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. I hope you all had a nice week. It has been a busy week here. Well, not really, but I’ve done some things that I’ve been putting off for awhile. 

1. Kate and I went and met the new neighbors down the street. They moved in about a month ago, and we wanted to go introduce ourselves for quite some time, as they looked young and childless. That said, we didn’t want to look like the creepy neighbors who are trying too hard to be friends. I’m convinced that it’s impossible to go introduce yourself to new neighbors without looking/acting like a complete jackass. Kate made brownies. I bought beer. I guess we didn’t even need to stick around to say hello…the brownies and beer probably would’ve told them what we’re all about. Anyway,they seem nice. We probably seem crazy. Check that one off the list.

2. I got a haircut. Things were getting pretty out of control. I think this might have been my first haircut since the inauguration, and that was like four months ago. You know you’re looking pretty good when the lady at the haircut place says “I’m guessing you don’t work in an office with other people, do you.” I’m not exactly sure what gave away my work from home lifestyle. I’m guessing it was either the lack of pockets, my 3:00 PM on a weekday walk-in, my urban Amish facial hair, or the Bob Ross style afro. Either way, I’m now about five pounds lighter.

3. I went to the doctor. I’m not sick or anything, but I haven’t been to the doctor for a check-up since the late 1990s. I wish I was exaggerating, but my last physical was in 1998. So this week I went in for the blood work, and then next week is my actual appointment. I’m going to feel like a pretty big chach if el doctor finds something that would’ve been way better to find like five years ago or something. So I’m going to make a deal right here. With blog as my witness, I promise I’ll go to the doctor every year or so, as long as I don’t get stuck with some horrible illness or disease at next week’s appointment. Deal? Cool.

Alright. That’s what I’ve been doing. I also watched The Real Housewives of New Jersey. I have been looking for a copy of Danielle’s book (Cop Without a Badge) but it’s going for $189 on Amazon. I love my housewives, but not that much.  No new inventions this week, so I’ll just get going to the blog review. 

HangryPants remains in the #1 slot this week, which means I didn’t get any free shiz this week. Anyway, Ms. Hangry is currently getting ready for her “Cleaner Life Month’ which she describes in this post. From what I understand, it has something to do with eating healthy stuff. These month long challenges are great. They seem to fly by, and then the challenge blogger talks about their progress, and I just sit back and think “what the hell did I do in the last 30 days” and it’s usually pretty depressing. I don’t think I’ll be participating, but I’ll be cheering from the sidelines (diet mountain dew in hand).  I’m going to start my own challenge. I’m not going to eat any peaches for the next month. Who’s with me? No real reason, other than the fact that I don’t like eating peaches, but there ya go. Follow me to a peach free June. In other news, Kate told me about some health food guy who said something about how you shouldn’t eat foods that weren’t around 50 years ago. I guess that sort of makes sense for things like gogurt (whatever the hell that is) and other overprocessed stuff. But I doubt the greatest generation sat around drinking vanilla almond milk either, so I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do. Alright, I’m rambling now. Next blog…  

Brooke at Homegirl Can Eat wrote a great post about a perverted teacher in this post. If you aren’t reading this blog yet, you really, really should. It’s probably one of the best written blogs out there, even though I don’t understand half the shit that homegirl is talking about (mostly because I’m old). Whenever I go to the mall and start hating ‘those damn teens’ I just think of Homegirl and her good writing, and it makes me not hate the kids as much as I did before. I do often wonder if homegirl’s principal or teachers are aware of the blog and how they feel about it, but I’m sure she has that under control.I’ve noticed that homegirl commentors like to comment using homegirl-speak. That is, they adjust their language and slang to match that of the blog they are reading. I always want to comment on her posts, but I refrain for two reasons:

1. Kate is convinced I’d come off as a creepy old man
2. I’d write something like “Great post, I love how you did XYZ” which would really stand out amongst the comments like “Yay for graduation again! You and mama cynth look gorgey-poo! ” and other comments in Homegirl-speak. So I just lurk instead.

Fortunately the same thing hasn’t caught on here on The Blogstalker, otherwise y’all would comment using my backcountry gibberish and we’d all be a little dumber. So the moral of the story is, read Homegirl’s blog. 

