TheSnackHound

I have learned something this week. Hershey’s Special Dark is definitely not among the ranks of premium chocolates, such as the likes of Dove and Godiva. Why did this not dawn on me before? Well, when I am at Grandma and Grandpa’s and I steal something from the candy dish, the Hershey’s is isolated. On the long drive, I had not had any other chocolate in awhile. The palette was cleansed. If I had Hershey’s and, say, Dove next to each other, there would be no comparison. Not having a richer alternative, Hershey’s is not bad at all.

The true nature of Special Dark came out recently when a friend’s AC Compressor blew. I had some choice chocolates in the car. It didn’t SEEM like it was too hot out, but after a minute or two, the chocolate all became a bit squishy. Of course, this is no reason to throw out perfectly good chocolate. So, I tried to still eat them, but only a bunch of sauce was left, so I put them in the fridge. I will have to say, that “let’s not melt in your hands” coating on the Hershey bar must have separated some how. When the Hershey’s was melted and reconstituted in the fridge, I only tasted sugar. On the other hand, the Dove chocolate ended up tasted like….dark chocolate. It wasn’t as pretty after that but it still tasted fine.

Of course, I was a bit hot too. I can make the choice and have a drink of water, but chocolate is just “out there.” It is totally unprotected by the elements unless you have a cooler. So, just like you don’t want to leave a cake out in the rain in MacArthur park, don’t you dare leave chocolate in a car with a blown A/C.  It would not only be uncool (no pun intended), but you may just create an unstable chemical byproduct.

A few months ago, I issued a throw down. It was the type where one person just walks very quietly up to someone else, crisply removes their glove and smacks it on the thrown. Yes, I laid down the gauntlet. What am I all in a twist about? You were challenged to come up with the best refrigerator message you could possibly come up with. Unfortunately, you decided not to. Maybe you don’t know how to leave a note, maybe you can’t come up with anything.

Just go to Resist the Fridge and away you go. You can take the virtual magnets off the convenient lower freezer door and let your imagination run wild. All you do is select a letter and drag it to where you want it on the fridge. You can say anything that is on your mind. If it is X rated, I’ll probably erase it, but I have never run into that dilemma just yet.

The last message comes from Andrea Decker in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, shown at left BACK IN APRIL! I am not sure if her message is about my fridge, my closet or my brain!

Get cracking, guys!

I remember as a kid going to Kmart, and a voice over the income would tell us what the Kmart Bluelight Specials were. There would actually be a blue light flashing on the little display bin.  I know you folks born after 1990 are jealous of me because I saw that. At some Kmarts, a lady that sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher would warble a little too close to the microphone. All you would hear was “Wah wah wah wah WAH socks…”

At others, or at the same Kmarts but in later years, a prerecorded mans announcer-y voice would come on. He sounded like someone telling you to keep your arms clear of the closing door on the monorail.  He also sounded like someone who used to wear a smart suit and lots of bryl cream to have perfect Announcer Guy Hair, but he recently changed to the dry look.  That is why he was hiding behind the microphone and not on television.  He wasn’t quite comfortable with his new look.  The dry look is the hairdo the Jordanaires had during the Elvis comeback special or the Hawaii one.   Kind of Donald Trumpish.

Gone are those days.   The shine wore off.   There became “good Kmarts” and “bad Kmarts.”  There was the one in the next town where it was clean, stuff was actually on shelves, and the people were nice. However, the one in town was the “bad” Kmart. You had to really hunt to find someone to make a key for you, only one register was open, and they acted like you were bothering them. It was almost not even worth going. Now, it seems that many of the good Kmarts have stayed open, and the bad ones have gone away and some have turned into Sears.

However, this Saturday, maybe you’ll feel a little nostalgic, as it is BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL SATURDAY. Over 40 deals will be offered TOMORROW. That’s right, you read that correctly. There will be some BlueLight Specials online, but many more in the store. You’ll be able to find jewelry, housewares, and more. I am not quite sure if they are going to have the flashing light. I sure hope they do.  If they do, I am going to ask someone if I can press the button to make it flash.  I am sure that they won’t, but I can only hope.

