Hazelnuts @ 12:46 in the morning
By normal standards I should have in bed hours ago. By my standards I should have retired to the freezing comfort of cotton sheets 17 minutes ago, but I can’t. HAZELNUTS are on my mind. Why? Dear God, it all started with a soiree I am to be attending tomorrow. Well, technically tonight. I am not obligated to bring something, but at around 10:36 tonight I started thinking ‘hmmm….rose cupcakes with vanilla flecked frosting…no wait; lavender and honey cupcakes with vanilla flecked frosting.’ Some how, while seaching the meandering web of food blogs I find myself writing this blog with one web browser window while dually perusing Wikipedia and the Hazelnut Council’s website for hazelnut…and yet, I can’t tell you how the heck I got from rose cupcakes, to remoulade, to looking up hazelnuts, or what they have to do with what I bake tomorrow.
Taco Bell! It’s LENTASTIC!
Beware… Rant o’ the month…
Do you have a sudden hankering to run for the border when piously observing the Lenten holiday? If so, fear not stalwart Catholics, for Taco Bell is again reminding you to satisfy your sinful carnivorous urges with a bean burrito, taco, or quesadilla all without- you guessed it- meat.
As someone who works in the land of we’re not lying it’s PR and marketing, this doubly makes me go wtf? As a food snob who enjoys slumming it at the corner Taco Bell after a eight hour bender it makes me go WTF even more. I know there are a fair amount of Catholics in this world (I used to be one), but Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, I want to know who was the marketer that dreamt this shit of a marketing campaign up!?
Three cheers for Taco Bell and their awesomely LENTASTIC tacos!!
WOOT!
I’ve been on an unfortunate hiatus from Nosh Posh due to employmee and product spasms at work… hence, I have a backlog of posts…
and now they’re coming your way….
Oh the thing’s I’ve eaten: the VGT Omnivore’s Hundred
I heard about the VGT Omnivore’s Hundred while perusing the food blog lists. The rules are easy, just mark which of the 100 listed foods you’ve had the pleasure of wolfing, sampling, or regurgitating.
It’s not one of those be-all and end-all foodie lists, still it’s interesting and has a wide variety of edibles. I say edible because I’m not sure everything is actually food.
If it’s in bold, I’ve eaten it. If not, I haven’t. I haven’t eaten 28 items listed. Coolness.
1. Venison (Bambi is scrumptious)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (At the Witchery in Edinburgh Scotland, where the people making reservations before us told us about the ghost they’d encountered in their room the night before)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Pomegranate Wine)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (qualification: home grown tomatoes from harvested seeds)
22. Fresh wild berries (qualification: berries that weren’t obtained from a shop, but from friends’ (and strangers’) yards)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (I’ll try this just to have a tongue of steel and a stomach of…I dunno…lead?)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (Splash Café in Pismo Beach, CA makes the BEST FUCKING CLAM CHOWDER!)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (My best friend Kelly’s recipe for this is bloody lethal. Good bye world!)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat (I love curry and goat but I’ve yet to have them together)
42. Whole insects (my boy loves insects. I can’t get into them yet.)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth (Ardbeg muthfuckas)
46. Fugu (no blowfish for me yet!)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle (I’m reminded of a journey to the only German restaurant in Bakersfield, CA where the owner told my friend (her employee) to make sure the nice group of Germans coming to eat that night didn’t know she was of French heritage.)
57. Dirty gin martini (the only way to have a martini babe!)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Chimay Blue Label)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (qualification: in the form of freshly picked fruit/veggies that haven’t been washed)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (Possibly, there was this odd incident at the castle in Heidelberg, Germany when I was 17.)
90. Criollo chocolate (All RICHART chocolate is made with Criollo chocolate and I had some on my recent chocolate crawl adventure.)
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
Rynn: Melon Vingette
It was the maniacal giggling emanating from behind a mound of bananas that captured my attention. The source of the laughter came in to view as I rounded the banana cart.
Crouched in front of a shelf cut into the side of the banana cart was my boyfriend. On the shelf before him were a variety of melons that could easily have been the brainchild of Dr. Seuss himself. Both of Boyfriend’s hands rested on a melon. I watched as he squeezed each melon with an alternating rhythm, his vaudevillian giggling increasing with each squeeze.
“They’re like Nerf melons,” said Boyfriend. “Very squeezable. Squeezy. Squeeeeeeezy.”
It was then that someone’s blue-haired granny turned into our grocery aisle and took in the scene before her. I watched her face darken in an obviously disapproving scowl.
Both the moment and old blue haired begged for a sarcastic comment- the gods nearly had nearly decreed it so.
“Stop molesting the melons. You’re making my breasts jealous,” I quipped.
Out of my peripheral vision I saw granny’s mouth drop and her face turn ashy with shock. She gripped the shopping cart handle till her knuckles whitened. With a huff and a push to her cart, she fled the scene.
“That wasn’t nice,” exclaimed Boyfriend, still crouching, his head turning to watch granny’s escape.
