In otherwords, you can learn to spiff up your blog with all sorts of pictures, or you can document your kitchen masterpieces just to prove to yourself that you actually got that bread to rise.  That would be one for posterity for me.   The other hot deal is $120 off a Sharp Aquosblu-ray.   See, the technology is coming down a little bit.  I was hesitating to buy one before.  What is the rush if you can snag these great deals now?  They are only available WHILE QUANTITIES LAST.  You will be out of luck if you procrastinate.

Now, you can thank me for reading this knowing that it is not necessary to be trampled at 5 A.M. to try to get the big unbelievable deals.  You can be tucked soundly in your bed, or sitting in the kitchen making the whole house smell like gingerbread cookies.  In my case, that would involve a can or a lighting a match.

When I went to the Cider Mill over the weekend, I was not just shocked by the fact that people eat peanuts with candy corn.  I, in fact, was also mesmerized by the giant apple at the Robinette Cider Mill.  As you may have guessed, my interest in giant cement, fiberglass, or wooden food items never wanes.  Afterall, a mall that I worked at during college had a play are where you could climb all over gigantic breakfast foods.  Some had steps or slides on them.

The apple just sits casually amid the picnic tables with a sign on the side that says “Please Don’t Climb.” If I was eight years old, I would consider this a mere request and not any sort of edict. Of course I was a polite child and honored polite requests, but sometimes I fell to reverse psychology. Most likely, I probably had James and the Giant Peach read to me in class that week, so was still surrounded by the world view that it was thorughly normal to interact with giant fruit. In fact, it was expected.  It was something, like growing up and being Wonder Woman, that you can look forward to in the future.  Just be patient, and it too will happen for you.

What I was most impressed by is the shading of the apple.  This wasn’t just your typical roller job on the paint.  No, sir.  The apple had dimension to its paint job, or at least I imagined it.  What I didn’t ask is what variety the apple it was supposed to be.  It didn’t quite have that deep hue of a red delicious.   It didn’t have the splashes of yellow and pale, almost pastel red that Fuji apples have.  Is it possible to just have a “generic apple” sitting out there?   I find it hard to believe that someone whose life is apples just made up a generic one to represent all Apple-Americans of all heriteges and experiments there of.

I wonder if Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter, Apple, is going to be called Crab Apple at school.  Maybe her boyfriend will call her Golden Delicious if she is blonde.  Maybe, and we can hold out hope on this one, she will grow up and marry a nephew of Denzel Washington’s.  That would be lucky for all of us, as in the phone book, she would be listed as Washington, Apple.   I know, we can only dream about that one, can’t we?

What do I do if I just have $25.00?  I would like to say I save it for a rainy day, but this past weekend I didn’t.  I got so excited that there was an organic grocery store around here now, and I wandered around the store aimlessly.   Well, I wasn’t so aimless, I was on a mission to find the very special food products that I have been missing.  I bought a bunch of Jamaican Brew Ginger Ale that has real ginger in it, not all that high fructose corn syrup and “flavorings.”  I admit, I also bought quite a few Newman’s Own Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups.  Everywhere I went, they only had the mint ones, so I sort of am embarrassed to say that I acted like I was buying canned goods and water before a hurricane.   They may be the LAST ONES that any store carries and I had to stock up because you just never know!

I read something interesting that made me feel like a total glutton.  With $25.00 I could do something to help my country, and get a little return on my investment.   Suddenly, I was transported back intime to my high school economics class, where we ran a little business to teach us how corporations worked.  We sold stock in the “company” for $1 each to students, parents and friends.  We used the money to print T Shirts, and returned their initial investment plus a small profit to those that participated.  The project was a big success, and even a skeptical uncle thought he got a better return than the stock market.

When I was in my early twenties, I learned that you can’t get that much bang for your buck on $1.00 stocks.  Since that was a LOOOONG time ago, $1.00 in high school money in 1992 equals $25.00 of adult money in 2008.  That’s not really true, but it might as well be.  The prices in snack machines have more than doubled since then.

An investment company has come up with an idea for anyone who can spare $25.00 to be able to invest in something that will not only possibly return an investment, but expresses it as a patriotic act to rebuild America.  Rebuilding of America pools everyone’s investment and uses them to fund projects that rebuild homes.  A twenty unit property that was started before Katrina will be rebuilt.  Another project is a senuor housing unit in Kansas City which lies incomplete due to builder bankruptcy. The goal is to purchase the property to both prevent blight and to creates a worthwhile and profitable property.

Of the $25.00 an individual invests, $5.00 is collected as a fee, and $20.00 is deposited in an FDIC Certificate of Deposit that is used to back the purchase, revitalization, and sale of the properties.  In give years, the original $20.00 is returned to the investor, plus a return on the investment.   The projects creates jobs, impact the families who will be living in the properties, and also allows individuals to invest no matter their income level.

This is a very interesting concept.   It definitely matches my philosophy that few people may have a large amount of money to give to charity or to invest, but if everyone does just a little bit, it adds up to something big.   I will do more investiagation, of course, but this project is very intriguing and I will be following it.   Before I spend $40.00 on ingredients just to make three cups of salsa and then have ancho chiles in my cupboard until the next ice age, I will consider something more meaningful like this, although homemade salsa has its charm.   So does chocolate, but I can buy more chocolate later versus buying just a little bit now and someone may benefit in the process.