TheSnackHound

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hormel Foods. All opinions are 100% mine.

Way back when, we lived down the street from Mr. Steve. Mr. Steve was the father of two of our little friends. We thought Mr. Steve and Mrs. Lenore really really really rich because they had one of the few two story houses on the block. Actually, there were more than just one or two two-story houses on the block, but we only knew two of the families personally that lived in two story houses. I don’t know why that was so special, as a couple of the one story houses were just as big square footage-wise as their house. When you are a child of a certain age, your mind does not compute square footage; only number of stories and the number of pets that live there to equal wealth and importance. They had a dog too, so they must have been really doing well for themselves. Anyhow, Mr. Steve worked for Hormel, and occasionally he would bring stuff to barbecues or give people packages of pepperoni or cheese or some other product like that. No Spam, though. We were forced to get that ourselves if we wanted it (as if there was a shortage).

Today, when i see Hormel products at the store, I think of Mr. Steve and Ray Milland. Yep, Ray Milland. I wasn’t in the demographic group to know who Mr. Milland was at the time, but I found out later. Because there were fewer food groups back then, hormel could afford to have a star endorsement on chili, a product that sold for way less than a buck at that time.  I wonder if they paid him in cans of chili and spam to use for meals or to build a fortress with in the meantime.  Since Hormel Chili and Dinty Moore have been around for 75 years, I wonder if they are looking for a new celebrity spokesperson.  It would have to be someone that you wouldn’t expect to do a chili commercial, such as an multiple Academy Award winner such as Meryl Streep.  It is no coincidence that 20th Century Fox is also celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.  No movie tie ins?

I don’t know what I would do with all that chili con carne, as a non beef eater. I usually am relegated to eating the side dish. In those cases, it amounts to a tiny bit of shredded lettuce and cheese intended to top the chili with.  However, I have recently discovered that Hormel makes a Turkey chili and a vegetarian chili as well for those who are not big on beef. Of course, eating something out of a can may defeat the purpose of consciously trying to eat healthy, as there is always sodium in canned goods, but it works in a pinch in a mixed food preference environment.

I have patiently been waiting for tomorrow for a long time. Actually, I have only been waiting a few minutes because I just found out about it, but since tomorrow has not happened yet, I didn’t just “wait a few minutes” and it happened.   What is the significance of tomorrow aside from it being Tuesday?  It’s Ben and Jerry’s Free Cone Day.  At participating Ben and Jerry’s shops, you can burst through the door between 12:00 Noon and 8:00 P.M. (March 23, 2010) and have your day made.

Select from new flavors such as Cookies and Milk, Maple Blondie, or Peanut Brittle, or choose any other variety on the menu. There is much sorrow in the land.  Alas, it appears that they have discontinued Bovinity Divinity. It is chalk full of large pieces of chocolate shaped like happy cows.  It brought joy to my heart.  It was discontinued nine whole years ago, but I still haven’t quite gotten over it.

Enjoy your ice cream, just knowing that I may be weeping in my dish, reminiscing on how the world was once full of small (but large compared to an ice cream cone) benevolent bovine.  Also, the nearest Ben and Jerry’s shop or even counter is at least a forty minute drive away and they don’t even have all the flavors because I think it is just a counter in a hospital cafeteria.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hiltons of Branson. All opinions are 100% mine.

On June 27, 2010, Stupid Human Trick and Stupid Pet Trick auditions for the David Letterman show will take place near Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing. In fact, you will find the hoopla happening right in front of the Branson Landing fountains. If I happen to be in the neighborhood, I have already decided exactly what I will do. I will display my talents as a woman with a dark chocolate sensing nose.  I can smell any piece of chocolate and tell you if it is dark chocolate or not.  Truly, it has a distinctive smell over milk chocolate or :::shudder::: waxy Palmer’s candy.  The aroma also directly correlates to the cocoa content and quality of the chocolate.  You may have little faith and think that its artificial oils.  Just take a gander at a super pure Cacao bar and tell me that.  The list of ingredients are scant.

Hmm…I am not sure that I will be able to pull that one off.  While I have no doubt of my powers, I simply cannot predict what the other talent categories will be.  They may, in fact, boot me out just because my talent doesn’t qualify as “Stupid.”  If the chocolate industry had a “nose” like the perfume industry does, I would apply to be that person.

Better get hotel reservations now if you are a hopeful form across the miles. The Hilton Branson Convention Center is also just a little jaunt away if the hotel in the middle of the action is booked. In fact, the Branson Hiltons welcome your four legged celebrity so you he or she can give you their undying encouragement no matter how Stupid your human trick is.  Oh, yeah…they can enter too.

