Tonight, Peeled Snacks officers will descend upon a yearly holiday party hosted by a dear friend in honor of her dear husband's birthday.  The theme of the party isn't the holidays or the solstice or anything of that sort.  Rather, said husband suffers from a "sweet tooth".  No, I take that back.  Not a sweet "tooth", but sweet "teeth".  Whether or not 32 teeth remain in his mouth I can't say, but I DO know that whatever IS there CRAVES desserts.

And so we'll trundle down to Brooklyn with a treat in hand and bask in the wondrous sweet treats abounding.  Surely there'll be rice crispy treats, and brownies galore.  I expect to eat a cookie or two, and no doubt egg-nog (the SWEET kind) will be in attendance.  Cheesecake, perhaps, and cakes will tempt, though the birthday boy's a butterscotch lover, and butterscotch has many unpredictable delivery boys....

Notice what I'm not mentioning, what mostly WON'T be available, lest we bring it?  Dried fruit & nut snacks will NOT be there, almost guaranteed.  In lieu of anything that's remotely, you know, "healthy", there'll be gobs of things definitively "UN"-healthy.  Chocolate chip this-es, marshmallow thats, sugar-coated honey (and likely honey-coated sugar), and no doubt PLENTY of now illegal trans-fats.

Likely I could lament long and languidly upon such culinary sins (there will be NO crudite'), and chastise all holiday parties for their propensity to pack on pounds.  I could join my mayor (that Bloomberg guy) in lambasting all poly-unstaturate-saturated soiree sinners, or assault wassailers for alcohol abusings.  And I might remind all cookie cookers, intending to leave a plate of pecan-chocolate-chip wonders out for Santa that he probably already has type 2 diabetes...

But no.  Tis the season to Eat, Drink, and be Merry.  That's what this time of year is for, when the Sun curls down to the end of the Earth, the trees are all bare, and the cold winds blow (warmer and warmer every year, THANKS Al Gore!), it's time to turn out attentions indoors towards our friends and family, and towards our own insides- our hearts, our bellies, our livers....

Seasons like this help us understand the true meaning of eating healthy.  If all we ever ate was wheat-grass and rice cakes, we might fool ourselves into thinking them tasty.  After years of such a diet, imagine the trauma of tasting a truffle- if the stomach survived it, the head would surely explode from the pleasure.  Better to have regular chocolate dosages to avoid such a fate....

A Happy Holiday to all, and a special Happy Birthday to Lowell Kaplan, birthday boy, sweet tooth "sufferer", and daddy to one HECK of a cute little girl.  Tomorrow's all Winter, so from here on, every day is brighter.  Thank goodness....

EN, Peeled Skinny, but this season, rather happily fattened up 

Addendum:

It's the morning after said birthday party, and I'm required by law and honor to state that there WAS dried fruit in attendance.  Figs, dates, and apricots abounded, though the organic apricots reminded me of why we use sulfites in ours- organic apricots don't take like apricots, they taste like mollasses!  And they certainly DON'T compare to the lovely hostess' BANANA PUDDING!!! (yum)

It was a wonderful night, filled with great gabbing with meaty people.  It was NOT, however, the egg-nog fueled Solstice Schnockerrer that I was expecting.  Such are the symptoms of maturity- alcohol fuels fewer feuds, fewer fun (I'd say "less", but it doesn't alliterate).  Instead, people we just talk and eat, and insure a salvagable tomorrow.  While I'm heartbroken at the loss of mirth, I can't help but see the sense of it.  Sigh....

Happy Winter... 

Posted by iankusc at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm beginning to wonder just what it means to be "natural".  When a baby is born into the world, is the baby "natural"?  If so, when does the baby become "UN-natural"?  When he/she eats his/her first Pringle?  After finishing its first tin of Pringles?  What if the mother ate Pringles every day while carrying the baby?  Was the baby then ever natural to begin with?  Where does the line between natural and unnatural lie?

This weekend that question struck me like a punch in the gut as I got suckered in to buying something "natural"... and suffered because of it.  Allow me to give a absolutely emphatic thumbs DOWN to Blue Sky Natural Soda's "Jamaican Ginger Ale".  I believe that this is my first online condemnation, and I suspect that once word gets out, the thugs from Blue Sky will be knocking at my door and inviting me to "swim with the fishes".  But this news I just can't keep in...

I have of late developed an appreciation for exotic soft drinks.  I like how the bubbles sooth my tummy (yes, I call it my "tummy"), and I like strong flavors.  I appreciate the less sweet varieties (though never diet), and have developed a keen interest in ginger beers, malt beers, and ginsing sodas.  I've sampled many a variety, and stumbled as often as I've soared.  This weekend, though, I found the ass-end of sodas.

In a local bodega I found a stack of "natural sodas" courtesy of Blue Sky, and decided to give it a try.  At $3.00 a six pack, it seemed reasonably priced (there's certainly worse), and I'm always up for something new.  I took it home, chilled it, cracked open a can, and...

Suffered.

