The BlogStalker

Hi Friends,

Welcome back. Seems like we just talked. Now I’m back on track, so hopefully I can stick to my rigorous 1 post/week schedule. We’ll see how that goes. Hmm…trying to think of interesting things that have happened since my last post. Oh, here’s one…

Kelsey of Bites and Bowls fame is moving to a new place. She’s out of town and needed someone to help move some possessions (couch, bed, etc). This is right in my wheelhouse, as two of my greatest skills are lifting heavy things and reaching tall things, so I was more than happy to help her out. Problem is that her possessions > Size of my SUV. So this meant renting a truck. No big deal…figured I’d get the little truck and it would be fine. Turns out that they don’t rent the little trucks for in-town moves. I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out how that could make any sense at all. Still working on it. Anyway, I got to drive the big 16 foot yellow truck through Uptown Charlotte. During the lunch hour. When most of the roads that I needed to drive on were under construction. Or closed. Or were one way streets with the cars going in the opposite direction. Now I consider myself a pretty good driver. No accidents or speeding tickets in 13 years of driving. But I never did figure out if there’s a way to make a right turn in the big yellow truck without taking out the curb or the people that are standing on it. So I have a new-found respect for real truck drivers, and I’ll probably stop pumping my fist when I pass them (trying to get them to honk) as they have more important things to focus on, and most people grow out of that when they turn 10. Oh, and the moving was totally worth it, as Kelsey had left beer and barney butter for met at her new place. And she gave me some Great Harvest blondies that Matt made. I must say that they were every bit as good as a VeggieGirl blondie. Actually, I can’t say that, because I still haven’t tried these VG Blondies (hint) that everyone else speaks of, but these were good blondies.

In other news, Kate picked up this new shampoo at the store. She wanted me to mention that it was free with a rebate.

Sorry for the poor photo quality. If you can’t read that, it says it includes coconut milk and egg white proteins. It just so happens that I was making brinner last night and was short 1 egg from making the ideal omelette. The thought crossed my mind to supplement my eggs with some of this shampoo. I mean, it says it includes egg whites and milk, which is what I was looking for. I decided that the shampoo might include other ingredients as well, so I did not make a shampoo omelette. I’ll keep you posted if I change my mind at a future brinner.

Hmm…trying to think if anything else exciting happened this week. I think I only left the house by car one other time since the last time I blogged, so I got nothin. Guess I’ll get going with the blog review.

Jenn from Eating Bender is in Maui with Ma Bender and she’s even blogging from vacationland. This shows true dedication to the blog, something that I clearly don’t have. Now I’ve actually been pretty anti-Hawaii when people suggest it as a potential vacation spot. That’s probably an understatement. I react to the Hawaii suggestion the same way that Kate reacts when someone mentions Angelina Jolie. I don’t know what it is, but I have no urge to go to Hawaii. It’s mostly because when I hear my coworkers or friends talk about their trips to Hawaii, it seems like there’s some kind of vacation checklist - like a list of 5-7 touristy things that every mainland tourist does when they go to Hawaii. It usually goes something like “volcano, blah blah blah, luau, blah blah pig and hula dancers and fire, blah blah seven sacred somethings, blah blah oh and the pineapple at the hotel blah blah.” I’m sure there are thousands of fun things to do in Hawaii, but it seems like everyone does the same five things. So my anti-Hawaii feelings are driven by either this tourist checklist theory, or some fear that I’ll end up like one of the Real World Hawaii cast members. Either a trainwreck like Ruthie or a completely unwatchable assbag like Colin/Amaya. But then Bender did her first vacation post and I thought “hmm, Hawaii looks nice” so maybe I’m getting over it. I think it was the pizza. Anyway, thanks for changing my thoughts on this Bender.

Mark Hangry (from Hangry and Hangry, LLC) is giving away a cookbook in this post. I’m not a really big cookbook reader. For me, it’s sort of like the owner’s manual in my car. I can read through it and look at the pictures, but at the end of the day, I’ll probably just outsource the actual work. I read enough to know that I’m not capable of doing what needs to be done. But this looks like an interesting cookbook. Mr. Hangry mentions that there is a toilet paper icon next to recipes that make you go. I think restaurant menus should offer the same thing. Mark Hangry also came up with a creative entry process for joining his contest. None of this add me to your blogroll nonsense for the Hangrys. No, you have to come up with a poem about the blogger to enter. I’m a big fan of creative contest requirements like this. Links and tweets are not the only currency that we can use for contests, blogland. So please take Mr. Hangry’s lead and come up with creative rules and regs for your free shiz giveaways.

Everyone’s favorite Homegirl had a nice post about babysitting. It was one of those posts that makes you want to be a little kid again. I want to sit in a wagon and eat ice cream while someone pulls me to the park. Although that would be pretty strange at my current age and size.  She mentioned that one of the kids was going to Circus Camp, which sent me into flashback mode. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but I spent the majority of my childhood as a circus performer. You can get all of the details of my circus life in this post. I have hung up my sequins and spandex (to the delight of anyone who has their sight), but I will occasionally still juggle. Like after a few drinks at Universal Studios CityWalk when I want to show up a clown with my skills. I never miss an opportunity to show up a clown. That’s not slang…I mean a guy wearing face paint and making animal balloons. I hate clowns.

