INKSTAND

The pot pie is one of the best dishes ever invented. It has everything a meal needs, baked in a pie. Perfect. I was at the store and saw the Claim Jumper frozen foods were on sale. I’d never had their pot pies so I thought I’d give it a shot.
I cooked it for 12 minutes in the microwave. For some reason Claim Jumper’s frozen foods have crazy times for microwaving. The Country Fried Chicken, for instance, calls for a microwave time of something like 4 to 71/2 minutes. The pot pie had various times based on the wattage of your oven. I should have put it in longer. when it came out the center was hot, but I could still bite into it without burning my mouth.
This pie passed the first test. When you order a pot pie at a restaurant the crust is always just on the top. I get that. But when you buy one that’s frozen, it MUST have the crust all around the bowl as well. I run into one once in a while that doesn’t and it infuriates me.
The pie was good, the crust on top was nice and flakey. The filling was good, too, but I did get a gristly chunk of chicken. And there was something about the sauce that made it a little too sweet, and it was gritty. Maybe I cooked it less than I thought, but you know when you’ve had a few and it’s dark and you just keep shoveling it into your mouth? it was like that.
So if they’re on sale, or cheaper than Marie Calendar’s. I say go for it. Just cook product thoroughly.

Oh, my God! How can I never have tried one of these before? I was in the Metropolitan Market on Quenn Anne and was about to pick up a ham and cheese croissant, or a no-bake oatmeal cookie. Look, I know it’s a competetor but really, it was on my way. I’m not that loyal. The italian slipper is reason enough.
This is a confection in the “puff pastry” family that has the consistency of a croissant but is, i believe, much sweeter and dusted with powdered sugar. The bast part? The part that got me, totally unexpected? The delectable pear filling! Oh, my Christ, was it good! The worst part about it is that it was $2.49. That’s ridiculously steep in my book but I’ll be damned if this isn’t something I will treat myself to on a regualr basis.

Ever since I started going to the gym and walking up from 2nd Ave to 4th, to catch the 17 bus home, I have passed this tiny place, curious about it’s quality and enchanted by it’s aroma. Today I decided to boldly go somewhere I’ve never gone and try it out.
The prices seemed decent. It was five-something for a sandwich, seven-something for a sandwich, side, and soda. Once inside I noticed that the place was even smaller than I though it would be. It was about four feet wide and ten feet deep, at the most. The register was at the far end and there were two small tables along side the windows. I’ll tell more about those tables in a minute. I saw two dudes sitting, waiting before me and a lady making a purchase at the register. I wondered how long the whole process would take, from ordering to leaving the place. I shit you not, it took less than three minutes. No, less than two. I ordered, paid, and right after she made my change, she handed me my sandwich and potato salad in a to-go container. Damn, I was impressed. But…how was the sandwich?
I decided to wait until I got home to eat because I didn’t feel like getting into a sloppy bbq sandwich on the bus. I did, however, sneak several bites of the potato salad. They have a sign that says something like “Best Potato Salad Served Here.” I admit it was pretty good. There were no crunchy little surprises like onions or pickles or anything. But I like hard-boiled eggs in my potato salad. I’m a weirdo that way.
They have a choice of bbq: mild, medium or hot. I always go with mild. I recently tried to raise my spicy tolerance and I think it worked a little, but I usually want to “taste the meat, not the heat.” In this case “mild” pretty much meant no spiciness at all, so if you like spicy you should probably go all the way. The sandwich was good, hearty and full of slathery goodness that didn’t fall apart all over. I set it down when I felt full, but mere minutes later I picked it back up again and finished it.
Now back to those tables. When I was growing up the Wendy’s burger place in my town had these tables with old-tymey newspaper prints on the top. The last time I saw them was about seventh grade, before they remodeled. Well I’ll be fucked wide open if this place didn’t have two of those little tables sitting right there. I almost took a picture with my camera phone, but that camera sucks and I would have looked like a freak.
I definitely recommend the Mad Oven Barbecue for a good pulled-meat sandwich. Although it was so indulgent I probably won’t be able to go back for a little while. When I do, maybe I’ll try “medium”.