So bad in so many ways, I can't even begin to describe the let down.  The taste, while not at all akin to any ginger beverage I've ever tasted, IS akin to certain motor oils that I've smelled, and the smell of certain dead pidgeons I've stepped over on the sidewalk.  It was so un-drinkable that it made me wonder if its creators a: bothered to taste is before selling it, and b: if they have taste buds at all.

But I bought it, and I bought it because of its MARKETING; words like "natural" and "Jamaican" lured me in, as did its "Save Pets" icon and attractive, mountainy design.  Frankly, I'm the target market for this supposed thirst quencher (20-45, scenester, disposable income, influencer), so they hit their target.  But MAN, what lousy ordinance!

There's a slew of fancy sodas of late- the big boys roll out their tweeks (cherry vanilla coca-pepsi, kumquat-power-slice, etc), and little guys try to muscle in (Jones, Jolt, Tab's making a comeback...).  There are occasional attempts to redefine the category (dry soda anyone?), and occasionally products that could totally change the world for the better (like Fizzy Lizzy, and their superlative Grapefruit soda!)and some of us fall for this or that (but never, NEVER, for Blak- I like my coffee coffeeish).

But not every one of those can make it, though not all that fail are lousy (Good-O's West Indian Ginger Beer?  AWESOME!!!), and not all those that succeed taste of ambrosia (why, oh why, is there such a thing as Grape Soda?).  If, however, you're trying to pass a beverage off as natural, such an adjective just ISN'T ENOUGH!  Natural isn't satisfying on it's own... or IS it?

There's the question for Peeled Snacks- should we make a "natural product" (i.e. use ingredients without sulfites) simply because there's a market, even though it might taste bad or look bad or, you know, just BE bad?  Is "natural" and end, or a justifiable means?  Usually around here, we find dub it a GOAL, but that's not the same as saying it's a product.  The destination requires the journey, and so far, Peeled Snacks' journey has, technically, been an unnatural one.

But believe me, we taste a HECK of a lot better than Blue Sky Jamaican Ginger Ale...

An ode to the Blue Sky thugs knocking on my door:

No you can't come in,

you can't, I won't let you, you'll pound on my chin.

No, I won't open the door,

I won't, I can't, because you'll pound me to the floor.

Sorry, the door stays locked.

I've bolted and latched it, and with the couch in front it's blocked

No chance, you can't have the key.

I know that you'll use it, come in here, and then beat me.

Don't try the fire escape.

I've pterydactyls guarding it, and coated it with soda (GRAPE!)

There's no asking my Landlord.

I already paid my bill this month, so my cache with him has soared.

And don't bother with the windows.

I've set laser beams and booby traps...

...I really wouldn't mess with those. 

But should you try to come in here,

worst of all, for you I've got in hand,

a case of Blue Sky Jamaican Ginger Ale,

the nastiest of nasties in all the land... 

So there! 

Hello? 

Blue Sky Gangster men?

Where did you GO?!?!

Another great Peeled Snacks HIT...

Happy drinking... 

Posted by iankusc at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Turn on the radio. Turn it to any station, either talk radio or otherwise.  Listen.  What are they speaking about?  What kind of songs are being sung?  Is Kofi Annan's final speech as head of the UN on everyone's lips?  Or perhaps the tumbling value of the dollar?  Or perhaps the success of wacko Mel Gibson's latest subtitled violence-fest?

No. right now what's on everyone's lips is CHRISTMAS!

Usually around the office here we play a college radio station (WFUV, Fordham U's station) known for its eclectic programming.  Today, though, about half the songs are Xmas themed.  Personally I don't care one way or another- just like summer blockbusters, Xmas songs come once a year, do their thing, and then thankfully disappear till next year.  Our esteemed president, however, HATES Xmas songs.

And she has some reason too- a sure-fire way for a musician to make LONG-term residuals is to record a Christmas album.  They make bank because they sell for years and years.  As a kid, I played my "Christmas in the Stars" LP (a Star Wars Xmas extravaganza!) till to grooves wore down to dust.  Xmas means money- LOTS of money.  And indeed, it means money for Peeled Snacks.  But what does all THAT mean for our culture and civilization?

Nothing too flattering, I'm afraid.  Black Friday gives way to Cyber Monday, gives way to crowded checkout-lines throughout December, gives way to empty bank accounts come January, which surely does make the economy flow.  But I find it a little disconcerting just how many businesses stay in the black thanks to the yuletide season.  We have a whole month dedicated to consumption.  What a strange spirit, this spirit of Christmas...

Though, in all fairness, with our Peeled Snacks Gift Boxes doing super-business online, and gobs of them are now being gobbled up (or anticipating being soon gobbled as under the fir trees they wait).  Peeled Snacks is taking great pleasure in the true spirit of Christmas, even as we wince each and every time Band-Aid's "Do they know it's Christmas?" plays.

A Christmas Poem...

This year, I won't be celebrating Christmas in Hollis,

Because Mariah Carey wants me too much.

In Africa, a lot of them know it's Christmas,

But probably not in Darfur, or Chad, or Somalia, and such.

I just heard Weird Al sing about Lynwood. 

Weird Al once sang about Christmas at Ground Zero.

But in spite of Winter, the Cold War is over,

and therefore, people think Reagan is a hero. 

If you want Christmas tunes with grit & with teeth,

I beg you consider "Fairy Tale in New York."

It's by the Irish band the Pogues,  who rock real hard.

And there aren't any Christmas tunes by Bjork.

Tunes abound this time of year

that pull your heart strings and make your eyes tear.

But if I have to hear "Baby Please Come Home" one more time,

I'll end up guilty of a VERY violent crime!

Merry Xmas... 

Posted by iankusc at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This past weekend, we here at Peeled Snacks World Headquarters took a little field trip to go see Richard Linklater's newest gab-fest, Fast Food Nation.  We've all obviously read the book (vigorously nodding our heads in agreement at every page turn), and we'd all seen at least SOME (I've seen them all) of Richard Linklater's flicks.  So we all hid our Peeled Snacks in our jackets (BBC for me), found our seats in one the 3 New York theaters still playing the film (it's done poorly), and took in the show.

What would you expect from a fictionalization of a non-fiction expose', huh?  Would you expect characters barraging you with facts and figures, and the villification of dastardly Fast Food Executives?  I went in expecting some tirades and polemics, and angry characters shaking their fists at every golden arch past which they drove.  I expected to see secrets exposed, and society shaken up by some anti-french-fry revolution....

Nope.  Nothing in the film like that.  Nothing at all....

Where the book is a disclosure of what's going on in an industry run amok, the film is a different bird entirely.  It's not a documentary, and not "info-tainment".  Rather, it's a humanization, an attempt to analyze the impact that the fast food industry has on people.  Linklater's film casts a wide net which catches up Fast Food execs, Mexican immigrants, idealistic liberals, conservative ranchers, jaded teenagers, and regular American families, and he tries to paint the impact of an unscrupulous McDonalds clone on their lives.

The film centers around a Colorado meat packing plant and the discovery by a fast food exec (nicely underplayed by Greg Kinnear) that there's quite a lot of cow poop in his "Big One Burger" meat.  He investigates, rubbing shoulders with the illegal immigrants who work the plant, poor families who eat the crappy burgers, and college kids who just can't find a way to wake people up to how aweful this all is.

Linklater's made this sort of film before.  The film's scope mirrors Dazed & Confused, which meanders through the last day of high school in a Texas suburb in 1977.  That film was filled with archetypes from everyone's high school days, and it asked you to find YOURSELF in the film, and think about where you were on that day.  It was like a Japanese Tosa painting where you're supposed to figure out who you'd be in the panorama.

Unfortunately, that makes the "disaster films" of the 70s its closest film cousins.  But the effect worked for me- I associated with an uncle (played by Linklater regular Ethan Hawke) who rolls into town and tries to inspire his niece to set high standards for her life (and diet).  As a marketer for, you know, this healthy snack company thing, I'm certainly eager to inspire good dietary decisions (and, apprently, good film-watching decisions as well).

But there's a strange rub in there- the most common target in the film isn't the meat processing plant (though it does come under fire), but the marketers who have to sell the crap that the plant churns out.  Greg Kinnear's character wrestles with the ethics of selling burgers filled with sh!t, even though he combs through chemical BBQ scents and thinks up BS slogans for a BS-filled burger.

But "liberal" marketing gets attacked too.  Bruce Willis pops in as a fellow Fast Food exec who defends the meat packing plant, pointing out that if you cook fecal matter, it won't kill you.  He challenges the prissy, sterilized notions of liberal foodies, and informs our sullen hero that "sometimes, we all have to eat a little sh!t."  Willis nails his delivery, and skewers the films supposedly liberal premise.

Likewise, when the college kids dream up a scheme to wake everyone up to how wrong it all is, they just can't understand why no-one gets the point.  There's an unsubtle allegory involving a bunch of cows NOT wanting to be freed from their captivity "get it?  The HERD doesn't WANT to be free...", and the puzzlement on the co-eds faces reminded me of the morning after George Bush got ellected the second time around ("you mean people really ARE that stupid?!?!").

A lot of pot-shots are taken at America today, from the abuse of eminent domain to the patriot act, from the illegal immigrant question to metha-emphetamine abuse, and all of it underscores Linklater's clear goal of using the Fast Food industry as a symbol of over-arching societal ills.  He's taking on exploitation, but is perhaps more concerned with apathy in the face of exploitation (see Borat).  Frankly he's attacking every marketer everywhere, and every schmoe that buys our stupid little spiels.

To that end, it really shouldn't be "Fast Food Nation: the Movie", it should be "Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: the Movie"- Sinclair's novel coaxed the federal government into overhauling the meat packing industry, but that wasn't Sinclair's target.  He was aiming for the impact on the PEOPLE in the industry, not the cuts of meat.  Linklater doesn't care about the statistics- he just wants you to understand the human cost.

That take on the material actually rubbed Peeled Snacks' founder and president quite wrong.  She found the film rather pointless, and was let down by the lack of any call to action (beyond a request to go to www.participate.net that played over the closing credits).  Likely many viewers expecting a rallying cry will be similarly dissappointed.  But it's a film, not a protest, and it works best as drama, not revolution.

Posted by iankusc at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)