Rose from On a Lobster Placemat (my favorite blog name ever) did something interesting at the end of this post. She asked for male readers to de-lurk and introduce themselves. I proudly followed her orders and identified myself. I think men are an underrepresented group in food blog land. My working theory is that readership skews about 90/10 female. I have absolutely nothing to base this on. The only guys that comment on my blog are related to me, friends of mine, or other bloggers that I write about. So I’ll steal Rose’s idea. Male blogstalker readers, please identify yourself. Female readers, do the same thing. This way I’ll end up with lots of comments, and it’ll make this blog look popular.

In other news, I have grown increasingly jealous of Jenna from Eat, Live, Run for landing an interview for the coolest job in the world. You can read about it in this post. From what I gather, a winery in Napa is interviewing Jenna and some other people (who I’m also jealous of) for a job where they use their social media influence to promote the winery. It involves hanging out in Napa and getting paid good money to blog/tweet/post about wine. Um, yes please. At first I thought this would be the perfect job for me. I mean, I like drinking wine, I love Napa, and I sort of work in social/interactive/online stuff with my real job. Then I thought about it, and figured that it would lead to increased drogging, and that all of my tweets would probably just be quotes from Sideways - quotes that out of context could be viewed as vulgar and offensive. So I’d probably get fired. Best of luck to Jenna in landing the job, as it would be an awesome opportunity and may lead to some wine giveaways on ELR. I usually don’t enter contests, but if wine is involved, I’ll make an exception.

Stock Up

Protein Powder - Blogland is bulking up with muscles like Major League Baseball in the 1990s. This could lead to a new foodbuzz steroid policy. Let’s hope that Barney Butter doesn’t end up on the banned substances list.

Spinoff Blogs - Like Operation Beautiful and Green Monster Movement - which seem to be successful spinoffs (like Frasier). I’m having trouble keeping up one blog, so don’t expect a blogstalker spinoff anytime soon.

Blogger Meet-ups - Well, not really a trend, but we’re going to dinner with KERF, Pinky, and the C&C Blogging Factory tonight, so that counts, right?

Biking - I think it has something to do with the Tour de France.

Apple(s) - Both the technological and edible kinds. Most bloggers are getting their recommended apple a day. And those who aren’t eating their apples are playing with their iPhones or trying to win a MacBook Pro.

Stock Down

Television viewing options - I’m done with Summer re-runs. I need my housewives to return. And Jon and Kate. And 30 Rock. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The Today Show - I love my Matt and Meredith time (and Hoda and Kathie Lee) but this has been a bad week. Al is on vacation, and I don’t think Willard even did his smuckers birthday list this week.

Juicing - Our juicer is collecting dust, and Fitnessestenista had a near juicing disaster. I expect juicing to make a strong comeback in the upcoming weeks.

The Sun - I haven’t seen it yet this week. Maybe because it has been really cloudy. Or maybe because I haven’t left the house much.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. See you next Friday, and we’ll try to do better next time.

Hi Friends. Thanks for coming back, and I’m sorry that I’m a couple of days late with this post. I really have no excuse. I mean, I didn’t even have to work on Friday. Poor form on my part. I’ll try not to let it happen again. I’ll start with giving an update on what I’ve been up to this weekend, and then we’ll get to the blog review. Sound good?

So instead of blogging on Friday, Kate and I spent the day shopping for granite counter tops. Most of you know that Kate and I have been working very hard (with lots of help from my Dad and Home Depot) on updating our 1980s house. We have already performed a brass exorcism, removed the popcorn ceilings, and Kate has painted most of the house.

So operation get-our-house-out-of-1984 is now focused on new counter tops. For those of you who haven’t been shopping for granite, it’s sort of an experience. For me, it was particularly entertaining, since I’m pretty much color blind and don’t really spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen. So I spent most of my time adding insightful commentary, like:

“That looks really heavy. I don’t think I could lift that up by myself” - said when looking at the large slab of granite

“That one looks like the lobby at the Fairmont in San Francisco” - said while looking at some over the top white granite

“My house will be full of granite, marble and onyx” - Said while doing my best impression of Teresa from Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Instead of blogging on Saturday, I noticed that I was starting to get a lot of spam comments on the blog and I wanted to address that. So I dug into WordPress, and noticed that I could create a blacklist of words for comments - basically a list of naughty words that, when used in a comment, would lead to a comment getting automatically deleted. Creating this list was a fun exercise. I started out just using all of the words that show up in most of the spam comments (viagra, cialis, etc), but then started getting into all of the naughty words that I could think of. I think there are five languages represented in my comment naughty word blacklist. It’s like a potty mouth United Nations. So that took up most of my Saturday - happy birthday America!

