TheSnackHound

It’s time to go through the little painted decorative tin with “MAIL” embossed on it.  A reader submitted a question:

Mark writes:

I want those Salt and Pepper Shakers!

I assume he is talking about the photo of the dachshund salt and pepper shakers in the bottom left corner of my blog design template.   At least, I hope he is talking about the dachshund salt and pepper shakers in the bottom left corner of my blog design template. I placed them at left for those of you who don’t want to bend down that far.

If he isn’t, then I guess he just likes to send random and incomprehensible phrases to random people on the ‘net.  Perhaps he ascribes to the chaos theory and it just so happened that he randomly sent a phrase that actually meant something to the sender.  Amazing.

For the rest of you, the doxies are the Kikkerland Dachshund Salt and Peper Shakers. This pair is not for sale, as I my dachshunds would be mad if I parted with their little friends. However, you can own a pair that looks just like mine. on the internet at Quincy Shipping used to have them, but no longer do. If you don’t want to hunt, Click Here to buy them right now!

Dear Readers,

Sometimes a product comes a long that compels the mind to go in a bit of megalomaniacal hysteria. It fuels it to think, “SOMEONE STOLE MY IDEA.” Of course, when that happens, the product is usually nothing that could have been produced by me. I would not have had the follow through to completely figure out the mechanics of making the item. I would not have the budget to produce a prototype. It may not have been a rip roaring success, as my package design skills are lacking. Sure, it would have some sort of a box, or at least wrapping paper around it, but I would have failed to psychologically analyze what package colors trigger a “buying” response in potential purchasers.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the product probably is nothing like I thought either.  Oh, but other than that it is JUST like it.

What went on in my mind that constitutes a “Hey, I thought of that first?” Well, it is quite simple. I probably said,”Hey, wouldn’t it be neat if refrigerators had locks on them?” Five seconds later I completely forgot that I thought of it. That’s hardly a stroke of “eureka” that would give me a claim to any patent.

What is the inspiration for this meandering announcement? I just have become acquainted with the Fridge Locker. If you don’t believe me that one exists, go to www.FridgeLocker.com. Truth be told, it is not exactly what I had envisioned. It is not a big padlock on a Frigidaire. Rather, it is like a little jail cell inside of your fridge. Maybe you could call it a pop play pen.

I hear you chuckling.  This is a legitimate product that could potentially save your life, so don’t scoff, Bucko.  In fact, there is a testimonial from Howard L., from Pacific Beach, California.  He writes, “My friend’s Girlfriend can’t eat all the Multigrain Bars anymore.”  Well, Howard, firstly, what is your friend’s girlfriend doing over there ransacking your fridge?  If she is the girlfriend of your roommate, then maybe I could understand, but if she is dating just a random friend of yours, then I think your random friend needs to be given a talking to.  Maybe he told her that he rents a shelf in your fridge or that your place is really a hipster theme restaurant.

The inventor, Kevin Alan Tussy, was having a similar life drama.

One Saturday I was thinking about how I really wanted to start eating better at the office.  I was always eating out and spending a lot of money on some pretty unhealthy food.  Not to mention that I always seemed to be on the brink of starvation before I would actually go eat.  Some healthy snacks would definitely be a great thing to have around.  I went to the grocery store and every morning I packed up my brown bag, but after a few days I started forgetting.  In my morning rush it would slip my mind and I was back to eating out…  If only I could bring in a weeks supply of snacks to work all at once, then I would never go hungry…  But I knew that wouldn’t work. My food would be eaten by all the employees in the office. People just weren’t very respectful.

Do you see a theme here? There is no nonsense about beer or chips. Perhaps Howard and Kevin should just realize that there coworkers, relatives, and girlfriends of friends only steal multigrain bars. They should stop eating them and get a little monosodium glutamate in their diets. That will fix the wagons of all of these pilferers.

