Albany in My Absence
Part of me wanted to completely detach from the Capital Region on this sabbatical. But I can’t. Not only does the region really have a hold on me, but I’ll be back home before you know it.
There are good things happening in the 518 which absolutely deserve praise and should be getting more attention. Of course, there are also things going on that make me bang my head against the desk from almost two hundred miles away. And on those things, I find it hard to be silent.
So let’s start off with the good, because access to great foods in the Capital Region is getting better all the time. That’s a cause for celebration. And then I’ll share with you my recent torment from my long time tormenter the Times Union. The reviewers may keep on changing, but the song remains the same.
Halloween Wasted
Let’s work backwards. New Year’s Eve is on December 31. Christmas is December 25. Thanksgiving is November 28. Chanukah begins the evening of November 27. But the entire holiday season kicks off next week with Halloween on October 31.
That’s Thursday.
That’s the day when you go out and raise hell. That’s the day when people will give you candy so that you don’t toilet paper their house too badly. That’s the day you dress up in costume.
Halloween isn’t a holiday like Chanukah. It’s just the one day. Yet people want to stretch it out to include Friday and Saturday nights. Some might want to party on Sunday too. I’m sure there are folks who are going to get an early start and will have costume parties this weekend too.
But call them what they are, costume parties. Because Halloween comes just one night a year, and diverting attention from that makes the actual thing that much less special. Don’t even get me started on how trick-or-treating has devolved over the years into a daytime ritual that is just as likely to happen at malls or schools as it is your own neighborhood.
This also happens to be among the worst holidays for cocktails. Ever.
Candy, Colors and Canvassing
Petitioning a company to change their products feels like an incredible waste of time. Companies make stuff. Consumers either buy it or they don’t. If lots of people buy it, the company does well. If fewer consumers buy it, the company suffers.
It’s a pretty easy formula.
The good news is that there are lots of companies out there making stuff. So if you don’t like one company’s stuff, you can buy the stuff you like better that’s made by a different company.
Honestly, I’m not sure what has happened recently that has changed this fairly simple relationship between buyer and seller. Maybe it’s an increasing sense of entitlement that consumers think everything should be customized to their every whim. Maybe it’s the result of a 24 hour news cycle that has networks chomping at the bit for any David vs. Goliath story where David is some photogenic mother and Goliath is some evil corporate suit behind a boardroom table. But it’s also possible that people are just getting fed up with all the swill that corporate America seems intent to pass off as food (with the implicit consent of government “regulators”).
A few months ago, The Food Babe made national news by launching a petition aimed at Kraft to take the yellow dye #5 out of their junk in a box. And now a similar campaign is being waged against M&M’s based on a similar complaint.
As dumb as this may sound, I think it just might be effective. Hear me out.
Dumb Things To Do Before Starting a Diet
New Jersey is a terrible place to try to eat healthy. Not that there aren’t healthy options. It’s just that the greasy gut bomb hoagies are oddly compelling. They are disgusting to be sure, which makes it that much more surprising that I find myself addicted to them.
And we’re just a short drive from the famous greasy sandwiches in the City of Brotherly Love. Plus there is all that pizza outside of Trenton I want to try. North of Princeton are the venerable deep fried Italian hot dog shops. One of these days I would also like to buy both a Case Pork Roll and a Taylor Ham to put through the paces in a side-by-side tasting.
However, yesterday was my first mega cardiovascular workout in a long long time. I danced for over an hour and sweat like I haven’t sweat in years. Richard Simmons would have been so proud.
Now, there is really only just one thing holding me back. Because while I may be able to muster some short term resolve in avoiding some of the foods listed above, I recently made a batch of homemade mayonnaise. And dammit, I’m not going to let all of that goodness go to waste.
Ruining Perfectly Good Ice Cream
When I think about what an ice cream town might look like, I don’t imagine very healthy looking people walking around in their fancy yoga clothes. And perhaps it’s unfair to categorize Princeton in such a way. After all, not everyone goes out dressed to impress,
Nah. Pretty much everyone does.
And honestly, it’s a refreshing change of pace from life in upstate New York where I’ve witnessed adults walking down the street in their pajamas and fuzzy slippers. But I’m not here to complain about fashion.
How Princeton became an ice cream town I don’t know. But this small hamlet has three impressive ice cream parlors within an easy walk from one another. Everyone has their own personal favorite. I already have mine. Halo Pub makes ice cream from their very own dairy. The Bent Spoon creates flavors with local seasonal ingredients. Thomas Sweet also makes their own ice cream on premise, also prides itself on quality ingredients, but really seems to be all about the “blend-in”.