Alli of Green Dog Wine had a busy week. Her blog found a new home (the URL that I used), got a new logo, and it was also her husband’s birthday and she devoted this post to her husband. As I mentioned last week, I’m a big fan of photo trips down memory lane in blogland. Sure, pictures of food are great, but I would much rather look at pictures of people doing funny things. Think of it this way, I wouldn’t go watch a movie about a bowl of oatmeal, but there’s a good chance that I’d go see a romantic comedy involving a man with a mohawk singing karaoke or lifting his wife over her head. So I vote for more personal pictures in blogland. Except on my blog. Because I’m lazy and our camera is pretty lame. But everyone else…please include more pictures. And if they can be photo slide shows with sappy music, that would win you bonus points. Now get to work! Also, I’ve been reading this blog for quite some time and didn’t really know where the name came from. I had some good theories going on in my head, but never thought to look at the ‘about me’ page, which pretty much explains it. I liked my theories better. 

Postgraduate Meghannnn did a recap of the San Diego Marathon in this post. Congrats to Meghannnn and everyone else who completed some sort of distance race this weekend. We were also happy to see that the easter bunny made the trip to San Diego. What really blows my mind is that people are videotaping and twittering while running a damn marathon. I’ve run my share of marathons, but have never videotaped or used any other type of technology during the process. After mile 13, I don’t think that I’d have a single thing to say that would be family friendly - I guess you could call it exercise-induced Tourettes. Also, I think I sweat too much to carry something electronic while running. I’ll just stick to the pictures that the race people take to document how miserable I was feeling during the race. Or I can just think really hard and remember it. 

Stock Up

Graduation - I’m happy for all of the graduating bloggers, I just hope that they keep blogging. See previous post re: not a big fan of change in my blogs.

House/Apartment/Room Tours - There was basically a full episode of Cribs this week. Unfortunately, none of the video tours included classic Cribs cliches like “this is where the magic happens.” I think at least one blogger should have used that line when showing off their kitchen or something.

Detailed Exercise Recaps - Including, but not limited to: calories burned, distance traveled (down to the hundredth or a mile), music listened to, energy foods and drinks consumed, etc. I think you’re burning off calories just doing the exercise recap.

Puffins (the cereal, not the bird) - Always a fan favorite among bloggers, but really growing in popularity in recent weeks. I just can’t eat this stuff. I once saw Puffin on a menu in Iceland, and it wasn’t the cereal. So now I can’t eat the cereal without thinking about people eating the cute little bird, so there’s my excuse. 

Stock Down

Flip Phones - The entire blog world seemed to get on iPhone or Blackberry bandwagon in the last week or two. Still waiting for someone to bring back the Zach Morris brick phone as a retro smart phone

Bagels - Not sure if this is because of the high caloric content, or the fact that it’s national donut day. Mentions to donut day should probably be stock up.

Alltel’s Commercials - Chad (the Alltel guy) is kinda hot and nice enough, but those other jackasses are really pissing me off. Sorry for the bad language, but I’m passionate about this one. Their last two commercials have butchered some pretty funny bits by Chris Farley and Willy Wonka. Sorry…this has nothing to do with blogs or bloggers, but I really really dislike these commercials, especially the Sprint guy.

Drogging - Drogging (drunk blogging) references are still stock up (thanks to Caitlin Pancake), but actual drunk blogging hasn’t been happening as much (as far as I can tell). I would like this to be stock up this weekend - especially for the Charlotte bloggers who are going to dive bar karaoke with me tomorrow night. You know who you are. 

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, and I’ll try to do better next time.

Hi Friends. Thanks for coming back and spending some of your holiday weekend with me. I hope you enjoy the long weekend. I think we’re going to buy a mattress. That’s what the loud guys on the television commercials are telling me to do. Kate is settling in with her new blog reading machine. Thanks to everyone who suggested various bookmark storage methods (as well as Google Reader). probably not gonna happen, but thanks anyways.

We were kind of bored last weekend. When we’re bored and have lots of time on our hands, we usually come up with ideas that may or may not be good. Like in college when I wanted to buy two aquariums, hang them on opposite sides of the room and connect them with some clear tubing. Then we were going to buy a hamster. The brilliance comes in with the food and water distribution. I wanted to put the food in one aquarium and the water in the other aquarium. That way the hamster would be forced to walk back and forth through the tubing to entertain me. To this day I consider this to be the best idea that I’ve ever come up with, but unfortunately it never got past the diagram on napkin stage.

