Granny Smith Apple

Granny Smith Apple

The Granny Smith was first cultivated in 1868 and is named for Maria Ann Smith. Presently it is unknown what trees got it on to make the Granny Smith but they think it’s the product of a wild tree and a domestic tree.

These are hard green apples with a strong crunch and tart flavor. I also notice that they last longer than other apples. Shelf life is kind of the thing with me because I don’t actually like apples. What, I’m fat?!

Anyway, I buy these apples rather often and they last long enough for me to eat a good half of them before I cut them up and freeze them. I make smoothies with the frozen fruit. If you’re into that like I am the Granny Smith is a good solid buy. 

Mrs. T’s Potato and Cheddar Pierogies

So, a parogie is half round ravioli often with potato as part of the filling ingredient. They don’t have to have potato, but that is the big thing in America.  They’re not ravioli but why is a mystery. Other than that a ravioli is made by an Italian and a paropie is made by a Slav. 

I have always hated these things because my old man would eat them and he made me miserable. Even now the paropie dredges up some painful memories.

That said, these are kind of bland. I mean, they taste okay but eating them plain the way my old man did lacks something. The box said I could fry these things but it only works if you use a lot of oil I think.

To put a point on it, if you like ravioli and want to try something different this will fit the bill. I wouldn’t go looking for these, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at them either.

Pepsi Wild Cherry

So, can anyone tell me what is so wild about this cherry? Nothing! I get that you want to have cherry cola, but if you’re going to say ‘wild’ there should be something wild about your product.

False advertising aside I find it a bit bitter with an after taste of sorts. All things considered I’d rather have the original.

Panera Bread Steak and White Cheddar Panini

If you’re going to eat this thing you better like onions, because the onions overpower everything else. I mean, if you’re going to put red onion in a baked sandwich you have to put it in after baking. Red onion is far more pungent than white and it can cause eye irritation from a distance.

Anyway, I think I had a half Panini because it wasn’t nine hundred and sixty calories just for the sandwich when I ordered the thing. These make me sick but then unlike most Americans my tongue isn’t a giant callus from eating over-salted processed food.

Panera Bread All-Natural Turkey Chili

This chili is two Hundred and eighty Calories of good for you. It doesn’t taste all that good, but it is good for you. I can’t recommend this chilly, but then I had just had a sandwich that was actually painful to eat so take that into account.

Costco Pepperoni Pizza

Oh, how I love thee! Let me count the ways, I love your cheesy goodness and fold-able crust like New York Pizza. I love the crunch of your crust and its chewy texture. I hate the oil that drips off you and the fact that you’re full of Calories and salt!!

As it happens I normally only eat these after I hit the gym which is not often enough, but I love Costco pizza. The only better pizza I have ever had is Round Table and there are getting to be too few of those. 

Black Angus Bread

Some of my searching on the internet calls this black bread or molasses bread. It’s a hearty bread that comes with butter designed to make you feel like the food isn’t taking so long.

Honestly, my only real gripe about this is that they don’t just bring it out when they take your order. I mean, why come out to take an order then have to go get bread. It’s like the boss just wants you to do more stuff. 

Black Angus Steamed Broccoli with Shaved Parmesan

They should change steamed to heated and the parmesan tasted like I imagine the calluses on my feet would if I tried to eat them. Softer than the calluses obviously but tastes just the same.

Black Angus French Fries

This side dish is a cop-out. Unless you really love French fries get something else and show some imagination next time, me.  If I can’t trust myself to make better choices I’m going to have to find someone to think for me.

Black Angus Top Sirloin and Crispy Shrimp

Part of the “High Noon Feast” collection this is not a feast until you count the bread and sides. The two cookies it came with nearly killed me and I will never eat those again.

I will say that the Top Sirloin was flavorful and didn’t give me the runs. Could have used more shrimp but then when isn’t that true? 

Black Angus Birthday Cookie Thing

Free and only infinitely better than the other cookies they pass off as food at Black Angus. Well, is this thing on the menu? I don’t know, but it should be.

