The California State Fair: People Watching that Moves You!

California has a massive state fair, so massive that just being a state fair isn't enough. Every year it has to have a theme. This year's theme was "Fun That Moves You", which seemed pretty unnecessary because as far as I'm concerned, no one I know actually goes to the state fair for 'fun'. We go for two main things, to eat so much food that we nearly die, and to judge strangers as they eat so much food that they almost die.

So, with our agenda set, we started out for the California State Fair on six dollars night. We were hoping cheap ticket night would attach prime people-watching material, only to find out that people go to the California State Fair not just to see, but to be seen. I was deeply disappointed by the amount of updos, and sleek dresses. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of XXL Micky Mouse shirts and fanny packs to go around, but I wasn't wading ankle deep in dirty screaming children. Wait. Am I complaining about that right now?

On to the food. I don't remember where I first heard this, but I've had a lot of people tell me that no one should eat more than two hot dogs a month. I didn't know why, but I figured, since everyone seemed to know it, so it must be true. I found an article online that said eating a hot dog is the equivalent to smoking a cigarette. I guess it makes sense; you tend to really crave both when you're stressed out, and if you have one at a kid's party, you're instantly racked with guilt. The American Institute for Cancer Research produced a study that suggested eating a hot dog a day could increase your chance of colon cancer by over 20%. All that being said, I really, really wanted a hot dog.

And they're not hard to find at a state fair. But I didn't want some plain jane chili dog, or a hot dog on a stick. This was the State Fair. I needed something special. Like a hot dog wrapped in a doughnut. 

Yeah. A maple glazed doughnut cut in half and stuffed with a hot dog for $5.75. That was exactly what I was looking for. As we were ordering, a little girl came up behind us and read the sign "'Doughnut Dog?' GROSS!" and then ran away. I feel like that was fate giving me one last chance to turn back, but the food truck guy had already gone out back to get the doughnut out of his trailer, so I felt obligated to stay.

Seen here, being modeled by Mike, it was actually a pretty good dog, but the mix of frosting and  tubed meat was kind of gross. And the doughnut, which was probably fried early in the morning, was extremely stale by 7pm.

Here is a close up of the Doughnut Hot Dog. I'm still struggling with what we would have topped it with. The options of yellow mustard or ketchup sounded too gross to try. As we were eating this, I couldn't help feeling like we were being watched. And judged. 

Gross Food Photography Rides Again!

I decided to take a break from gross beer to revisit one of my earlier passions: gross food photography. Also, I can'find any new gross beer. 

Last week I bought five frozen meals, and disappointed myself one lunch at a time. Starting with this:

                                 

By far the most expensive of my frozen meals, costing over two dollars, was this steam-fresh meal. When I started eating it, I was disgusted by what I thought were gross large mealy carrots. Upon reading the box, I discovered they were actually gross large mealy sweet potatoes. The texture was worse than the flavor. It was the easiest to prepare: four minutes in the microwave, and then eat. None of that, cut the film, then 2 minutes, then stir, then remove remaining film, then 2 minutes, then sit. I might as well just make a real lunch if I'm going to work that hard!

Next, lets play a game. The following two meals cost 88 cents each. I want you to guess which is chicken, and which is fish! (because who doesn't like to play with their food?)

Gross Meal Number One comes with completely odorless, flavorless Mac and Cheese and a brownie that bakes itself in the microwave (and goes everywhere):

Gross Meal Number Two also has flavorless Mac and Cheese, but comes with clumpy chocolate pudding for dessert:

If you guessed Meal Number One was chicken, you win! How did you know?! (If you were wrong, don't worry, I'm the only real loser here) Both 'meats' were grey, and although the 'chicken' tasted like raw corn meal, it still narrowly beat out the fish, which smelled more fishy than it tasted. You're welcome communal microwave.  

After two days of that, I decided to finish the week with a quick tour of Italy, starting with Manicotti in a red sauce:

No, that's not the bottom of a dumpster you're looking at, that's my lunch! Two tiny rolls of cheese filled pasta tucked into the corner of cardboard box of red sauce with suspicious black flakes in it. The cheese wasn't that bad, but I couldn't get over the pasta to sauce ratio. 99 cents for the meal, by the way.

Never in  the history of mankind has anyone looked forward to the end of the work week more than I did last week. My tour of Italy concluded with every frozen dinner maker's favorite bastardization: 

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo.

Sponge-y chicken cubes smothered in fat sauce, with the tiniest suggestion of broccoli, and hard, dry pasta. Probably the best of the bunch, honestly. 

