Vegan Black Metal Chef

This guy needs a Saturday night slot on Food TV!

You are invited to Mary-Kate and Ashley's gangsta sleepover party

Awesome meme....watching this slowed and throwed is creepy shit.

SXSW Music starts today!

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

It's the time of the week during SXSW when crowds of geeks wearing badges are replaced by crowds of hispters wearing badges. I resist the urge to yell, "Hey dudes, you don't need a badge to walk down 6th street!"  I wonder if they shower with those things.

It is amazing how much stuff there is for free.  There are so many free events that promoters compete for your attention by offering free booze and food.

Organizing evenings over the next few days is like a part-time job.  It gets overwhelming very quickly! We've been compiling gradually over time, and here are some of the free events on our radar.

Not to mention:
Fader Fort
Pure Volume House
Beauty Bar events
Hype Machine party
...and too many more to mention.

Some people put on free semi-legal events at their houses, like the South by My House party at Chicon and Cesar Chavez.

When in doubt, search "SXSW free" on Twitter, but look out for swarming.

$1 Big Texas Cheeseburger is taunting me

Fuck you Jack in the Box! Fuck you for enticing me with this image every morning on my walk to work. I know it's a lie. There's no way you are offering a Big Texas Cheeseburger for only $1. It doesn't look like that picture. But every damn morning I have to walk past this delicious looking 6-foot tall lie and be tempted to break my boycott of you.

(I suffered the worst food poisoning of my life in early 2008 and it occurred after eating a questionable chicken sandwich from this very Jack in the Box. Haven't been back since.)
The sketchy looking Jack in the Box mascot whispers into my mind's ear, "It's only a dollar! What are the odds of lightning striking twice? You're not going to get sick again! Stop being paranoid."
I won't do it Jack in the Box! I've never before purposefully boycotted a restaurant for this long, let alone one so close to my work.

You will not break me with your false imagery, even if it would make an excellent contribution to my ongoing investigative series debunking food advertising. All I have to do is remember how miserable I was with food poisoning. It was so bad that a nurse had to inject an anti-nausea medication into my buttocks to make the throw up stop.

I just hope this "Limited Time Only" come to an end soon, so this Jack in the Box can go back to advertising its Denver Breakfast Bowls or something else lame.

Food Ads Exposed: Smart Ones Chicken Oriental

Besides having a mildly racist name, Smart Ones Chicken Oriental offers "juicy white meat chicken in a savory Oriental sauce with vegetables and rice." I bought this frozen meal because it cost only $1.80, but it tastes just as cheap. The flavor is kind of a one note, and the chicken tastes like, well, chicken that has been frozen, cooked, frozen again, then microwaved.

But it's low in calories (230) and contains enough sodium (640 mg) to keep you powering through the eating process. I spent less than two dollars on this meal and I won't have have to eat for at least three hours. Sounds like a win win to me!

I also think Smart Ones' motto could use some work, "Taste so good, you want to be good." What?

Not all Chicago pizza is deep dish

I won't pretend to understand the subtle differences between the north and south sides of Chicago. But one thing I do know is this. In the working class, blue collar south side suburb of my grandfather, they don't eat that deep dish crap. They eat insanely delicious thin crust pizza, and they almost always get it the same way: sausage and cheese, sliced into squares.

We asked for half pepperoni on the pizza pictured above and they actually put the meat underneath the cheese! I have only ever seen that done in Quebec. So do yourself a favor and just stick to the sausage and cheese. Oh yeah, and put on some sleeves already!

Food Ads Exposed: Lean Cuisine Roasted Turkey Breast

Because I can't get enough of this, here's my lunch:



Not the worst transgressor I've ever seen, but still quite a disparity between the promise made and the promise kept.

Knockoff cereals at Dollarama

While at Dollarama in Vancouver, we came across these hilarious Egyptian imitations of popular American cereals. It's almost a mix-and-match of mascots and products. The toucan is with the frosted corn flakes instead of with the fruit loops. The feline (I think it's a feline), who should be with the frosted flakes, is with the puffed corn balls. And the puffed corn balls should be with the Trix rabbit, but his doppleganger is paired up with the puffed rice cereal. I have no idea where that sad looking "dinosaur" came from.