Carl’s Jr. Bacon Double Western Cheeseburger

At a whopping one thousand calories this burger is a puddle of sludge that I’m ashamed to have eaten. The onion rings are a joke and there is so much salt that I got sick from eating this thing.

Stay away if you want to live!

Carl’s Jr. French Fries

If real French-fries and sticks had babies then those babies had babies with real French Fries then you’d have these puppies. Only I think sticks are better for you. Kind of dry and greasy if that is possible these French Fries suck.

M&M’s with Peanuts

Now your life is complete, you can get fat with chocolate or you can get fat with chocolate and peanuts. Which is better? Only you can tell.

Hillshire Farms Oven Roasted Turkey Breast

The meat felt slimy when I took it out of the pack so I fried it up with some cooking spray. I tried it without frying once and it gave me a stomach ache. So long as you cook it a bit this stuff is relatively good. I’m not saying it’s great and lunch meat is kind of nasty to start out with, but give it a good grilling and chow down.

Red Rain Energy Shot Berry Flavored

Can’t even tell me what berry, huh, like I knew this big girl named Berry and she had a flavor you would never forget. Bleck.

In any case, these work okay and taste okay. I only got them because they were cheap. I’ve never tried the other flavors.

Now keep in mind that I’m not an energy shooter fan, mostly this is because I work late and drink coffee.

Wonder Bread

Remember going to the store, buying a loaf of bread, and having it crush into a pancake because you put the eggs on top of the stuff? Well, I do. Okay, I was a stupid kid, but give me some credit. I did make the shopping list and have it ready when I saw my old man.

Where you planning your family’s meals at ten? I don’t think so. Anyway, wonder bread is that super soft kind of white bread that is a step away from eating air. Only it has way more calories than air, and they are kind of empty calories.

This is kind of the most basic bread you can buy, it goes with everything, and it’s not likely to be good for you.  I didn’t care for it myself, but I’ll be using it as a reference from now on.

Even Williams Original Sothern Egg Nog

Pours like pudding, tastes like almost nothing. Get real Egg Nog and add something to it rather than drink this stuff. I’m not saying it’s bad but I’m not saying it’s good.

Equal Exchange Proud Mamma Organic Fair Trade Coffee

One of Equal Exchange’s African coffees grown in Uganda this brew has a lighter sent than most, but the folks at my work mentioned that they loved it when I brewed this for them.

My brother wasn’t impressed, but then I think he and I like coffee black as death. I’d say this stuff is worth a try if you’re into fine coffee like I am, but I’m not making it a regular on my buy list.

Celeste Pizza for one: Sausage and Pepperoni

What did I do wrong to deserve this crap? These things have cheese that tastes like plastic and meat you can honestly not notice as you eat. The health aspects of these torture disks are depressing even for pizza, and they're only redeeming quality is that they are no more or less a wet noodle out of the microwave than other pizzas.

Unless you have some bizarre disease where you can only eat frozen pizza and this is all you can afford stay clear of them.

Mug Root Beer

With all the foam on the art of the can you’d think this stuff would have more of a head. Root Beer is kind of supposed to have the look and feel of beer without the alcohol.

I can’t tell if this root beer has real sassafras, then sassafras kills your liver if improperly purified so that’s okay.

Mug Root Beer is nothing to write home about, and if you must kill yourself with soda I’d give it a pass. However, if you’re a soda hound and you just got to have that float, then by all means drink yourself to death before you can breed and open up a job for someone else. 

MIlk Chocolate M&M’s

All the way back in 1941 the son of the founder of Mars and some guy from Hershey chocolate decided to rip off the much older candy “Smarties” which had been around during the Mexican/American war.

They did get a patent to make the idea theft legal and in that year of 1941 Forrest Mars and William F. R. Murrie made the first milk chocolate M&M. They’ve been fattening up Americans ever since.  

