We’ve blogged in the past about the delicious blackberry soda from Hotlips Pizza in Portland, Oregon. It’s got real pulp in it, and you feel like you’re actually drinking something made from fruit, not chemicals. Now, that drink and a bevvy of other Hotlips flavors, including apple, pear, raspberry, and boysenberry, are spreading into more locations. Besides Oregon, you can now buy the sodas online for the first time, including in a mixed variety pack. We’re hoping this is a sign that Hotlips will go nationwide soon, so we can pick it up at gas stations and janky corner stores everywhere. That’d sure be nice.
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New Finds: Wisconsin Cheese Guide
Yes, cheese from Wisconsin really is that good. So I was excited to read the new book The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin by CHOW.com’s own Supertaster columnist, Jim Norton, and his wife, photographer Becca Dilley.
The layout is really fun if you have an interest in the personalities behind the products: Each gorgeous picture of a particular cheese, like, say, the Cinnamon-rubbed butter jack from Bass Lake Cheese Factor, is paired with a mini-profile of the cheesemaker. In the case of the butter Jack, for instance, we learn that Bass Lake’s Scott Erickson looks really artsy, and once made gelatinous lutefisk (a Norwegian holiday dish of lye-cured codfish) for a living. It’s interesting to know just who goes into the old-fashioned business of making small-batch cheeses and how each cheesemaker got there, because who hasn’t fantasized about joining them?
New Finds: Pomegranate Tootsie Pops
The ultimate sign that pomegranate has reached critical mass: There is now a pomegranate Tootsie Pop. Introduced in 2008, pomegranate is one of a bunch of new flavors launched in recent years: watermelon, blue raspberry (yuck), and banana (double yuck). But the pomegranate flavor is wonderful, reminiscent of classic cherry but more fruity and puckery. It actually tastes like pomegranate, which is more than I can say for the center, which tastes less like chocolate than choco-scented crayon.
Tootsie would love for consumers to weigh in on the new flavors and suggest others. Peppermint, maybe? Oh, and by the way, according to the Tootsie Roll FAQ, the company has received tens of thousands of letters from children claiming to know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Estimates generally run in the 600–800 licks range, but your own personal best “depends on a variety of factors such as the size of your mouth, the amount of saliva, etc.”
Walmart Presents: Feasting on the Cheap
Sharp news commentary blog the Awl breaks down Walmart’s $20 Thanksgiving feast, which actually includes a disturbingly long list of edible features for a disturbingly low price. Prices vary a bit from state to state, but in general your Jackson gets you:
• One 12-pound Grade A turkey
• Three 11- to 15.5-ounce cans Green Giant vegetables
• Two 14-ounce cans Ocean Spray cranberry sauce
• Three 6-ounce boxes of Stove Top stuffing
• One 5-pound bag of red potatoes
• One 12-count package of Sara Lee dinner rolls
• One 22-ounce pumpkin roll cake
This is both inspiring and terrifying.
Waiter, Get Your Hands Off Me!
Bruce Buschel is opening a restaurant. And he has some ideas about what he’d like his staff to do and not do. So many ideas, in fact, that he was able to supply the New York Times with a list of “100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do.” Buschel is on the ball; witness some of the picks of his list:
“8. Do not interrupt a conversation. For any reason. Especially not to recite specials. Wait for the right moment.”
“20. Never refuse to substitute one vegetable for another.”
“32. Never touch a customer. No excuses. Do not do it. Do not brush them, move them, wipe them or dust them.”
Buschel was on NPR a few days later, and he had more to say. Here he is on servers touching customers:
“I think it’s not a polite thing to do. I think a lot of people can take it the wrong way. The study that’s being quoted doesn’t mention genders. I’m sure a lot of women think that if they touch a customer on the shoulder, their tip goes up. It may or may not be true. I just think that, again, you’re invading somebody’s space. I know recently, I was standing in a restaurant waiting at the bar and somebody came over from behind and actually physically moved me, grabbed my two shoulders and moved me. And I turned around and he said, the waiter has to get past. So there are all degrees of touching. And some people may get excited and some people may be offended. So I think the best thing is just to not do it.”
Yeah, keep your paws off me!
Snacks and the Modern Gamer
The brutally obvious nature of the picks in Topless Robot’s “10 Most Beloved and Unhealthy Gaming Snacks” doesn’t diminish the fleeting-if-all-too-real vicarious pleasure a casual reader picks up from hearing the analysis of total crap ranging from Oreos to Slim Jims to that ghastly World of Warcraft Mountain Dew.
On the topic of doughnuts, Topless Robot notes:
“It is one of the few foods you can buy a box of, bring it to a friend’s house and only your most picky of bitch friends will not find something they like.”
Not Pulitzer-caliber stuff, but, to be fair, Combos aren’t winning any James Beard Awards anytime soon.
The Last Good Job in Food Media
We’ve got a plum proposition for one very specific food journalist: Come and work for CHOW.com. We’ve got a food editor position open. Old media is crumbling around us, have you heard? And while you’re cleaning your hands of that sticky paste-up goo and worrying about filling the front of the book, or whatever it is print editors do these days, we’re entertaining readers and teaching people how to cook. Which is why you got into food media in the first place, right?
As we say in the job posting, the best candidate for this job will make us laugh. He or she will manage a kitchen, lead a team, and want to perform in front of the camera but not clown around or be superearnest. The food editor will, above all, convey information clearly and directly. He or she will think creatively about food and online media and techniques. Will love to eat and love to learn about food, yet will be skeptical about the old ways of doing things. The food editor will have ideas about bok choy and user engagement and online communities. But won’t use words like decadent and yummy.
We have other criteria; see the job listing on mediabistro.com or CBS Interactive.
FARK.com and the Vegetarian Culture War
An almost completely innocuous Los Angeles Times article on raising vegetarian kids touched off rapidly updated and at times hilarious/offensive /interesting debate on dietary choices over at FARK.com.
An amuse-bouche of the back-and-forth:
“Vegetarians are the worst. Can’t we round them, teetotallers, religious people and rap-metal fans up and ship them off to Iran?”
“Why do vegetarians always look so unhealthy?”
“You’re an idiot.
Ever heard of Bill Pearl?
Four time Mr. Universe?
Used to rip license plates in half to demonstrate his strength?
He was a vegetarian -- lacto-ovo, but still a vegetarian.
Your theory -- he just kicked sand in its face.”
“My ancestors didn’t work their way up the food chain for me to become a vegetarian.”
“meat carnivores are militant and defensive about eating meat. I mean, I’d agree that vegetarians are annoying, but this thread is more self-righteous and annoying than any vegetarian that I’ve ever met.”
And, of course, you can’t do this argument without quoting Jim Gaffigan:
