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.

This is a very serious chocolate matter.  Firstly, Kroger has Endangered Species Chocolate bars on sale two for one or half off.  The exception is the Blueberry flavor with the turtle on the front. You have to pay over $4.25 for one of those bars.  I thought they excluded the turtle flavored bars because they were new. Oh no. That theory was blown out of the water when I found myself at Whole Foods.  The aroma from the candy aisle was like a siren song.  My car went on autopilot and drove out of the Kroger’s parking lot a few miles down the road to Whole Foods.  A bomb had went off in the candy aisle and there were only a few scattered Endangered candy bars to be had.  Yes, they too had a 2 for one sale but there 2 for one sale was BETTER, because the candy bars turned out to be $2 each instead of 2.50 or something like that on sale each AND the blueberry turtle bars were included.  I snapped up the very last one.

Three days later, the candy aisle at Whole Foods still is pilfered.  The only bar to be had, if the chocolate scanner picked things up correctly, is the Milk Chocolate variety.  That is just plain boresville to a dark chocolate aficionado. My worse fear was momentarily toyed with: what if Endangered Species bars were being discontinued and this was there way of giving us our last fix?  I don’t think so, based on the empty slots remaining on the shelf. If they were truly gone, the whole area would have been remerchandised.   I don’t buy these bars every day or week as it would appear, but since I can’t have them, it makes me want them even more, especially the Goji Berry bar.  I can’t remember what it tasted like.

In the meantime, I guess I will have to be happy with the Kroger sale, but I don’t want to be. They have a limited variety of varieties and they are more expensive.  Sure, its time versus money but perhaps the thrill of the hunt is worth more to me. Perhaps the true answer is that I am just somewhat insane.  Ascribing this task as a worthy pursuit just makes me feel a bit better about my condition.

The moral of the story? If you see said dark chocolate varieties of candy bar, just clean off the shelf.  It may be more chocolate than you need right now but its cheaper than paying full price in the long run. Get thee to a Whole Foods or Kroger’s.  Just stay away from mine.

I am related to one of the world’s authorities on Saltine Crackers. Did you know that only authentic Saltine crackers have 13 holes? Sunshine brand and generic versions do not have this special feature. Grandpa has made it one of his life’s missions to educate the world, much like appraisers that alert folks to fakes on The Antiques Roadshow. Does it matter to your stomach if the cracker is an authentic Saltine or not? I doubt it, unless we are talking about the low sodium variety, and then your liver and kidneys will thank you and so will your heart.

The alert was send around from our friends at UnBeige that there is indeed a Saltine cracker made out of pewter.  Yes, you too can commemorate your favorite cracker with a lovingly crafted collectible by artist Herbert Hoover.  No, this is a different Herbert Hoover, not the President that you are used to.  Mr. Hoover (I assume Herbert is a Mister and not a Mrs or Miss but you never know with the creative child naming that goes on these days) also lovingly crafts other snack foods, such as Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches, and Cheese Crackers. (Check out the line up HERE to prove I am not making this up). They sure would be a show stopper, or at least a denture stopper at your next bridge party.  The ice cream is quite convincing.  The cookie portion is merely pewter with a black patina.  I wonder how it would hold up “in person” ( or more properly “in ice cream bar”) to the real thing.

The individual crackers will set you back $15.00 a piece and the ice cream sandwiches are being sold in traditional pewter and colorful patina for $50.00 a pop.  Grandma would probably want to give me a pop if I got these for Grandpa.  I may not be able to buy any if Chuck Norris finds out. He’ll probably buy them as snack food. I can imagine him whipping them out of his pocket and being the talk of McDonald’s.  Free senior coffee and he sometimes gets extra perks for wearing his veteran’s hat.

Homer Laughlin officially retired the Evergreen color in the Fiestaware line on March 1, 2010,  making way in the collection for the summer entry into the Fiesta line, Paprika. The color is available until it sells out at better department stores and online boutiques.  HLC seems to be introducing new color at a pace of twice a year now, having introduced Ivory, Chocolate and Lemongrass in the past two years.

As the most widely collected American made dinnerware, is production meeting demands, or like American Girl clothes, is HLC just making more excuses for us to have the entire sets of something? Either way, whatever they are doing is working.  I am pleased to see the line return to brighter and clearer colors and discontinue the more somber evergreen and cinnabar. While those colors have their place, to me, vibrant colors is what makes Fiesta ware Fiesta Ware and not any other line.

