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 coming back to my blog. So I know I kind of promised that I’d do two posts this week, but that’s not going to happen this week. I thought all good television was over with for the year, and then I get sucked into a Deadliest Catch Marathon AND the Scripps Spelling Bee. Oh, and I’ve been busy with work too. Sorry if this late Thursday night/early Friday morning post (check local listings) throws off your Google Reader routine, but I’m traveling tomorrow and this will probably be my only posting opportunity. And if you think it sucks for you…I have to miss Taylor Swift’s performance on the Today Show. Doesn’t work know that I’ve been looking forward to this ever since Matt and Meredith announced their summer concert schedule?. 

Thanks for all of the positive feedback on last week’s ideas. If any of you guys decide to move forward with development of my hamster transportation system, or if you create your own cool tub, please send me pictures. Since y’all liked those ideas, I guess I can just use this blog to share all of my awesome ideas. I’ve shared these on my other blog, but since only seven people read that blog when I wrote that post (and I think I’m related to 6 of them) I’ll repeat myself. Here are my inventions…feel free to steal them. I promise I’ll get to the blog review after this.

Electrocuting Baby Doll - Probably need to work on the name, but it’s basically a little kid’s doll that shocks the hell out of a dog if the dog touches it. Not just for shits and giggles (unless you’re really mean) but as a training aid for the family pet when the mom and dad are expecting a human baby. Ya know, so the dog doesn’t eat the human baby. Because that would be bad.

Screw Off Chicken Bucket - All of you healthy people probably aren’t my target demographic for this one, but I think the bottom of the KFC bucket should screw off and contain silverware and napkins. Then you can use your other hand to carry your side dishes.

Vibrating Remote Control - When I’m switching between two channels, I want to know when my primary channel comes back from commercial. A vibrating remote would alert me when it’s time for me to change back so I don’t miss my Housewives.

Please invent one of these products. Oh, I’ve also got a pretty badass idea that would revolutionize banana distribution, but it’s too long to summarize here, so you can just read about it in the Editor’s tangent on this post. Now for our weekly blog recap.

Hangry Pants wrote a nice post about how she met Mr. Hangry earlier this week. I don’t know why, but I love this kind of stuff. Especially when there are pictures from the ‘before they were bloggers’ era. It’s sort of like the E! or VH1 shows with big time celebrities back when they were doing commercials or music videos. This would be an excellent time for me to include an old school picture of Kate and I from when we met, but my digital camera in 2002 actually held a 3.5 inch diskette, and my 2009 laptop doesn’t have a disk drive. Yeah, we’re an old married couple. Oh, and if you recall, Mr. and Ms. Hangry sent me chocolate muffins and liquid crack last week, which means they get to hold the #1 slot on the blog round-up until I get more free stuff. Yes, I like free stuff that much. Hmm…not sure if that’s an honor or not.

Caitlin Pancake wrote an entire post about the upcoming Twilight sequel. I think this tops her birthday post from a couple of months ago when she said she wanted the Twilight action figure as a gift. So her new name is Caitlin Twilight Pancake. I know she’s not alone in her obsession. There were like 65 comments on that post, and most of them were about how dreamy the man vampire is. And Kate’s step sister once said that she wanted to marry a vampire (because of the movie). Don’t get me wrong, he’s dreamy for sure, but I still don’t get it. In other news, Twilight has been added to my list of stuff that I don’t understand. It fits somewhere between Radiohead and fax machines on this list.

