i was really hungry.

contrary to what, well… a lot of people seem to think, yorkie bars are not made with ingredients that will make you grow a beard. they ARE for girls, boys, and the transgendered! they’re delicious, and they’re for everyone. i got this raisin and biscuit yorkie from the international food aisle at meijer the other day. it’s the most amazing chocolate that $1.29 can buy.

the original yorkie is a chunk-style solid milk chocolate bar from nestle-rowntree in the UK. other varieties include the above pictured raisin biscuit, and honeycomb. i have heard of a mythical white chocolate yorkie, but haven’t been able to confirm this. can anyone confirm this?

yorkie’s “it’s not for girls” slogan has been criticized and called disgusting and sexist, but in 2006 there was a yorkie wrapped in pink that WAS for girls!! yorkie also once upon a time released a “hot rum flavor” bar called HOT STUFF, and while i personally have never tried it, several sources on the internet say it tastes like paint. i guess hot rum yorkies aren’t for anyone.

i love a giant stack of homemade pancakes just as much as the next person, but organic pancake batter from an aerosol can is somehow more exciting. i admit i was sucked in by the novelty of batter blaster and its sickeningly cute and catchy jingle, but i’m glad i was.

pancakes aren’t that hard to make to begin with since the 1890 invention of pancake mix, but batter blaster reaches a whole new level of laziness! …but sometimes (like in the case of delicious pancakes from an aerosol can) it’s okay to be lazy.

the steps for using batter blaster are quite simple:

1. SHAKE the batter blaster can.

2. BLAST batter blaster onto hot pan or griddle sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or greased with oil/butter to desired size. an 18 oz. can of batter blaster makes approximately 28 4-inch pancakes. blast batter more slowly for thin, crepe-like pancakes. you can also make waffles with this brilliant invention and your waffle iron.

3. COOK pancake until it’s done and doesn’t suck. i burnt my first one but the second one was light, golden, and fluffy.

4. eat delicious pancakes

clean-up is even easier - just rinse off the nozzle! batter blaster is a lazy pancake-eater’s dream come true. the rest of the world is singing the praises of batter blaster, too:

“Anyway- there was Batter Blaster- appearing in the refrigerator case like a vision from the Lord- I swear I heard trumpets- The kids have sprayed up a big ol’ platter of pancakes this morning and pronounced them goo-ood. I am going back to Meier today to buy every damn can they have- and I intend to try and order a case- everybody on my list is getting Batter Blaster and organic maple syrup for Christmas. Screw that peanut brittle.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sara P.”

i agree with this portion of sarah’s review from the batter blaster site. batter blaster is a WAY better christmas gift than peanut brittle (especially for people who are allergic to peanuts.) get your christmas shopping done early with a case of batter blaster!!

watch the batter blaster ad with jingle guaranteed to live in your brain for many years to come:

what does the future hold for batter blaster? sean o’connor, inventor of batter blaster, has said that he is already testing other recipes such as strawberry batter blaster, blueberry batter blaster, and an aerosol brownie batter.

i have spent the day researching the mcflurries of the world so you don’t have to!

the new blueberry and oreo mcflurry at mcdonald’s japan. according to the mcdonald’s japan site, this came out TODAY, 8/8/08. ! i am excited for all the japanese people!

also seen in japan, but sadly discontinued, is the green tea and oreo mcflurry. apparently this still exists in korea so… get to korea, quick!

the cadbury creme egg mcflurry, found in the UK and canada around easter has chocolate pieces with a yellow fondant icing.

the cadbury mini egg mcflurry is too good to be true. its made with ice cream swirled with crushed cadbury mini eggs. i eat bags of these every easter. like really, bags. and bags. it is sick. i would FREAK OUT in the UK, running around from one mcdonald’s to another eating mini egg mcflurries like a crazed chicken with its head cut off. some day..

in finland, mcflurries made with daim can be found. daim is a candy native to sweden, norway, denmark, finland (and all united states IKEA stores…) that features a milk chocolate outside and a crunchy, almondy, carmely inside. if you live in finland you can also eat this licorice mcflurry:

however, if you lived in finland you would likely call it a lakritsi mcflurry, lakritsi being the finnish word for liquorice. mcdonald’s finland formerly carried a marianne mcflurry, made with crushed fazer marianne candy- a mint hard candy filled with chocolate, and a gingerbread-chocolate mcflurry.

smarties, which are much like M&Ms, can be found in their flurry form in austria, canada, finland, germany, greece, china, ireland, italy, malta, spain, sweden, taiwan, and the UK. in the czech republic, smarties are known only as “lentilky.” M&Ms replace smarties in most other countries. mcflurries in portugual and france are made with peanut M&Ms.