The copy on the box reads: “Cookies so soft…they taste like they’re right from the oven.” There are several things wrong with both this claim and that copy. First of all, I don’t know why there is an ellipsis in there. If words were ommited they certainly wouldn’t want to inform the public of that, and there seems to be no need for a pause at that point in the sentence. Also, there is actually a period at the end on the box. I WOULD say, “Hey it’s advertising, you need an exclamation point!” However, I suppose the implied pause by the aforementioned ellipsis reduces the need for excitment.

So, away from the grammar and on to the cookies. Yes, they are soft, I’ll give them that but I’ll be damned if that makes me think they are “right from the oven.” I have three reasons. First of all, they are not soft enough. When you grab a cookie right from the oven it breaks in half because it’s still stuck to the cookie sheet. Secondly, They are not warm. They are room temperature at best. And lastly, there is something about these cookies that I have always thought. It must be the preservatives in them, but I always said they taste like rat poison. Of course I don’t know what rat poison tastes like, but that’s the first thing that popped into my head. I think I was in high school when I first thought that. That chemically, packaged, gross taste is in every bite. Sometimes I see these cookies and want that grossness, and that’s why I still buy them. But only because it’s a lot easier to find small packages of these than Chewy Chips Ahoy.

Yum. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Have you ever had a Choco Taco? Sure you have. If not, I’m telling you to right now. If you dont know, it’s an ice cream concoction with a taco shell-shaped cone, vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge in it, topped with chocolate and peanuts. The fried ice cream version is new.
The ice cream is cinnamon caramel flavored with honey caramel and topped with chocolate and little cinnamon crunchy things. It is delicious. So very delicious.

I just ate half a pint of this while watching Passions. OMG, I’m going to get soooooo fat!
Let’s see. Vanilla with caramel and chocolate covered waffle cone peices. If you like whatever’s in a flavor that Ben and Jerry’s concocts, you’re going to like the flavor. I mean, I wouldn’t like something if it had pecans in it, but if you like pecans, you’d like the ice cream. So, yeah, I like this. It’s yummy.

This sandwich was okay, which is good for 7 Eleven. The $3.99 price tag is about the same as any other place you can get a pre-made sandwich. I only intended to eat half and save the rest for later but ended up eating the whole thing. I guess that says something. The lettuce was green, not iceberg. That’s always a plus. As you can see from the picture the top part of the bread was really thick. I didn’t dig on that so much. I’d rather have had more roast beef. That might be greedy of me since it had roast beef, turkey AND ham on it. I will probably buy another one if I’m trying to decide on something at the 7 Eleven, just so I don’t have to take the 13 bus up the hill to Safeway.

I like Kit Kats a whole bunch but, like most candy bars, the variations on the flavor didn’t go over so well. Reese’s peanut butter cups seem to by trying a lot of combinations latley as well, putting dark chocolate, caramel, marshmallows, etc in their candy. The problem I have with the inclusion of caramel in these variations is that it’s too thin, like a gel toothpaste. If you like bombarding your mouth with refined sugar, you might like this one, along with the marshmallow Take 5 bar. I like the original Take 5 bar, I think the caramel is a little more solid in that one. The runny caramel reminds me of a Carmelo wich burned my throat the last time I had one.
What I really want to try is the Blood Orange flavor Kit Kat. I found that while looking for an image for this post. Check out this blog that had a rather long list of different and interesting Kit Kat flavors. The Kit Kat I had was one of those big ones, like the first image on that page. I also saw a berry flavored one they are selling in the UK. I’m jealous.

Man, this stuff is nasty. I had one the other day and it’s not as bad as I recall it being a few years ago, but it’s still gross. It’s like chocolate milk made with carob and then diluted with water. Water is actually the first ingredient. It also contains a number of other unsavory ingredients, including the dreaded High Fructose Corn Syrup. I think I’ll stick to chocolate milk, now that I know it’s not regular milk full of cow’s blood.

Have you ever had the Honey BBQ twisty Fritos? Take those, make them not twisty, make them stale, and only use about half the bbq flavoring. Voila! Sundance corn chips. You can get a bag of either for $0.99 and the Frito bag is 10oz, while the Sundance is 5oz.