Archives for the 'Quirkies' Category
Rising Food Prices Cause Anchor to Drop F-Bomb (Audio NSFW)
Beer for Dogs (Pairs Well with ‘Beggin Strips’)
If you’re a pet owner, you know that beer isn’t something you want to share with your dog. (Apologies to Hosehead, pictured.) But that was before Holland’s kwispelbier (which in Dutch means tail-wagging beer), the healthy, beef-flavored, non-alcoholic brew for man’s best friend.
Kwispelbier just saw its debut in England–where it’s sold by retailer Pets at Home under the “Dog Beer” label.
Dogs are overjoyed. Just ask this pair of Weimaraners, happy kwispelbier slurpers they. Or some unemployed scientists.
Or you could ask jolly Helen Pearson.
Dog-owner Helen Pearson, 58, said she disagreed with [Dog Beer] because it encouraged people to drink alcohol.
The housewife, from Sherwood Avenue, Chaddesden, [England,] said: “If it’s that good for the dog’s health, you would be able to get it from a vet.
“There shouldn’t be bottles for dogs that look like that.”
Um, yeah. Anyways, there’s no word if Dog Beer is going to cross the pond just yet. An American competitor, Happy Tail Ale, is on “indefinite hiatus.” Still, if you act fast you might still be able to pick some up here.
When the Barkeep Has a Circuit Board
Last month I noted how the unstaffed restaurant might be the wave of the future. Speaking of the whole wave thing, you might soon be able to wave goodbye to your friendly neighborhood bartender, Wired is reporting. Or at least one of the human variety, as Chassis, the mobile kegbot (pictured), would probably confirm.
Aficionados of alcohol and androids alike celebrated the first stateside gathering of cocktail-serving robots this weekend at Roboexotica.
Patrons delighted in drink-making droids that ranged from a fire-spewing drink warmer, a fully automated mind-reading mixologist and a shot-pouring conveyor belt built entirely from Legos.
“You have liquor, fire and robots,” said Johannes Grentfurthner, Roboexotica organizer and member of art collective monochrom in Austria. “How could we go wrong?”
The annual gathering of booze-pouring robots is usually held in Vienna, Austria. To celebrate its approaching 10-year anniversary, organizers threw a San Francisco satellite event.
Though the U.S. event was slightly smaller than its Viennese counterpart, the barbots landed with a booze-fueled bang.
What would Pimpbot think about these advanced mixologists?
Thanks to Caleb for the tip. (As a non-robot, I accept tips.)
Highway Wrecks Spill Spoilt Dog Food, Gatorade (With Bonus Gatorade Coverage!)
In possibly the most noteworthy highway food spillage since a trucker lost his load of spoiled dog food on Route 222 in Maxatawny, Pa. last month, a trucker this morning wrecked and spilled a shipment of Gatorade all over U.S. 27 outside Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Today’s wreck is, in turn, likely the most resoundingly negative Gatorade spillage since the Gatorade shower that may have led to the death of then-Long Beach State football coach George Allen in 1990.
(Photo via Gatorade-book author Darren Rovell’s “unauthorized” Gatorade blog.)
Sooo SoCal: The Pomme Bébé Organic Baby Food Bar
Should any baby food be permitted more than one accented letter in a word? Most people’s knee-jerk reaction to Pomme Bébé is probably something like giggle snort snark egad.
But I’ve got nothing against an organic baby food bar–even one called a “bébé-bar™” that boasts a French-trained chef who churns out gold-standard strained veggies. Here’s chef Laurent Brazier, in today’s OC Register, talking about cooking for the small and toothless:
“I liked the idea of making really good, 100 percent organic food for babies,” says Brazier, whose experience ranges from working in 2- and 3-star Michelin restaurants in France, to being chef-owner of a Zagat-rated restaurant in Laguna Beach.
Sure it’s totally silly and indulgent, but then most of what I like to eat is, too. You too, right?
Check out Pomme Bébé online, or stroll on down to their Newport Beach, Ca. baby bar.
Papa John’s Cavalier Attitude to Cost Pizza Giant Tons of Dough
Papa John’s, the giant national pizza chain, celebrated Cinco de Mayo by allowing customers to “[s]pell out Mexico with your choice of Papa John’s superior-quality toppings: Mushrooms, EXtra cheese, spicy Italian sausage, grilled Chicken and Onion.” I wonder how that went.