Panera Bread Mediterranean Egg White on Ciabatta Sandwich

420 Calories of okay. Let’s be clear that this blows your average breakfast sandwich out of the water. Then, I think it comes at a higher price and you have to sit down to get one.

Still, it will only set you back five bucks and is a lot more filling than a McMuffin. Then I eat two McMuffins. Look, I’m fat, what do you want?

Anyway, if this thing is a whole meal for you it lacks fiber and needs way more vegetables. So, have it with an apple or two and don’t get health advice from a fat man on the internet. 

Waterless Urinal

It’s a urinal that doesn’t toss away water because your piss is water for the most part. I wouldn’t want to clean one, but I’m happy they exist. 

Stacker 2 Extreme Energy Kickin’ Classic

As I said before, I work at night. Being the night man I need to hit the energy sauce every now and then to keep going. When I was in college I had a two can a day habit.

But this hundred and twelve calorie, made in USA, midget can was not on the menu.  I wish it had been because it would have kept me away from the stuff.

It works okay, but I can’t say I like the taste. It’s a little like Red Bull but less distinct. Extreme Energy Kickin’ Classic can be drunk with ice which is not true of all energy drinks, but I still recommend chilling and drinking it from the can.

Where this product does shine is the price which was fifty cents at my local Big Lots. It was a buck at the dollar store down the road from Big Lots so if you need your rush shop around.

Thermos Stainless Steel King 16-Ounce Travel Tumbler, Midnight Blue

As you can see my Thermos King 16-ounce Travel Tumbler has seen some use that is because I use it every day and washing it is a pain. I believe the advertised ‘midnight blue’ is a load of cow piss, but it keeps my coffee hot for a full shift.

Given that I work the night watch at one of the smelliest places on earth coffee is a big thing and this is my third tumbler in nearly three years. Take it into your head that I use these things hard; they get bounced around in my car, and banged up at my work.

That said, it looks ugly but does its job just like me.

Random Ni-mh Battery of Butt

Back in the day when Ebay was still a big thing I got into the idea of using rechargeable batteries. I was also a big Ebayer at the time and would look just about everything up on that webpage to see if I could get a deal.

These batteries were dirt cheap and a rip-off because dirt would have been just about as useful. The never held a charge, and I shouldn’t have been surprised as they have no brand name and company to complain to when the work like crap.

I think what happened is someone screwed these up and had them tossed then a poor factory worker grabbed them out of the trash.

On the up side they do look brand new after nearly ten years gathering dust in my house, and they did carry a current so if I ran out of batteries I could use them as a cross gap. 

Moral of the story: Never buy something that doesn’t have a company name on it so you have someone to bitch at when it doesn’t work.

Green Coffee

In this case I’m going to say this about green coffee in general rather than the brand. You may remember that at one time this stuff was just a diet fad where green coffee extract was supposed to help you lose weight. Well, as a fat guy I have to say I hoped and was disappointed.  

Now, mind that grinding my own coffee is nothing new to me. I love coffee and some of the better stuff just can’t be found pre-ground. However, green coffee is harder than roasted coffee. It jams your coffee grinder, comes out in big chunks, and makes a mess.

After getting in a bad mood from chewing up my grinder, I actually tasted the stuff. It was nothing like coffee, more like tea, and reminded me of the smell of pealed sticks.

If you’re the kind of person who would buy a good coffee grinder but doesn’t like the flavor of coffee this crap is for you. If you like coffee keep clear. 

Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips

Smelling vaguely of gym socks and leaving your hands covered with what looks like radioactive bee pollen Doritos have been a staple of the slacker diet since 1964. They started off as a way to use old tortillas at a restaurant in Disneyland, of all places, and from there were contracted to Frito-Lay.

Fewer calories and fat than Lays Classic Potatochips but sporting more salt and no potassium Doritos are another way to kill yourself with snack food.

As both get gack all over your hands I have to give the win to Lays Classic Potato chips. 

Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

Few things are more American than corn rolled flat and intended to clean the bowels. At one time being a health food, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are so basic in flavor you would expect them to be some kind of ration or prison food.

