TheSnackHound

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

Many seniors and folks with disabilities are living more independently than ever, which is fantabulous. I just love to hear stories about someone who normally would be perceived to have limitations is chugging along and living the good life. However, one barrier is limited access to immediate assistance. In the 80s, I made a lot of fun of medical alert systems like Medical Guardian. Remember, “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up?”

Anyway, they aren’t just a joke, they really work, especially when most falls happen in the bathroom or the kitchen.  If you are like my friend’s mom, you might accidentally bake an oven mitt and the stove goes up in flames. It was so bad, that *I* was accused of cooking.  In reality, it was no accident.  She meant to cook the oven mitt, only she thought it was pita bread.  Things like that happen when you have macular degeneration and a stubborn streak the size of Montana and won’t ask anyone to troubleshoot your cooking.  She poo-poos the idea of cell phones and can’t see the keys anyhow, so an alert device would have definitely saved the kitchen.

Yes, Edith was a firecracker. In fact, when she lived in an apartment with an intercom system, she used to press the “listen” button even when she wasn’t expecting guests in order to hear what was going on at the front door.  She buzzed in a few random folks, but she also horned in on quite a few conversations, doling out advice.  Before she understood what it was, she tried to place “orders” with it.  When she heard a voice at the other end, she would ask for eggs or a take out order.  She was set straight, but I can’t help but think she would use a medical alert system just to try to talk the dispatchers up and find out about their grandchildren, or order them around.  It doesn’t quite work that way, but she’d try.

If you have an aspiring culinary wonder like Edith and don’t want to suggest her independence be caged, a medical alert system may give you peace of mind.  Or maybe there are some adventures you just don’t want the skinny on.

I was very excited to open up my mail, or should I say, read my blog comments waiting for approval. None other than the REAL Fudgie the Whale came by and commented on my post about Carvel ice cream and the similarities between the Twitter “opps” whale and Fudgie the Whale Cake.  They are like negative reverse images of eachother.  You can read more here.  Yes, THE Fudgie the Whale. I know you are all infinitely jealous of me now.  He writes:

Thanks for the mention! Yes, I too, think the Twitter folks may have had me in mind when they built their fail whale. What can I say? I’m flattered! And, yes, Fudgie is still alive & well…helping to spread the word of Carvel’s delicious ice cream to all who will listen. You can follow me on Twitter at @FudgieWhale.

Stay cool!

Fudgie the Whale

Did you READ that? Fudgie told me to Stay Cool. I don’t know if I can wash my right eyeball again (I was looking at the note with my right eyeball. Yes, I can use my eyes separately and the left eye didn’t have any inkling of it. It was zoned out.

See, Uncle Ben and Frito Bandito and Mrs. Buttersworth, the guantlet has been thrown down. I have mentioned you many times and :sniff: you have never written me back.  But then again, Uncle Ben is so retro he doesn’t have a twitter account, and Mrs. Buttersworth…well, being a Glass-American, her molded arms make it impossible for her to get out and about like she used to.  I suppose culinary icons who are a bit more regionally based have more time to tend to their fans than when someone gets as internationally reknowned as Mrs. B.  Of course, with the way the internet is, folks way beyond New England are probably craving a whale cake in the mail.

At any rate, I am going to try to come down from my celebrity encounter, maybe throw some water on my face and smack myself around. I need to get back to making lunch.

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

My Favorite Guy and I sometimes joke about miniature ice cream bon bons. A requirement of eating said dessert is to eat them right out of the box while sitting in a scented bubble bath and watching soap operas or Oprah on a wall-mounted bathroom tv. We just aren’t the demographic for that. However, we both love Dove chocolate and Dove Ice Cream bars and by default just cannot say know to Dove Miniatures. They are more of a mini-bar than a bon bon.

We just have to eat them in a manly way, such as putting them on ice and throwing them in the back of the wood trailer and eating them on a break. Just make cutter oil from the chain saw doesn’t get near it. Gravel contamination is fine. Then, there is the woman on the go method. Since dark chocolate is good for you, eat one as a necessary dietary supplement along with your iron pill, and to those who it applies to, half a prenatal vitamin. Suddenly, when it is thus rationed it doesn’t seem so indulgent. I know. With the new Cafe collection, you can replace your morning coffee with Java Chip miniatures.  At 70 calories, you can just jog around your office a few times and it would be like you never had one.