As for Sunday…it’s with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of a family treasure. Lawnmower (2004-2009) passed away today in the backyard. I’d like to say that he passed away quietly in his sleep, but instead it was super noisy and embarrassing. Lawnmower and I shared so many great moments. There was my summer-long duel with crazy Indiana neighbor who wanted to have a better lawn than me. Crazy neighbor might have had me beat with his mad edging skillz and Cracker Barrel quality rocking chairs, but he couldn’t compete with the quality work that lawnmower did for me. And then there was the time that I thought I could fill up a camelback with beer for an afternoon of lawn mowing (not as brilliant of an idea as it sounds). Your beer will taste like gatorade, and your gatorade will taste like beer. Hmm, maybe if I had two camelbacks. Anyway…Lawnmower made the trip with us from Indiana, and lived exactly one year at our new house. He joins Weed Wacker (2004-2007) Red Truck (1998 - 2005) and Kate’s Laptop (2006-2007) in joint asset heaven. He is survived by gas can (2004-) and weed wacker #2 (2009-). In lieu of flowers, please send unleaded gasoline or spark plugs. A private ceremony for friends and family will be held at Lawnmower’s final resting place - the crawlspace under the deck. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Alright - time for the blog review now.

Anna at Blue Plate Special gets the top spot, because she sent us some free shiz. She sent us some delicious supercharge me cookies. Because of their name, I treated them like little vitamins. Unfortunately, they did not lead to me going out and running a marathon, but eating one of them did give me the energy to eat another one. So thanks again, Anna.

Anna made the world’s largest salad in this post. Either that, or this is the world’s smallest hand and blackberry. I’m not sure which it is. Sometimes I like to hold those little 6 oz Coke Cans in my hand and act like I’m a giant. I also do the same thing with the mini bottles of booze on airplanes. It’s not very difficult to entertain me. Also, shortly after her green monster, Anna was offered $5000 for this blender on the antiques roadshow.

Hangry Heather showed off her obscure nut butter collection in this post. I’m glad that Heather shared this picture. I’m also glad that Heather mentioned Scurvy…I always try to mention rickets or scurvy, but generally only do so when playing The Oregon Trail. And that usually happened because I’d buy 99 boxes of ammunition and no clothing for the children. This is no way for a banker from Boston to prepare for a trip across the country, which is why Nate Jr. would always end up with cholera or scurvy. I also mention scurvy when talking about the lead singer from the Spin Doctors (he just looked sickly), and he just doesn’t come up much these days. Anyway, I like this picture, because Kate has been falling in love with Polly’s fridge lately, which is super clean. Kate has talked about going with the ‘empty fridge/buy groceries for one day’ method. I don’t see this ending well for me. Neither of us is going to be able to go to the grocery on a daily basis. I can hardly commit to making it to my office every day, and that’s just upstairs. Hell, I can’t even blog every seven days. So please, more pictures of full fridges.

K-Dizzle from K’s Good Eats tackled an important topic in this post. In addition to sharing several mushroom glamour shots (K-Dizzle loves mushrooms - almost as much as the Real Housewives) she also discussed how her dogs are scared of fireworks. We have the same thing going on with Gilbert. This was a big problem when we lived in Indiana, because our hillbilly neighbors considered the 4th of July to be a week-long excuse to set off fireworks. I don’t get it, the duration of the holiday is clearly stipulated in the holiday’s name. It’s the 4th of July, not the “first week of July.” So Gilbert Michael wouldn’t go outside without bribery for a week or so. Fortunately we don’t have the same issue here in NC, or maybe Gilbert is just growing up. He knows he has to step up and be an adult before his upcoming nuptials with Penny. Man, we really need to stop treating that dog like a person. Oh, and a belated happy birthday to K-Dizzle.

Heather from Heat the Salmon Butt jumped on the banana ice cream bandwagon in this post. She also had a birthday party for her dog Einstein. Good to see that we’re not the only ones who treat our dog like a person. I would’ve liked to see the birthday hat on Einstein. We tried to put a birthday hat on Gilbert during my Spongebob party, but he decided to eat the hat instead. That dog loves to eat all paper products (Kate likes to say that he has a paper tooth). I’ve been kind of scared to try the banana soft serve. Several bloggers (Kath, Fitnessestenessa, Heat the Salmon Butt) have referred to it as a life changing experience. As I’ve mentioned before I’m not really a big fan of change, so I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of a commitment. If someone could confirm that it will taste good, but not change my life, I might give it a shot.

Post Graduate Meghannnn is on vacation, which means lots of guest posts. I was happy to see a post by her Easter Bunny, Derek. I like when bloggers have their significant others post for them. Most of them follow the format of: I don’t really pay attention to what I eat, I eat food from boxes, I don’t use all of those fancypants ingredients, I eat healthier because of my blogger, and I can’t believe that my blogging significant other does this posting thing multiple times per day. It’s a pretty solid format. I have enjoyed posts by Oh He Glows, Matt Eats Real Food, Mr. Hangry, and now Graduate Derek. I’m thinking Kate should do a guest post here in the near future. Both because I’m sure she’d do a good job, and because it would give me another week off from posting. A little peer pressure via comments could help make this happen.