Of course, I would be around for a few days after the audition. It would be a waste to go all that way and not do anything else. There is a gold package offered in conjunction with the Payne Stewart Golf Club for accommodations and ball hitting. When I am passed over for the Stupid Human Tricks opportunity I will want to feel more down in the dumps than I do.  I always slice the grass pretty badly and it will make me even more frustrated, and that’s how I roll. Just get all the “dumps” over in one swoop rather than trying to artificially perkify myself.  Then, I would go eat at the Barbara Fairchild Diner.  Imagine if at Kenny Roger’s Roasters that Kenny Rogers actually served your food.  Well, at the Barbara Fairchild Diner, Grammy nominated country music singer who sang about Teddy Bears may just serve you lunch and sing to you!  That’s way better than having your birthday at TGIFridays and be serenaded by restaurant-stopping off-key warbling.   That seems like a full day.

If you are planning a trip to Branson, where would you explore?

Yesterday, I ventured into a  Schakolad Chocolate Factory store for the very first time.  I read the name in an old coupon book and just could not picture what its exact location was, even though I probably passed it 20 million times to the fifth power.  How could my car not have automatically tried to nose itself in the parking lot before.  When I was stopped at the store, I glanced over and saw an intriguing sign. The name looked like a big blob to me, but I could clearly see “chocolate factory” underneath. This sign MAY look easy to read but from the other side of the parking lot in a strip mall…it just looks like one big brown blob with the chosen font and color. “What does that say? Who cares…it says Chocolate under it.” That is all I needed to know!  I didn’t have time on that particular occasion but within a week, I found that my car involuntarily moved into the turn around lane and headed for the motherload.

I was not under any type of adult supervision, so the presidents in my wallet were in grave danger of being orphaned by me. However, the strong sense of duty…in that I needed to get some tags for my license plate…was the only thing that deterred me.  There were chocolate pianos, soccer balls, and of course the usual truffles and peanut butter cups. While it was all a feast for the eyes, I was still a little sad.  I found out that this place has been in this spot way for quite along time and I have had several years of existence not knowing it existed.  What would my life had been? Would I have feverishly saved up my pennies for a weekly visit to dark chocolate antioxidant paradise or would I have still blown it on gasoline for my car??  Who knows what the “alternate present” would have held if my life had taken so divergent with a path with that knowledge in hand. Was I the “bizarro” version of that potential self and the normal me was sitting there laughing, having eaten chocolate mini-pianos every week for the past year?

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of AccuWeather. All opinions are 100% mine.

I always thought MacArthur Park was a silly song. You know the one. Richard Harris sang it, then Donna Summer disco-fied it:

All the sweet green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
I dont think that I can take it
Cause it took so long to bake it
And Ill never have that recipe again!

Watching for the weather is very important for My Favorite Guy. He farms, and if the weather is not quite right, he can’t bale. In fact, there has to be a good two to three stint of no rain to be able to cut the hay. Otherwise, the hay won’t dry. Looking at the sky doesn’t do it. The Weather Channel is good, but its annoying because when you really just want to know what the weather is, they put on a show. I know they are trying to get some viewership, but that’s not why people watch it.

AccuWeather has real time forecasts and a variety of other media, so that you can get whatever kind of forecast you want when you want it. If you want to know what it is like right now in the town your relatives will be in, or you want to find out what the weather will be like in several days in your town, it will do that, too.

How accurate is the weather, really? Of course there is no one who can predict it precisely, but you can use your best judgement looking at where the globs on the map are headed. While you may personally be a little off on time, if a big colored glob is heading towards your town, you know not to plan an outdoor barbecue that day. You could, but your french fries won’t be so crispy.  Accuweather can be accessed online at Accuweather.com, which sure beats having to wait the five to fifteen minutes to see it pop up on local television.  Of course, someone just started an interesting story and you missed it.

So…anyway…I guess where I was going with this is that it would be a shame to leave your cake out in the rain. The hay will dry eventually, but you’ll never have that recipe again.   AAAA-GAINNNNNNNN

Stranger than this night….
What could be stranger than this night
Undisciplined children
And a tube of GLUUUEE…

Recently, I wrote about a friend of the family who had passed away. I frantically called my cousin to make sure that she heard about the passing from someone’s voice rather than a Facebook status update. It is quite disconcerting to find out about deaths that way.  Finding out about the OD or the untimely trampling by a zoo animal of a celebrity that you will never meet is one thing, but it is a bit weird if you actually knew the person and would normally hear through other channels.