the cadbury wispa mcflurry is being served for a limited time only at mcdonald’s in the UK from july 30th 2008, to september 30th 2008 in celebration of the permanent relaunch of the cadbury wispa. the wispa is a chocolate bar that was discontinued in 2003, brought back temporarily in 2007, and discontinued yet again! the wispa bar is scheduled to permanently relaunch october 6th, 2008 in the UK and ireland, with other limited edition varieties being launched alongside it including wispa mint, wispa gold (caramel), wispa bite (biscuit and caramel filling), and a wispa with coffee flavored filling called the “wispaccino”.

photo orginally uploaded by Straußer on flickr

the nestle milo mcflurry pictured above has been seen in countries such as australia, new zealand, and malaysia. milo is a malted milk beverage mix similiar to nesquick or ovaltine but…not. (although greece apparently has the pleasure of having a nesquick mcflurry.) milo comes in the form of a powder, cereal, chocolate bars, premixed in cans, and mcflurries!

the lucky people of italy are eating BACI MCFLURRIES. baci is italian for “kiss”, and is also the name of an italian dark chocolate with a hazelnut filling. i was not really sure what the hell a fondente mcflurry was but 2 minutes of research tells me that fondente is chocolate. i guess that’s all there is to it. an italian chocolate mcflurry.

the milka cherry mcflurry is native to germany and austria.

norway is home to the non stop mcflurry. i am going to go out on a limb and say that non stops are a chocolate candy with a sugar coating similar to m&ms and smarties. norway is also home to the oboy mcflurry, a mcflurry made with oboy chocolate drink mix.

i think these cornetto mcflurries come from malaysia and the UK. cornettos are frozen ice cream cones, similar to the american drumstick. these mcflurries are made from ice cream and crushed cornettos!

mexican mcdonald’s carried (or maybe still carries?) the chips ahoy mcflurry, crumbled chocolate chip cookies swirled into ice cream.

i am physically tired of looking at mcflurries. there are way more than i ever dreamed. this is not even all of them! i just couldn’t stand looking at them anymore.

*mcflurries are a registered trademark of mcdonald’s

on saturday, chris and i went to earthen jar in ann arbor. it is a buffet-style vegetarian restaurant. i think it used to be a house. you can fill up a box or a plate with stuff and it is $4.99 per pound. also if you are the environmentally friendly type, you can bring your own plate, or use one of the reusable plates they have in the restaurant. when you are done, you have to wash it yourself at the sink in the back. i didn’t read the sign until after i had sat down with my big paper box or i would have been SO ready to wash dishes.

earthen jar’s menu is primarily composed of indian food, but there a few other things mixed in, like the most delicious vegetable lasagna to ever grace the earth. there was some woman standing RIGHT in front of it for like seriously five minutes straight though. she would not move. i just wanted lasagna. she just wanted to stand there and keep me from eating delicious lasagna.

every time i go to earthen jar i run into the problem that there are only 3 spaces in the box and approximately 300 things that i want to eat. i stack food on top of food and sneak little tiny spoonfuls of stuff into corners and crevices so that i can try everything. sometimes it makes the food taste funny because it all lays on top of eachother and runs together, but i just can’t stop and get a little out of control because everything looks so good. it’s hard to quit and i am sad that the box is only so big.

anyways, we ate 4 pounds of food combined, washed down with an almond cardamom somethingorother lassi. a lassi is a spiced indian yogurt drink. they also have a soy version for vegans or the lactose intolerant. the man warned us that it was spicy. i accidentally ate a bite of a green chile last week, so my spice tolerance officially knows no boundaries. it was not spicy.

there is more food hidden under the food you see here.

i’m not too sure of what i actually ate because i forgot to look at the signs, but going sort of cock-eyed clockwise starting with the creamed corn, is some type of lentil thing, a chickpea salad of sorts, a bean salad of sorts, basmati rice with some other lentil thing hidden underneath it, a yellow lentil thing, broccoli in amazing yellow..stuff, vegetable lasagna to give up your first born child for, and collard greens and spinach sneaked in underneath.

chris is not a ravenous freak like me when it comes to the buffet, so his box is more normal and he only put the appropriate amount of food in each cube.