Food Ads Exposed: Banquet Homestyle Grilled Meat Patty Meal

I bought this meal because it was only 88 cents and the idea of a "Grilled Meat Patty Meal" made me laugh. Check out what it really looks like inside.
When I showed this picture to S. she laughed and said, "That looks like shit next to vomit." And then I laughed out loud.

The patty kind of has the consistency of shit and the noodles are mushy like they were half-digested, but really the whole thing just tastes like a very salty simulated gravy.

The Bacon Genie

Cactus tagging

Cacti grow naturally in this part of the world, but I never thought of them as a target for vandals. This cactus, at P. Terry's Burger Stand in South Austin, has tags scratched all over it. Kind of reminds me how some teens would do this on trees or picnic tables in my hometown Nelson.

Taco Cabana

In a city where tacos are as common as burgers, this fast food chain offers an edge over its competitors: frozen margaritas with real Tequila and Triple Sec! I know fast food chains serve booze in other countries, but in Texas, this is the only one I know of that lets you walk out the door with an open container of alcohol. Hurrah!

Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas

Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco. The original recipe (sweetened with Imperial Sugar) is much more delicious than Dr. Pepper in can (sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup). When made by a soda jerk who works the fizz just right, it's downright fantastic!

Old London Waffle Snacks: not as good as they seem

Maybe I just got a bad bag but these savory waffle craker "swiss cheese" sandwiches did not live up to any reasonable expectations.

The only Dunkin Donuts in Austin

Finding fancy coffee made by a smug barista is easy in Austin, Texas. Drive-thru Starbucks are everywhere. And independent coffee shops thrive in this small business incubator. But finding a cup of the simple working class brew that helped build America takes a level of determination.

We mustered that determination recently and drove twelve miles to the only Dunkin Donuts in Austin. (Those other results you'll find in Google Maps are not Dunkin Donuts anymore!) This is the scene outside, off Highway 183.



This Dunkin Donuts may also be the only one in America that serves kolaches, those delicious Czech treats that are all too often bastardized in Central Texas with sub-par ingredients. A hot dog is not a sausage!

Dunkin Donuts said last year it will open fifty stores across Austin by 2018. So far no action on that front.

Say what you will about Pizza Hut...

...but do not tell me that doesn't look fucking delicious. Even if the reality is closer to this.

If you're as obsessed with pizza as I am, you'll also be interested in the industry trade journal Pizza Marketplace's Top pizza trends for 2009. Number three is ridiculous. (Enough with the social networking already!) Number five bodes well for the cash strapped. (More cheap pizza!)

Temple of Food

If you're going to raise food for the hungry, be creative. This is America, for fuck's sake! Basically, some group convinced a bunch of other groups to donate food if architechs would create a bunch of these things and put them in the mall with a sign displaying the donors logos. This sculpture alone was made of 5,328 cans and contained 4,250 pounds of food. After shoppers see these and learn how giving can be fun, the food is donated to charity. Everybody wins!

Jack In The Box Breakfast Bowls

Breakfast bowls really seem to be catching on across America, ever since Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowls rolled out in 2007. I might even be tempted to try this breakfast bowl and give you an honest review, if I hadn't caught a nasty case of food poisoning from this restaurant six months ago. Alas, it's probably for the best.

Individually wrapped hard-boiled eggs

Saw these at a gas station in San Antonio. Top awards for most hilarious travel snack! But it's also an interesting consumer trend. Some companies, like Eggland's Best and Born Free, will sell you entire bags of hard-boiled eggs. Because goodness knows, they're difficult enough to make.

Top Notch Hamburgers

Austin is one of the top hamburger capitals of America, and some of the best burger joints are those that haven't changed in decades. Top Notch is one of those places. In fact, it's so frozen in time that it was used as one of the locations in the movie Dazed and Confused -- a movie set in the 1970s.

A little old lady takes your order from behind the counter and men in trucker hats prepare your burger on a charcoal grill. The onion rings are cut right on site, and damn, does it make a difference. Not only are their burgers fantastic, but their onion rings are some of the best in town. Here are some pics.

Click on this picture to get a better look at the menu. You can't go wrong with the Number 2.

Keep up the good work, buddy!