Stock Up

Hummus - Good for hummus. It’s a true comeback story…Hummus has fallen on hard times lately, so it’s good to see hummus (both homemade and store-bought) make it to the stock up list again

Chicken Sausages - Not sure if other bloggers were eating them, but I ate enough this weekend to make them stock up

Patriotism - Blogland felt like a Toby Keith song this weekend

Green Monster Variations - Everyone seems to be adding an ingredient here, taking one out there. One of these days someone is going to come up with a combo that blows up their blender like an Indiana meth lab.

Stock Down

Store-bought Ice Cream - Everyone seems to be making their own. This banana stuff is out of control. I might give it a go, if I could also get butterfinger and oreos mixed in, like I do at Cold Stone.

Amazing Grass - It’s still out there, but mentions are down about 30% from last week

PETA Vegan College Cookbook - This was as popular as those Mushroom Ravioli things earlier this year, but haven’t seen it in blogland recently.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. I’ll try to do better (and get back on schedule) next time.

Hi Friends. Thanks for stopping by. How was your week? Good…glad to hear it. Pretty good week here. To follow up on last week’s recap, I survived my meeting with the doctor on Wednesday. No horrible illnesses or diseases, so that’s cool. The doctor did say that he’d like to see me lose a little weight. To which I replied “yeah, me too.” I’m glad that I’m on the same page as my medical professional. See you next year, doctor. Enjoy the $25 copay.

I’m sorry to report that I won’t be posting next week. Actually, I’m not sorry at all. Kate and I are heading to Cabo for the next 10 days or so. I’ll have limited access to phone, email, and sobriety. Hmm, maybe I should put that as my out of office message. Nah…probably not. Might not have a job to come back to if I did that. Anyway, I doubt I’ll be spending a whole lot of time reading blogs in the next week or so. I’ll be back with my weekly recap on the 26th, as long as I don’t end up with Swine Flu or something.

Alright. One sort of funny story and then we’ll get to the blog review. Kate spent the last couple of evenings googling Gilbert’s dog breed (in between looking at all of your blogs, of course). Searches included: Shar Pei Rat Terrier, Rat Pei, and Shar Terrier. Then she’d find pictures of similar looking dogs, and would show them to Gilbert. Usually saying things like “Gilbert, come look at your sister.” Then she mentioned that she wanted to find Gilbert’s family so we could have a reunion. So totally joking, I recommended that she check out ancestry.com to find Gil’s relatives and then I went back to watching bad television. About ten minutes later, Kate says “I don’t think this is going to work…it’s just stuff about people and their ancestors.” Apparently she thought I was serious and had looked for Gilbert’s ancestors online. That was probably the highlight of my week. Okay, now time for the blog review.

Kelsey from Bites and Bowls has taken the top spot away from Hangry Pants, which means I got some free shiz. Kind of, but not really. Kelsey jacked one of my Smart Ones on Saturday night/Sunday morning, which you can read about in this post. To repay me, she brought over a box of Twilight-Inspired Conversation Hearts. They came in a box with the dreamy Edward Cullen on the package, and the hearts said things like “Bite Me” and “Live Forever.” They were delicious, even though it’s four months after their originally scheduled consumption date. So thanks B+B for the free shiz. In that post by Kelsey, you’ll notice that she and I sang karaoke backup to Matt last weekend on Nuthin’ But a G Thang. I volunteered to sing the Dre parts, which I thought meant I’d just say ‘hell yeah’ in a low voice over and over again. Turns out that Dre actually has a verse. Oh, and I also found out that if there’s a ‘radio friendly’ (or wal-mart friendly) version of a song, then that’s probably the version that the karaoke guy will have. I was singing the album version. So I’d like to apologize to the patrons of the Yellow Rose for my bad language, but I think I was singing the song in the way that Dre and Snoop wanted it to be sung. Except for the whole drunk white guy in a dive bar in suburban Charlotte North Carolina part. Hell yeah.

Emily at Super Caloric Chalk Dust tagged me in this post, which appears to be some kind of chain letter/post. I heart Super Caloric, but I’m not really a chain letter responder kind of guy, so I’m just going to talk about Emily and her blog and we’ll say that I’ve fulfilled my chain letter duties, okay? That way, if this is really some kind of scam, then I won’t be considered an accomplice. As far as I can tell, the only difference between a chain letter and a pyramid scheme is that nobody gets rich with a chain letter. People just end up giving personal details (like their lack of at home pants wearing) instead of ending up with mad loot.  And for this chain blog thing to take off, they should probably include some threat of dismemberment or disfigurement. Those both seem like good motivators for old school chain letters. Like send a pair of flip flops to 10 of your best friends or else you’ll get the hiv or something.  So I’m going to make my own rules instead. By being tagged, it means I should stop eating peaches, and should go on vacation and sit on the beach for a couple of weeks. Okay…sold.

