Last week the Holiday season bug bit me hard, as I’m craving all of my favorite holiday foods (Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years). Thank goodness tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

Salivate with me if you will…

Snacks & Appetizers

• Summer sausage, cheese (cheddar, swiss & mozzarella) & crackers (Keebler Club & Town House). And toss in a cheese ball for good measure.
• Deviled eggs. Is there a more tasty, more addictive food that’s not that good for you? I could eat deviled eggs.
• Ham roll ups. My mom has made these for years, usually on New Years Eve.
• Ham salad on tiny pumpernickel bread. Addicting for some reason.

The Main Course

• Turkey and dressing (and possibly stuffing if I’m in the mood). Good tender, juicy & moist turkey with that awesome aroma.
• Spiral sliced, glazed ham. Need I say more?
• Mashed potatoes. The real thing with plenty of butter. Topped with gravy or noodles or just plain, it’s all good.
• Rolls. Warm and soft also with plenty of butter.
• Cranberry Sauce. Yes, I like the stuff that comes out of a can. But if you want to whip your own up, knock me out.

Treats

• Pumpkin pie. I’m not sure what it is about pumpkin pie, but it just hits the spot. And that’s even after being in a pumpkin pie eating contest last year.
• Peanut butter fudge. Truly tasty.
• Bourbon balls. For some reason Jack Daniels laced chocolate treats hit the spot, even for non-drinkers. In the “liquor foods” category these have to be right up there with rum cake and bread pudding (with rum soaked raisins).
• Buckeyes. These aren’t something that are a common staple at functions that I attend, but when I find some you’ll know I’ll dig in.
• Cheap “holiday cookies”. You know what I’m talking about. The box or bag of colored sugar coated cookies that you can pick up for a buck at any grocery store. These aren’t the best thing in the world, but they bring back childhood memories, as my grandma always seemed to have these around. Eat them with a cup of coffee and they suddenly seem a bit more fancy.
• Mint M&M’s. I am so disappointed that these are a seasonal item, but rest assured, there’s an extremely good chance you’ll find a bag of these in my house well into the next fall. Last year I think I bought about a dozen bags and have just now broken into my last one since they’re on the shelves again. (Tip: store these in the refrigerator or freezer.)

So, what makes your personal favorites list? I left a lot of options off of the list, so please chime in.

 

This ad is from the coupon section found in the Sunday Indianapolis Star in November 2007.  For some reason Thanksgiving ads don’t seem to get much attention as everyone is eager to roll out the Christmas ads the moment Halloween is over.  That said, there wasn’t that wide of a selection to choose from.  But there are numerous Christmas ones showing up (which I promise not to post until after Thanksgiving).

Last year I said that I’d probably cut back on my “endless shrimp” consumption at Red Lobster this year. Well, I was wrong…

We headed down to Red Lobster a few weeks ago for the fourth year in a row and I kicked my personal “best” up to 82 shrimp this year. I could have eaten more but everyone else was bored of watching me eat, so I stopped while I still felt good (and before I got left at the restaurant).

For those of you wondering what the “trick” is to eating that many shrimp (and a salad and biscuits) AND to not feel miserable afterwards, it’s really quite simple. Here’s what I did this year…

1. Ate some Slyders the night before. I think that those bad boys are the key to an iron stomach…if you can handle 7 or 8 of those puppies , you can handle anything. (Side note: while they are small, that’s really twice as many as I’d suggest eating at one time.)
2. Started the day off with a small “meal”…just some bread.
3. Had a sandwich for lunch.
4. Didn’t drink a whole lot at dinner.
5. Ate mostly Shrimp Scampi. You don’t have the breading that comes with fried shrimp and the garlic butter helps.

So there you have it. And I can’t take all of the credit as I’ve watched too many “competitive eating” events this year and have gained tips here and there (thanks to ESPN for thinking that eating is really a sport).

And a word of personal advice. If you start to feel uncomfortable, you’ve already had too much and should really stop eating. It’s really not worth it to needlessly feel sick to your stomach and you won’t enjoy shrimp much for a while after that. Just trust me on this one and don’t do it.