The funeral was equally as unconventional.  Granted, I had seen it all.  One day, I will tell you about my brief stint in working at a funeral home but that’s for another day.  Some people wanted Frank Sinatra and a smog machine.  Of course, not the REAL Frank Sinatra because he’s dead, but his music.  There aren’t too many Sinatra impersonators, are there? Well they are, but they don’t call them that.  They call them “tributes” and “memories of Sinatra” versus “JimBob the Sinatra Impersonator.

At any rate, the funeral was actually quite tasteful. It was the various behaviors that made it a day we won’t forget for a very long time.  There was a child in the family that was quite amok.  Now, I love kids but I think there is a time and a place.  When I was two or three years old, I would have had a babysitter.  If I made an actual appearance at a visitation or a funeral, it would be brief and not every day of the three day affair.  Nerves ran thin and it was assumed that a three year old was capable of making her own judgement calls. Crackers, french fries and toys were all over the place.  On top of it, since apparently she had been encouraged to sing into the microphone the night before, the funeral guests were treated to shrieking and wailing during the service.  I nearly split an ear drum. A gentleman who I presumed was a family member deftly twisted his hearing aid to “off” for the rest of the ceremony.

It just went downhill from there. The tot was running around and jumped up on the kneeler to dangle her body into the casket. Not only did a parent not remove her, fearing that a major tumbling would come down, but they actually encouraged it.  They thought that she must be “expressing her grief.”  Apparently, she was smothering french fries all over her grandmother’s face, and was shrieking because her grandmother wasn’t “eating the french fries.”

I am not one to criticize other people about their parenting skills. Okay I am.  But I don’t have room to talk because I do not have children. However, I think i have at least one pinky finger of common sense.  Actually, its a different finger, but it would be very rude to hold it up to show people.  That would be crossing a line.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of wellnessdaily.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

I receive a whole sackful of emails every day about this wellness solution, that supplement or that healthful tip every day. Well, of course it is not a sack, since it is email. If I printed them all out, it would be a sack. Okay, a virtual sack. That would be wasteful if I printed them out just to prove a point. Those burlap or canvas sacks are something I miss, however. Makes one feel like Santa Claus, or at least a Beatle. At any rate, sometimes I nod and say “oh, that’s nice,” but sometimes the siren song shrieks and I must click a link to read more, or I must google or yahoo or whatever the generic term is in order to see if there is any debunking going on. If I had to guess, I would say that I waste a total of one hour a day on it.

My biggest consideration right now is looking for ways to increase my Vitamin D intake while still slathering on the sunscreen, inventing a magic wand to make dark chocolate even more antioxidant rich and also giving it powers to magically clean my office, and toning my problem areas.  I don’t know if I will be able to ever accomplish #2, but I found some solutions for number #1. With my grandfather having osteoporosis, I better start cramming myself with it now.

Luckily, there is www.wellnessdaily.com. It is a new site that extrapolates all the Twitterful, Feed-ed, and Spooled health information from all over the ‘net. All I need is to go there, find what I want and avoid reading what I don’t. Honestly, I don’t know what “Spooled” means in this context, but it sounds better than to say that I am unraveled.

Right now, there is a Twitter contest. You can earn a year’s supply of Jennie-O products or even a gym membership Just follow @wellness_daily & RT this! http://bit.ly/tbd123.  There is a complete list of rules HERE.

Yesterday, I was pondering on the strange disappearance of Wendy, head of the League for the Suppression of Celery.  She may not have really disappeared, but merely abandoned the publicity, fearing discovery by the opposition of the League and therefore has not posted this year.  After all, recent discoveries have proven that celery may be key in fighting cancer.  Actually, it is not a “recent discovery.” The information was just merely recently discovered by ME, so it doesn’t count as a*true* recent discovery.  In fact, the luteolin found in celery may reduce brain inflammation and cancer.

In 2008, Richard Hammond, of Top Gear fame, suffered crash injuries that flipped a switch in his brain.  According to the Telegraph, Hammond remarked, “The only difference between me now, and before the crash, is I like celery now.”  It seems that Mr. Hammond is part of the pro-celery movement. Of course, fellow Briton Fearne Cotton is staunchly in the anti-celery movement. Why do the British folks seem to be the ones to flaunt their cruciferous affiliation more vocally than the normally more vocal American?

I hope I never hit my head badly, but if I do, I hope I crave healthy food and don’t suddenly crave chocolate ants a la Andrew Zimmern.