I bring this idea up because Kate had a similar idea this weekend. The previous owners of our house installed a massive hot tub on our deck. I’m not quite sure why they did this, but based on the popcorn ceilings and mountains of brass throughout the house (that have since been removed), I assume they never moved out of the 1980s. So for the past 11 months, we’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this damn hot tub. It would cost too much (and leave a massive hole in our deck) if we got it removed, but we really don’t see ourselves taking outdoor baths with our friends anytime soon. So Kate decided that we would turn it into a cool tub or mini pool (still working on the name). I didn’t think she was serious, but then she came home with his and hers inflatable rafts. Our weekend was spent draining, cleaning, and refilling the cool tub/mini pool. I wasn’t buying into this idea when her pitch was “you can just lay around and read magazines,” so then she changed it up and said “you can lay around and drink beer.” That’s all it took to get me to buy in. Here’s the cool tub in action:

Snap, I’m like 400 words into this post and I haven’t started talking about blogs yet. I better get going.

The Gilded Clam is packing up her apartment and getting ready to move. If she is as good at packing as she is at arranging fruits and vegetables on a plate, then moving should be a breeze. I swear she eats more fruits and vegetables than anyone I know. And by ‘know’ I mean people who have blogs that I stalk. Her fruits and veggies are always so neatly arranged on her plate too. Reading her blog always makes me feel guilty about my lack of fruit and veggie consumption, and motivates me to go buy produce. After reading this post, I went to the grocery store and bought an orange. But instead of just eating the orange, I went to the beer aisle and bought a 12 pack of Blue Moon to compliment the orange. The beer is almost gone, but the orange is still in the fruit bowl. I blame you, Clam. Oh, and I know the blog name is Gliding Calm, not Gilded Clam, but Gilded Clam is more fun to say, so I’m going to stick with that. 

Kath’s house is apparently turning into a wildlife preserve. In the past week or so, we’ve seen the love ducks, Winston the Garden Snake (there is only one Gilbert in Charlotte blogland, and he’s my dog), a family of squirrel babies in her garage, and a roach on the ceiling. This is getting out of control. I think word has traveled through the animal kingdom that you have a compost pile filled with Matt’s beer ingredients and that food companies send you lots of free stuff. I’m going over to Kath’s house for dinner tonight, and I’m thinking about dressing up as Brian Fellows and staying in character for the entire evening. Oh that is one fuzzy bug!

Speaking of animal sightings, Kelsey took an amazing shot of a moose knuckle in this post. I would love to provide more detail on this post, including the meaning of moose knuckle, but this is a family show. You can look it up on Urban Dictionary, or just look at the pictures on the post and you can probably figure it out. I’ve sat here for about five minutes trying to come up with a family friendly way to describe this post, but I’ve got nothin. You’re just going to have to check it out for yourself. I’m just glad I wasn’t wearing 3D glasses while reading this post, because it might have poked my eye out. 

The beautifully bald ZestyCook is holding a pimp my blog contest here. I would prefer if he held a scalp giveaway contest so I could have his beautiful bald head (instead of my white man afro that the humidity is taking from Will Ferrell to Bob Ross style), but his idea is good too. It’s such a good idea that I almost didn’t tell you guys about it. Not that I need a blog makeover (this blog is a hot mess - thanks to Pinky’s husband) but 10 hours of Zesty magic seems like a good idea. If I win, I’d like him to focus primarily on figuring out how I can make money on this thing, or optimize my blog for free shiz. The UPS man drives by every day and never stops, and that needs to change. For those of you that don’t know, Zesty provides about 96% of the tech support for the food blogging world. When anyone has a design or formatting issue, they just contact their Canadian blog guru. It’s like he’s some kind of one man Mountie Geek Squad. 

Stock Up

Extreme Close-ups of fingers and toes - These are taken both pre-mani/pedi and post-mani/pedi. I have a recommendation on this one. Just include a link to a picture of your fingers and/or toes. Then blog readers can make a personal decision as to whether or not they want to see your fingers and toes. Just a suggestion. 

Tofu - Tofu posts are outnumbering Tempeh posts 2-1 this week. I expect Tempeh to make a strong comeback next week. These two are going point/counterpoint like Obama and Cheney these days.

