TheSnackHound

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!)

John Maeda, President of Rhode Island School of the Design, declared the object which he thinks is the greatest design.   In fact, you probably have one.  Some people have more than one. Most of the time, however, people don’t really collect them, they multiply in the cover of the night.

To me, the all-time greatest design object is the grid that divides the utensils in your silverware drawer. It’s so humble I’m not even sure there is a name for it. But the minute you see it, you know exactly which job it is meant to do. Bravo!

Really? This thing?

Truth be told: in my youth it doubled as other things. We used them for stalls for tiny plastic farm animals, and found many uses in the use and maintenance of Star Wars action figures . It could be berths on a very large vehicle, the weapons storage bunker, or countless other things.  Maybe we could have actually used it for silver ware.   My mother has probably had the same one for thirty years.  It is eggshell white.  Prior to it, there was an avocado one that eventually cracked.

Now, I see many newfangled versions.  There is a bamboo version of whatever this thingie is.  It does not have the different shapes carved into it, just rectangular slots. Someone might be a little more free form on what goes well, but to perpetually structured people, that might be too much to handle.   There might be some mental lapse or panic.   I think the old basic might be a little unposh to some, but until someone makes a hand carved version out of olive wood with the proper slots, or a more progressive version comes out of Scandanavia, the original plastic version rules.

I was visiting my mother and while I was there, I started filling the dishwasher. Little did I know it was another situation where no good deed would go unpunished.  She abruptly bounded through the living room and dining room, and swung the kitchen door open and practically shouted: “No!  No”

I must have given her a befuddled look, as she went about pulling knives out of the dishwasher with the same fervor as if she was trying to pull out kitties that had fallen into a storm drain.  ”No.  You can’t put THOSE knives together. These knives are nice knives and these knives aren’t so if they touch, you’ll get rust spots.”  Of course, she didn’t mean I individually would get rust spots on myself, but meant the “royal you” as in “one” would experience the tragedy o getting rust spots on one’s knives.

I know sometimes when you let a brillo pad sit in a stainless steel sink all wet and runny, you may somehow ruin your sink, but I wasn’t aware of that a flatware Capulet and Montague scneario existed.  In otherwords, I wasn’t aware that beyond the questionable aesthetic of two patterns being intermingled that there was something innately “wrong” about why knives from the other side of the drawer couldn’t mix.  Apparently, the silverware with the lines and fluer de lys were the “good” silverware that were given to my parents as a wedding gift.  The ones with the roses on them were the “not as good” silverware that apparently did not have a high silver or stainless steel content.  In fact no one was sure what metal they were, but I do remember bending a spoon trying to hoist up a clump of cereal once.

This got my thinking: “Why do we even call it silverware if there is no silver in it?”

Brides and grooms received real silverware throughout the ages up until now, but with our throwaway society we just are so stuck on entertaining inferior models because they are cheap.  In fact, we don’t even store them properly anymore.  How many empty wood and velvet cutlery boxes do you see at yard sales in comparison to how many plastic drawer caddys?

Thank goodness, real sterling silver cutlery can still be obtained.  There is some gorgeous pieces that Arthur of England produces.  The Grecian style is pictured here.   It is so simple and elegant and timeless.  What’s more, they won’t bend in your cereal.   Many people may think that they shouldn’t splurge because they aren’t getting married, or have been married for years.   To me, I go with the old philosophy of buy once and buy good, and you will never have to replace it or waste money on the five sets you buy because you didn’t buy right the first time.

The site has cleaning products for caring for your pieces, too.  I can imagine myself polishing each individual piece. Polishing the silver every so once in awhile is such a meditative process that gives one time to smell the roses, or more properly the delicate scent of silver polish, rather than the rude clunk and clang of dumping things into the dishwasher.   Maybe I wouldn’t use every spoon in the house all day long and would be satisfied with caring for and washing just one.

I used to have a carafe for salad dressing.  That will give you an idea of how much dressing the Glass Salad Dressing Carafe Makers of America thought a household of two consumed in several days.  Afterall, despite if containing vinegar, it was bound to not taste so hot as time went on.

I have found the perfect solution…and it was free! Well, not really. A purchase was required. When you buy Frank’s Red Hot for your chicken wings and other recipes, don’t get the plastic jug. The per ounce price may be less, but you are missing out on a really nifty salad dressing bottle that is just the right size. In fact, you could even make two different types to have on the table or in the fridge. The black plastic drip top is perfect for dressing. Tops made by the Glass Salad Dressing Carafe Makers of America tend to have too big of an exit hole and you end up saying, “Do you want some lettuce with your dressing?”

No one will ever know that the G.S.C.M.A. missed out on a sale. The only way your guests will know is that “Frank’s. 1928″ is embossed in the glass. Well, everyone has an Uncle Frank, or their parents or grandparents did, don’t they?  What about Aunt Francis who went by “Frankie” in third grade, but few remember it. I just say I inherited mine, and then when plastic tops came about, I had one made.

Here is my simple salad dressing recipe:
1) Apple Cider Vinegar. I use organic.
2) Honey
3) McCormick’s Italian Seasoning

Place the A.C.S. in a bowl, add 1/3 as much honey as there is vinegar ratio or to taste. In truth, I never know how much I really add, as I just keep going. Just whisk the honey around with a fork until the contents mesh together a little bit, and keep tasting as you go. Add enough Italian seasoning to look nice. Actually, a few sprinkles will do. It does enhance the taste, but people just don’t trust the more translucent salad dressing that doesn’t have little bits of something in it.

I don’t think I could handle anything more complicated than that.

I have only become aware of the true purpose of Wine Charms in the past few years. When I used to be a hermit and not entertain much (before I met my husband), I just thought they were little decorative doodads that you would surely lose. On the contrary, I discovered their true purpose: germ control!

That’s right. You can’t scrawl your name on a crystal goblet or wine glass with a magic market like you can do to your styrofoam cup at a BBQ. By remembering the charm that you dangle around the stem of the glass, it unsures that you won’t be swapping spit with your brother-in-law’s friend’s girlfriend’s roommate who always seems to have walking pneumonia every time you see her.

Think you can’t remember? Choose wisely. If you go to a person’s house often enough, it is like always wanting to “be” the hat or the racecar when you play Monopoly (Don’t make me be the thumble!) and never forgetting “who you are.” FunWineGifts.com has some cute sets that aren’t just little generic stars and hearts. They have a dog themed set with paws and doggies, sports themed sets, and many others.   You can even decide if you want a silvertone or goldtone finish to match your preference.

I wonder:  What if you buy two of the same set because you want everything to match, and then you have enough guests where you have to use the same charm twice.  What do you do then?   Well, you don’t have to just get the same set twice.   I saw over 30+ charms and you could just order two different sets in the same color and no one would know.   You could just buy the travel charms with airplanes and stuff and buy the Hawaii ones that have beach chaits and Aloha shirts.

I think I would demand to “be” the lemon out of this seat.  I just think its the cutest one.  I imagine that I would fight someone over it: