a conversation overheard between two dogs, one a west-coaster (Greeley), the other an east-coaster (Shenandoah), when they met at a Florida barbeque last week....

Shenandoah:   Hey Greeley!  Hey Greeley!  I remember you!  How you doing?

Greeley:  Hey Doah!  Good, good, how's your butt smell?... 

S: Not as good as yours, kid.  Hey, you smell that?

G:  Are boy-dogs all sons of bitches?  That smells like some grade A organic grass-fed hamburger!

S:  Smells like WHAT?  Whatchoo talking about Greeley?  What's Organic?

G:  You know, like, REAL.  Like, whoever grew that cow didn't stick it with, you know, chemicals and hormones and stuff.

S:  Chemicals?  They put chemicals in cows?  COOL!

G:  No way is that cool.  It's totally gross!

S:  Come on, Greeley- Chemicals are the way of the future!  In a few years, you and I could be super-dogs, thanks to chemicals!

G:  We ARE super-dogs, Shenandoah...

S:  SHHHHHH!  Anyway, I hope one day I get some chemicals stuck in me.

G:  Well what about hormones?  How would you like to be stuffed full of gunk that makes your muscles all swell and bloat?

S:  Would it make me more attractive to other dogs?

G:  NO!  It'd make you a sick disaster of science run amok!

S:  Greeley, I'm a dog.  I LIKE to run amok.  I LIVE to run amok...

G:  Hormones would turn you into a FREAK!

S:  They seem to have turned that cow into delicious meat!

G:  I said that the meat smells ORGANIC, not pumped full of hormones.

S:  How can you tell?

G:  Well back in California, everybody's cooking with that organic, grass-fed meat.

S:  SO?

G:  You can really tell the difference.

S:  SO?

G:  So it's better for you and tastier.

S:  So you'd turn down a steak that smelled like it had hormones?  Are you telling me that you, a DOG, would spurn a big hunk of hamburger just because it came from a hormone injected cow?

G:  Well, I'm a dog, so I probably couldn't help myself....

S:  Darn tootin!

G:  But I'd prefer a grass fed cow.  It's better?

S:  How?

G:  I don't know.  It just tastes better.

S:  I eat what I can get.  That's how we New York dogs so it- we eat what we can get, and we LOVE it!

G:  Well you New York dogs gotta wake up and smell the hormones.

S:  And you California dogs gotta wake up and smell any meat that you can smell, cause it's ALL good!

G:  True.  But....

S:  But?

G:  No, butt- that dog's butt.  Let's go sniff it.

S:  NOW you're talking! 

Posted by iankusc at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome home to New York- snow, sleet, chills, ice.... yet, it's still better than San Francisco's chill.  Here, at least, they shut the frickin' doors!

Can I say "frickin'" on the internet?  It'll have to read up on that.

Of all the many things that I miss from San Francisco, NUMERO UNO on the list is the Berkeley Bowl, with it's long aisles full of vegetables (organic or otherwise), or its butcher offering grassfed, meat from grass-fed cows who spent their afternoons dancing in the fields and only passed away when they were good and ready, nay, EAGER to feed the wealthy hippie carnivores of Berkeley. 

I come back to New York and trundle through my old grocery store (and I use the term VERY loosely), and I see the shoddly veggies haphazardly arrayed without any descriptors, demonstrating all the variety of a "Police Academy" sequel and the pricing of Tiffany's.  The "meat" aisle comes courtesy of Mr. Purdue (even the beef!), and I bristle at the cereal prices, none below $5.00 per box!

But I need to eat, right?  So I grab some mediocre veggies, some lousy boxed pasta, and some canned tomatoes, head home, and start cooking up.  Ask anyone that's eaten my spaghetti sauce and the worst you'll hear is "yeah, it's good."  The best will make you beg me to cook for you.  BEG!  So the veggies are chopped, the garlic diced, the oil hot, the tomatoes....

...packed with High Fructose Corn Syrup?!?!??!

Okay, that's comPLETELY insane.  When I buy canned tomatoes, I expect the ingredients to be:

tomatoes

I'm willing to put up with additions like "salt", or "water", or, if it's a particularly frisky company "love".  But CORN SYRUP?  That's a sure sign that whichever company made said canned tomatoes was significantly more concerned with profit than product.  And while I'm loathe to mention the name of the company, I will say that it's name rhymes with "Hell Jaunty".  Figure it out.

And never, EVER, buy their CRAP!  I'm so enraged that I fell for such a scam.  Tomato sauce companies like Ragu and Prego add Corn Syrup (in their organic lines, ORGANIC corn syrup.... welcome to the end of Western Civilization as we know it) in order to cut quarterly costs- if last Summer not enough soccer moms cashed in their Prego coupons, make them pay for it in useless calories courtesy of the cheapest crap around, government subsidized CORN SYRUP!

