McMathematics

 

At my local McDonald's, the double cheeseburger is cheaper than the single cheeseburger. And the triple cheeseburger is the same price as the single cheeseburger.

Somebody call somebody.

Month #1: Taiwan Snacks

 Yes, the Japanese/Korean Snack series is over a year old and still hasn't completed, what is this nonsense? Well, this year for my birthday I asked for no gifts so obviously I got enrolled in a "snack of the month" club automatically guaranteed to last another year!

And what is the first month's collection? Taiwanese snacks, of course, so here we are. I didn't get what I wanted this year and I'm passing the suffering on to you. Let's get started...

Taiwan is home to 430 unique species of butterflies and is known as "Kingdom of Butterflies." On the first full moon of the year, people in North Taiwan celebrate the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival where they send up paper lanterns into the sky. People in South Taiwan light fireworks in the street and getting hit by a firework is seen as a sign of good luck. 

In Taiwan, each receipt includes a lottery number; it's common for businesses to close for 2-3 hours after lunch to allow for naps; garbage trucks play Beethoven to announce they're in the area and no one gets married in August due to superstition.

1) Soft Yuzu Citrus Cake

Yuzu is a citrus fruit that began in China and spread to the rest of South East Asia.

This tastes a lot like a Fig Newton. It's like a Fig Newton that's bigger, thicker and has a twinge of citrus flavor to it. Not bad.

2) Soy Cracker (Korean Kimchi)

Kimchi is Korean pickled cabbage. And Kimchi is so popular in Taiwan that they made their own version that's less spicy and more sweet and sour.

As you can infer from the bag, these are like the Taiwanese Fritos. Fritos, with a little bit of BBQ, a little spice and some sesame. Not bad.

3) Black Truffle Fries

Point of order: I've never had black truffle. So I don't know what they're going for but I can still assess whether it's good.

As the bag suggests, they're chips shaped like french fries, not unlike your Andy Capp's and what not. And I think they've done well because there is a strong mushroom taste - definitely and powerfully.

And it's at this point, the thought occurs to me, "What if I'm deathly allergic to truffles?" There'd be no way of knowing, it's completely possible and I'm all alone. Is my tongue swelling up? I don't think my throat is closing but then, that's exactly what they want you to believe. Maybe my throat is closing. Maybe it's my imagination? It feels like it is - how do I know if it really is or I'm just panicking?

Living alone is scary. A slip and fall, a knife accident, a toxic truffle and that could be it. It depends on whether you can get to a phone in time, I suppose. I can't bring myself to get up on my roof. Suppose I'm up there and the ladder gets knocked over, then what? I could stay up there indefinitely. Will someone come by? Maybe. Maybe not. And then the alternative is to jump down. I don't want to imagine that but somehow it's hard not to.

Pretty good, overall. A nice salty, potatoey snack.

4) Pop-Smile Popcorn Bubble Tea

Bubble Tea (or Boba Tea) was invented in Taiwan in the 80s. The claim of ownership between Chun Shui Tang Teahouse and Hanlin Teahouse was fought over in the courts for years and eventually thrown out because no one had patented it. In 2019 the bubble tea market reached $2.4 Billion.

I, myself, have never had bubble tea and still don't know what it tastes like. You can think of this popcorn as like 70% of the way to Cracker Jack. The caramel taste is just lighter and there's another taste in there that I can only assume is the bubble tea part but doesn't taste like tea to me so... I don't know. This is the worst food review ever, I don't know what it's supposed to taste like, I don't know what it tastes like and I don't know how to describe it.

5) Taro Classic Wafers

Taro is a Taiwanese root and it's so big there that it has its own festival, the Taro Festival, held in October.

The genre of sugar wafer keeps coming up again and again with these Asian snacks. And here we are again. The look like this:

And they taste pretty much the way you'd expect. They're sugar wafers. Maybe they're less sweet than American sugar wafers but it's been a really long time since I had American ones so I can't say.

6) Taiwan Choco Ball

This one is labeled as containing/being "mochi" - glutinous rice paste. And though we usually associate mochi with Japan, it's apparently very popular in Taiwan.

The literature I have implies that it's the Taiwanese equivalent of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Coming up with the American equivalent is my job, literature. And, not being able to eat chocolate, I had to wrangle guest reviewers to eat it for me, "Mystery Diners," if you will. Here are their reviews:

"It's like gummy chocolate."

"It's not bad, it's just weird."

"It's springy... it's like a superball!"

So there you go. Take that for what it's worth.

Popcorn in Bed - It's a Wonderful Life

 

Christmas Music

 Someone recently posed the question, "Is Christmas Eve actually better than Christmas Day?" It's an impossible question. When I was a kid, we'd spend Christmas Eve celebrating with my grandparents on my father's side and those may be my favorite memories. I remember being caught between rooms hearing Christmas music ever so faintly. My grandparents would play the record player in a room all the way down the hall so in various locations you would hear it almost imperceptibly.