Tina at Carrots ‘n’ Cake made some dong-shaped cupcakes in this post. At first I thought this was really out of character for the C ‘n’ C blogging factory. I mean she usually does nice things like pictures of parks in Boston and funny stories about Mal, and out of nowhere come these iced dongs. But then I read the post, and it turns out that it was part of a bachelorette weekend party thing. This makes sense. Bachelorette parties are one of only three scenarios where graphic depictions of man junk are socially acceptable. The others are junior high (sex ed class) and episodes of Oprah when Dr. Oz is the guest. That damn Dr. Oz is always talking about man bits. Speaking of  sex ed…did I ever tell y’all that my dad was my sex ed teacher in Jr. High? I can’t remember if that was on this blog or another blog. Anyway, this is reason #1 why I haven’t been embarrassed since 7th grade. Nothing tops that. Nothing.

Speaking of wangs, Snackface made a pretty fantastic reference to Trey MacDougal’s flaccidity in this post. I know, this post is more than a week old, but it was probably the funniest thing that I read this week, and it’s my blog, so I’m making an exception and including it in the weekly roundup. Mostly because I’m planning on stealing this line and calling anything limp ‘Trey-Like’ from now on. We’ll see if it sticks. Cut to my favorite scene from Mean Girls when Regina George says ’stop trying to make fetch happen.’ Say what you want about LiLo, but Mean Girls is one of the best movies in the history of the world. Ever. And shame on me for just now writing about Snackface…there’s no excuse for that. I mean, she has SATC references in her posts, she attends Matt Lauer’s alma mater, and she hangs out with homegirl. How did it take me 12 installments to write about her? I say again, shame on me.

Stock Up

Amazing Wheat Grass - Really? We’re drinking grass now? I’ll take healthy eating stereotypes for $200, Alex. This is like a bad commercial for a casual dining establishment. Like the family goes to the health food restaurant and everyone is drinking grass, then the dad makes a stupid face so the family goes to Flingers for some jalapeno poppers or something instead. Ugh.

Blogapalooza References - This is pretty much the social event of the summer. I’m looking forward to this almost as much as the season finale of Real Housewives of New Jersey. Healthy Twilight Pancake had a nice post about it where she asked readers which bloggers they wanted to meet. I almost signed in under random names to stuff the ballot in my favor.

Free Shiz - Not for me, but there are some contests worth mentioning. The Professional Vegan is giving away some books…Fast Food Nation and Food Inc. I didn’t know they wrote books about those movies, but you can find out the details here. In other free shiz news, Kori at All things B is giving away some of that Amazing Grass in this post. In other news, I’m going to mow my lawn on Saturday before we leave town, so I’ll be having a grass giveaway as well if you want to come over and pick up the clippings. It’ll save me some raking.

Summer haircuts - I’d like to think that this is because I got my fro cut off last week, but I doubt I’m really a trendsetter here. Post-Graduate Meghannnn and birthday girl Jenna were among the multiple bloggers who got ‘em all cut this week. Am I really talking about the hair cutting schedules of people I’ve never met before. What the hell is wrong with me? But if I meet them all at blogapalooza, it won’t be quite as creepy, right?

Stock Down

Mean Anonymous Comments - Actually there have been way too many of them recently, but I give them a big thumbs down. If you want to be a wanker and get into a comment pissing match, go to a political or news blog or something. Anonymous mean comments on food/health blogs are just dumb. Props to Fitnestestinesstia and her pilot on the way they handled this one. Critical comments are okay. Just leave your name so we can engage in a healthy dialogue. Or so I can leave a flaming bag of poo on your doorstep.

Gluten - I really don’t know what gluten is, but people seem to be avoiding it. I could google it and find out what it is, but  I’m a firm believer that for everything I learn, I forget another thing, and I don’t want to forget anything,  And please don’t try to educate me via comments, or else I’ll forget my 2nd grade teacher’s name.

Soy - People seem to be anti-soy this week as well. I’m alright with that, as long as it just means I should avoid faux meat (like Soy Burgers and Soy Sausage). Consider it done. But don’t make me give up my soy sauce and edamame. Can we make an exception there?

Foods that end in consonants - I’m not sure why, but there have been lots of posts about foods that end with vowels. A prime example of this is Rose’s Frittata and Scone post. That’s a double word score. Keep in mind that Pat and Vanna are going to charge you $250 apiece for those.

Alright friends. That’s all I’ve got. See you in a couple of weeks. We’ll try to do better next time.

Hi Friends. Welcome to my new blog. It’s a hot mess, isn’t it? If you like the design, then I give all the credit to Pinky’s husband, who helped me out big time. Actually he did it all. I just supervised. And by supervise, I mean I drank beer and watched Juno and offered words of encouragement. He was done before with this fancy design before Juno’s third trimester. He’s good with the Word Press and the interweb, so if y’all need help with your blog, you can get in touch with him through Pinky’s blog. If something isn’t working correctly, that’s probably my bad. Let me know and we’ll try to get it fixed. After reading this post, I’d encourage you to take a tour of the blog. But first, let’s do our weekly blog review. 