Dove is running “My Mini Moment” contest, where ladies can submit a dossier of their mini moment of escape. A lucky winner will get a mini-getaway to Napa Valley, a mini room makeover or spa treatments for a year. Sounds decadent. I wonder of Dove would give me a year’s supply of Dove if I won, or should I say WHEN i win?

To win…I mean..to enter to win… visit DoveIceCream.com/myminimoment and submit your essay by June 7, 2010.  That is only 21 days from now, so hop to it.

Lidian, over at Kitchen Retro, presented the eerily and unnaturally green Rose Brand Pickles over on her blog. (The photo is courtesy of Live Journal Ads.)  Perhaps the unusual hue was due to some post-war radiation or perhaps a food chemist wished to appeal to the kiddies who hated to eat their veggies.  Either way, as a pickle aficionado, I wouldn’t touch em with a ten foot cattle prod with a bottle of hand sanitizer on the end. Turning down pickles may not be so earth-shattering to you, but since I was the author of the 3rd Grade penmanship assignment, Paul Bunyan at the Pickle Factory, it almost qualifies as a downright conniption fit.

Upon careful investigation, The E.T. Car Conservators Club holds the key to the true mystery.

“…The name was Matthew-Wells Ltd. and they picled cukes for Rose Brand. The house you see in Thompsens on Mt. Edward Road. You can see the vats they used for pickling. There were 4 rows I think and there was a wooden walkway for the men to push their wheel barrows on. they would dump the cukes in the brine. The vats were quite tall and as I said before every kid peed in them, and a few guys went swimming in the pickles.”

Read the rest of the recollection HERE. Even though folks poo poo sanitation standards today, I am darn thankful swimming in my salad dressing, Vitamin Water or cheese popcorn is not allowed.  Of course, the vinegar content in some dressings may offset the effects of well, kiddie pool syndrome, and bits that broke off the ends of rubber swimming flippers could be camouflaged in the herbs and spices. Yeesh…I don’t even want to think of that.

Another pickle contractor to Rose was Bick’s.  The Bick’s family of Canada also supplied pickles to Rose. (The Bicks moved to Canada in 1934, which leads me to believe they were Americans.  Everyone else emigrates; Americans move.) After Rose cancelled the agreement, perhaps because none of the Bicks swam in the pickle vat, the Bick’s struck out on their own, and later went on to be the biggest supplier of Pickles in Canada. Bick’s was purchased by Smuckers in 2004.  What became of Rose?  Well, Rose still sells the popular Pork Brains in Milk Gravy and other canned meat delicacies. I think I will stick with pickles. I don’t even have to think.  I just know.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Werever Products Inc. All opinions are 100% mine.
The growing outdoor living kitchen and outdoor living room trend has not completely passed me by. Rather, I will admit it has bumped me, almost intentionally, and knocked my snack tray over in the hallway. I first saw outdoor kitchens at homes in Florida and in California-oriented design magazines. However, the “outdoor kitchen” was a glorified grill area. The grill was still a grill, but it was enclosed more like a stove. The furniture was regular patio furniture and everything was in a screened enclosure to keep the bugs out.

On the contrary, I am now being told outdoor areas are NOT just areas around a grill but are “open air” kitchens, complete with outdoor upholstery that looks like indoor upholstery and an outdoor tv. The televisions are not your wimpy clipped to the wall affair, but include major cabinetry so you can pretend you have a 6,000 square foot home instead of a 4,000 square foot home.  The romanticism of the American hobo has just died.  Sleeping in a tent or under a tree with a three week old beard for the guys and a smell that Secret cannot hide for the ladies is going by the wayside.  Now, you can just flop on the sofa in the yard of your out of town neighbors while waiting for the next train to hop or after recreating your version of Man vs. Wild.

All kidding aside, if you have a tiny home in an historic area and you cannot expand but love the charm of your 850 square foot bungalow, creating such spaces outside might do the trick.  Entertaining in the warmer months would be a lot easier and it would expand your living quarters.  However, if you are living in Alaska or in a tropical rain forest perhaps cramped togetherness is a bit safer.