So what will next year hold? I’m making no predictions since I’m obviously not too good at that. But you can be sure that my goal won’t be a number, but rather not feeling bad afterward and truly enjoying my feast of shrimp.

So when is the 2008 Valentines Day candy going to appear? I’m having a hankering for Sweet Tart Hearts and buying over priced flowers, aren’t you?

OK, I’m being a little sarcastic (maybe not about the candy part), but is it just me or are the retailers truly pushing out the various “holiday” merchandise much quicker than before? I began to see “back-to-school” supplies in early July (presumably to make way for the upcoming “seasonal” items), Halloween costumes and candy in late August (at both Target and Wal-Mart) and Christmas merchandise in mid-September (at Target and I’d assume the same at Wal-Mart and other similar retailers). Then in yesterday’s paper I saw Halloween and Christmas items in the Kohl’s ad on the same page. (Apparently fall/harvest/Thanksgiving is all lumped together with Halloween.)

Being a “marketing type” and knowing that Halloween and Christmas merchandise are both huge money makers for retailers, I can understand why you’d want these items in front of customers as long as possible. But it’s a little creepy looking at graveyards, skeletons, zombies, mummies, witches, werewolves, vampires, bats, rats, spiders and disembodied heads in crystal balls while hearing Bing Crosby singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in the background. But maybe it’s just me…

This ad is from the coupon section found in the Sunday Indianapolis Star in October 2007.   Simple, nice use of color, and most importantly, it’s going to “save” me a dollar.  (I ran out of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups today, so it’s time to restock.)

I must admit that the competitive eating circuit intrigues me a bit (and sort of disgusts me at the same time).

With that said, I am happy to see Major League Eater Joey Chestnut beat reigning champion Takeru Kobayashi AND set a new hot dog record (66 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes) in the 2007 Nathan’s 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. (Apparently Kobayashi had a “reversal of fortune” but was credited with 63 hot dogs.)

How gluttony became a sport AND entertainment is beyond me, but I must say that I’d prefer to watch that over any reality program.

[Photo courtesy of and copyright held by Chris Chin -- Thank you, thank you, thank you!]

Don’t you love the “new” shape of Trix?

If either of these were your first thought, you’re showing your age a bit…

1. What new shape? Are they a different size or something?
2. The old (round) shape is now the “new” shape?

As a kid in the 80’s and early 90’s I loved Trix and ate them all of the time, but when they went to their “new” shapes back in 1992 (fruit shapes like berries and bananas) I stopped eating them because they just didn’t taste the same (even though they claimed they did).

So, while at the grocery store a few weeks ago I spotted a box of Trix that stated “New Shape! Same Great Taste!”. Noticing that the “new” shape was the old round shape, I had to pick up a box to see if the “new” shape also had the same “new” taste of fifteen years prior. To my delight, the old Trix are indeed back and I downed a box myself in a week.

My guess is that some Gen-Xer got into General Mills and convinced them that the way it used to be was indeed better and thus the old shape was back in. And if that is the case, I’d like to know who it was and to thank them personally.

As far as the taste goes, is is possible that they are indeed using the exact same recipe but that the shape and texture determines how we perceive the taste? I know that there are certain textures of foods that I can’t stand (like tapioca), so maybe that is the case. Oh, and color wise, I think that they are still a bit brighter than the previous round shape, but I don’t have a picture of the old ones to prove that.

Bottom line, don’t mess with a good thing and don’t mess with my Trix again! Sometimes you just need to relive those kinds of childhood memories.

Who hasn’t been disappointed with food that looks great in an advertisement, yet doesn’t quite live up to expectations? Well, this pictorial page confirms what we already knew about the look of the food.

Now if only there were a way to do the same thing with the taste of the food…as my least “favorite” restaurant says, “Everyone Deserves a Good Meal.” Now if only they (and many others) could only deliver on that promise the world would be a better place.