“You’re the one groping the produce,” I retorted.
“Yeah,” he said with a slow pause. “I am.”
I watched Boyfriend bring one hand to his knee. With his other hand he gripped a yellow and green stripped “Nerf” melon tighter. He pushed himself up and with a graceful swoop of his arm, brought the melon to rest directly in front of my face.
“We’re getting a Nerf melon.”
“What kind of melon is it?” I inquired.
Boyfriend turned the melon round in his hands till he found the label.
“It says Casaba.”
“And what are you going to do with the Nerf melon?”
Boyfriend wrinkled his nose. An expression I’ve come to know as “what an asinine question” graced his face.
“Eat it,” he replied then stalked off towards the cashier.
Thirty minutes later we were positioned side by side, laptops open, scouring the web for Casaba melon recipes.
“Watermelon salad, cantaloupe salad, honeydew salad. You know, I just don’t like salad that much.”
Boyfriend laughed. “Yes you do you just don’t like melon that much.”
“Touché,” I replied with a tilt of the head.
Boyfriend reached out and grabbed the melon. He twirled the melon in his hands and began tossing it in the air like it was a football.
“Barbequed casaba?” he asked.
Now my own faced darkened with the ‘what an asinine question’ look. It was a question only a desperate foodie with a shot memory would’ve asked.
“We’re out of propane,” I replied.
“What about the prosciutto?”
“The last of it went on our pizzas last night.” I turned from my laptop to face him. “It’s a hundred and eight degrees outside.* Are you really thinking of cooking?”
Ignoring my comment he stood, melon in hand and walked to the fridge.
“Forget the fridge,” I said. “Get the rum. And not the Bacardi. Get the Leblon”
Grinning, he grabbed the bottle of Leblon rum from the liquor cabinet. He soon made short work of the melon and quickly deposited it’s pale lime-colored flesh in a blender with ice and a fair amount of rum. He sugar rimmed two highball glasses. The frozen rum and Casaba made sloping noises as it filled each glass.
“Dinner is served,” he proclaimed. I noticed his glass was already half drained as he set my own high ball in front of me.
“Kudos to the chef, in all his melon molesting glory,” I said as I raised my glass and put the glass to my lips.
A self-satisfied look and wicked smile came to his face. “Not as good as your melons. But satisfying nonetheless,” said Boyfriend.
I sputtered, showering the table with frozen rum and melon.
“I see you agree,” said Boyfriend.
And to that, I have no comment.
*Yes, it was 108 degrees farenheit outside. I was visiting Boyfriend who currently lives in a place Buck Owens once called home and is in So. Cal.
Rynn: Breakfast Diaries
Here’s my breakfast diary from the past week. Not as scintillating and titillating as some diaries but…you can’t please everybody!
July 1
Breakfast: One overripe banana sporting an oh so fashionable leopard print coat has been shoved into my mouth. I ate it with such speed that I can’t remember what it tasted like. Frankly, in my OH-MY-GOD-I’M LATE-FOR-WORK frenzy I wouldn’t have noticed if it had tasted like ferret.
July 2
Hot coffee and 2% milk stamped with an expiration date from two weeks ago today. Here’s to living dangerously.
July 3
Same hot coffee and 2% milk as yesterday. Only today it’s expiration date reads from two weeks and 24 hours ago. I am such a rebel.
July 4
I woke up at noon. Forget breakfast, where’s lunch?
July 5
Breakfast of champions equals the leftover crumbs of barbecue, cheese, and salt and vinegar potato chips from your friend’s Independence Day celebration. And a beer.
July 6
1 Corona Lite with chorizo, eggs, and yummy tortillas.
July 7
I ate so much over the holiday I am abstaining from breakfast this fine morning. I’ll probably avoid food altogether now that I think of it.
Rynn: My friend’s trip to Cambodia…
Hola blogosphere. Got this from my best bud Stef and thought the world should read it. Not nosh or posh in any way except to highlight that everyone deserves to nosh posh- and by that I mean live well as opposed to surviving and eat well as opposed to begging and scraping by. Rynn
Stef writes::
Sawasee khaa, everyone! Gin kow reu yang?