We’ll start in our nation’s capital with Anna from Blue Plate Special. Anna’s sister Meg wrote a heart wrenching post where she came clean about her gambling addiction. Well, not really, but she did admit to bidding on four items in the recent blogger bake sale, which is sort of like gambling, right? I mean, those are some expensive baked goods. I can see her on the phone with her bookie, saying she’ll take the VeggieGirl blondies plus two, with the juice running at five points a week. Or maybe she’ll bet the over on Tina’s Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf. In other BPS news, Anna has sworn off using cocoa powder in her oats after three unsuccessful attempts. I understand where Anna is coming from on this one. I put a leftover birthday cupcake in my oats the other day. My cupcake oats tasted okay, but then when I wanted to eat my cupcake at lunch, it was already gone. And then I had to explain to Kate where the leftover cupcake went. And it doesn’t matter that I put it in oatmeal, I still ate a cupcake for breakfast.

Speaking of Kate, I would like to thank Jenna and the Fitnessistitanissstasa  for taking away what little counter space I had left in my kitchen. Thanks to the juicing habits of the aforementioned bloggers, Kate has now purchased her own juicer. Awesome. It also happens to be the same model that Jenna has, but Kate swears that’s a complete coincidence. I’m not buying it. So now Kate is making juice twice a day. She asks if I want some juice about five times a day, even though my answer is always ‘sure, as long as it doesn’t have any vegetables in it.’ This machine sounds like a lawnmower fighting with a 747.  Oh, and this juicing robot/countertop stealer is the size of R2D2 and probably has as many working parts. So every morning when I come down to make my oats, it looks like someone has taken apart a ’67 Buick. This is what I mean

Sorry for the poor photo quality. I’m pretty sure that the juice robot ate my camera for fuel, so I had to use my camera phone instead. And regardless of the ingredients, the juice always looks like it should be dumped on top of celebrities at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. I better stop. I could do an entire post on how this juice monster has impacted my life. So thanks Jenna and Fitnessistanissista! 

Caroline at Banana Cabana had a blogger date with GraduateMeghann this week during GM’s trip to California. Caroline and Meghann checked most of the requirements off of their blogger first date checklist. Ethnic food – Check. Ice Cream/Frozen Yogurt – Check. All that was missing was a shopping trip at a crunchy grocery store (they tried but Trader Joes was closed).  Banana Cabana is a new blog for me. Caroline wrote one of the funniest comments I’ve ever read the other day on Healthy Tipping Point, so I figured I’d have to start reading her blog. I’m sad that I just started reading, because Banana Cabana should’ve made my list of blog names that sort of sound like porn.  

And how many more years do you think Meghann can squeeze out of the GraduateMeghann name?  I mean, sure, she’ll always be a college graduate, but it would be sort of silly to refer to herself as such when she’s 47, right? I’d say she’s got two more years as GraduateMeghann. So if in two more years she still wants to use the GraduateMeghann domain name, I think she’ll have to go back to school for grad school. That would help her squeeze a few more years out of that name.

It was a good week in Hangryland. ‘She says’ made some Cadbury Mini Egg Cookie Bars. She has also taken on one of my pet causes: making seasonal holiday candies available year-round. So Ms. Hangry - I think we need to find like-minded bloggers who also want to support this cause. Maybe we can use blog revenue to hire a lobbyist. I don’t have any blog revenue, so I guess my contribution will be to come up with a list of candies that need year-round shelf space. So far I’ve got:

1. All Easter Candy: Peeps, Cadbury Everything, Peanut Butter Eggs (I know it’s just a peanut butter cup, but it tastes better when shaped like an egg), and everything in the jelly bean family.
2. McDonald’s Shamrock Shake - I know it’s not really candy, but it’s my list
3. Chocolate Santas - I never eat these, but they always look so damn jolly. I just like seeing them on the store shelves. 

Mr. Hangry (Hangryman?) gave an update on his salad challenge. I don’t understand how these challenges work. Is there a prize at the end? Do you at least get a certificate of completion or a participant ribbon. I think if you’re able to eat a salad every day for two weeks, then you should get a prize. I propose a $50 bill and a Schwinn bicycle. It’s like hitting bucket #6 on the grand prize game. I’ll call The Bozo Show and see if that’s available. None of those little kids ever make it to bucket 6, so they have to have a bunch of bikes just laying around in the studio. If you didn’t grow up watching Bozo, this paragraph probably didn’t make any sense to you. Sorry about that. Hangryman had a Coneheads reference in his post, so I thought Bozo would be alright/less obscure, no?

Now we need to get serious. There have been multiple instances of trunk on blogger violence over the past week. Caitlin Tipping Point had to go all Rachel Ray on her trunk and cover it in EVOO in order to get it to open and release her groceries. Kelsey at Bites and Bowls was essentially assaulted by her trunk. I mean, her trunk literally punched her in the face. How does that even happen? Kate works with the elderly and swears that most bad things happen in threes, so I’m sort of scared that the trunk on blogger violence isn’t over yet. Kate is usually talking about old people dying in threes, but I bet it applies to trunk violence as well. Be afraid. Be very afraid. 

