So this past week we had the sad (ahem) duty of heading out to Pacific Northwest in search of fruit for our upcoming new mixes (hush-hush!).  Our fruit hunt coincided with the nuptials of two dear friends, so we mixed a little business with a little pleasure, all the while basking in the breath-taking light of July in Washington State. 

We checked out some orchards in the humblingly heavenly San Juan Islands, where we stayed in a Tree House.  Actually, we stayed in a cottage called the Tree House, courtesy of our marvelous hosts from Isle Dream Cottages www.alldreamcottages.com, how's that for a shameless plug?), and out our window each night we got to watch a whale feeding in the channel.  Trying fruit all day, watching whales at sunset, sometimes this job really ain't so bad.

This didn't make many headlines, but while we were in Seattle some idiot went on a shooting spree at the Seattle area Jewish Federation, killing one woman and critically injuring 3 more.  Meet Naveed Afzel Haq, the latest excuse for man's inhumanity to man.  This absolute putz, this schmuck, thinks Israel is evil, so he decides to go on a rampage in Seattle?  That's like poisoning Lake Michigan because you have the L.A. Lakers.  That's like boycotting American Idol because you don't want to violate the second commandment, thou shall not worship false idols!  Some headlines labeled him insane, others a terrorist, but I'm just going to label him schmuck because it'll really tick off his worthless anti-Semite soul.

Anti-Semitism?  That's SO 2,000 years ago.  I mean, aren't 4,000 years of hating a culture enough?  When are we going to come up with a new anti-whatever-ism?  How about picking on Ecuadorians for a change?  Or how about the Greeks- everybody LOVES the Greeks.  They could stand to be taken down a peg; they could use a little humility for a change.

This awful Haq gets labeled a terrorist (he WISHES) and accused of savagery, but he's an AMERICAN. He gets to buy guns at Wal-Mart with the rest of us. Somehow we let this imbecile slip through the cracks in our system and turn into a moron with access to bullets.  He'd like to blame the Jews for all that's wrong, I'm sure plenty of Jews would like to blame fundamentalist Islam for this mess, but I think we should pick on the American education system.  As a culture we've got to create some checks so that fools like Haq can't violate his god's fifth commandment, and that should happen about the same time that the little brat is learning how to finger-paint.

Poem for the day:

Beneath the Ocean yonder plays my friend,

My brother, though he looks nothing like me.

He once drank milk and I once had a tail.

Through all four eyes of ours we the same see.

But he eats kelp or krill swimming fish

And I eat hamburgers and cheerios.

He inhales through a hole atop head,

while I just breath in through my little nose.

We're alike, as I say, though dif'rent too.

See, I have thumbs and fingers to grasp tight,

But he won't ever pick up anything,

I shoot and punch, but he can't really fight.

Does he pity me, no hole on my head?

Or pity us all for the curses we've said? 

Posted by iankusc at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm pretty sure that the first Peeled Snack mix ever was Figsated.  I could confirm that by asking our president and founder, Noha, who's actually sitting five feet away from me right now, but it's more fun to speculate.  I contend that it's our first because it was probably the first one that she imagined while looking through an airport in search of something to chew on (and coming up empty, excepting pringles and candy bars).  She imagined it first, so my imagination tells me, because Figsated is basically her childhood afternoon snack.  See, she grew up in the Middle East.

Sigh.  What a mess we're sitting in.  Yesterday the venerable old man of diplomacy, the UN, lost a few of its observers in Lebanon to a perhaps something that can be written off as an accident, but which won't be by many.  The Israeli sloppiness here hints at an incompetence not generally associated with Israeli military tactics.  Usually when we talk about Israeli incompetence, we're speaking about their diplomacy.  But militarily?  They're supposed to be surgeons!

What's this got to do with snacks?  Good question.  When I was a wee little 12 year old, in my social studies class we studied potential causes for World War III, and a conflict between Israel and Lebanon was first on the list.  Seeing as that was the Reagan era, World War III seemed very real and frightening to me, and that nasty little lesson left a deep impression upon my terrorized little mind.  Fast-forward to the Dubya era and strife in the Middle East doesn't necessarily mean nuclear war (or, in Dubya parlance, New Que Larr).  And yet I can't help but imagine the difficulties of selling fruit and nut snacks to whatever mutated peoploids survive a newquelarr conflict.

I'm not given to conspiracies, and while I can be  accused of owning an over-active imagination, I don't usually waste time with "doom and gloom" prognostications.  However, in this new war between Lebanon and Israel, I just can't right now imagine a way out.  The Israeli policy of attrition (that is, punish the Lebanese so viciously that they never act up this way again) seems to me a monkey's policy, very simian, very Jean Claude Van Damme.  They assume that they inflict enough violence to end all violence ever.  Raise your hand if you find that just the stupidest thing.