Until at least tomorrow, I think this is the Best Invention Ever. If only I would have had something like this years ago, I would have not been accused of eating all the chocolate in the house.  I could show people that it was all locked up so I couldn’t possibly have done it.  Of course, if I am the only one with the key, then that would have solved that. Like all of the best products, the Fridge Locker is available for the paltry sum of $19.95. That is a magical number.  It is so much cheaper than any of those $20 products.  I don’t have that kind of money.  Do you think I am rich?  But I do have $19.95.  But I am going to hope that my readers buy it for me for Christmas instead, right?

This little Mountie plate is available for sale on Etsy.  It is a souvenir of Canada, yet it is English china.  In other words, it is made in England. It may seem more appropriate than you think, as in Canada, the royals and other English accoutrements are well regarded, even when during some historical errors, it was not the same in the States. We just had too many bad memories of that business.

Despite this info, it still had me wondering what I would use a tiny plate like this for.  Would I get a tiny plate holder and display it?  Knowing me I would probably use it to put my wasabi and soy sauce.   I may even use it for change on a dresser.  What about for a salt plate?  I never seem to use things for their intended use.   In this case, I am not really sure what the intended use is.    Maybe all of the above is the intended use.  Maybe it is for someone who wants to buy every china pattern, but can’t afford to buy every single one, so they just get a tiny plate of each.

What about you?  What would you use this tiny plate thing for if you were to buy it, or if you do decide to buy it?

I am not a morning person, especially if I have to get up at a time my brother so delicately calls “the butt crack of dawn.” Luckily, that I can rest easy and wake up after the sun is shining. A few mornings this week, however, I have had some early appointments. I’ll rise but I won’t shine. That’s what I say.

These mugs are enough to wake anyone up in the morning. Their bright mod-ness dares anyone to pour their orange juice or coffee in the cup, not on the counter. They are a true remedy for zombiedom. Maybe they are the long awaited cure for seasonal affective disorder. Two actually match as a pair. Ah, young cups in love. The other two don’t, but they sort of coordinate in a bizarre way, picking up a little yellow or green from the figure 8 handled china mugs.

Add a little mod into your morning, and snap these up on Etsy while they last. For only $10 plus shipping, you can have all four. Look at them again…are you awake yet?

These monolithic bamboo cups are currently for sale on Etsy.   They come to you live from about 45 or more years ago.

My question of the day is:  What makes you a cup?  Well, I would normally call these glasses, because of the taller, more serious shape, but they are not made out of glass.   So, they are cups, right?  Well, I picture a cup as sort of shorter and squattier.    I don’t imagine a tall porcelain pilsner, if there is such a thing, would be called a “cup.”

According to Websters:

cup

–noun

1.a small, open container made of china, glass, metal, etc., usually having a handle and used chiefly as a receptable** from which to drink tea, soup, etc.

Technically, a GLASS can be a cup, but can a cup be a glass?

Let’s see.  Under the definition for GLASS, we find:

4.a tumbler or other comparatively tall, handleless drinking container.

In otherwords, if I called these glasses, even though they are not glass, I would be completely correct as well.

Don’t worry about anyone chopping down bamboo and taking it away from pandas. As I have stated before, these are vintage. The tree might have croaked 50 years ago. Also, do you know how fast bamboo shoots up? It is invasive and you can never get rid of it if you tried.

There are six of these babies…plus a bonus cup (or glass or drinking receptacle) just in case you have a freeloader crash your dinner party. They are priced at $16.00 for the entire set!

Find them right here.  Now that you found them, you just MIGHT want to buy them. They are really that cool.

** Yes, I copied this from Dictionary.com, and that is a typo.  IN the dictionary! 

*****
Do you like the atmosphere around here?
Okay, this was more pathetic than funny, but still it would be nice if you would rate me on Humor Blogs!
(You will have my undying appreciation!)

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.

When I am in that hazy state of just waking or almost falling asleep, you could usually find me staring at the latest infomercial about some crazy invention I don’t need. Well, I found something that I may just have to need.  The first item I found reminds me of a cross between some sort of Star Trek replicator, a fruit display case, and a steamer.  It is actually a multitiered steamer cooker where you can steam multiple courses at once.  Of course, I do have a regular pan with two different baskets so that I may already do this.  However, I cannot SEE the food as it cooks.