Matt at Brew and Bake gave me my first official free stuff. It was a blondie from Great Harvest. I’d show a picture of it, but I couldn’t find the camera and I got hungry. So instead, here’s a picture of the bag that it came in, as well as the note that Matt wrote on it. 

If you can’t read that, it says “Because I don’t ever want to be called out on the internet for not bringing you blondies.” At least we know his heart is in the right place. I feel like I’ve really made the big time now. My first official free blog stuff. Damn. Maybe I should’ve given it away on the blog. Maybe next time. 

Stock Up

Buitoni Wild Mushroom Agnolotti – At first I was a little jealous when I saw that the foodbuzz fairy visited much of the blogworld and gave this stuff to everyone. But then I learned that Kate has as much trouble pronouncing Buitoni as she does pronouncing Fitnessissta. So at least it was entertaining. 

Chia Seeds – What the hell are these? Is this the same stuff that I plastered onto my Chia Pet? Because it clearly said on the box that you’re not supposed to eat that stuff. 

Mix My Granola – I entered at least 17 comment contests to try to score some of this stuff. Stupid random number generator has it in for me. And I already had my mix picked out. It was gonna be gin, vermouth, and an olive. Or does it have to include granola?

Blogapalooza Surveys – I guess it is also being referred to as the Blogger Summit. I have heard more about this upcoming summit than I have heard about Jane Seymour’s tacky looking ‘Open Hearts’ collection at Kay Jewelers. Sorry about that tangent…back to Blogapalooza…whatever you want to call it, I’m so there. Wherever ‘there’ is. Y’all coming with me?

Kale Chips

Cocoanut Milk/Meat/Water. All things coconut. 

Stock Down

the –ie suffex – as in brekkie, and Sammie. Ladies, we’ve already discussed this. Now we’ve added grapie to the list? Where does this end? As I say to my three year old neice…use your big girl words.

Sugar – Everyone seems to be giving up/cutting back on sugar. But didn’t y’all give up high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners already? What’s left?

Blogger’s Choice Awards – Stock down because I’m not winning yet, and Kath’s not winning yet either. What’s up with that? I’m losing to a blog about funny cakes. This cannot be. Vote for my other blog here and vote for KERF here. It we win, this one might make stock up in a future week

Note: This was originally posted at http://yourselfinfiveyears.blogspot.com/

Greetings, and welcome to the second weekly food blog roundup. Thanks for coming back. It’s been an exciting week in Food Blog World, and I’ll do my best to take you around in the next 1000 words or so. I’ve decided to change it up a bit and go for more short reviews, instead of a handful of really long ones. We’ll see how that goes. I usually just start rambling, so that might not work. Here. We. Go.

Kelsey at Bites + Bowls had a very busy week. In addition to wearing some Flashdance-style leggings, she also tried on 17 different colors of nail polish and took about 15 inappropriate pictures of fruit and veggies. Since Kelsey doesn’t eat mammal, there is usually fruit and/or veggies with every meal. This means three opportunities per day for phallic fruit and veggie placement. Oh, and she also became the first food blogger to take a picture of her dirty laundry. Congrats, Kelsey. Bites and Bowls was also under attack this week by a Negative Nancy commentor. There were like five consecutive posts when the same person kept writing nastygrams about pretty much everything. So I had to put on my disguise as my blog commentor alter ego/sassy middle-aged woman (this time I was named Marge) and come to the rescue. Marge saved the day and once again stopped the advances of Negative Nancy.

VeggieGirl – I hope your VeggieCameraman/VeggieDad is feeling better. He didn’t sound too good on your last video. I could send you some Robitussin or maybe some Sucrets or something. I’m hoping it’s just a springtime cold, and not a ventilation problem in the VeggieGirl kitchen/VGTV Studios. Oh, and VeggieGirl, my blondies have not arrived yet. What does a girl have to do to get some VeggieGirl blondies? Everyone else in Blogland seems to have received their VeggieGirl Blondies, and mine are nowhere to be found. Did you lose my address already? And why doesn’t my cable package come with VeggieGirl TV? I get Starz 8 in HD and four shopping channels, but no VeggieGirl TV. That ain’t right. Time Warner - If you’re listening, can you please add VeggieGirl TV to my channel lineup?

Caitlin at Healthy Tipping Point is considering a move to Charlotte. I am 100% in favor of this move. If it helps make your decision, I’ll let you refer to me as “Replacement Meghann” after you move. I’m cool with it, really. Caitlin had the first food blog night that I could actually relate to on Saturday. It involved onion rings, watching basketball,  and drinking beers. Not just A beer, but beers plural. Then you had to ruin it by running 10 miles while listing to the Twilight Soundtrack. Why must you torment me like this? You can move here if you want, but you better leave those damn vampire friends in Florida. Caitlin also finished her 30 day shred. Finally! I was exhausted just from reading about it.