Hezbollah and their Lebanese hosts don't get off easy either.  Woops, did we take your soldiers?  Sorry about that- they looked like our cousins Fiezel and Ahmed, now you can have them back.  Indignation like Hezbollah's makes for a great shovel with which to dig many, many graves.  Israel could never accede to such a prisoner swap, because it would just mean more hostage-taking.  And yet Hezbollah's "leadership" keeps hoping for a trade.

If Israel is a bunch of murderous baboons running amok in your house, Hezbollah is the whiny little four year old brat that's locked himself in the bathroom and is refusing to open the door.  Neither side is bothering to be either reasonable or logical.  But I suppose it's too much to ask for such things when it comes to that terrorized, trampled, tragic crossroads of culture.

This'll all get worse before it gets better, and not even Condie's thigh-high boots can change that.  Just google "US Clout" and see where we stand in the international press.  It makes me wonder if the current administration thinks that a weak United States is good for business, if they are scrambling to recover all that they've squandered, or if they's just like Hezbollah, locked in the bathroom and ignoring everyone and everything that tells them they're wrong.

Haikus:

Back yard just blew up.

Used to be a nice garden.

Now it's soot for sale.

Nukes don't scare me much.

I live in New York City.

Sucks to live through nukes.

I kidnapped your dog.

Give me back my goldfish, PUNK!

Where'd my grandma go? 

Posted by iankusc at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Peeled Snacks team made a junket out to New York state's fabulous Hamptons last week to get the word out about the glories of dried fruit, the wonders of dry-roasted nuts, and the evils of high fructose corn syrup (BOO! HISS!).  We rented a house in the woods and spent the days hopping from gourmet grocery to snack shop to farmer's market, talking with the Hamptonians (Hamptoners? Hamptonites? Hamptonizens?) and giving them a chance to try our treats.

It's not such a bad thing to sell Peeled Snacks in the Hamptons, right? I mean, it sure it beautiful out there at the far end of the southern fork of Long Island.  Water abounds in lakes, streams, bays, and, oh yeah, oceans; the towns are all picture perfect; the architecture consists of victorian classics and modern marvels; and the weather's absolutely lovely. 

I found a curious loveliness in the landscape out there- the Hampton isthmus roles out of the ocean just a bit, creates a hill or two, and then roles back into the ocean.  This makes for an odd horizonless experience- unless you're at the beach, you can't see any land features or rises to get a gauge of where you are in the world.  Thus, while out there, I constantly felt like I was on a smaller planet, one with only a small piece of land, little ocean, but a world full of sky.  I suppose I'm accustomed to seeing the horizon or things on it- I live in New York City, where you're never out of sight of a skyscraper or two.  But there are places, like the Hamptons where the world has a different shape and feel to it.

That lovely collection of towns is of course dangerously famous right now.  At the house we stayed in, some other boarders, just in from California, obsessed late into one night about which celebrities they hoped to see.  I guess living in New York City makes me rather immune to such anticipation, but I couldn't help smile widely when a certain hunky, Greek named, former advisor to president Clinton tried our snacks.

The biggest hit on our junket, though, wasn't our snacks- it was our T-shirts.  As announced in a recent newsletter, we're holding a competition to see who can come up with the snappiest T-shirt slogan for Peeled Snacks, but the current one turns plenty of heads.  We've had about 30 slogan submissions so far, and miraculously there've been no repeats yet.  Whoever comes up with the snappiest gets a free T-shirt, and we'll draw names of all contestants and send out a case of Bing Bing Cherry.

Anyway, "Peel Me" was a HUGE hit, so much so that we are now looking for a way to produce thousands of said T-shirts.  If anybody knows a good T-shirt company, drop me a line a let me know.  Flirty T-shirts are the voice of a generation of snackers, or at least will be when we get done with this next project...

 Poem for the day:

I live

on a hermit crab shell,

that my spiny host

borrowed from the sea's barnacled bottom.

When my hermit crab moves,

He drags us both with him-

Me and my world,

his shell.

We sway and bop

as he picks through the ocean's bounty,

and all the skies above

bobble too and fro.

I would think the world a tempest

of blasting winds and tides

were my hermit crab not inclined

to stop and rest

every so rare often.

Go eat a Peeled Snack in peace, and hope for some sanity to prevail in the Middle East.  Happy Monday,

 EN

Posted by iankusc at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So the Peeled Snacks team (and our delightful coterie) made a substantial splash at this week's New York Fancy Food Show.  I've gone a bit into what that gustatory mess was all about in other blog entries, but I've yet to unveil the "why" behind the Peeled Snacks splash.