Kmart is my place for small appliances like toasters and blenders. I hope some gadgets that I normally didn’t consider are on sale. I think the personal blenders for one serving are great, because when I make cake and need to blend things, I don’t want to pull out the Queen Mary. It is a pain to clean all the parts of a huge blender. I know it sounds like a frivolous thing to have, but when you just have to blend one or two cups of heavy cream of everyone wants a different kind of smoothie, it is the best thing ever.  Hamilton Beach makes one.  I may have to splurge.

I would have a little problem if I decided to be a barfly. At 5′, you can’t really gracefully plop your rump on a bar stool. You do have several options. You can do the Mt. Rushmore. This is the least graceful of the methods. You climb up the rung and then whip your hand around to the far side of the seat like you are climbing a rock wall. The other option is the “bathtub assistance handle” method. You grab on to the lip of the actual bar, and with one foot on the rung, you gracefully pull yourself up. The key is to distribute your weight properly, so you appear to be alighting the bar stool gracefully, and are just merely placing your hand on the bar for emphasis and are not actually supporting 3/4 of your entire weight with it.

Here is a brief roundup of several new and exciting Bar Stools to give you some pointers.

The pretentious “Mojito” stool is something my eye would immediately go to because of its bright color and streamlined design. However, my butt should never follow. There is no decent way to get up on this slick little number. It is slick to the eye, but also slick to the butt, especially if you are wearing velvet or chenille. You will just find yourself dumped on the floor when you try to pivot on your butt cheeks to try to get a glimpse of the handsome dude down the counter. Sandra Bullock could pull it off, but trust me, you might not be adorable enough.  Well, you could be, but it is not just about looks.  It has to do with comedic timing.  Physical comedy can be a bugger, and you want to make them laugh versus feel very sorry for you poor thing.

The only way this stool should be considered is if it is bolted to the floor.

This little number, I like to call the baby chair. It reminds me of the high chair that grandma had. It had a red seat, and had metal legs. Okay, it is absolutely nothing like this AT ALL, but the proportions are the same. You can see where I am going with this. Don’t sit on this if you are short. It might make other people think of a toddler chair, and it may emphasize your lack of height.

Of course, this is okay if you are among amazons, as the grass is always greener. As much as you would want to be taller, they want to be shorter. Not really. At your age, people have accepted the card they have been dealt, but if this were middle school, there would be many tears.

This model makes up for abject humiliation by being very easy to climb up on. If you see this model, you have to weigh the benefits and see if you rather take a table or will you be bold?

Picture a nearly empty Thai restaurant. Or a sushi bar. Hardly anyone is there because its a meat and potatoes neighborhood. Somehow this restaurant would have been better suited to an artsier fartsier area. I come for the food, but stay for the stools.

Because of the various rungs, I can easily get up on one of these babies easily and semi gracefully. One can put one’s hand anywhere. The drawback? Your keys and wallet could drop through one of those rungs.  DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT let this stool fool you. Just because it is marginally comfy and it is easy to get up on, do not be tempted to do THE LEAN!

What is THE LEAN?   Picture yourself in a regular old chair.  You drop your keys or some sort of utensil on the ground. If it is a utensil, and you are seven years old, your mom would say, “Leave it down there.  Don’t pick that up.  The waitress will get it.”  Mom was not saving you from touching a spoon full of germs.  She was saving you from the embarrassment of leaning sideways over a chair, people being able to look down  your shirt and up your skirt, and you falling in a big mess and waking up the whole restaurant.  Of course, you didn’t have anything for people to see back then, but ending up with your underpants topside is embarrassing for anyone over the age of five.   At about three or four, you still show people your puppy print undies with pride.   In my day, it was Wonder Woman Underoos.

The monolithic bar stools at left remind me of a sort of Stonehenge of bar stools. Or maybe Easter Island. They are monolithic. They have a very wide seat to hold the most generous of derrieres. In fact, they may make my trunk look quite compact versus Mac truck size. Oh wait, Mac trucks don’t have trunks in the traditional sense. But they do need to pull a whole trailer for the junk that they would potentially have in it if they had one.There are several drawbacks to these as well, despite the generosity of their seat.