Will you grab up all the Evergreen you can find, store it under your bed so you can sell it and make a profit when your first child, yet unborn, goes to college?   I likely won’t, but since its a color that I don’t have, I will most likely purchase a carefully selected representative to add to my assortment of kitchen goods.

After a long hiatus, the official League for the Suppression of Celery blog is back. For quite some time, I feared that Wendy, League Representative, had succumbed to the opposition or had been kidnapped. Lo and behold, she is back, or at least someone impersonating her at the present time. For the uninitiated, the League is united against the Evil veggie, Celery. In the January 2009 interview here at TheSnackHound.com, Wendy recounted her initial trauma that set her on her path:

“…My mother handed me a celery stalk loaded with peanut butter. Moments later, my intuitive corporeal body rejected this vile veggie. Imagine a big Christmas puke-fest. Poor Mom. In a way, I suppose it was karmic for her — a more enlightened mother would have known better. Still to this day she maintains that I’m the one with the problem and I consider it a big failing in life that I can’t get my own mother to see The Truth About Celery. I’m filled with shame.People call me a picky eater, but in fact, did you know that there are a select group of people who have a natural vomitous reaction to some of the chemicals in celery? This comes from being more highly evolved, one step further ahead in the evolutionary chain than the celery-eaters.Probably this might come across as elitist, but it’s really not. I feel it’s the League for the Suppression of Celery’s job to enlighten everyone about the devil’s vegetable. It’s just like any other cause, like mosquito nets to combat malaria, needing clean water to drink, literacy issues, and getting supermodels to eat more. (In fact, if they’d stop eating so much celery they might not have so many weight-related ailments.)

To read more on the league: CLICK HERE.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Dimplex North America Limited. All opinions are 100% mine.

Lately, I have been adding a sparing amount of chicken to my diet. I had been trying to go vegetarian plus fish lately but chicken is so gosh darn convenient when I am cooking for others and they don’t like fish. Typically, my mom notices my eating trends and when I am over decides to buy similar items. Instead of antibiotic-free chicken breast, however, she bought a bag of chicken strips that were painted with grill marks. I knew that it wasn’t really grilled because of the chicken nugget-like interiors. I was polite as I could be, but I am really hoping that it sinks in that they will feel so much better without all the sodium. There was no time savings as you still had to prepare the chicken. Maybe you didn’t have to cut it, but you couldn’t exactly eat it raw.

If you desire the sear marks on meat or veggies but don’t want to fire up the barbecue because its raining, winter, or you live in an apartment, never fear….Dimplex PowerChef Electric Grills are here. Well, its not HERE in my lap, but they’re here in this wonderful world. The grill is electric and safe for your apartment balcony or indoor applications and creates the gas grill-like stripes on the food. Instead of being just a Toast R Oven, the heat actually comes from the grates. You can view the rocking video of it HERE.

Maybe the “indoor grill” seemed gimmicky at first, but there health benefits to grilling food instead of frying it, and there are all sorts of pre-programmed settings for folks who absentmindedly tend to be authoring a book and not watching the food.  That wouldn’t be me, of course unless I ignore the kitchen timer.

Have you tried the gentle art of indoor-outdoor cookery? If so, tell me how you did.

This summer, the new kid on the Fiestaware block is the spicy Paprika. It continues on the trend of deep, warm colors that Homer Laughlin has been offering.  While there are already colors in the red and orange pallet, Paprika seems as it will mix well with the two prior Fiesta offerings, Lemongrass (2009), Ivory (2008). and Chocolate (2008) of the past two years.

I have not seen the product in person–or more properly “in dish”–so I do not know if the color varies slightly from the photo. However, the color in print reminds me of a variation of the old Fiesta Red.  Not the OLD old uranium red, but a spicer, less orange peel version of the post WWII orange Fiesta Red.

Paprika will hit the shelves and websites around June 20th. The color will first be available in five and four piece place settings in the traditional shape and in 3 piece square sets. Suggested retail is between $40-48 for the sets. (P.S.: Fiestaware and other Homer Laughlin China is proudly made in the United States. All dinnerware is lead free.)