Angela at Oh She Glows wins the best post title of the week award with this alliterative post. It was a nice post with a positive ‘feel good about yourself’ message, but one thing keeps bothering me. The Green Monster keeps showing up in different glassware on OSG! I think I’ve seen a green drink in a Champagne Flute, Wine Glass, Rocks Glass, and maybe a couple more. I think this just leaves shot glass, camelback,  and beer helmet as the only drinking vessels that haven’t had the pleasure of being filled with blended green things. I’m sure there’s something psychological about drinking out of a fancy glass and making it more fun to drink the Green Monster, but I’m just not buying it. Seeing a green monster in a wine glass just makes me not want to drink wine. Everyone says they are great, and I’m sure Kate will somehow feed one to me when I’m not paying attention (because that’s how she rolls) but I think the Monster would be better in a dark glass. But then Angela totally redeemed herself with more fancy spelling…which is the best (or should I say my favourite) part of OSG. It makes me feel classy when I read the fancy spelling. Her spelling is much more regal than the backcountry gibberish that I use here.

I have been wanting to write about Polly at Yoga is Yummy for several weeks now. Polly is a fan of this blog and I enjoy reading her blog, so it makes sense for me to write about her, right? To date, Kate has always vetoed me with something like “Polly is the nicest person we know and you’ll say something mean or smartass and you won’t think it’s mean but you can’t say something mean or smartass, okay”. So this naturally scares me out of writing about Polly. Oh, and when Kate says that Polly is the nicest person we know, we are basing that entirely on her blog and comments she posts on other blogs, but I think it’s pretty accurate. Most bloggers average about one frustration post per week, where they use the blog as an opportunity to vent or something, and that’s fine. I can’t really swing that, since I only post once a week, but whatever. Anyway, all of Polly’s posts are super upbeat and nice, which is probably why Polly is now ranked above me on Kate’s ‘nice people’ list. So all I’m going to say is that I too am a Taylor Swift fan, and I think that the poster in this post is pretty sweet. Kate probably wouldn’t let me hang a poster in our bedroom, but she is going to allow me to sing some ‘Picture to Burn’ when we do Karaoke at the dive bar next weekend. Stay tuned for pictures from that.

Stock Up

Adora Calcium Discs - These things probably should’ve been stock up last week, but I was kind of hoping that I’d somehow get some in the mail, and I’d feel bad if I wrote something smartass about them. Turns out I didn’t get any, so opportunity lost. But I did steal one from Kath’s house the other day. I give them a C+ if you treat them as candy, and a A- if you consider it to be some kind of vitamin. 

Twitter Usage - The entire food blog world is now on Twitter. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing on Twitter. I’m waiting for The Video Professor to come out with a Twitter training CD because I feel like an 80 year old man on there. I don’t understand the jargon or protocol, but if you want to follow me, I think you can do that by going here.

Chocolate - Chocolate is showing up in breakfast, lunch and dinner posts this week. It’s actually kicking the pants off of Peanut Butter in their ’sweet but kind of healthy’ death match. I expect a strong response from Peanut Butter (and the rest of the nut butter family). I even saw some Chocolate Peanut Butter. I don’t know if I should count that in the Peanut Butter column or the Chocolate column. I’ll call it a draw.

Guest Posting - Following in Caitlin Pancake’s footsteps, Kath has single handedly moved guest posting into the stock up category. FFS, I hit refresh and I’ve got like six new guest posts to read. I feel like Laverne (or Lucy) working the assembly line. Slow it down! And no, I’m not that old, but I watched some Nick at Night.

Stock Down

Milk from Cows - Someone should probably notify all of the Kindergarten teachers out there, as this will have a significant impact on their curriculum. Sorry teachers, but you’re going to have to work on lesson plans this summer to explain that milk comes from the Soy or the Coconut, but not the cow. Good luck with that.

Using an Oven - Everything is either grilled or raw

Swimming (the exercise kind, not the floating kind) - The legs of the triathlon have their ups and downs. Running and Biking are back up again, but swimming is back down. Floating and/or laying on the beach is still pretty popular, so we’re just talking about lap swimming here.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for this week. I’ll try to post twice next week. Not sure if I can fit it in with a new episode of Jersey Housewives and everything else I’ve gotta do. We’ll try to do better next time.