you should eat here, ok? but not on a sunday because they are closed:(

earthen jar - 311 s. fifth ave, ann arbor, MI

i have (sadly) never been to japan, nor did i take this picture, but i am nauseatingly jealous of whoever did. they ate a CHOCOLATE PIE AT MCDONALD’S IN JAPAN. my eyes would fall out of their sockets in disbelief put in a similar situation. generally i think mcdonald’s is a bad idea, but not when you’re in japan and they’re serving chocolate pie!! chocolate pie is never a bad idea. you could eat ten of these little triangle shaped pies and only spend 1000 yen because they are on the 100 yen menu! i am excited about the fact that such a thing exists. i hope that one day i can order from a 100 yen menu. also from mcdonald’s japan is a chestnut pie, properly a “marron” pie, and you can scan the packaging with your super fancy technologically advanced japanese cell phone to have nutritional data for the pie sent directly to your phone. are you serious?!

really!! seriously!!!!!!!!

i know i have been missing in action for like, three weeks now, but here i am! the other day (aka saturday july 19th which was approximately 14 days ago…which is not really considered “the other day” anymore at this point) on the way to the national hamburger festival (you heard me right!! i will tell you more about it later), i stopped at the historic westside market in cleveland. i had never seen anything like it. there was an open air area called “the fruit and vegetable arcade”, and yes, it was fun and exciting like an arcade except with more apples and bananas and less pinball and DDR. there was SO much produce. i have never been in the same room as that much produce in my entire life. i don’t think i have ever even been surrounded by that much produce at one time in a 10 mile radius in all directions! EVER.

a man contemplating some fruit

there was an indoor building also with aisles full of different vendors selling spices, sauces, fresh pork, beef, poultry, beans, chocolates, popcorn, crepes, coffee, tea, baked goods, ravioli, pizza bagels, sandwiches, 100 flavors of pierogi (!?!?!) and more! someone was also selling lamb hearts which is, well… kinda creepy.

i ate the first pasty of my life!! i bought it from some pasty lady. it was a vegan vegetable pasty. it was good, but missing something. like cheese. i think pasties (really) need some. i am not sure if other pasties come with cheese by default, but i think the reason mine had none is because it was a vegan pasty and, well, vegans don’t eat cheese.

i also got the most delicious sweet potato pie i’ve ever eaten. it was all wrapped up in saran wrap and i made the mistake of putting it in my purse. it turned into sweet potato mush, but i ate it anyways because it was too good not to.

my oh my, delicious sweet potato pieeeeeee

and last but not least…

if you ever go to cleveland i recommend going to the westside market, even if just for this wonderful (creepy) photo opportunity. not every day do you get to take a picture of a giant bin full of lamb hearts.

yesterday was one of the rare occasions that chris was home from work, so we got to eat a lunch special!! lunch specials are typically cheaper AND tastier than anything you could ever order for dinner.

we went to hope’s fish and chips in livonia for their $5.95 clam chowder and fish sandwich. it was around 2 o’clock, and we were the only ones there. all the employees were at a table in the back playing a game of dice.

out came our clam chowder!! it was not as chowder-y as i expected. it was less chowdery and more soupy. however, my prior experience with any type of chowder is very limited. the only other clam chowder i’ve ever eaten (unfortunately) came from a can, but chris had never eaten clam chowder PERIOD so i felt like some kind of a chowder master. either way, i can safely say it was the best chowder i’ve ever eaten.

our fish sandwiches came out. they were very simple: a white hamburger bun likely from a bag, and a single piece of greasy fish. but slathered in tartar sauce, they were (very, very) good!!!

after our $5.95 chowder and sandwich, we went next door to the GM paris bakery. its a polish bakery that is packed on paczki day, but i had never been there on a regular, non-paczki day. a paczki (poonch-key) is basically a giant, fried jelly donut that packs in approx 500 calories and 30-40 grams of fat. they are eaten once a year on fat tuesday, the day before ash wednesday, for anyone who is unaware. if you want to die, you might eat several paczkis throughout the day. another source on the internet states that eating two paczkis is equivalent to eating five slices of bread, a half cup of custard, and six tablespoons of shortening.

anyways, it was not fat tuesday so no paczki eaters were in the bakery, and we bought these cupcakes. they were upside down! i am easily excited by stupid things like upside down cupcakes, so i flipped out! wowowow! we got two, one chocolate and one… red. it wasn’t really strawberry and it wasn’t really cherry, or anything else, but it was SO GOOD, and red. the yellow cake was rolled in red jelly stuff and coconut and it had a swirl of white frosting with globby red delicious stuff in the middle! the chocolate one was a chocolate cupcake spread with frosting and rolled in oreo crumbs, with an oreo on top! AHHHH!

finally i stopped freaking out about upside down cupcakes, and went home. next time i make cupcakes, they sure as hell aren’t going to be right side up.

the C & Y chinese restaurant in cleveland, ohio, better known as the chinese restaurant from ‘a christmas story’, has closed its doors for good. the christmas story house website says only this:

C & Y Chinese Restaurant Has Closed

the last time i was in cleveland i went to the christmas story house (which is now open to the public for tours) and i was lucky enough to sample eggrolls from the restaurant. unfortunately the owners were out of town on their annual trip to china, so the restaurant was not open for business and i did not get to go. they were the most delicious egg rolls in the universe, and now they are gone forever.

no more egg rolls:(

i have always planned to go back to cleveland and eat at the C&Y chinese restaurant. i guess i waited too long. this should serve as a lesson to everyone to not put things off or you will regret it and end up wih no egg rolls. go out and seize the day!!

a happy reunion

The Food and Drug Administration today lifted its warning on raw tomatoes, eliminating one culprit from an ongoing salmonella outbreak that remains as unexplained as ever. - new york times

i just ate tomatoes on my sub at subway to celebrate. it has been a very long, sad, six weeks. what is the point of eating a sandwich without a tomato? i can eat tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches again!

eat tomatoes in your sandwich, eat tomatoes on your salad, eat whole tomatoes with your bare hands!!!

the other day chris and i went to the video store. he got a korean movie. i hate approximately 86.5% of movies so i did not watch it, but he watched it and in the movie, some korean person ate squid or a dumpling or… something else very korean. this chain of events indirectly led us to new seoul garden (!!!), a korean restaurant in southfield. we had never eaten korean food before except for some bad kimchi in a jar that i bought at meijer, and some okay kimchi on top of a hotdog deep fried with bacon, which is not-so-much korean… so going to new seoul garden was SUPER EXCITING!!

we walked inside and a korean lady took us down a long hallway to a strange sectioned off dining room. there was a traditional dining room with tables low to the ground and seating on the floor. unfortunately we did not get to sit at this table :’-(. the guy sitting next to me had a bunch of litttlllee tiny bowls full of different side dishes. i am a self-proclaimed lover of side dishes, and so immediately i knew i wanted what he had. i thought he had spent a lot of money getting so many little dishes. i admired his food from across the room and took a picture of it after he left.

we got hot tea. i still have no idea what kind of tea it was but i wish i knew. i’ve tasted many teas and it was not a tea i’ve ever tasted! it was like a genmaicha except stronger and sweeter. what was it!??!? i want more.

i ordered the haemool soba - stirfried buckwheat noodles with seafood and vegetables. i love buckwheat noodles. i could eat them from sunrise to sunset, day and night, forever and ever. this particular dish had scallops, shrimp, mushrooms even a mushroom hater would eat, and a delicious sauce. it also contained some big squiggly black things that i have eaten several times throughout the course of my life and still cannot figure out if they are a vegetable, or some kind of creepy sea-monster.

chris ordered the bibimbap - marinated beef, vegetables, and an egg on top of rice in a heated stone bowl with a hot sauce on the side. i accidentally touched the “heated stone bowl” and THEY WEREN’T KIDDING. that sucker was h-o-t. the sauce it came with was, i guess, some sort of red pepper paste with ..other stuff in it. like oils, and spices. every bibimbap sauce recipe i find is different. both of our meals came with a bowl of miso soup. it was not the best miso in the world, or anywhere near it, but it was not the worst, and it was edible. it came with a really really long spoon. since i knew virtually nothing about korean food, i did not know that koreans ate with really long spoons. further research tells me that “sujeo” is the word for the set of utensils used to eat korean food. the set includes long metal chopsticks and a spoon with a really long handle. sometimes just the spoon by itself is referred to as “sujeo.”

10 inch long spoon “sujeo” from kgrocer.com

AND THE BEST PART OF ALL - when our food came out, it came with eight tiny bowls!! the “side dish of the day” on the menu was really EIGHT SIDE DISHES. the clouds parted and the sun shined down, and a crowd cheered inside my head as they set down one by one, eight tiny bowls, right in front of my very own eyes! i didn’t even know what all of them were! but i loved them! each and evey one of them! i was jealous no more!

koreans are just as excited about side dishes as i am! they call them “banchan”. i still do not know what many of these particular side dishes are called since i still know almost nothing about korean food (but i am learning..), other than several of them are different types of kimchi, (or kimchee, or gimchi, depending on who you are.) one of them in the front is made with bean sprouts, the one in the back is some kind of dry-but-not-dried bean that tastes like grape juice (but i was the only one that could taste the grape juice…), the one in front of the glass was a pickled somethingorother, the green one was spinach or some other related green. the rest, i think, are various types of kimchi, but correct me if i’m wrong.

after we ate, and ate, and ate more and more, we were finally done. just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, they brought us a plate of watermelon!! all happy endings involve watermelon. our visit to seoul garden was wonderful and we all lived happily ever after. the end.