Well sure, it could be that our splash was caused by just how darn good our snacks happen to be.  Oh, and it could be that everybody at the show turned their heads thanks to our snazzy packaging (in 2006, you too can use the word "snazzy").  And of course it could be Oprah's face, beaming out from posters festooned around our exhibit booth- after all, EVERYbody loves Oprah.

But none of those splashy things made as much of an impression as the silly, sexy T-shirts that we wore.  Our team wandered around the show wearing fitted  baseball T-shirts that said "Peel Me."  The back shows our hip little demonstration of the "Peel, Mix, & Enjoy" method of eating Peeled Snacks, and it sure looks good.

But "Peel Me"?  Heads turned everywhere we went.  It's a simple innuendo, really, and could easily be dismissed as propaganda from the powerful Idaho Potato lobby.  But when smeared across one of our intern's chests, or festooned upon our most excellently sexy president (I can say that because I married her), it becomes a dangerous guerilla marketing weapon of head turning, giggle-inducing shock and awe.

Some reactions: when walking through midtown Manhattan, one wearer passed a gentlemen who made a distinct "Peeling" gesture in her direction, accompanied by a sort of whipping sound...

While hanging out at our booth, another wearer was approached by a fellow conventioneer who inquired, "well where do you want me to start peeling?"

During a particularly busy rush, a woman approached me and asked, "Is what's underneath edible?"

Of course those are particularly gratuitous examples.  Most people just blushed, or asked what the heck the "Peel Me" was all about.  One way or another, those shirts made many a ripple, and our booth was hounded by inquirers lured out by six powerful, naughty letters.

Poem for the day:

I just need to say

I left my peeler at home.

May I use my teeth?

Do what the shirt says

And you'll wind up arrested.

Where's the fun in that?!?! 

-en 

Posted by iankusc at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The search at the Fancy Food Show for something truly, scaldingly, blisteringly spicy continued yesterday, much to no avail.  I dedicated some ample time to trying Buffalo and Jerk sauces, in hopes that somewhere amongst their ranks would be the sauce that could vaporize my pancreas.  Not to be- only sweet sauces, or tangy sauces, or sauces labelled "XXX" yet less spicy than 70s porn.

There were two standout exceptions, though.  And let me just porpose that I'm no food critic, I'm no paid journalist, and I'm certainly no gourmand.  I'm just a guy looking to batter around every cell in his body courtesy of a little capsaicin.

#1, Rene's Nuckin' Futs hot sauce, the dabble of which I tasted having dripped through my torso like the oozing hydro-chloric acid blood of the aliens from the Alien movies.  Simply put, Nuckin' Futs was distilled evil with a red tint.  Pure spice, vicious and unforgiving, really without any flavor to speak of.  I tip my hat to any man (or woman) that willingly and intentionally creates a liquid that could have ended World War II 10 months earlier.

#2, Bart's Delicatessen's Peruvian Hot Chilli Paste, a tangy, flavorful neutron bomb to the mouth, not quite as completely poisonous (and I mean that in a good way) as Nuckin' Futs, but something that must have killed all the free-radicals, residual mercury, trans-fats and long-ago swallowed pieces of bubble gum hiding in my body.  Bart's sauce, to my tongue, was actually delicious, but blended with a full-bodied ass-kicker of spice.  Really something special, that.  Oddly enough, Bart's is a British company.  Naturally, I'm not inclined to associate spicy food with the Brits (rather I'll lend them the adjective "bland").  But proof's in the pudding, that That sauce was simply THE sh!t.

An ode:

Upon my burning palate place what you will,

The cauldrons of Acheron may boil and singe

All the sooty, smeared Underworld,

Yet I'll not break any more a sweat

Than currently pours forth from my tortured brow.

For I have just sampled the spice of Hell's window box.

Vesuvious and Aetna may tag team against my tongue

And burb forth lava like the world's end,

But my tongue won't lash or dash a bit- it's already done.

Open my maw and feed me North Korean warheads,

But don't expect me to shed one tear more,

For this awful, evil heat, courtesy of <insert your hotsauce here>

Has purged my passioned tear wells of all irrigation.

Count me as dry, sated, and completely insane. 

Posted by iankusc at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week New York's Jacob Javits center hosts the New York Fancy Food Show, a gigantic convention of food manufaturers and their hangers on that offers anyone in the biz a chance to taste what everyone else is doing and talk about them behind their backs (but not very far behind their backs- the Javitz center just ain't that big).

Peeled Snacks of course is represented, and our team has congregated in the Javitz center basement where we get to rub Oprah's face into every passerby (Oprah, I love you).  Conventions are long and silly.  I'm reminded of movies about prisons where all the prisoners mill about the yard and measure one anothers biceps and tatoos.  But no doubt about it, it's all really about the tastings.