I'm ready to go back to gross beer now, please.

Second verse, same as the first!

So, I planned on looking back at my early 2011 posts, and using them to illustrate how much I've changed this year, and BOY was I disappointed. I'm still an adult non-student who wears cat-hair shirts to the grocery store to buy cheap beer in the middle of the afternoon, except now I'm unemployed, which is just the icing on the shit cake. I still dress like an old man and expect people to think I'm cute, and I still may or may not be retarded.

Although it was not an excellent year for personal growth, a lot of good has come from 2011. I joined an improv group (www.blacktopcomedy.com go see it, its fantastic), started writing stand-up material (as of two days ago), I bought a car (haggled the SHIT out of the dealer, cried, pitched a fit, and now I can never go back there). I watched a record number of movies in theaters this year: Jane Eyre, Super 8, Bridesmaids, Source Code, Midnight in Paris, The Muppets, and tonight we're going to see TinTin in 3D! I also ate a record number of Papa Murphy's pizzas (an average of one every 2.5 weeks).

Looking back in the year in posts, I am sad that I accidentally abandoned (read: forgot about) my Gross Food Photography project. The Calimonter was such a disgusting gem. I also completely forgot about my Facebook page, and it got archived. Also, I forgot about my childhood bank account, which had 25 cents in it, and was closed for inactivity. I grieved over that for about six straight minutes. I'm going to try not to forget so much in 2012.


On this day last year, I requested "more of the same", and although I didn't really get that, I can't complain. For 2012 however, I request money. Cold, hard cash. And a lot of it.

CaliMonter

In continuation of my Gross Food Photography string, I present you with our dinner for a few nights ago:

We still haven't stocked our house with all the normal foods, so we had to get creative with dinner. Mike came up with this wonderful East-coast-meets-West-coast sandwich which, thankfully, tasted a whole lot better than it looked.

The sandwich, which we named the Calimonter, is a hot turkey sandwich on buttered sourdough rye bread, with Vermont cheddar sage cheese, avocado, onions, and jalapeño stuffed olives. It deserves a spot in the gross food photography hall of fame.

Facebook Foodie

Its that time again. Back to school (okay, so I'm like a month late, but I needed time to build material). Back to posting compulsively on Facebook about how you spent your day.

So, you made dinner for your boyfriend (who you call 'hubby' which is so much less cute than it is sad), and regardless of the fact the meal is bathed in cheese, and is completely unrecognizable as food, you have taken a picture of it and posted it on Facebook. It must be the cold weather that has driven us all indoors and caused this sudden surge in food photography, but it makes me realize that I am just an amateur in the art of gross food photos, and you, Facebook food photographer, are the true master.

Not a Happy Camper

Until today, I would have told you, with confidence, that Better Homes and Gardens comes up with the grossest pseudo-creative food in the world, but after today, I must admit Shine.com's article on Creative Birthday Cakes for Kids ...takes the cake.

In honor of my sister-in-law's birthday, here is the grossest birthday cake in the world.

You'll have to follow the link to check it out, because there is no way I'm risking copy-write infringement for such a gross image. If it was something cool, sure, but not for this.

In case you followed the link, and it didn't direct you to the exact cake I'm talking about, its number 18 of 20: the Campfire Cake. This wins the World's Grossest Cake Award (WGCA) because it has multiple layers of fail. First, the concept. Camping? What kid aspires to be a camper above all other things? Sure, some kids like fire trucks, or princesses, but Jimmy just wants to sleep outside. Its like the birthday cake equivalent to giving out pennies on Halloween.
Second, as awful as this cake looks, it must taste worse. Tortillas, coconut, pretzels, peanuts, and a cake. What are you-- High?
Lastly, it doesn't even have the benefit of being simple. It requires one hour of prep. If I'm going to spend an hour putting together a cake, there better be some kind of Rube Goldberg machine on it by the time I'm finished.

Happy Birthday, Denise.

Experimenting with Okra

If my plan to take over Delilah's job when she retires doesn't work out, I think I might have to be a take gross pictures of food professionally. The food itself is never gross, but all my pictures are. Remember Bob Evans?

Well, last night and the night before, we experimented with cooking Okra. Now, everyone says cooking Okra is tricky, and there a chance it'll end up all slimy if you don't do it just right, but every Okra recipe on earth involves bacon, so I figured the benefits outweighed the risks. Our first night we cooked fried Okra, fried in what, you ask? Bacon drippings and shortening of course! The Okra taste was kind of lost in all that corn meal and bacon grease, but it was still good. Kind of like fried clam strips; same texture.