Unfortunately for them, Papa John’s also celebrated the day with a mea culpa in which company will virtually give away pizzas to an entire city.
Papa John’s Pizza issued an apology to Cleveland and the Cavaliers for making T-shirts with LeBron James’ number and the word “crybaby” under it.
To apologize, Papa John’s will sell Cleveland residents a large, one-topping pizza for 23 cents on Thursday. The 23 is an homage to James’ jersey number. The company also will donate $10,000 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.
The pizza chain’s T-shirts were featured during the Cavs’ games against the Wizards on Friday in Washington. Wizards fans taunted the Cavs, who won the playoff series that night in Game 6.
The shirts started after James complained about hard fouls, and Wizards center Brendan Haywood called him a crybaby.
More on the story from Jon Eick (of the great food-humor blog So Good), who broke it, here. Cleveland’s anger prior to the free-pizza deal here.
Update: In case you want to see what a 2-hour wait outside a Papa John’s looks like.
Miracle Fruit Turns Sour Sweet, Blogger into Star
Friend and DC food & drink guru Jacob Grier has become something of a go-to guy when the press needs its fix of miracle fruit, a mysterious berry with the power to turn diners’ palates upside down. Jacob attended a miracle fruit party about a year ago, where he investigated the rumor the
…unusual fruit possesses an amazing property. Eating one temporarily alters one’s sense of taste, making sour, bitter foods taste sweet and delicious. People in West Africa, native home to miracle fruit, have reportedely used it for centuries to make their diets more palatable.
It’s also a literally forbidden fruit. Attempts to market it and its active protein miraculin to diabetics were mysteriously thwarted by the FDA in the 1970s, relegating miracle fruit to underground cult status.
[…]
The fruit itself is mostly tasteless, though slightly sweet. The pit is surrounded by a weird, slick layer of pulp. It’s not bad to eat, but one would get bored with it pretty quickly. The true test came next, as we again sampled the lime. The result? Utter astonishment. The very same lime we’d tried moments before suddenly tasted like it had been dipped in sugar. All the stinging acidity was gone, leaving only the pleasing citrus and an amazing sensation of sweetness that left us craving more.
Indeed, it’s true. I’ve eaten miracle fruit with Jacob, followed by foods I know to be sour tasting richly sweet.
Well, Jacob’s love of the fruit led him to blog about it a ton, which led to a bunch of blog coverage, which in turn led to a front-page article on another of his tasting parties in the Wall Street Journal. Just yesterday, a recent tasting party Jacob put together appeared on BBC Radio, alongside this excellent story on the fruit’s positively wacky effect and history. Check out Jacob’s wrap-up of yesterday’s coverage here.
UK BK Flirts with £85 Foie Burger
Best done in the voice of that movie voiceover guy…
In a land ruled by a queen… an upstart king tries to lure customers with a golden goose… against the wishes of a ninny prince… and PETA… and some other, lesser-known group of anti-humans…
This summer, it’s Burger King: Home of the Foie-pper Gras-pper .
Coming soon to a theater theatre near you.
Obama’s Half-Eaten Waffle Briefly Auctioned on eBay
Whereas John Kerry might be famous as a flip flopper, Barack Obama is making a name for himself as a bit of a waffler. A portion of waffle Obama failed to finish during a recent diner stop in Pennsylvania was briefly opened up for bidding on eBay. And it seems the waffle has a bit of a backstory.
The waffle itself has taken on importance among the news media because Obama cited it as a reason for not responding to questions about former President Jimmy Carter’s trip to the middle east.
“Senator, did you hear about Jimmy Carter’s trip. He said he could get Hamas to negotiate?” a reporter asked Obama Monday as he ate his waffle, sausage and orange juice with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who ordered pancakes.
Obama responded: “Why is it that like I can’t just eat my waffle?”
“I’m just asking..” the reporter said.
“I’m just gonna eat my waffle right now,” Obama said.
The waffle, for its part, apparently did not hire an agent during its fourteen-minute flirtation with fame.
The Sydney Morning Herald adds to the story with this:
eBay Australia spokesman Daniel Feiler said perishable food items were only allowed to be sold if they were preserved or vacuum sealed.
He said Britney Spears’ half-eaten sandwiches and chewing gum had been sold on the site previously, as had various food items that had been inadvertently moulded into bizarre or recognisable shapes.