A few years ago I was able to track down the record that they played - that I'm pretty sure they played. And today I found someone had uploaded it to youtube.

If you're looking for Christmas music - even if only to play in the background - this is my recommendation.

Weird Soda Reviews #1

 1) Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum Soda

Actually, scratch that, there is no "Joe" in the name for some reason. Suspicious. And it should be noted that Bazooka Joe Soda does not come with a comic.

I applaud how accurate this is and yet it falls a little short for me. This is 95% Bazooka Joe flavor with just an aftertaste that feels like something else indescribable (but not good). Still, very close and impressive.

What's really interesting is the website description. They describe Bubble Gum flavor as the combination of "strawberry, banana, and fruit punch." Never in my life have I heard anyone breakdown what Bubble Gum Flavor actually means. I would love to experiment with that to see if I can recreate it. One problem is: "fruit punch" itself has a lot of wiggle room.

Why is bubble gum pink? Because pink was the only color that the inventor, Walter Diemer, had on hand.

2) Canadian Maple Syrup Soda

I initially ordered this thinking, "I wonder what Maple Syrup Soda tastes like." One sip and I realized how dumb that was. It tastes like maple syrup, of course. Just imagine Maple Syrup (Log Cabin for instance) but watered down and carbonated and that's it exactly. It's not bad but I don't think it's going to be a new staple for me.

3) Chocolate Soda with Banana & Real Cocoa

Though not eating chocolate currently, I'm a big fan of Banana Splits, historically speaking. When I was a kid I would sometimes cut up a banana and add it to a glass of chocolate milk. It seemed to me that, at its essence, that was the main taste of banana splits.

And that's exactly what this tastes like. They are not fooling around with the labeling - this is EXACTLY chocolate and banana in soda form. It tastes great. Holy moley and wow. It's so spot-on that I wonder if I run a risk drinking it - how much chocolate can a soda really contain? I have no idea.

4) Chocolate Soda with Strawberry

I don't know about you but I'm not a big fan of chocolate covered strawberries. Chocolate is great and strawberries are great but you combine the two together and I don't think the result is greater than the sum of its parts.

But what of the soda? Well, we already established that the chocolate part is strong, but the question is the chocolate/strawberry combo. I don't taste it. I'm not getting a strawberry taste. Maybe it's me but I'm not getting it.

If you want to try for yourself, I got all of these from Vat19.com. Not a sponsor.

Rich Little's Christmas Carol

 Are you down? Are you having trouble "getting into the 'Christmas spirit'" this year? Feeling boxed in by it all? Well, I know how to fix things. How about a version of "A Christmas Carol" where every character is played by Rich Little doing an impression of a different celebrity?

Yes, this production has it all... Rich Little as W.C. Fields as Scrooge, Rich Little as Richard Nixon as Jacob Marley, Rich Little as Groucho Marx as Fezziwig, Rich Little as Truman Capote as Tiny Tim and it just goes on and on from there. Are you a millennial? If so, you have no idea who any of these people are, do you? I guarantee you have never even heard the name Paul Lynde before.

Yes, this special is real and it's incredible (impossible to believe).

My top complaint about this production is that "A Christmas Carol" is, or can be, such an emotionally powerful story...it feels like such a waste for this kind of... whatever it is. If you want a comical parody of a story that everyone knows, do "The Wizard of Oz", Robin Hood, do Rudolph do... hold on... There was a Dana Carvey Show sketch where Dana Carvey was Rich Little in "All Rich Little One Man Easter"... Dana Carvey played Rich Little playing various celebrities playing various Biblical characters... that sketch makes complete sense now.

But anyways, I don't see the point in taking a powerful story and extracting all the heart from it so you can deliver the empty husk of a classic. Take out all the emotion and you're only left with an "I know what that is" skeleton. Just look at every "punk" cover of every popular song ever recorded.

The strangest thing to me about this special is the impetus for Scrooge/Fields to change. Instead of seeing that Tiny Tim dies prematurely, the ghost of Christmas Future (Rich Little as Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau) shows him Scrooge's grave and only his. So, in this version, Scrooge needs to change his ways in order to not die? I got news for you, that's not negotiable. It's also not very dramatic or powerful. Now, to be fair, Scrooge/W.C. Fields is an alcoholic and so it's implied that he's going to die of alcoholism unless he quits but this message is not given any of the weight that it deserves; and besides, what has that got to do with Christmas? Why would quitting alcohol equate to giving Cratchet a raise or celebrating Christmas with your nephew? The first thing that happens at the Christmas party is he's offered a drink and he drinks it and makes a funny face. The only connection I see between alcoholism and "A Christmas Carol" is that the first thing he does after going "cold turkey" is to buy a giant turkey. I'll see myself out. God bless us, everyone.