Hi Friends. Thanks for coming back for another week. I can’t believe that I’ve been doing this for six weeks. I’m thinking about changing up the naming convention of this weekly post. I like the Roman Numerals, but once we get past the number of whatever Super Bowl we’re on, I’ll probably need help on the numbers.So if anyone out there is either Roman or a Papal Historian, please let me know once I get to week XLIII. More details to follow. One change that I am making is based off of reader feedback. Lee posted the following comment after last week’s post:

“Love the blog, hate the fact that you don’t include links to the specific post you’re referring to. Do you know how long it took me to find the Wendy’s post on Carrots ‘n’ Cake? (Totally worth it, by the way.) Help me out here … I’m supposed to be writing essays when I am reading your blog so the least you could do is help minimize the time I spend procrastinating!”

Well Lee, thanks for your feedback. I’m going to do my best to link to both the blog homepage and the individual post. So here’s your request, and dedication. Alright, time to get on with the blog roundup… 

Tina at Carrots ‘N’ Cake started reading Bethenny Frankel’s book in this post. For those of you that don’t know, Bethenny is one of  The Real Housewives of New York. Kate and I are both big fans of the Housewives franchise. New York isn’t my favorite, but I still watch. Bethenny is my favorite member of that cast, despite the fact that the title of her book (Naturally Thin) makes me flick it off when I see it at Barnes and Noble. Yes, you heard that right. I stick my middle finger up at a book when I see it at B&N. My favorite Housewives cast has to be Atlanta. Those women are just batshit crazy. I felt stressed out just watching Nene and Kim at the cast reunion. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just turn on Bravo. It’s probably on right now. I don’t recommend watching if it’s Saturday afternoon. There are usually marathons during the weekend. I have lost entire Saturdays with those damn women. 

Sarah from Tales of Expansion wrote a post about a blogger meet-up in Brooklyn titled Recycled Balls. I think it’s about Bubble Tea. Bubble Tea has been stock up for about three weeks, but since I really don’t know what the hell it is, I haven’t classified it as such. I like to be educated about these various products before I write about them. And by educated, I mean I want Kate to buy them, me to complain about her buying them, and then me to sample them. That’s just how we roll. Sarah at LovIN My Tummy emailed me a couple of weeks ago about the marked increase in ball references in food blogs, and she was right out in front of this trend. So I really don’t know what Bubble Tea is. All I know so far is:

1. It seems to be a big thing in New York
2. Nobody can talk about it on a blog without making jokes about, well, man bits

And I’m okay with the second one. I’m the guy with the list of blog names that sound like porn, so your ball jokes are fine with me.

Angela at Oh She Glows has been busy this week, launching Project Glow. From what I gather, Project Glow is Angela’s 30 day program to improve your skin. There are three steps for Project Glow:

1. Skin Care - A bunch of stuff about buying new product and taking off your makeup before you go to bed. Okay, I think I can handle that. Although I’m not sure if there’s any room in our shower caddie for more product. We probably have most of it already. Kate seems to be stockpiling product for some reason. Anyway, I’ll be sure to take off my makeup before bedtime

2. Glowing from the Inside Out: FOOD - Food is in all CAPS, so I guess it’s really important. She wants everyone to eat one of those damn green smoothies everyday. I have no doubt that it would probably help me glow, but this one probably isn’t happening. My thoughts on the green monster have been well documented. I like the Green Monster at Fenway, but that’s about it. And if Angela was feeling really entrepreneurial, she would require the Project Glow devotees to consume products that she sells at the Glo Bakery. And then you could say that those same products would help in the Bikini Body Boot Camp. That would be the OSG equivalent of a triple word score.

3. Reduce Stress - This one should be easy. I don’t really have anything stressful in my life. I mean, I spend my spare time reading food blogs, how stressful can that be? I think the most stressful thing I have going is trying to keep up with OSG’s multi-national conglomerate. Between keeping up with the Glo Bakery, and my instructions for the Bikini Body Boot Camp, and now this Project Glow, my schedule is pretty booked.  

