Pizza Wizard

Upon taking a look in the fridge the other morning, my immediate impression was, "what the hell?"

No, I hadn't just tried Taco Bell's brand new breakfast drink.

Not too long ago I decided to try the pizza at Mellow Mushroom on 18th St. I ordered the "Kosmic Karma" pizza, which had sun dried tomatoes, spinach, feta, roma tomatoes and pesto. Sure, it sounds good on paper, but after a pitcher of Bells, all I could remember was the overpowering taste of butter.

That alone makes the score fall somewhere between poor-quality grocery store frozen pizza and Papa Johns. I don't think I was too bothered though, since apparently my pizza was summoned by a wizard.

Gummy Tardis

If I have a weakness for any sort of junk food, it's definitely for gummies. Some people like chocolate, I like gummies.

A few years ago my parents, knowing my fondness for both gummies and Doctor Who, sent me a massive three pound bag of Jelly Babies from Britain. By the time I finished the bag I was pretty sick of the damn things.

After seeing a photo from a friend's camping trip, I decided that I really needed some gummy snacks. The temptation for completely artificial rubbery goodness was overpowering. I needed to buy groceries anyway, so I hopped on my bike and rode over to the supermarket.

The selection was fairly disappointing, but in the end I bought a bag of Swedish Fish.

Because when life's choices are underwhelming, you can always rely on Swedish Fish.






Maybe I should have succumbed to morbid curiosity and tried a bottle of Beefamato?

Photo by

Michael Coté

Beets

The Harris Teeter canned goods aisle yesterday had me thinking about my experiences with beets a while back.

Not too long ago an article came out in the Journal of Applied Physiology about how beet juice boosts stamina. A few friends of mine read the claims that beet juice can lower your blood pressure and increase your ability to exercise by up to 16%. Next thing you know, everyone is out buying beets and pouring over craigslist ads to find secondhand Jack LaLanne juicers.

Amateur endurance athletes are a funny bunch. Generally the trend goes something like this --

1) Athlete reads an article about vegetable x or juice of vegetable y increases recovery/boosts endurance/lactate capacity etc.

2) Athlete goes to grocery store and buys a large quantity of vegetable.

3) Athlete over consumes vegetable.

4) Athlete experiences either no gains, or marginal gains that are most likely due to placebo effect.

5) Athlete gets sick of vegetable and goes back to their normal diet.

I'm not immune to this sort of behavior. I'll admit that I did go to the grocery store and purchased a few 99 cent cans of red beets in water.

I also realized why I never liked beets -- they smell like dirt. Cleaned, cooked, or canned, beets smell like dirt when they're being prepared.

If I wanted to get a healthy taste of dirt, I would have ridden in the Poolesville Road Race yesterday. In the meantime, I'm ok with suffering 16% more if it means avoiding a diet of beets.

Want to offer a beet recipe to change my mind? Try me.

It's Real

Someone out there actually went ahead and made kale ice cream.

I'd probably only try it under duress, but I do find the whole kale obsession to be pretty amusing.

Ice Cream and Kale

Why hasn't Ben & Jerry's jumped on the kale craze and made some sort of kale related ice cream?

They could call it Kaleing Me Softly: Chocolate Chip Ice Cream with Real Kale Chunks

Top Heavy and Stuffed

This blog was started as a halfhearted lark between a friend and myself. Not being one to back down from a challenge, here we are, ridiculous title and all.

I've picked up a lot of funny grocery shopping habits during my time in DC. I hate standing in lines, so I either go to the grocery store really early in the morning or really late at night. I think this probably started when I lived a bit closer the Foggy Bottom Trader Joes, which was always packed full of Georgetown and GW undergrads. The checkout line would usually wind its way all the way back to the front doors unless you showed up about an hour before the store closed. It was always bizarre to see people willing to stand in line for 20-25 minutes with only two or three items that could be easily found elsewhere.

I also discovered that you can fit about three and a half full bags of groceries into an extra large Baileyworks messenger bag. Easy enough to ride on the bike, even if it is a bit top heavy.

Anyway, I've passed by the Smucker Farms store on 14th St on the way to work for a while now. Since the local Wednesday bike race out in Greenbelt was cancelled on account of the weather, I decided to stop in after work and ended up purchasing the following items:

1) Stachowski Brand Charcuterie Hot Italian Sausages with Wine -- so
far, I'd give them a 7/10. I think they might rate higher if I'd
purchased them fresh, but they were in a freeze pack, which knocks the
score down a bit.

2) Cocoa Metro Belgian Chocolate Milk -- 8/10 Absolutely excellent.

3) Olde Heritage Root Beer -- 3/10, but I'd like to try another
bottle. I don't think this batch turned out right. The taste is overly
yeasty, which tells me that something went wrong in the fermentation
process. Yes, I have tried microbrewed root beer before and don't
expecting everything to taste like A&W.

4) Cherry and walnut bread -- 10/10 it's possible that I might slay
the entire loaf within a day and a half.

5) Gordy's Sweet Pickle Chips -- 10/10 bought a jar of these at the
last 13th St Meats Retail Day. Great for sandwiches or burgers.

Stay tuned for more captivating grocery purchases and subsequent reviews.