Yesterday I wandered from booth to booth sampling all of the wonderful things out there to buy and eat: pre-made Indian dinners, fancy chocolates, exotic teas, 1,000 kind of jerky, 1,000,000 kinds of dipping sauce, cheeses galore, breads abounding, crackers, biscottis, you NAME it, it was there.

 And yet, I feel that I must submit a complaint.

Allright, I wandered around for a while looking for some hot sauce.  That's reasonable enough- people eat chilli and tacos, they need hot sauce.  I tried all the sauces in the louisiana section, I tried them all in Texes, I wandered through the Carribean and  Japan and a bit through Malaysia, looking only for the sauce that would make my forehead bead with sweat and my eyes bulge.

Nada.

I'm convinced, CONVINCED, that we americans are being bred out of our spiciness.  I believe whole-heartedly that there is a coordinated plot to make wimpy the taste buds of our great nation, and to turn us into a society of white-bread eating water-lillies.  We are systematically losing our competative edge thanks to terrible culinary decisions and some arcane plot involving completely un-american sous-chefs and gnome-like sauciers!

 FIGHT this plot- ask for your food to be spicy, and DEMAND that it make you sweat!  Global warming's happening anyway- we'll need the cooling comfort of spicy food soon enough anyway...

 -Ian "EN" K

Posted by iankusc at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you a New York Times reader?  If so, if not, check out Sunday's NYT Business section page on for a lovely little big of smoke screening about high fructose corn syrup.  In case you need a link, try...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02syrup.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fW%2fWarner%2c%20Melanie&oref=slogin

The article, courtesy of NYT Business section staff writer Melanie Warner, proposes that the recent demonization of high fructose corn syrup is based on bunk science, and that it's really no more harmful than good old refined sugar.  Ms. Warner takes care to cite many a scientist and food expert about the health effects of HFCS, constantly correlating them to the rise in obesity, but insisting that the chemical makeup of HFCS just can't be the cause for such a, ahem, ballooning.

Hats off, Ms. Warner, for utterly, completely, pathetically missing the point.  I'll get right out and admit to having enjoyed MANY of Ms. Warner's articles lately (her Wal-Mart organic article is a stitch).  When I saw that she was taking on HFCS, I thought that there might be much to learn from her, or entertainment value at the least.  What I read was a 2,933 word explanation about how corn syrup is our sweet, processed friend, and we shouldn't give it such a hard time for being so sweet.

Forget the sweet.  Real critics of HFCS don't waste their time with such nonsense.  Sweet is sweet, however you get it, and sometimes it's too sweet, sometimes not sweet enough, and sometimes, oh yeah, it's just the sweetest sweet ever.

 The beef with corn syrup isn't the sweet, it's the CHEAP.  The United States government in a bid to prop up our agricultural sector heavily subsidizes corn and its byproducts.  Between 1995 and 2004, corn subsidies in the U.S. totaled $41.9 billion.  That's hardly chump-change.  This year congress passed a $190 billion farm subsidy package, over a fifth of which is targeted at corn subsidies (and yet somehow the democrats are considered fiscally irresponsible?).  That money is all aimed at supporting what was until the civil war 70% of our economy, and now represents less than 1%- agriculture.

Our proud heritage of agrarianism, however, has its costs when super-processed products like HFCS are the most supported output- products with HFCS become CHEAP.  REAL cheap.  So cheap that there's really no reason to buy anything else.  The ever-swelling poor masses of our great country end up buying goodies loaded with HFCS because it's all that they can afford.  They eat it, they get NOTHING from it (no satisfaction, no nutrition) except calories, and they go out and buy more.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is not food poisoning- it's social and economic poisoning.  I won't even bother with the wastefulness behind processing the heck out of any given product- others' arguments are surely more sound.  Consider, though, that in the 1930s Americans spent as much as  22% of their money on food.  Today, we spend less than 6%. That money I assume has been reallocated into places like housing, automobile expenses, and body armor.  It's certainly not going into the very fabric of one's body, and it's certainly not doing much for the American farmer.

Ms. Warner wasted an opportunity to open up an argument by taking advantage of an opportunity to close an argument.  I expect better from the writers and editors of the New York Times.  They aren't supposed to put the lid on things; they're supposed to blow the lids off!

 Poem for the day

Black and white summer smear

inching down my chin like a snail,

half chocolate, have vanilla,

like 1859 Virginia, 

all good, guaranteed by the sweaty man

smiling in the ice cream truck,

oh smear, of what are you made?

From the churned white nectar

of satisfied bovines humming and cooing

amongst the tall grasses of summer?

Or are you made from the mashed, dashed,

split, ruined, pulped, spun, dunked, thrashed,

spoiled, soiled, flushed, smushed remnants

of ears of corn long gone? 

Posted by iankusc at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)