Pancakes - Caitlin is really the only blogger that is rocking the fried cake and syrup, but since she eats them every friggin day, she has single handedly brought them into the stock up category. We’re currently calling her Caitlin Pancake, but might change that to Pancake Tipping Point or Healthy Tipping Pancake. 

Tattoos - Lots of blogger ink out there

Stock Down

Staying at home - I never realized that bloggers were such road warriors. Lots of blogger travel in the past week, and I don’t like it. I like consistency in my food blogs. I’m probably just mad because all of my blogger friends are traveling too much which means I can’t hang out with them. I’ll stop whining now. 

Danielle and Gucci Model’s Phone ‘Relationship - This one is for all the Real Housewives of New Jersey fans out there. That lady is a piece of work. In other RHNJ news, I’m a big fan of Albie. 

Smoothies - Juicing and Green Monsters are still going strong, but overall blender usage is down 28% from last week. Perhaps it’s related to the recent cold streak that hit the east coast. Or maybe I’m just thinking too much about this.

That’s all for this week. I’m going to try to do two posts next week. One for the blogs that I usually stalk, and then one where I talk about blogs that I haven’t talked about before. Should be able to swing it, since most of my TV shows are now in re-runs. We’ll see how that goes, and I’ll try to do better next week.

Update: Alright…I have to update this post. Big news here…I got my first free shiz delivered in the mail today!!! Hangry Heather sent me some throw back Mountain Dew, throwback Pepsi, and some delicious baked goods. I heart Hangry Heather. I feel like I’ve made the big time now. I’d take a picture, but I’m sort of busy eating some Hangry Muffins.

Alright. Now I swear I’m done. Thanks again, Heather!

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/

Hi Everyone. Welcome to week 3 of the food blog review. Hopefully just one more post on this blog and then I’ll have a new one ready to go.

I have to confess that I didn’t spend too much time reading food blogs this week. Well, that’s sort of a lie…I didn’t spend as much time as I usually do reading food blogs this week (still would probably qualify as ‘too much’ depending on who you ask). So this week I relied on my lovely assistant, Kate, to take some blog notes for me.  Here’s how it worked-Kate would scribble something down that said “Heather Spinach Oats” and then I would have to decipher what that means and come up with something funny to write about it. Her notes sort of remind me of Russell Crowe’s crazy thoughts and paper scraps during ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ Here. We. Go. 

It was a very exciting week for Tina at Carrots ‘n’ Cake. Tina caught Mr. Mal eating Wendy’s in their apartment. Judging by the picture and my knowledge of the Wendy’s value menu, it looks like Mal went with the 5 piece chicken nugget, a junior bacon cheeseburger, and medium fries. Some excellent choices for sure. Unfortunately Mal made some poor decisions with the consumption strategy. First of all, you just can’t bring the food home. At home you have to worry about disposing of the evidence, as well the fast food smell that will linger for at least 24 hours. I’d recommend eating in the car. Now if you must eat at home, then I suggest adding a large chili to your order, which would make clean-up a little easier. You could stick the Nugget holder in the fries holder. The paper wrapper from the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger will fit in the nugget holder, and then the holders will fit nicely in the empty Chili container. You put the lid back on and then you’re good to go. Then even if you get busted and someone spots the evidence in the trash can, all she’ll see is the Chili cup, which isn’t so bad. Not that I’ve ever done that before, but I have a feeling that might work.

Heather at Heather Eats Almond Butter is getting a little carried away with the oatmeal toppings. Avocado? Raw Spinach? I just don’t think I can support these toppings in oats. This recent proliferation of spinach usage in the food blog world is reaching epidemic proportions. I’ve come up with the follow chart to assist food bloggers who aren’t sure when or where they should use spinach.

Places Where Spinach Should Be:

1. In a salad
2. In a dip with artichokes and cheese. Ideally at a casual dining establishment, complimented with pita chips and a large beer
3. At the grocery store
4. In a tin can in Popeye’s hand. So he can squeeze it into his mouth and get big and strong.

Places Where Spinach Should NOT Be:

1. In Smoothies
2. In Oatmeal
3.
4.

Spots 3 and 4 are reserved for next week. I’m sure someone will try to put spinach into something new. 