“The famous Virgin Mary cheese sandwich was actually a preserved sandwich; they vacuum packed it,” Feiler said.
“There was a Nutri-Grain that sold in Australia a few years ago that looked like ET - and I think it sold for $3000.”
Alas, the Obama waffle is no longer for sale on eBay, reports Seattle P-I blogger Monica Guzman.
PETA Acts Not Dumb
Yesterday PETA launched a $1 million contest to convince some mad scientist to come up with a way to create meat in a lab setting that “would mimic flesh and could be cooked and eaten”–what it’s calling “in vitro meat.” PETA claims the contest is a way to advance its so-called anti-cruelty agenda, stop harming the environment, etc.
I think it’s really just an admission by the group of what carnivores and omnivores have always known: meat tastes good. So good that it seems the overwhelming majority of manufactured vegetarian food–plant life that didn’t grow from the ground (or ocean)–serves little more than to provide calories that mimic the taste of meat.
Alas, I could go on about how awful PETA really is, but I must instead respond to a vegan friend, who wrote me this morning, regarding the PETA contest, with this challenge:
I dare you to put up a positive blog post one of these days about vegetarians or vegans and something they do or eat.
So here goes: this contest is a great idea. Bravo to PETA. This is exactly the sort of thing groups like PETA should have been doing all along. Not terrorizing or suing or intimidating what should be free choices made by peace-loving meat eaters. But putting their money where their breasts mouths are in order to effect voluntary consumer change. All while helping vegetarians eat better tasting food.
One final note… I wonder if the chicken breast cutlet photo PETA used to announce the contest comes from chickens killed specifically for its campaign, or whether they nabbed the photo from a provider like Corbis. Just wondering.
Chicago Baseball Stadiums Move Beyond ‘Puny’ Footlong
As we already knew, and as Wednesday’s Top Chef served once more to remind us, Chicago sports fans can eat. As if the Fridge asked for manna, and heaven rained it down, both of the area’s Major League Baseball teams are now serving two-foot-long sandwiches:
At Wrigley Field, a two-foot-long Italian beef feeds two to four people and costs $18. Fans can find it at the Italian Hot Spot concession stand in the left field concourse.
Not to be outdone, U.S. Cellular Field is touting its $14 Doubleheader Dog, a 24-inch hot dog, as the first of its kind in the major leagues. It’s sold in the club level Southside Grill.
[…]
Also new at Wrigley this season:
• Tallgrass Beef hamburgers. The beef, named for Chicago broadcaster and rancher Bill Kurtis’ company, is from grass-fed cattle and all the rage among eco-conscious restaurants. The burgers are part of the Chef’s Harvest Table buffet in the Stadium Club.
• “Throwback” menu. Available in the suites, the menu offers comfort foods such as meatloaf with mashed potatoes, fried chicken and watermelon slices.
Get the lowdown on pretty much every ballpark in America, foodwise and otherwise, here.
More from Crispy on baseball food here.
Would-Be Prezzes and Supporters: Eaters All
Today’s NYT has a four-piece feature on how potential-voter dining habits correlate to support for a certain presidential candidate. Slate has kindly boiled down those four pieces into a paragraph:
[T]he NYT points out that each side is carefully analyzing how their potential supporters eat in order to target them as specifically as possible. The paper’s dining section compiled an interesting list of the overarching themes that can help identify supporters. For example, Clinton’s like fruit-filled cookies, while Obama’s, strangely enough, “intensely dislike vanilla wafers.” McCain voters are partial to Hardee’s, while Clinton’s like Church’s Fried Chicken, and Obama’s skewed toward Panera Bread. How about snacks? Clinton’s supporters prefer Newman’s Own Pretzels, McCain’s like Sun Chips, and Obama’s are partial toward Kettle Chips. Of course, exceptions are plentiful but these comparisons are more than a little addictive.
In other food news from the presidential trail, Cindy McCain is a recipe thief, Hillary drinks Canadian whisky, and Barack Obama’s mom was a one-time food stamp recipient.
All this political food talk reminds me that a friend (not Monica Lewinsky) once suggested a certain bodily fluid of Bill Clinton’s probably “tastes like BBQ sauce.”
What’s in a Restaurant Name?
