Eat More Blue M&M's

Every so often I like to do a non-writing related entry to remind myself and my readers that I am more than just an aspiring writer - I am also a person who likes to eat.

As such I also follow several food related blogs, looking not just for new recipes, but also interesting food-related articles. Tonight while perusing one of my favorite food blogs, Serious Eats, I came across several great posts and they were just too much fun not to share.

The first was a post about a Facebook movement to convince Ben and Jerry's to make a library inspired ice-cream flavor. I am so joining this Facebook group.

Here were some of the suggested flavors:

Gooey Decimal System: Dark fudge alphabet letters with caramel swirls in hazelnut ice cream.

Writer’s Block: Coffee with fudge chunks and nicotine stains.

Over-Goo Fudge: Chocolate with marshmallow and fudge.

Sh-sh-sh-Sherbet! Key Lime or a chocolate/vanilla combination.

The writer's block was sounding yummy... ummm, until I got to the part about the nicotine stains. Anybody have any better suggestions of what Writer's Block ice-cream would taste like?

The next post discussed a blog called How to Cook Like Your Grandmother. True to its title, the blog is full of recipes from people's grandmothers.

My mother's mother, who passed away my freshman year of college, was a wonderful cook, but the kind who could never give anyone recipes because she just eyed all the measurements. My mom still tries to recreate her famous German potato salad, but we gave up years ago of ever replicating my grandma's chocolate fudge cake frosting.

Do you have any great Grandma recipes that you love? Share them in the comments if you do - I LOVE new recipes, especially Grandma inspired ones.

Finally, the title of this post was from the last posting I read, reporting that Blue M&M's may help spinal injuries. Here's what it had to say:

"Oddly enough, this was not from The Onion but from Daily Mail: Scientists have found special properties in the dye of blue M&Ms. "The compound, Brilliant Blue G, can block a chemical which makes injuries worse by causing inflammation and destroying cells."

Yeah, that's right. So, the next time you have a chocolate craving, go out and buy a bag of M&M's and if anyone gives you any crap - tell them it's health food.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Tea Time

Debora Dennis of The Saucy Scribe had the results of a cool What's your Word? quiz on her blog yesterday. Since I cannot resist an online quiz I rushed right over to take it myself, and while I was there found another quiz asking What Kind of Tea Are You?

I have been on a bit of a tea kick lately, in fact, I have almost completely forsaken coffee in favor of this leafy brew, and so I was curious if this quiz could accurately determine my tea tastes.

You Are Black Tea

You have a bold personality. You're not afraid of simply being yourself. You have the courage to speak the truth. You are fearless in your actions. You come off as a bit intimidating and unapproachable. Only confident people are attracted to you. You don't try to scare off anyone. You're just an intense person!

Shockingly, the black tea part was dead on. Irish breakfast tea, English breakfast tea, and most recently English afternoon tea - are three different, yet similar types of black tea that I have come to enjoy and that Twinings is kind enough to produce and my grocery store is good enough to stock. I also like the occasional cup of Earl Grey as well. Really I like almost every kind of black tea.

Almost.

A week ago that word would not have been in that sentence, but that was before I tried Twinings Lapsang Souchong black tea (I told you my grocery store has a wide selection).


Twinings uses little leaves on the front of the box to indicate the strength of the tea and I had gotten it in my head that I wanted my tea stronger, kind of like coffee, which as I already mentioned I've stopped drinking in favor of tea. You can see the contradiction, but alas, I could not.

The box describes the Lapsang tea as: "A strong, golden tea with a very distinctive smoked character."

This is a fairly accurate description of the tea, except I would have edited it slightly to make this one small change: "A strong, golden tea with a very distinctive SMOKED!!!!!!!!!!!! character."

My husband, being a good sport, tried the new tea with me, and the smell of our two mugs of tea being seeped... well someone just walking in would have thought we had a smoker in the middle of our apartment going full-blast. We were brave though and despite the overwhelming stink - drank the tea with the usual cream and sugar (or in my case, Splenda) and it was okay.

Well, the first sip was okay, probably to a certain extent because I was expecting it to be thoroughly awful. In the end I dumped half of my mug down the sink. Andy finished his, but he did have a smaller mug and a stuffy nose from sickness, which gave him a bit more relief from the smoke assault.

The box of Twinings Lapsang tea is now sitting in our pantry, where it will almost certainly continue to sit until I can bring myself to toss it in the trash. Unless, of course, one of my readers has a fondness for incredibly smoky beverage (perhaps someone who made a New Year's resolution to quit smoking?) - in which case I would be more than happy to send it to you for your enjoyment.

Oh, as for the rest of the tea quiz results - the part where it says I'm fearless, intense, and unapproachable? That's only true when I'm drinking the smoky tea.

Halloween and Quiz Blonks

So, this is a fun quiz that I recently took to see what kind of writer I am. I cannot resist a quiz that will tell me what kind of anything I am - whether it be breakfast cereal, Sex and the City character, or extinct animal - I need to know!






Going through this quiz I was thinking, as I always do with multiple choice quizzes, that none of these answers truly fit me, but everyone probably thinks that when taking a multiple choice quiz, and after much agonizing I was able to choose the answer that I thought fit best. Well, guess what? The answer was write (that's not a misspelling it's a pun... yes, I know the misspelling would have been less shameful than stooping to lame puns and yet I could not resist.) on the money. According to "What kind of writer are you" quiz, I am:

Your Result

You're a Dialogue/Character Writer!

And it's totally true! Woh, what are the chances. If you take the quiz, make sure to leave a comment letting me know how close yours was to pinpointing the type of writer you are.

As promised in my blog title, this blonk also has some Halloween fun. Now, if like me, around this time of year you have the desire to buy a bag of candy corn, despite the fact that you have absolutely zero interest in actually eating them, but have rather been programmed by your childhood to associate there tri-colored mix of waxiness and sugar with Halloween - then this next product might appeal to you.

Yes, candy corn that you wear on your head instead of between your teeth. If you follow the link there should be a downloadable free hat pattern, so if there are any knitters out there who want to send one my way, I'd be happy to supply my head measurements.

And just think now that you no longer have to eat those horrible candy corns you will have more room for miniature Milky Ways and Three Musketeers... or, ooh those mini Twix bars are good too.

Which reminds me, a final question to ponder for anyone reading this - have you ever found yourself snacking on the mini candy bars and when you finally stop eating and see the pile of mini wrappers that you have managed to accumulate - have you been shocked at how many mini candy bars you consumed in one sitting? Yeah, I've been there. And you know it's really bad when you start doing advanced mathematical computations to try and convince yourself that the mini candy bars you consumed could not possibly be greater than the size of one regular candy bar. C'mon someone please tell me I am not alone here.

A Snack Break

In keeping with my goal to blog more - I bring you a short and light-hearted post devoted to fun with food.

First a pie-chart that would make any pie or chart lover proud.

This was found at seriouseats by the way.

And in case that pie picture has you in a food craving mood - these next two pics should probably kill it

Found at aldenteblog: the hot beef sundae. No, I am not kidding. This does exist.


And in the same, way to ruin dessert, mode - from Black Widow Bakery, I bring you the meat cake.
You see that is not white frosting, it's mashed potatoes. And the red stuff... not strawberry sauce, but more of a ketchupy concoction. You really need to click the link above to see it broken down step by step - it will amaze and/or disgust you.

Enjoy!