Truth be told I grew up eating these things so judging them is like judging water. They just are what you expect. I figure these are the standard by which I can hold breakfast cereal so I’m putting them up here but they’re neither here nor there in terms of taste.

Margairtavill Classic Margarita

Generally speaking if it comes in plastic it’s for sad drunks. This comes in plastic, and I hate it with reasonable ire. I can’t say my feelings are that strong, but let me say that when I pull this crap out I do so for others and not for myself.

If you’re going to kill your liver stick with a good solid beer, and give this a pass.

Fultion’s Harvest Apple Pie Cream Liquor

It’s about like their Pumpkin pie Cream Liquor. Not bad drinking but I wouldn’t buy the stuff.

Tony’s Pizza Singles

These addictive little discs of death are an easy snack. If you put them in the microwave you get a fordable plate of pizza flavored slime, but if you cook um in the oven they come out about as good as the rat trap pizza I had in college.

Now, you should generally stay away from frozen stuff like this, and Pizza is hard to make good for you, but these pizzas are fine if enjoyed in moderation.

Jones Green Apple Soda

If you ever wanted the flavor of a fresh apple but didn’t want all those healthy things like fiber and vitamins Jones Green Apple Soda is totally for you.

The flavor is crisp and fresh but far less tart than that of a green apple. I’d say it’s a finer road to diabetes then coke, but then I savored the novelty of drinking something new.

If you’re going to drink soda and this is around I’d say go for it, but remember it’s still bad for you.

Fultion’s Harvest Pumpkin Pie Cream Liquor

Well, my brother loves the stuff, but I think it’s on the bland side. If you’re going for it straight up I’d say good, but it makes a poor pumpkin pie coffee if you ask me.

Original Flavored Pringles

Their mission was to create the perfect snack chip. A snack chip without broken or stale bits in the bottom of the bag.

They failed, miserably, Pringles are superior to Lay’s Classic Potato chips in that they have ten less Calories but with no potassium to balance the sodium they’re not better for you in any real way.

I will grant that these little snack packs are nice to have and that the chips take up less space in your lunch back. Then the Lays out match the Pringles in taste by far and are far more natural.

Now, don’t confuse the point that I’d rather have a good potato which has as much sodium as I put on it and as much healthy stuff as well. Still, Lay’s Classic wins over Pringles.

Dots

Dots were officially certified Kosher back in 2009 and are gum drops made by Tootsie Roll. They’re about as bad for you as spoons of sugar, but that’s not so bad given the stuff we see in food now days.

As a candy, they are totally forgettable, and I only pull them out on Halloween by chance. If they come your way go for it, but I wouldn’t go looking for these candies.

Red Delicious Apples

Who knew that all apples have names like this? It’s a red apple, right, past that I never thought of them as having names. Golden Delicious, sure, we all remember those, but Red Delicious? Honestly, naming a kind of apple “Delicious” is a dork move if you ask me.

The Red Delicious started before the Golden Delicious so it was just the Delicious at the time. They call it a ‘clone apple’ but they’ve been around since 1880 which is longer than National Geographic Magazine.

These are good if they’re fresh but keep looking good long after they get mealy and taste like wet cardboard. The skin is more like leather than fruit peal so you may want to cut some away.

Red Delicious apples are bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, so buy few and eat soon.

Orange Crush

You look at the can and read ‘caffeine free’ and ask ‘why would you drink caffeine free soda?’ Orange Crush makes up for its lack of caffeine by adding twenty calories over Coke and twenty milligrams of additional sodium.

In other words, Orange Crush will not keep you up at night but will make you fat faster than Coke. 

In N’ Out Burger

This is a review for the restaurant not the food. I mean, the real name is “In N’ Out Burger” so far as I can tell. The place is clean, the food is fresh, and the female employees have to have white bras because those shirts are see through. You make the call if that appeals to you.

In N’ Out Burger Four by Four

Another of the secret menu options of In N’ Out the Four By Four is a four patty, four cheese slice marvel of Merican cuisine.