Luckily Yats! never disappoints and I’m salivating at the thought as I type this. It may not be “pretty”, but boy do they have some fine Cajun/Creole food at an excellent price.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m not typically a “picky eater”? I’ll try most anything (reasonable) at least once, with the exception of the non-starchy vegetables, and I actively seek out non-chain eateries. I think I’ll have to blog my list of local eats some day. Until then, parents, don’t let your children eat crappy food. And please don’t subject your friends and family to it either. That just wouldn’t be nice.

Apparently my oldest son really likes Marshmallow Peeps heads…

…either that, or they looked at him funny.

I was recently over at a friends house and we decided that we wanted to make some nachos, but all of the ingredients were not on hand. So we hopped in his car and he headed to a certain foreign based discount supermarket chain. While not my first choice (or any choice at all) for purchasing meat, I did find the signage interesting.

Above the ground beef it said:

80% Fresh Ground Beef

At this point I’m pleading with him to at least get the 97% Fresh Ground Beef, as it would be easier to stomach 3% of whatever the non-fresh ground beef consisted of. I’m standing there thinking, out loud of course, what in the world could that 3 or 20 % consist of. In a “regular” grocery store that would often refer to the amount of fat in the beef (97% lean for example), but was that the case here. Of course, I wasn’t going to take the time to actually read the label and my mind began on a journey of its own.

Was the other part rancid ground beef? I’d heard of such practices before with meat and dairy. Maybe it was ground turkey or pork? Maybe it was soy? Or maybe it was something else entirely? I don’t know, but I wondered and I was praying for it to be fat. Juicy, greasy, slimy cow fat.

So we got back and made the nachos and they tasted okay and I don’t believe that any of us got sick from it. But maybe we were the lucky ones and someone else walked away with our portion of “other”. Again, I don’t know and didn’t care to read the label.

Other than that, I will say to stay away from the generic Swiss Cake Rolls/Ho Hos and to spend an extra quarter or two for the real thing. You’ll thank me for it later, trust me.

Last week I won lunch for 15-20 people from Chipotle just for dropping my business card in their “fish bowl”. So yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch (a $140.29 lunch at that)…and no, we’re not going to count the minuscule cost of printing the business card, the previous trip for dinner and the gas to drive there since these are things that really have no bearing on free lunch (I would have done all of these regardless).

So thanks guys! It was tasty as always.

So this year the damage was 35 Shrimp Scampi, one order of Popcorn Shrimp & one order of Shrimp Pasta (I mainly picked out the shrimp and brought the pasta home for leftovers) along with a salad and biscuits. I still feel like an American glutton, but I feel much better than I did after last year. Next year I’ll probably cut it back to 25 Shrimp Scampi, but we’ll see…because they are so tasty and just slide down so easily.

I ordered the Sauerbraten (beef, not horse*) which was interesting with the initial apple butter type taste with a bite of vinegar at the end. Tasty and different than anything I had ever had before, but I’ll probably try something different if I manage to get back there. For dessert I had the bread pudding with whiskey sauce which was also tasty (which I found funny to see it listed on the kids menu as well…sure, it’s cooked out, but that caught me as funny).

If you’re into beer, it looked like they had quite a selection, but that’s not an area which I can offer much critique (I have found a few beers that I can tolerate, but it is not my drink of choice). And speaking of my drink of choice, they only offer Pepsi products, so not having Coca-Cola available is my only real complaint (I did the Dew which isn’t my favorite, but it is better than Pepsi).

My verdict is, if you want good German food and don’t want to fight with a crowd on the weekend (not during their special events though), give them a visit. Price wise, it was a little expensive ($15-$16 for most dinners plus drink ($1.50), dessert ($4) and tip), but for the cuisine I don’t have anything to compare it to, so that may be normal. And I love to support local eateries, so what are a few extra bucks for something different than the major chain restaurants?

* And no, they do not offer horse meat…at least that I saw…but traditionally that’s what was/is used. (I know that we sell horse meat to foreign countries, but I’m not sure that you even legally serve it to humans in the States. And I don’t really care to know so I’m not even going to search to find out.)