In between facial scrubs, carub brownies and bikini body workouts, I checked out Matt’s post about mint juleps on Brew and Bake. It’s a pretty fantastic post. I mean, he dressed up and posed for the blog. How many of you have blogged in costume? That’s what I thought. The mint julep post was the lastest in Matt’s how-to series on Old Man drinks. I’ve enjoyed it so far because, well, I really like old man drinks. But I also think he should start a series on young man drinks. Post one could be jello shots. Post two could be how to infuse a watermelon with vodka. Post three could be whatever the kids are doing these days. I dunno, just a thought. And he could dress up in costume. Maybe a popped collar, a frayed baseball cap and some khaki cargos. We’re just brainstorming here. 

On a somewhat related topic, Janet at Pretty Green Girl made wine ice cubes in this post. Now I’m generally a big fan of creative alcohol use, but this one was disappointing. See, I like to open a bottle of wine, knowing full well that Kate is only going to drink one glass. My go to excuse for drinking the rest of the bottle is “well honey, I don’t want it to go bad.” So Janet’s idea, however ingenious it is, gives us another answer to the question:

1. How do I stop this bottle of wine from going bad?

A. Drink it
B.

See. I really liked it when there wasn’t a B. Now there is. Thanks a lot, Janet.  

Stock Up

Edward Cullen References - This guy just won’t die. Although I guess he is technically a vampire, so that’s sort of expected

Sample Packets of Barney Butter - These seem to be popping up everywhere. Although I havent’ seen any pictures of bloggers eating Barney’s sweet nectar right from the package. I bet it has happened off camera.

Swine Flu Threat Levels - Expect facial masks to be stock up next week

PETA College Vegan Cookbooks - My new advocacy group, PETT (People for the Ethical Treatment of Trees) is going to start protesting PETA if they keep sending out paper cookbooks. Can’t y’all create a digital cookbook instead? For instructions on how to do this, please email ZestyCook, you treekillers.

Stock Down

Running Marathons - I’ve run a few so I’m all for it, but there have been some comment pissing matches recently with some anti-marathon people. Is that really a cause? Are there lobbyists? I guess comment pissing matches should technically be stock up, but I’ve already got a decent list of stock up. And comment battles annoy me. I don’t think anyone walks away saying “yeah, I used to think this, but now that I’ve heard from some anonymous person on the internet, I’ve totally changed my opinion.”

Emoticons - Not yet on the endangered species list, but the overall population of yellow smiley faces has certainly declined. 

Kombucha - Ya’ll are still drinking it in blogland, but I haven’t seen any in my fridge for awhile. So it must be stock down at my house

Alright guys. That’s all I’ve got for this week. We’ll try to do better next time.

Note: The following was originally posted on http://yourselfinfiveyears.blogspot.com/

Hello, and welcome to the first (and potentially last) edition of the YIFY Food Blog Roundup. This could probably go in a couple of directions from here. Either it could become wildly popular and create it’s own spin-off blog, or I could offend a bunch of people that I don’t even know, feel guilty about it, and then go back to blogging about my dog or hard alcohol. Only time will tell. A few of the ground rules:

1. Blogs were selected at random. And by random I mean I’m commenting on the handful that I read regularly, or those that seem to be popular because they get frequent shout-outs in the blogs that I read.

2. If you have your own food blog that you want to be included, or, if there’s one that you read and you want me to comment on it, just leave it as a comment. No promises here - remember that this might be the last edition.

3. I’m not trying to be an ass. Really. This is about as edited/filtered as I get. Sorry if it is still in some way offensive. This is the first post where Kate actually has editorial control. Mostly because she’s the nicest person that I know.

4. If I write something about you and you don’t like it, you can email me and I’ll edit the post, print a retraction, or apologize profusely - your pick. But if you don’t think it’s too painful, I’d say just laugh it off. There may be some symbiosis here eventually. If we hit the big time, then maybe we can help drive traffic your way.