That stuff in between the buns is meat and cheese. I know it’s nothing like the gray jelly you get at other fast food restaurants. It’s not flavored with chemicals either, so it’s as close to the real deal as you can get.

The only thing more American would be cheating on your taxes and invading other countries.

In N’ Out Burger French Fries

These, kiddies, are French Fries, as in made from potatoes and fried in a deep fryer without being cut at a factory and frozen. You can watch as they cut the potatoes, so you know they’re real.

All other French Fries are just imitations so won’t the real French Fries please stand up, please stand up, won’t all your taste buds please step up.

From this point forward all other French Fries will be compared to those from In N’ Out Burger. 

In N’ Out Burger Chocolate Milkshake

Ah, a real chocolate shake. Not the alien blood obscenity you get at McDonald’s, but a real ice cream chocolate shake.

Yes, they are bad for you, but bad for you in the way that meeting a short thing is bad for you. These Chocolate Shakes are bar sluts for those of us who can’t get with bar sluts.

Okay, Okay, I’d rather have the bar slut, but think of it this way: Shakes won’t give you STI’s.

In N’ Out Burger ‘Animal Fries’

In N’ Out is known for having a bland official menu and secret options that make the world worth living. ‘Animal Fries’ or ‘Fries Animal Style’ is a secret menu option that I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.

               

When you’re done eating them you looked like you French-kissed a sloppy hamburger. Bla!

Pepsi Cola (American)

I’m told most cola brands died out in the great cola war which was something my old man mentioned from time to time. The two primary combatants were Coke and Pepsi. How Coke came out on top I couldn’t tell you. Pepsi is the smoother and sweeter of the two colas and has always been my preference.

This is not to mention that it’s an artificial chemical stew that no person in their right mind should ever put in their body. Then, the world we live in went mad long ago, and we need to be mad as a hatter to survive.

You can still get Pepsi with good old sugar if you drink Pepsi Throw Back or Pepsi bottled in Mexico. This is marginally better for you than Pepsi’s American, made with corn syrup, counterpart. 

To put it in a nut shell: better than Coke, sill bad for you, enjoy in moderation.

Trader Joe’s Marinated Mushrooms with Garlic

If I didn’t love mushrooms I wouldn’t eat these things. They have more than three times the salt to the Potassium and frankly are reasonably unhealthy. Calorically you can eat lots of them because they are only ten calories per two ounce serving.

I think I use less than two ounces in my salads because these little things have a strong flavor. They taste like vinegar and garlic, but then mushrooms really taste like almost nothing so what do you expect?

On the up side, if I’m eating these I’m eating salad which means I may trick myself into thinking I’m having something good for me. The lesson of the day kids is read the label and use moderate amounts. 

BJ’s Spinach stuffed Mushrooms

Let me first say that I love mushrooms. That makes complaining about these rather hard. I also didn’t pay for them which makes knowing what you get for the price rather hard. So, let me say that I don’t recall any spinach in the six little mushrooms you get.

Other than that I could eat these all day. Oops, I was done with them in less than sixty seconds. 

BJ’s Gourmet Five Meat Pizza

This particular heart attack on a plate had meat balls (don’t all men have meat balls too. I mean they should say what kind of meat balls if you ask me) pepperoni, oven baked ham, salami, Italian sausage, and parmesan cheese. It’s just a bit short of them slapping a dead pig on your pizza and serving it up.

To be honest, I still proffer a good old pepperoni from Costco, but you can’t get blasted at Costco which is why my brother goes to BJ’s. With BJ’s it’s all in the beer.

BJ’s Peanut butter S’more Pizzokie

Pizzokie, I still haven’t gotten over that word. I mean, Pizzokie, it sounds like the nick name for a water cannon that shoots lemonade at a mettle concert.

Other than the ice cream being two big blocks of ice this was really good.  After splitting one of these with my brother he asked me to drive him to the drug store to by some diabetic health shakes. Well, sweet, sweet death, wrap me in thine arms.