As you can imagine, if these are bolted to the floor, they get a thumb up. If not, this is another stool that you would be enticed to do THE LEAN on but shouldn’t. What my main concern is that someone may shoo you off. You see, the geometric appearance is so tight and perfect, that the weight of you may dimple it, leaving it saggy and baggy.  Any self respecting modernist would come in his/her black turtleneck and frown on you very severely.  Actually, I am mistaken.  You would only see the very slightest curl of the lip corner.  You may barely detect it, but 100 staff members will suddenly scramble into damage control mode when it occurs.

Last but not least is the tulip butt seat.  Okay, its not the “tulip butt” just the tulip.  It is just like the “mislocated asian restaurant” model further up.  There is one difference.  It doesn’t have the key and wallet loser holes in it.  While it may not completely compliment the atomosphere, it is going to be easier to sit on and much more comfortable.  However, what if you decide to pivot?  Will the molded butt imprint on the chair make it difficult.  You are just going to have to report to me from the field so I know what to expect. If you don’t stick, maybe it might need to become the “Official Bar Stool.”

There you have it.   These are the reasons that I do not have the proper credentials to be a barfly. Sorry, Mickey Rourke.  Sorry dude that liked to sit at the Third Street Saloon at Wayne State despite the whole place having plastic tarps for doors. Oh yes, and ordering half cranberry juice and half seltzer water or Vernors doesn’t really lend to “my cred” either.  I’ll stick to the sushi bar…although maybe not because I won’t be able to escape the bar stools of doom.  Maybe I will just have to order take out, and when they ask why I never eat in, I will just tell them I do not meet the height requirement to ride that ride.

Have you entered the BluFrog contest, yet? If not, you need to get off your duster and get cracking. Entries will only be accepted through July 17th, which is this Friday. Not next Friday. The gavel will drop at 11:59 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. For everyone in the fair town of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, it means 10:50 P.M. If you are sitting in traffic in Encino, it means that you will have to get going on this before 8:59 P.M.  You may just want to make sure you get off of work early that day, or just bite the bullet and enter now while you are thinking about it.

The prizes that BluFrog, the latest “healthy” energy drink, has in store include a trip to the X Games in Vail, Colorado. There are other prizes, such as a Richard Petty racing experience, if snow and you do not mix. If you just don’t “do” the outdoors as all and want to sit on your keister, there is an Ultimate Gaming Experience.

Go to the BluFrog page and follow the instructions. You may tweet, blog, or comment to win. Anyone can enter, but only those who are 18 or over, and are also legal residents of the United States may win.  More details on the prizes and rules can be found on the page.   You can view it here with a superduper magnifying glass, changing the resolution on your screen to see The Snack Hound blog as ants and fleas would see it, or just simply go to the page.

Why am I making such a big deal out of it?  I don’t want you to blame me when you read my blog and wish I would have reminded you.  It is “all you” now.  I did my part, so it is up to you to write it on the calendar or type it in to that little calendar alarm thingie on your phone.

For the 75th anniversary of Fiesta Ware, the Homer Laughlin company released a set of mixing bowls in marigold.  The bowls themselves, if not the color, are based on an original 1930s design, and range in sizes from 6-1/2 to 2-1/2 quarts.  They were introduced in April 2008, and were to run for 75 weeks, signifying the 75 years that Fiesta Ware has been in existence. The set will be retired on September 2nd of this year.   After that, Homer Laughlin China will not fire another piece.

There will be a second item introduced on April 1, 2010, and that too will run for 75 weeks as well.   No information has been released as to what the piece(s) or colors will be as of this writing.  Stay tuned, and information will be divulged as soon as it is released.   In the meantime, don’t procrastinate on the marigold bowls if you have been thinking about them.

The bowls are dishwasher safe and have a nonporous, lead free glaze.  You can either collect them and store them away for posterity, or you can actually use them in your kitchen.

As far as pricing, I have seen them offered on the internet as a set anywhere from $124.95 to $189.95, before shipping charges, so shop around.  I did spot it at Macy’s online, but I have not confirmed if it is available in the store.  Some Macy’s are larger than others and offer a full or limited range.