Alright, now that we’ve got that our of the way, here’s your roundup

Blog: Kath Eats Real Food
Blogger: Kath

Kath returned from Africa last week and got back to her normal blogging schedule. I’m not going to lie…life was a little more difficult when Kath was in Africa. Posts were inconsistent. Matt did his best to fill the Kath shaped hole that was left in blogworld, but it was hard on all of us. And when Kath did post, there were comment battles popping up everywhere. It was very difficult.

But now Kath is back and all is right in blogworld. She had a bunch of contests in the past week. I think it might be related to her trip to Africa. I have a feeling that next week she’s going to announce that she’s actually a Nigerian princess, and if you make a small deposit (of barney butter) into her account, then she can access all of the riches of her motherland and shower you with gold and ivory and probably some oatmeal. Be on the lookout for that, as I think it might be a scam.

Speaking of oatmeal, Kath and Oatmeal were fighting earlier this week. And by fighting, I mean that she chose other breakfast treats for a few days. It was difficult to watch. I felt like I was sitting in the back of the minivan and plugging my ears and saying la la la to myself to drown out the noise of Mom (Kath) and Dad (Oatmeal) fighting. I was worried that I would have to pick sides if they split up for good. I mean, we really like hanging out with Kath and Matt, but Oatmeal and I have such history together. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. Kath and her oats are reunited once again. 

Did I really just write an entire paragraph about someone else’s relationship with oatmeal?

[Leaving the United States. Driving North. Going through Customs. Welcome to Canada] 

Blog: Oh She Glows
Blogger: Angela

OSG just launched a “Bikini Body Bootcamp” contest. Basically she’s having her readers send in some ‘before’ pictures in bikinis (along with their measurements) and then they’ll have a winner at the end of the thing. I’m trying to figure out how I can show my support. Which of these would be the least creepy?

1. I could take my picture wearing a women’s bikini

2. I could go with imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, and also ask my blog readers to send in bikini pictures

3. I could send in my picture wearing a speedo and an “I Glo” baby tee

I think all of the above are pretty creepy, so maybe I’ll just send in a celebrity bathing suit picture and say its me. I’d probably go with the famous Tyra Banks or Jennifer Love Hewitt pictures or something like that. 

But best of luck to OSG and the rest of the contestants. I know that bikini season is only about three days long in Canada, so hopefully they’ve got the scheduling figured out.

Blog: Zestycook
Blogger: Hmm, Zesty, I guess. Mind if I call you that? Perhaps Zest for short…

I have to admit that I don’t really read this blog. I’m going to start, I just haven’t gotten around to it. But it seems popular and fancy enough so I thought I’d write about it. Also, Zesty is successful in a female-dominated space, and I applaud that. I compare it to my success on the Taylor Swift Karaoke circuit, where it’s usually just me and a bunch of women. But since I don’t read his blog (yet) this is probably going to be a fairly superficial roundup.

I love Zesty’s beautiful bald head - and I don’t care who knows it. Have y’all seen his head? It can be seen in all its glory on the “About Zesty” page. It looks so damn smooth. It’s probably good that we haven’t met yet. I’m 97% sure that I’d start the conversation with “is it cool if I feel your head?” I used to think to myself that I’d much rather have gray hair than go bald, but a couple of things have changed my mind on that topic:

1. I started getting gray hair. And it seems to be coming in on the sides faster than the top. That was not part of the plan. I was hoping for George Clooney, but I’m worried it’s going to be more like Grandpa Munster.

2. I saw Zesty’s glorious bald head, and thought, yeah, that’s definitely better than the Grandpa Munster look that I’m working on right now. 

I promise I’ll stop talking about Zesty’s head soon, but one more thing on that topic. When I was 14 and had to go to the dermatologist, there was a picture hanging on the wall. It was a side by side comparison of a 50-something plains Indian woman, and a 90-something Tibetan monk. The plains Indian woman spent all of her time in the sun so her face looked like an old catcher’s mitt. The Tibetan monk spent all of his time protected from the sun and his bald head looked flawless. For the last 14 years I have been looking for a bald head as flawless as the monk head, and now we have found it…This concludes the somewhat-creepy section of this post where I describe another man’s head.