The second night we had smothered okra, which still involves bacon grease, but also includes diced tomatoes, garlic, and hot sauce. This was the winner over the two nights. It was easier to cook than the fried was, and you could really taste the okra. And judging by the seven billion recipes on the Internet, anything that you might have laying around the refrigerator is fair game.


So, thank you, really cheap okra stand at the Davis Farmer's Market, for introducing a new vegetable into our home.

Road Trip: On the Road Day One

Here is a ticker of what we did. I'll fill it in with some yummy details when I don't feel like death.

Saturday August 28, 2010
7:27am 52 degrees: Departed Springfield Vermont
Here is a picture of GreyCat, she was VERY excited to get moving:

8:46am: Crossed into New York
9:26am 64 degrees: Breakfast, Dunkin Donuts $10.13 (PEED)
9:45am: I90W
10:02am 69 degrees: Dialed Mommie
10:52am 71 degrees: Service Area, Switched drivers (PEED)
1:58pm: Buffalo toll $12.85
2:28pm 81 degrees: Picnic Lunch, Gas stop $44.81 407.2 miles (PEED)
2:50pm: On the road again
3:27pm: Toll 3.15
3:30pm 81 degrees: Crossed into PA, switched drivers (PEED)
4:23pm: Ohio Welcome Center (PEED)
7:03pm: Motel 6 Toledo OH
Total Miles so far: 696
Heres a picture of the dinner we had at Bob Evans. Mike got the meatloaf, and if you can't tell, I got something called the deep dish chicken noodle, which was noodles and chicken in gravy, over mashed potatoes and biscuits. With a side of buttery dinner rolls. And a heart attack for dessert.

Say Yes to Depressed

I know I've mentioned TLC's show 'Say Yes to the Dress' before, but today was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and I got pulled in again. Four hours of bride-brawling television later and I find myself feeling pretty bummed. As well as fat, poor, and alone. God Bless Television.

In honor of such feelings, its time for another edition of Bachelor(ette) Cooking, or: Cooking for One, Eating enough for Four. Today's dinner dish: Pierogies with bacon and vegetables.

This is a one skillet meal, deh. For starters, you'll want the following:

Frozen Pierorgies
Frozen Vegetables
Bacon
Canned Tomato Sauce

First, heat the skillet and add the bacon, once the bacon is cooked, remove and add pierogies and vegetables. Cut the bacon up into little pieces and put it back into the pan. It'll finish cooking in just a few minutes. Lastly, add a few tablespoons of sauce to the pan, it doesn't take more than a minute for the sauce to heat up. Now, when plating, I suggest using a clean plate. You're eating by yourself, so it doesn't really matter if eat off of dirty dishes or not, but hey, treat yourself right. And, enjoy. You fat, lonely slob.

Dear BHG...

Dear Better Homes and Gardens...

Here is my abbreviated beef with you:

Your food makes my stomach turn. I know that my bachelor recipe for 'mac and cheese and bacon' wasn't exactly beautiful, but your cheeseburger ice cream sandwich should be against the law. And your 'Bestever Casseroles' are desperate. Since when does adding pickled artichokes to tuna make it gourmet? And another thing: goulash is not 'speedy lasagna casserole'. Its just Goulash. And these were your 'Best Ever'?? What on earth were you peddling as regular old daily casseroles?! And your photographer should be cuffed. Even with the super washed-out style that is used in every single image to make it look 'clean' or whatever the desired effect is, the food still looks day old and gross.

And another thing: Your bedroom decor ideas are all nautical themed. What if I have a fear of boats? or drowning? or sharks? I'd never get to sleep in your 'Room with a view' theme, or your 'beach cottage casual' or your 'beach bliss' designs. What if I live Utah? Also, Martha Stewart called, she wants her color scheme back. And so on, and so forth, you get my point.

More like Worst Homes and Gardens. Burn.

Cheesey Mac and Bacon

When left to my own devices, I rarely do the right thing. Tonight, I was on my own for dinner. It turned out well, and so I am including the recipe, in case there are any bachelors out there looking to get either one: fatter, or two: more alone. Or both.

Ingredients:


Box of mac and cheese
4 pieces of bacon
Shake cheese

Directions:

To make mac and cheese, follow directions on the box.
Cook all four slices of bacon and let cool.
Crumble 3 slices of bacon and add to mac and cheese.
Eat fourth slice of bacon separately while standing over the sink.
Add a little shake-cheese.
Stir and enjoy.

For a healthier alternative:

Eat a salad, you fat, lonely bastard.