One of the rules of the restaurant business–indeed of any business–is keep it simple when it comes to names. Pick a restaurant name that’s evocative of what you’re trying to do, but also easy to spell, easy to say, and easy to remember.
Those are the rules. But I’m not a big fan of rules.
What I am a fan of is the Grand Wailea Resort’s newly remodeled, upscale restaurant, Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. Yes, that’s right, Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. What’s it mean? It’s the Hawaiian name of the tiny reef triggerfish, the island chain’s once and present state fish.
More on the restaurant hotel remodel here. Restaurant website here.
If you have a favorite oddball or long restaurant name–and that might be tough, since most restaurants stick to the short-and-sweet rule–leave it in comments.
World’s Largest BBQ Has Kosher Twist
Uruguay enlisted its army to grill twelve tons of beef over the weekend to break the Guinness record for most meat grilled in one place.
Also on hand were Kosher barbecue experts eager extoll the virtues of seasoned and seared ritually slaughtered cows.
Kosher bbq photos here.
Great photos from the whole event here.
Baggage X-Ray Machine Hates Indian Food
An X-ray machine that hates Indian food? Sounds like something Lou Dobbs might be behind.
“Less than 60% of baggage [screened at the Hyderabad, India airport] is being accepted because the IBS X-ray machine is rejecting chutney powder, pickles and other food items peculiar to India, identifying them as explosives,” an airport official said requesting anonymity. “The system is made for Western countries. It needs to be modified to suit India.”
More here. Learn how to make a “pickle bomb” here. Pick up some curry powder here.
See Lou Dobbs hate on the rights of people from elsewhere to work in their home country or in this one here.
American Know-How and German Efficiency Could Beget the Unstaffed Restaurant
What do you get when you combine a Rube Goldberg-inspired, student-created hamburger machine that pumps out perfect patties in only 156 steps with a German restaurant that entirely automates not only the ordering process but also the food-service end of the bargain? A completely automated burger chain capable of making and serving juicy burgers without any human cook or waitstaff ever being involved in the process.
Just to keep it real, I’d recommend deus ex machina occasionally drop a hair into diners’ sandwiches. (Hat tip: Paul)
Faux Food Extravaganza
With food prices rising, you might decide it’s cheaper to opt instead for Food Replica Package No. 3 from Nasco. The package includes everything from roast beef to pre-cooked pork sausage, refried beans to beef stew, and pizza to cooked prunes. All for only $185.
More Nasco food replicas here, including a 1.5 oz. shot of whiskey for $12.75. Competition here.
Glorious Foodie News as DC Baseball Goes BYOF
With baseball season set to kick off in the coming days, there’s no time like the present for teams to debut great new foods.
My adopted hometown Washington Nationals — I’ve adopted the town, not the team, which is moving into a new (taxpayer financed = boo!) stadium — aren’t just upping their food quality.
They’re also shockingly inviting ballpark diners to go the byof route.
There’s a big change awaiting baseball fans at the Washington Nationals new ballpark after years at RFK Stadium. The new Nationals Park is going to allow fans to bring their own food.
So if you don’t feel like paying $6.50 for a chili dog or $5 for fries, you won’t have to sneak in your own snack.
[…]
Fans will also be allowed to bring in water bottles that are less than a liter in size.
Holy crap! This is a baseball & food-lover’s dream! This might be the greatest sports food news… ever. Seriously. I could bring a backpack filled with hot dogs and a water bottle filled with white wine or beer. This is so great it makes the world’s greatest burger seem pedestrian.
Amy Winehouse Dines While Looking Like Hell, Again
You probably know by now never to look at Amy Winehouse while you’re eating. But by all means possible make sure not to look her when she’s eating.
More on this modern-day Medusa here and here. Crispy previously on the dining Ms. Winehouse here.
Headline of the Century
Paul Prudhomme should change his name to Paul Ferhomme.
Bullet Bounces Off Chef Paul Prudhomme
Chef Paul Prudhomme was shot Tuesday, but the bullet didn’t do any damage, according to Jefferson Parish deputies.
The chef was cooking at the TPC golf course in Avondale when, according to deputies, he felt something hit his arm. A .22 caliber bullet then fell from his sleeve. Prudhomme was attending The Zurich Classic, where he was cooking fish.
Deputies said the bullet did not penetrate.
Dom Deluise was unavailable for comment. More here.
