Six
Do you know what happens every year on May 1 (besides May Day of course)?
It’s the FUSSYlittleBLOG’s birthday! Or is that blogiversary. Have we stopped using that word? Maybe it’s just simply the blog’s anniversary. I don’t know.
What I do know is that you are reading post number 1,770. I guess that’s what happens when you decide to write down what you’re thinking about food and drinks five days a week for six years.
You may ask, where’s the party? It’s a good question. I have no plans, but I will be at the Capital American Eatery tomorrow starting at noon, handing out Yelp schwag for those who check in using the mobile app. I even still have a few free tickets to give away. So if you wanted to wish me a happy anniversary, that’s the best we’re going to do this year.
I have something else for you. It’s a present. Really, it’s a giveaway of something related to the blog that I’m very excited about. I’ve only got one to award to a lucky commenter. So read on if you want to learn how to win.
But first I’m going to give you fair warning about something I’ve never done before.
McDonald’s on a Silver Platter
All the weeks seems busy these days now that I have Yelp responsibilities on top of my rigorous blogging schedule. It sounds funny, but I’m serious.
Just to give you a peek under the hood, this week I’ve been finalizing a sponsorship with Tulip Fest, scheduling a date for a Yelp oyster tasting at fin – your fishmonger, giving away tickets to the Derby Day Chowda Challenge on Saturday, looking for sponsors of The Weekly Yelp, taking face to face meetings (which brought me to Slidin’ Dirty for avocado fries, Psychedelicatessen for bagels, and Civitello’s for eggplant and tomato pie) and filling the ROTD queue.
The blog is taking a bit of a back seat. I need to get in touch with the FarmOn people, because they are awesome. I was asked about doing the Food Stamp Challenge, which I totally want to try. There’s a book that I have in my hot little hands that I’m dying to give away (tomorrow, perhaps). And I dare not even look how long it’s been since an Ask the Profussor.
But the FLB continues to march on. The Tour de Soft Serve got a fair bit of attention locally. Thrillist cited the blog alongside All Over Albany in its crowning of DeFazio’s as one of the best pizzas in New York outside of NYC. And then quite unexpectedly, I had my picture in the paper eating a McDonald’s burger.
That last one might require a bit of explaining.
Kids, School & Food
Does anyone remember when I was an advocate for local, seasonal foods? It seem like just yesterday that I was defending that it’s possible to eat locally and seasonally even upstate. And it’s true. You can.
It’s just that I seem to have given it up.
Part of the problem is that my CSA doesn’t kick in until the later part of spring. The other problem is that my farmers market attendance has been spotty at best. My cooking has slowed down dramatically, and we’re going out to eat more.
I thought it was bad when I took the kids out for McDonald’s twice in the same week. But yesterday, I ate at the golden arches twice in one day. At least this time I can put some of the blame on public schools.
Saratoga Soft Serve Soiree
Saturday was a crisp and breezy spring day. It wasn’t exactly ideal conditions for visiting five of Saratoga County’s favorite seasonal soft serve stands, but at least it wasn’t raining.
Every few months I lead an intrepid group of eaters into the wilds of upstate New York to sample some kind of beloved foodstuff. The goal is twofold. One is to provide the participants with a much broader sense of the category and experience the range and nuances of a food that most consider to be a commodity. The other is to identify the best example of that food as a service to others.
In this case I’m confident we achieved both goals. However, this success is bittersweet.
Eating Fast
There’s some good news on the food additives front. Kraft has finally agreed to ditch the yellow #5 from its “original” formulation starting in January 2016.
Not everyone is convinced that this is good news. The Science Babe is becoming the thing she has fought against. Yvette is casting doubts that Kraft can remove the color without changing the flavor and suggests that those who were complaining about the inclusion of artificial dyes may not buy the reformulated product.
Well, as someone who has complained about yellow #5, I’m thrilled. We had walked away from Kraft macaroni and cheese which was always one of my guilty pleasures. At this point, my only concern is that my children may have developed a stronger brand association with the Trader Joe’s stuff making the transition back to “The Original” trickier than anticipated.
Better fast food is the big theme today, because I’ve got a confession to make.
Tour de Soft Serve 2.0
Spring is here. Let’s eat ice cream!
Scratch that. Let’s eat all the ice cream!
Look, we can’t eat all the ice cream in one outing. Sure, we could make a valiant effort, but it would get very ugly very fast, and we would most certainly fail. There’s no point to that. However, we can break down the task into bite sized chunks. And the FLB has been doing just that for the past four years.
In 2011 we ate at five seasonal soft serve stands.
In 2012 we went for homemade hard ice cream.
In 2013 we got all worldly and exotic with gelato.
In 2014 Maeve led a trendsetting outing of FroYo.
Now we’re back to the basics. As it turns out, even after you visit twenty different places, there are still too many ice cream parlors remaining in the region to sample in a single day. So this year we’re revisitng soft serve and we’re headed to…
FUSSYlittleBLOG 