I don’t think I can talk about spinach in oatmeal anymore without losing my appetite, so I’m going to change the topic now… 

One thing that I like to do for fun is to see how many words I can spell with Heather’s URL (www.heathereatsalmondbutter.com) without rearranging the letters. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

First there are the easy ones: Heather, eats, almond, butter.

But if you look closely, you’ll also see: wheat, heat, heath, at, the, there, salmon, alm, but,  and butt.

So if we just removed a few letters, it could actually be “Heat The Salmon Butt” which would be a pretty awesome blog name. 

Graduate Meghann held her online blogging bake sale this week. Now I know it was for a good cause or whatever, but I gotta say, those better be some damn good baked goods. When there were bake sales at my elementary school, I could get a couple cookies for a quarter or fifty cents. Whoa, that just made me sound really old, didn’t it? Like some kind of “back in my day” story from Grandpa Simpson or anyone over the age of 80 talking about walking in the snow (uphill both ways). Also, the legacy of the YIFY blog roundup is now complete, now that Derek’s ‘Easter Bunny’ label seems to have stuck. Better yet, he has gone from being THE Easter Bunny, to MY Easter Bunny. My work here is done. Oh, and VeggieGirl’s blondies went for $85/batch. Just think how much I could’ve driven up the bidding if only I would’ve received some samples. 

Get ready for it…here’s the first ever discussion of a non food blog. My friend Pinque is having her first every blog giveaway. She thinks her blog name is pronounced “Pink” but I’ve decided that it is ‘Pinky’  so that’s what I call her now. I’d like this nickname to stick, so if you comment on her blog, please start each comment by saying “Dear Pinky”. Thank you for your support. Anyway, Pinky is giving away a Vera Bradley purse. If you want to win, you better go register. If you’re reading this on Saturday or later, then you already missed it. But you should still go visit Pinky’s blog.  

Here’s my commentary on Vera Bradley. Kate had a stretch from 2005-2007 when she was convinced that she liked Vera Bradley stuff, but not enough to actually buy something. So for two years, every time we saw a store that sold Vera Bradley stuff, we had to stop so she could look at the exact same purses that she looked at last time. So I made at least 150 visits to a Vera Bradley retailer without a single purchase. Now I knew that she didn’t really like Vera Bradley stuff enough that she’d actually carry one of their purses, but I really, really didn’t want to ever go into another store. So I bought her the one for Christmas, knowing that she wouldn’t like it and would probably return it. That is exactly what happened. I haven’t had to go into another Vera Bradley store since. I consider this one of my finest moments. 

Kath reported yesterday that she contacted the tempeh people and that they confirmed that tempeh is safe to eat raw. Well that’s great, but she offered me raw tempeh two weeks ago. And there was no warning like “I’m not sure if this is safe to eat or not.” 

So I guess there were two steps in finding out if tempeh is safe to eat raw:

1. Feed it to Nate and see if he dies
2. Email the company and ask them

Am I wrong for thinking that we should switch those two steps around?

Stock Up

Wishing VeggieGirl a happy birthday. Were there any food blogs that did NOT give VeggieGirl a happy 21st? My birthday is next Thursday and I’m expecting the same level of bloglove

Raising Money for Charity. Between Meghann’s bake sale, Zesty’s shirts, and Jenna’s cookbook, the blogworld is really coming together – sort of “We are the world” style. So I think I should do my part. For every dozen baked goods that you send to my house, at least six will be donated to a local charity. I think we all know where the other six are going to go. Now if only Zesty’s shirt had a picture of his glorious bald head on it…

Food Blog Ads with Pictures of Chocolate. This one is a complete mixed signal. I mean the food blog is all about Kombucha and Spinach and FlaxWheySoyTempeh whatever, but the there’s an advertisement for chocolate. I’m confused. 

Stock Down 

Actually couldn’t think of any stock down this week, so I replaced it with the following segment…

Blog Names that Sort of Sound Like Porn
Making Love in the Kitchen
Tales of Expansion
Apples and Twigs
Cream Puffs in Venice
Get Sconed
In a Pickle and a Jam
Jess Likes it Hot
LovIN My Tummy
Raw Mom – Raw Love
The Food Sex
Two Peas and Their Pod

That’s all for this week. I wanted to write about The Chic Life, Hangry Pants and Eating Bender, but I went on too many tangents so those will be in next week’s roundup for sure. We’ll do better next time

P.S.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY VEGGIE GIRL!!!!