International Restaurant and Foodservice Show NY | Day 3

"Baconry" is "Bacon + Bakery" according to these promotional materials. I call it a delicious abomination. Like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Chocolate peanut butter bacon cookies? A little burned, actually. But the prospect of "chocolate bacon bacon"?




It's chocolate-covered bacon covered in bacon. Yes, the end must be near. Tell Gozer and Vince Clortho they work dark miracles in that ominous refrigerator of theirs.

Awful Gift Combinations

Someone came into the bookstore today and bought a copy of Digest Diet, the Reader's Digest oficial fat-burning diet book, and a dark chocolate and peppermint truffle bar.

What a dick.

I can promise you this unibomber-looking dude was not buying for himself. And if he wasn't completely oblivious, he was one of the most passive-aggressive men in America.


Other Terrible Gift Combinations:

• Windshield fuzzy dice, a Gas & Go prepaid card, and a bottle of scotch

• A smoke detector and a dime bag

• A Ku Klux Klan membership and a DVD copy of Friday After Next

• A hit of acid and a sensory deprivation chamber

• A tank of laughing gas and a David Spade movie

• Tickets to Cirque du Soleil and a seeing eye dog

• Ben Afleck's Daredevil, Jersey Girl, and Gigli, and the number for your local suicide prevention hotline

On Pregnancy

Met a woman today buying three books about pregnancy and a copy of "The Vow." Let's just take an inductive leap and assume she's going to skip straight to the "Hormonal" chapter.

Honestly, I was surprised she didn't grab half a pound of Godiva and a jar's worth of fried pickles.

Of course, we don't sell fried pickles, but I'd eat enough to get sick if we did. Probably best we don't, then. Chocolate and pickles are good together too. Crap, I think I've been pregnant for my entire life. Like Godzilla.

"Ugh…I think my ankles are swollen!"

Happy Easter, Gentiles!

The Best Things About Easter:

• Chocolate
• Bunny rabbits
• Chocolate bunny rabbits
• Time-and-a-half
• Something about Jesus 

 Have a very merry, Christians. Now just stay out of my way when I head to the grocery store for discount candy tomorrow. I don't want to have to crucify another of you.

BREAKING: Chocolate Will Still Make You Fat, Fatty

I usually try to get my news from the BBC, or at least "The Daily Show." I figure that way everything's in perspective, admittedly left-leaning, but admittedly left-leaning. For the most, this is noted and an honest effort is made to report facts without opinion, until such time as opinion is obviously the topic at hand.

However, I am a bit saddened to see even the BBC report, as happens every few months, that chocolate is actually good for you. Moreover, that it "may" help "you" lose weight.

Thankfully, they do point out that correlation proves nothing of causation, simply that people who ate chocolate more frequently were typically slimmer than people who ate chocolate only occasionally, even while compensating for BMI and caloric intake.

1. Of course, this is kind of burying the lead when you substitute a new lead implying directly that the correlation may yield a direct linear causation, i.e. "Chocolate 'may help keep people slim.'" Great job.

And secondly,

2. Of course people who eat chocolate more often are on average slimmer than people who eat chocolate less often. We're skinny assholes.

BMI and caloric intake have nothing at all to do with how quickly your body can process those calories, other than to give you an estimation as a result, not an impetus. I can eat gobs of cocoa because I have a fast metabolism, thus I stay slimmer and determine that I can safely enjoy chocolate more frequently without running the risk of putting on weight.

Someone with a slower metabolism, but with an equal BMI and caloric intake to mine¹ will have to monitor what they eat rigidly to achieve the same results, and therefor not be able to enjoy such a delicious treat as often, lest they go completely elephant seal and loathe themselves into a tear-soaked pillow slumber.

Chocolate doesn't make you thinner. Being thinner lets you eat more chocolate. Now feel free to hate me while I finish off the last 4 servings of that Slice'n'Share one-pound Snickers bar I didn't share with anybody. (Amazing review here.)



¹Alright, impossible, since having a faster metabolism requires me to consume more calories to match your BMI, or conversely you to consume fewer to match mine.

The Best Thing I've Eaten In Months

Today I was a good person. I was helpful and bonded with another human being by helping her. The result was she insisted I take a homemade cake pop.

I meant to take a second photo, showing a cross-section of this masterpiece, but–in all honestly–it was so delicious that I consumed the entire thing before I had any thought unrelated to devouring this morsel more quickly.

That said, here's a breakdown:

Under the hand-wrapping is a chocolate-covered sphere of the darkest, most moist chocolate cake I have ever had the pleasure of savoring. This is not hyperbolic by any means. It was literally the greatest piece of cake I have ever had. This has its moisture sealed in by a near-perfectly round chocolate shell, topped in its last moments of molten life my a cascade of mini-M&Ms. As promised, it was delicious cold, with a nice hard shell yet still gooey cake inside.

I don't normally do this, but there's no joke here. This woman, Andrea Sommers, was lovely and her confection was utterly astounding. She bakes professionally, on a very small scale. Her business card is simply her name and phone number, and the phrase, "Homemade Macaroons; Wrapped and shipped for all occasions."

All orders are placed by word-of-mouth, and she has no website for me to plug. For those interested in the local area, I will provide you with her contact number if you would like to place an order. (I do not know how far she would ship. It probably depends on the specific baked good.) For my local friends, I included it in the link from my personal facebook.

I hope someone calls her and orders some amazing desserts, because this was, in absolute honesty, the best thing I have ever eaten in months.