Sure, it's nice to see my friends again (though Ellen, I miss you three times over, my dear), and it's nice to be able to enjoy the fruits of the city once more (figurative, not literal).  But the food here?

Fuggeddabowdit!

TOMATO POETRY!!!! 

Dear tomato,

you're just not good enough at being a tomato 

though red you be, and sweet you taste,

riddled through and through with flavor,

destined for salad, sauce, or paste.

You're just not that Great-O

Tomat-O

The thing is, my plump, red friend,

that you cost three cents more per pound,

than our stock can bare this fiscal quarter's end.

Our accountants have come up with pricing that's sound.

You're just not that Hot-O

Tomat-O

Your friend from the field next door,

the one with pointy green stalks and yellow ears,

Will be taking your place in store.

No one'll know- we've been conditioning them for years.

One day they'll all Hate-O

Tomat-O 

Posted by iankusc at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

California treated us well, as demonstrated by my significantly enlarged girth.  So now I'm sitting here nestled back at the Peeled Snacks World Headquarters in New York City, thinking back upon my time in California.  Outside construction rumbles and traffic grumbles, and though the city is beset by a sweet, warm, Spring-like day, Winter's death-throws are just around the corner, full of sound and fury, and freezing rain.

California had no freezing rain.  Though I'm a little upset that this Winter I've seen NO snow (a first time for me), I can't help but miss the Californian relationship with weather.  Northern Californians take their weather as it comes, much like having to put up with a sometimes charming, sometimes annoying sibbling.  Southern Californians, on the other hand, deal only with the thermometer, if that.

Posted by iankusc at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Peeled Snacks California tour took a turn South last week as we pointed ourselves towards, beautiful, warm Los Angeles, which, in spite of its name, is angel free 40 years running.  The last angel there was run over by a car while trying to earn his wings by saving the soul of Edmund Brown, who went on to lose the Governorship of California to Reagan.  Things have sucked ever since.

It was a very eventful week, what with the Natural Foods Expo West going down in Anaheim, and all sorts of meetings with Lo-Cal-So-Cal foodies.  We walked the Anaheim show, because actually sitting in a stall gets boring.  Walking past all those companies'booths offering "the NEXT Omega 3" (or whatever neutraceutical they happened to be peddling) sometimes make me wonder if I'm in the wrong business. 

Tasting that crap, on the other hand, made me think, "yes, it's true, Peeled Snacks ROCKS!"

Touring the LA countryside makes me wonder what that landscape looked like before every square foot of it was covered with strip malls, highways, and aparment complexes.  It'd surely fry the eyeballs to see a before and after picture of Pasadena with the last 50 years in between the photos.  But then again, it fries the eyes looking at the city's heart breaking, bleeding heart colored sunsets (color courtesy of all those bloody cars.  Sigh).

Others surely have discussed the differences between Northern and Southern California, but I'll take up 3 important points before leaving it be...

1: Southern Californian buildings have heating units.  Why the more Southerly city has sounder thermostats, I'll never understand, but it certainly made mornings more pleasant.

2: Northern California has better food, better menus, and better grocery stores.  Gelson's is for safe food from big companies.  Guess you won't be finding Peeled Snacks there anytime soon.

3: Southern Californian 20 and 30-somethings are "hipper", and "hotter", but Northern Californians are better looking.  That is to say, look across West Hollywood and all those prancing Brangelina wannabees smile dashingly and flip their hair oh so perfectly.  But it's a LOT more fun to scope out the looks of the Mission District's denizens, or play "who's the Crunchiest?" in East Bay.  Weirdos entertain infinitely more than actor types.

Of California in general, I've this crass generalization to offer:

The Good:  The food is superb, the ingredients fresh, and the trends momentous

The Bad: The traffic is obscene, with cars everywhere, utterly heedless of the environment 

The Ugly: Mix the great food with the driving (and its implied lack of exercise) and you get an uglier me- I probably put on 10 pounds this trip.  YUCK!!!

More round-up soon.  I just gotta say some thank yous....

Thank you Jonathan and Ells for putting us up in your phat flat.  It was a delight....

Thank you Rena for sharing your home and your dog, who I miss VERY much...

Thank you Dana for showing us the sights, and being such a thoughful foodie...

Thank you Ellen for being such a fun friend, taking us to Skywalker Ranch, and putting up with your brother, who should call you more often...

And, most importantly, THANK YOU CASSIE, for keeping the ship running so smoothly while we were wandering Westward.  You TRULY rock....

Ian, Peeled not quite so skinny.... 

Posted by iankusc at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)