This would be provide some lovely viewing pleasure and atmosphere to your counter.  Instead of watching a fire crackle, holding your Mr. or Miss Wonderful close, you can have a glass of wine watching the romantic steam of your dinner.  Isn’t that romantic? You could be getting steamy while your food is getting steamy.  They say kissing burns 12 calories every five minutes, but because steamed food is healthier, you won’t have to do as much of it to get thin!

I think that when you were not cooking, you should use it as a multitiered cookie jar.  The cookies would be on display like in a bakery!  Maybe that is just my bizarre sensibilities working over time.  That’s how I roll.  Oh, that’s another idea: display rolls in it!  This puppy sells for $59.95. The real name for it is the Deni Stainless Steel Food Steamer.

The other invention that I love is the screamin’ lime green colored ice cream maker.  This is no ordinary ice cream maker.  It solves an age old problem.  There is a function where it crushes the candy you want to use in your ice cream, or on it as a topping.  No more bashing Snickers bar with a hammer.  No more ripping the arms off of gummy bears.  The machine does it for you.

If you have an active kitchen, you may want to check out other stuff they have at DesignMindGroup.Net.  If you have an active mind, The New Products Division at Design Mind Group can help inventors trying to get a new idea into the market. If you are like me and wake up at three A.M. with strange thoughts of an improved waffle maker in your head, you might want to contact them. Of course, now don’t rush out and all have ideas for waffle makers. That is NOT really my idea. My idea is the “bestest” one, if only I could remember it clearly enough to write it down. Usually, I just roll back over and figure I will remember it in the morning, which I don’t.

I just love everything Carolyn’s Kitchen has to offer. I blogged about a giveaway another blogger was having for the Cupcake Apron, but unfortunately, I didn’t win it.  It has been awhile since I browsed around the website, but I decided that I must thank Carolyn West, or whoever her website blurb writer is for the quote that speaks to my soul:

“So whether you’re a gourmet chef or can’t boil an egg, nobody will even notice when you’re wearing one of Carolyn’s hot and spicy apron sets.”

A-ha!  Light dawns on Marblehead, as they say in Boston.  This is exactly what I have been waiting for all of my adult life.  I am far from the master of the kitchen domain, but sometimes I think with the right shoes or the right tools, you can either fake your way through pretty good or just look pretty good doing it.  In fact, I may decide to spend hours dolling myself up to mentally prepare for making my next “ugly but tasty” cakes.

Imagine my glee when I got a special “flier” in my mailbox about the new Safari So Good collection.   The collection comes in zebra, as you can see here, and Wild Cat, which is a cheetah-like print.  Carolyn’s aprons are retro inspired, and many have the option of also owning matching gloves.  What is truly another cool added bonus, is that the gloves that are to be had at Carolyn’s are not merely just wallflowers, but are completely functional and ready to dive into the suds!  I have a photo of the “Rock and Roll” gloves before that I think would look wonderfully outrageous with the Safari apron.

Some say the pathway to a man’s heart is his stomach, and maybe by looking pretty foxy slinging that microwave dinner on the table, he will suddenly fall in love with you all over again as the gourmand that you deserve to be. Be careful, because depending on the individual dude you are dating or married to, maybe he will get so confused about your new ability that he will think that a body snatcher came in the middle of the night.

I believe that cooking is not strictly a woman’s domain, but since I am a woman, I can only concentrate on myself.  Maybe there will be a guy’s version of sexy BBQ aprons that come with a special hat that not only keeps the sun out of their eyes while flipping on the grill, but also has a mind altering data chip in them to reprogram them to put the toilet seat down.

Some of these aprons are just too cute and would make good shower gifts, or a mother’s day gift for the hip mom.  I know a hip, sassy gal that is getting married soon, so I think I may just see if the maid of honor thinks that this is up her alley.

Hustle on down to Carolyn’s and check them all out.  The link is right HERE.

*****
Do you like the atmosphere around here?
Okay, this was more pathetic than funny, but still it would be nice if you would rate me on Humor Blogs!
(You will have my undying appreciation!)