I hope this finds you all well. I’m back in BKK after a week in Cambodia , and whew, am I glad to be “home”! Cambodia is a trip of a lifetime and everyone should probably visit once before they die. That being said, I was glad to leave it. If Thailand is the beautiful woman with an ironic smile that stole my breath away, Burma a hunched grandmother with broken teeth and tired eyes, and Loas a wild child with dirty knees and crooked grin, then Cambodia is a broken man with upturned hands and down cast eyes whose very existence shamed me. It is truly a third world country full of scarred people and an economy going nowhere fast. If Laos was poor, Cambodia was poorer. I went wearing all my best emotional armor and still felt stabbed in the gut. I thought bearing witness to the Tuol Sleng genocide museum and paying respects at the killings fields would be the worst (and most important) part of my trip, but the poverty and desperation in the capitol city, Phnom Phen was worse. The govt is the worst in the region next to that of the Myannmar junt with many of the officials rumored to have ties to the former Khmer Rouge govt. whose former soldiers by the way are still alive and well in the country, often living side by side with the family members of those they killed and getting veterans retirement kickbacks to shut up and stay out of trouble. The govt seems to care little for the people and there are not enough social programs to provide for the poor. Make no mistake about this, the killing fields are not gone, the Cambodian people are still dying because of their government, but the deaths are slower and more indirect. They have no dignity in the system and no other options available. All the money in the country’s economy is focused in Siem Reap/ Angkor Wat and in Phnom Phen where virtual palaces (for corrupt govt officials and tourists) are being built up next to tent cities housing the people upon whose backs the country rests. The govt has forcibly evicted people from the shacks they owned into slums outside the city to build on their land because it is so valuable. Yet for a city in the midst of institutionalized “beautification” it is the dirtiest and ugliest I’ve ever seen. Uncollected trash piles up on the same sidewalks where street children sleep and workers eat from food stalls lined up on the opposite side of filthy streets. There is no public health system to speak of, education is hit and miss, and begging is so common place that you learn to ignore the one-legged men and crying children. Scamming and theft is common there, and was by far the place I have felt the most threatened in SE Asia . Comparitively, BKK feels as safe as SLO. It was a relief to get on a 6 hour bus ride to Siem Reap, a synthetic town based on tourism near the Ankor Wat heritage site. Because of tourist police, the worst that will happen to you there is being hassled at every corner by Tuk Tuk and moto taxi drivers trying to make a living. Angkor wat is the seat of national pride, gracing every bill of money and every sign, brochure, and company slogan. It is perhaps the only thing that the country has to be proud of right now. It costs a whopping $20/day to visit (And it is very heavily toured by visitors from all over the world) but the amount of work being done to preserve it is minimal (my what could the govt be doing with the money?) and if it is not better protected soon, there might be one less wonder of the world to visit because the wats are fading fast. The murals are decaying and already all of the Buddhas have been stolen or had their heads removed by looters. My advice to you all, see it soon if you are going to. That being said, the grounds are gorgeous and the temples are awe-inspiring. There is no shortage of wonder to be found at every turn and the history of it is truly impressive. It IS worth it, and I am glad I went.
After 5 days in Cambodia I made the treacherous 10 hr trip by land back to BKK. Mind you the only reason the roads are as bad as they are is because the govt has neglected to have them paved due to pressure from certain airlines who would like tourists to continue flying out of Phnom Phen at inflated prices and with a $25 exit fee for leaving the country. My friend paid $150 to leave Cambodia by plane. I paid $12 but suffered for it. I’m glad I did, Damn the Man!
All in all it was the trip of a lifetime and I will probably never return in this life.
Now, back in BKK, I’ve settled down into an apartment where I’ll stay for the next month or so to work on a Burmese community education project doing secondary research and compiling data for an NGO newsletter. I will be getting summer school credit for it and working on my senior project at the same time so I’m basically still in school here even though my classes finished 2 weeks ago. My travels are winding down and the work is starting so I beg you to forgive me if emails become infrequent. I will of course keep people updated if anything exciting occurs and pics will be made available for those who want them.
I hope you are all well and happy and I’m keeping my circle of family and friends in my prayers consistently. Please drop ME an email if you get a chance to let me know how you are and keep me abreast of the gossip in the Central Coast .
Lah Gorn khaa,
Stef::
::end Stef
God I love her! 
Rynn: Chocolate in Odd Places
So while looking for decorative domicile art* I find that the poster I want comes in the following, how should I say, formats. Look for the odd one.
$9.99 12×18 Paper Print
$19.99 20×30 Paper Print
$49.99 12×18 Canvas
$325.00 28×42 Canvas
$26.99 Art-wrapped 2 lb Milk Chocolate Bar
Cause you know when I look for art I want to be able to wrap it in a 2lb chocolate bar. How was that pitched in the annual sales meeting. “You know what I think the poster business is missing? CHOCOLATE!” Mebe the sales pitch goes something like,”I am not kidding folks! You, YES YOU, can have your decorative domicile art on a 2 lb chocolate bar. Impress your snooty art friends! Amaze your foodie cohorts!” I mean, I like pretty looking food as much as the next person, but wrapping one’s food in classic works of art smacks as false advertisement. Unless that chocolate bar would really make me feel as weird as a Dali painting. Then I’d definitely buy a box.
*Technically the art I was looking for is foodie related as it is a vintage poster of Bitter Oriental, which is, well bitters.
Rynn: Cameras and the potential for *gasp* food porn
So weeks and weeks back I purchased a camera to take pretty pictures of things with and lo and behold-damn- it broke with in 3 days of receiving it. So I’ve been waiting not so patiently for it’s return. I had BIG plans for that camera. It held the delicious potential for *GASP* food porn and other bits of pixel oddities. But the wait is nearing an end as I have a tracking number informing me a new technological pixel capturing wonder is on it’s way.
heh heh…food porn…