That last one would be where you can mix a variety of toppings into your ice cream. They have a very special machine set up just for the task. And while it may sound appealing, allow me to remind you of something.
Before I Forget…
In the future I’m going to have to get better at publishing additional posts throughout the week. Because sometimes things happen. Exciting things. Notable things. Interesting things. And perhaps sometimes these things are only exciting, notable or interesting to me. But it’s my blog, dammit.
The problem is that if I don’t post them when they happen, they sometimes fall through the cracks. Like, for example, I just passed a milestone recently, and I didn’t even know it until after the fact.
So today, I’m going to share that. But there is also some exciting news from the past weekend, and a killer event that’s coming up that you won’t want to miss.
Fear Mongering
Sometimes stories just fall into your lap when you least expect them. Last night I was up late doing laundry at the laundromat on campus. I wasn’t thrilled about downgrading from my private machine back home, but then I heard this song recently, and it make me rethink doing laundry.
Anyhow, there are some stories that I really want to write, but I’d like to get them up early next week. They just need a little bit more time in the oven before they are ready.
Then I got tagged on a post about Eight Foods that Food Experts Won’t Eat. What’s funny is that many of these items are foods I have avoided and have advocated avoiding in the past. But there is something insidious going on in the article and that needs to be addressed first.
AskTP – Two Weeks to Candy
Maybe I spend the next two weeks just talking about candy. How hard could it be? But there are probably other important pressing food questions that will need to be addressed before we send all of our children into the streets to beg for high fructose corn syrup, chocolate harvested by child slave labor, artificial flavors, and artificial colors that have been banned by other more civilized countries.
Yeah. I’m the most fun dad ever. And then there are the awful awful sticky-sweet candy-inspired alcoholic beverages that try to pass themselves off as “cocktails” during this time of year.
Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. Because today isn’t about looking forward, it’s about looking back. Every so often I dive into the comments section of the blog looking for questions that have gone unanswered. I value your questions and comments more than you could ever know, so I’ve made a commitment to ensure that every question (that has been asked with proper punctuation) ultimately gets an answer. It only seems fair.
And to help you scan through the post, each question is embedded with a hyperlink that will take you to the mystery link of the day. Okay, I think I’ve covered all the ground rules. Now without further ado, onto the questions.
Crazy Healthy
Marathons kill people. That’s not for me. But even Mick Jagger can strut around on a stage for a couple of hours longer than I can these days. So I have a stupid plan.
I don’t want to have washboard abs, or be able to bench twice my weight. It would, however, be nice to go to a wedding and dance to a few songs in a row without devolving into a sweaty and heaving shell of a man.
Luckily, there’s a video game for that, and it’s on the way.
But exercise works hand in hand with diet. In the past, I’ve proven that I can eat more than my fair share of healthful foods. Still, the last time I did this I saw my triglycerides spike because I had mistaken popcorn for a wholesome whole grain snack. Oops.
This time, I’m going to do even better. I’m still optimizing for lower cholesterol, and my goal is to do that while still keeping the triglycerides in check. These aren’t things that I care about especially, but I know they would make my doctor happy. So, thanks to the popcorn incident, I’ve learned that I’ll need to be smart about eating foods with a lower glycemic index.
It sounds crazy. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Still Full
One cup of coffee, a square of dark chocolate, one small bag of potato chips, and a couple pieces of mint gum. That was all that passed through my lips for most of the day on Monday. Sure, I finally had a bit of an appetite for solid food at dinnertime. But for the most part I was still full from a weekend that can only be described as a gorge fest.
Why D.C. brings out the worst in me I don’t know. Really, it’s probably not the district itself, but who I’m seeing down there. And this time I can’t even blame ADS who was partially responsible for previous escapades like The Day of Three Lunches and The Fifteen Banh-Mi Smorgasboard.
My friend La was also partially to blame for those previous experiments in human food-storage capacity. And it’s true that this time she is again partially responsible for enabling a long weekend of unbridled gluttony. But there were also others who contributed to pushing my body to its physical limits.
It was a great trip. These days, I’m no longer bouncing back quite as well from overconsumption like I used to. Right now I’m even toying around with the idea of finally starting an exercise regimen. However, I can’t expect anyone would be interested in that. Instead, I’m going to lay out the last few days of feasting.
FUSSYlittleBLOG 