I promise I’ll actually read the blog next week so I can actually talk about it instead of Zesty’s head. 

[Leaving Canada. Stopping briefly at Duty Free to buy some booze. Next stop = Florida]

Blog: The Inner Workings of a College Graduate
Blogger: Meghann

It’s been a very exciting week for Graduate Meghann readers. At long last, Meghann addressed her relationship status. For those of you who haven’t been following along (shame on you), Meghann has been spotted out with this guy named Derek, since the Valentine’s day time frame, but he has not yet received a title on the blog. So every time Derek and Meghann do something, there are usually a handful of comments saying something like “are you and Derek dating” or “is Derek your boyfriend.” 

Well, Meghann finally cleared this up for us. Sort of. In a recent post, Meghann stated:

“Truth is Derek and I discussed it this weekend and we both honestly do not know what to label each other. We both know that we enjoy each other’s company and that we are just seeing how things move from here. There is no rush to produce labels, so one day at a time people! LOL”

Well, that might be good enough for you two, but those of us in blogworld need a label. It doesn’t even have to be an accurate label, as long as it is used consistently. So if you don’t want to go with ‘Boyfriend’ or ‘Dating’, that’s fine, but give us something. You can call him the Easter Bunny or the Pope or whatever you want - just give the guy/relationship a title. It can be like a game of blog Mad Libs.

In other Graduate Meghann news, Meghann and her Easter Bunny, Derek went rollerblading this week. Wait, what? How did they do that? Did they get into a DeLorian with Michael J. Fox, get it up to 88 miles an hour and set the flux capacitor for 1996? I can’t remember the last time I saw rollerblades, but I’m pretty sure Clinton was in office. I’m not really sure why Rollerblades disappeared. It wasn’t like a better technology came along like with the Zach Morris cell phone or the Betamax or laser disc player. People just stopped using them. But maybe Meghann and her Easter Bunny are bringing them back, and I support that. BTW, spellcheck doesn’t even recognize ‘rollerblades’ as a word anymore.

Blog: Eat, Live, Run
Blogger: Jenna

Alright, this will be a short one…mostly because this post is already too long. I don’t know what happened here. I went out of town last week and Jenna was like the queen of yoga and every post had something to do with yoga. Then I came back and now every post talks about swimming. What the hell did I miss? It’s like someone did a big ’search and replace’ on the entire blog and took out Yoga and replaced it with Swimming. I’ll get over it, but I feel like it was all really abrupt. It’s a good thing that this isn’t a ‘Single White Female’ scenario, otherwise I would’ve already invested in my own yoga mat and personal Yogi, only to have to switch it up and buy goggles now.

In other ELR news, Jenna and her BF were at the beach, and apparently Jenna’s BF is friends with Albert Haynesworth and other professional football players. Now I don’t doubt that it’s true, but it would be an amazingly funny inside joke if it wasn’t. Like he could just give her another random celebrity every week and she would have to weave that person into the blog. Almost like a Barbara Walters-style namedropping (I was horseback riding with the King of Jordan just last week…I was in a hot tub with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). Also, I’d really like to see a photo of Jenna with Albert Haynesworth. And yes, he’s the one stomping on the other dude’s head. If I was decent with photoshop, I’d make that happen…instead you’ll all just have to imagine it in your mind.

Blogging Trends or Stock up/Stock Down (not sure what to call it yet)

Stock Up
Barney Butter
Tempeh
Commenting with ALL CAPS and plenty of !!!!
Fake signatures at the end of posts
30 Day Shred Level II

Stock Down
Yoga
Protein Powder
Labels for boyfriends
Black tar heroin
30 Day Shred Level I

Stay tuned for next week (or next time that I get around to this) when I’ll review Brew and Bake, Healthy Tipping Point, Bites and Bowls, and whatever other blogs y’all tell me to write about.

That’s all. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.