On a Lobster Placemat. Okay, so I haven’t started reading this one yet, but I really dig the name and Kate likes your blog. Most of these food blogs seem to follow a pretty consistent naming convention of [Name/Nickname] + [What I like to Do] OR [ Name + What I like to Eat] OR [Some Noun and Verb Combo]. And then out of nowhere comes this fantastic abstract blog name that I really don’t understand. This is the food blog equivalent of Pearl Jam’s “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” in a sea of one word song titles like Daughter, Jeremy, Alive, and Black. I will start reading your blog, just because of the name. And because you play with your food.

Super Caloric Chalk Dust is also a pretty fantastic blog name. I also feel like SCCD must live in one of those cities where companies  test out all of their new products before launching them across the country. That’s the only theory I can come up with, because I spend a lot of time at the grocery store, and I’ve never seen half of the products that you’ve tried this week. Doritos Collisions? Jelly Belly Pudding? Aloe Juice? Where do you find these treasures, and have they been approved by the FDA? I get scared when you go a couple of days without posting. I start to think that maybe one of these experimental/only available wherever the heck you live foods caused some significant health issue that is keeping you from your blogging responsibilities. Or maybe you just have other stuff to do.

ZestyCook – So I finally started reading this one so I have more to talk about than his beautiful bald head, but then I got sidetracked. I saw that you made a chocolate cake and used a Skor Bar as a topping. They still make Skor bars? I thought those went the way of the Rollerblade. Maybe they just started selling them in Canada and stopped U.S. distribution. Which reminds me – do they still sell Clearly Canadian in Canada? Because that stuff kicked ass. So if you can get your hands on some Clearly Canadian, you can send it my way. It would go really well with VeggieGirl’s blondies (which should totally be here by now).

The Fitnessista got a shout-out in one of her favorite (and my favorite) magazines this week – Glamour. My favorite part of Glamour (and Cosmo) is taking their little quizzes. It always comes back with results like “you really need to work on pleasing your man” or “you are a strong independent woman.” I’m starting to think that maybe those quizzes aren’t designed for men who are just killing time at the grocery store checkout. Anyway, Fitnessista’s Glamour quote had something to do with healthy living and loving your body. I didn’t really read it. But I did see that she said something about doing Zumba. Kate and I tried doing Zumba once in South Beach with my Uncle Joe and Aunt Rolando. It was not pretty. My uncles were Zumba professionals and we were not.  I think Kate and I were both two entire songs behind the rest of the class. I also like Fitnessista because Kate can’t even come close to pronouncing her blog’s name correctly. So I like to ask Kate what she’s looking at (while I know she’s looking at Fitnessista) just to hear the pronunciation.  Kate’s version includes about 12 S’s and 6 I’s.

Matt at Brew and Bake just posted his 7th step in his how to home brew series. 7 steps and we can’t even drink the beer yet! I’ve decided that if anything takes more than three steps to explain, I’m probably just going to buy it instead. Or, I’ll just hang out in Matt’s garage when he gets to the ‘bottling’ step. And when he goes in to type out his blog post, I’ll just take the beer. Probably shouldn’t have written that plan down – there goes the element of surprise.

Stock Up/Stock Down – With Commentary. Sometimes.

Stock Up

Green Smoothies – Yeah, somebody thought it was a good idea to put spinach or kale in a smoothie. I’m sure it’s pretty healthy. It’s been a great weight loss tool for me. No, I haven’t tried one of these, but Kate has jumped on the bandwagon, and every time I see the post-Green Smoothie Blender in my kitchen I start to throw up in my mouth and skip my next meal. Thanks ladies!

Kombucha – So it costs like $3.50 and tastes like garbage water…what’s not to love? Oh, and it’s the only drink I’ve found that still doesn’t taste good, even after you mix it with alcohol.

April Fools Jokes – Seriously… saying you ate something fried or had fast food is not enough. Ladies, this is your one day out of the year when you can lie and nobody can get mad at you. Go out on more of a limb. Next year I’m expecting a food blogger to say they were coked out with Lindsay Lohan or huffed gasoline for breakfast with an Olson twin. 

Breakfast Cookies - I stopped getting excited when I found it they weren’t talking about Oreos

Stock Down

Pistachio Nuts - This latest recall hit the food blogging community very hard. We’re going to pull through this. I promise.

Exercise-related injuries - Everyone seems to be magically healed now.

30 Day Shred – Level II - That was so last week.

Using the terms ’sammie’ and ‘brekkie’ - Specifically for sandwich and breakfast. Actually stock is way up on these two. I just really want it to stop. So I thought maybe putting them in the stock down category would lead to their demise - at least on this side of the Atlantic.

That’s all for this week. I should be back next Friday. Give me a couple weeks and this food blog roundup will have its own blog. It’ll probably have a weekly long post and then some shorter stuff on a daily basis. The new design will be fun, flirty, and feminine with a spunky edge. Not really. I actually just stole that from a food blog.  A free VeggieGirl blondie to the first person who can tell me where I stole that last line. I’m lying about the blondie too, but curious if anyone can name that blog. 

Alright, time to go.  See y’all next week.