A lot of knick-knacking this weekend. No hardcore snacking sessions went down; just little bits and pieces here and there. I continued to make a dent in one of three large bags of Cool Ranch Doritos that I have currently. Opened a box of Lucky Charms for the first time in a while. Had to defend my bag of Cheddar Cheese and Cracker Combos from my cat all week long. It’s the only human food that I know of that she will stalk faithfully. My cat has good taste.
Here’s a list of snacks in my world this weekend (Friday included):
Chocolate pudding pie
Twizzlers
Hershey’s Cookies and Cream
Chunky
Combos
Reeses Peanut Butter Cups
More Peeps
Ellio’s Pizzas
Keebler Fudge Shoppe Peanut Butter Filled Cookies
Entenmann’s Little Bites Blueberry Muffins
Teddy Graham’s Honey Graham Snacks
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thanks
I just want to take a moment to give thanks to people who have made me excited to create and continue this blog.
Firstly, Lindsey Bourque, for the marvelous pictures. She took the picture that you see up at the top of the screen when you come to the blog. Lindsey took time out of her schedule to help me out and took a ton of pictures, which will rotate as my blog header.
The photos are amazing in quality and I almost feel bad having to reduce them to fit on the web. They carry through not only as phenomenal Snackmaster themed photos, but as incredible portraits too. Many many thanks, Lindsey.
Please check out her website at:
www.lindseybourque.com
for more amazing photos.
Many thanks to Cassie Raihl who came up with most of the ideas for the photos as well as helping to assist make it all happen. I also have to give credit to Cassie for initially giving me the idea of making a snack-themed blog. Without her, this blog wouldn't be here.
Also, Andrew Graham, deserves a shout for giving me moral support during the shopping spree that preceded the photo shoot. In addition to that, he was actually the man who first christened me "The Snackmaster", so too, without him, there would be no The Snackmaster blog.
Lastly, the followers and people who have taken time out to check the blog. Thanks guys, keep reading. I hope it entertains!
Firstly, Lindsey Bourque, for the marvelous pictures. She took the picture that you see up at the top of the screen when you come to the blog. Lindsey took time out of her schedule to help me out and took a ton of pictures, which will rotate as my blog header.
The photos are amazing in quality and I almost feel bad having to reduce them to fit on the web. They carry through not only as phenomenal Snackmaster themed photos, but as incredible portraits too. Many many thanks, Lindsey.
Please check out her website at:
www.lindseybourque.com
for more amazing photos.
Many thanks to Cassie Raihl who came up with most of the ideas for the photos as well as helping to assist make it all happen. I also have to give credit to Cassie for initially giving me the idea of making a snack-themed blog. Without her, this blog wouldn't be here.
Also, Andrew Graham, deserves a shout for giving me moral support during the shopping spree that preceded the photo shoot. In addition to that, he was actually the man who first christened me "The Snackmaster", so too, without him, there would be no The Snackmaster blog.
Lastly, the followers and people who have taken time out to check the blog. Thanks guys, keep reading. I hope it entertains!
Back in the Day Segment: 52 Green
Cool Ranch Doritos.
At the age of 18 I graduated high school and immediately struck out on my own. I started working at a cafe 5 days a week, 8 hours a day and soon moved into my first apartment with some pretty cool people. We lived at a place called 52 Green and, for me, this began the era of Cool Ranch Doritos.
I had been eating Doritos for a handful of years before this, but mainly the Nacho Cheese Doritos. I had never been a big chips guy, and Nacho Cheese Doritos were the "safe" brand for me. I really never even ate potato chips up until a couple of years ago. But slowly, in my late teens I made the transition from Nacho Cheese to Cool Ranch. This process was no huge. monumental shift at the time, and I really did not eat a large amount of Cool Ranch Doritos. But somewhere at the end of senior year of high school and the summer afterwards, Cool Ranch Doritos became The Staple.
Please don't get this confused with any ordinary preference or obsession. Cool Ranch Doritos became entire meals for me. Probably because I earned so little and because of an unexplainable finicky phase that I was going through, a large bag of Doritos was often times the only thing I wanted and could really afford to eat regularly. Now, eating snacks as a meal is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, and even I knew that as an untiring 18 year old. Clearly, the majority of snacks just do not possess the materials for your stomach to send the necessary signals to your brain indicating satiation or contentment. But Doritos kind of sneak in the in between. While their flavorings are certainly fattening with no nutritional value, the corn chip itself was enough of a compromise to my 18 year old self to make me believe that if I ate enough of them, I could actually consume enough corn to substitute for an entire healthy meal. I imagined it was like substituting 5 quesadillas, just without the cheese. Surely 5 quesadillas is a big and nutritious enough meal for me! So instead of taking home the incredible sandwiches that got thrown out every night at the cafe I worked at (sandwiches that I would LOVE to have now), I would down a half to a full bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and call it a night (the large bags). The danger would only come when occasionally I would want desert and I would go up the street for something like a 2-pack of Hostess Cup Cakes. Throwing those on top of a stomach full of Cool Ranch Doritos produced a queasiness strong enough to cut through the lies I would tell myself about the harmlessness of a meal of Doritos.
Cool Ranch Doritos stuck with me long after that era, which amazes me because I ate enough for anyone to be sick of them for life. I often accredit that to the complexity of the flavoring mixture that is used. Trying to describe the mixture, I actually find myself at a loss for words. Fifteen years after I first started eating them, they are still a regular part of my weekly diet, and the experience of eating them has dulled only so slightly. They are still the rule by which I judge any other chip or breaded light snack.
Planters Cheez Balls:
I can't talk about snacks at 52 Green without mentioning the ever-present round tin can of Planters Cheez Balls. While I certainly never tried to make this a meal, these were consumed almost as frequently as Cool Ranch Doritos. The craving for these hit me around the time I first moved into 52 Green, as I found myself needing a more potent munchie. I had always eaten Cheez Doodles, but shied away from the Cheez Balls because they had a bit of an extra cheese kick to them and were much saltier. Those inhibitions faded. I remember buying these at the CVS up the street from me in the largest container I could find. They were also a hit with the guests, so much so that I had to horde and defend them. We would go through a canister ever other day. At a certain point the empty canisters became trash cans, lying around on the floor of my bedroom. This soon became a problem when they also started to double as ash trays and the dried up "trash" inside would start to smolder and almost catch on fire.
To me, Cheez Balls were decadent. They represented a leap I had made in expanding my horizons. The packaging was incredibly unique and unforgettable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them in a long time and I hear that they are now also discontinued.
Older packaging, this style of packaging was the one right before I jumped aboard. The basic colors and layout remained the same but some formatting and font changes occurred.
At the age of 18 I graduated high school and immediately struck out on my own. I started working at a cafe 5 days a week, 8 hours a day and soon moved into my first apartment with some pretty cool people. We lived at a place called 52 Green and, for me, this began the era of Cool Ranch Doritos.
I had been eating Doritos for a handful of years before this, but mainly the Nacho Cheese Doritos. I had never been a big chips guy, and Nacho Cheese Doritos were the "safe" brand for me. I really never even ate potato chips up until a couple of years ago. But slowly, in my late teens I made the transition from Nacho Cheese to Cool Ranch. This process was no huge. monumental shift at the time, and I really did not eat a large amount of Cool Ranch Doritos. But somewhere at the end of senior year of high school and the summer afterwards, Cool Ranch Doritos became The Staple.
Please don't get this confused with any ordinary preference or obsession. Cool Ranch Doritos became entire meals for me. Probably because I earned so little and because of an unexplainable finicky phase that I was going through, a large bag of Doritos was often times the only thing I wanted and could really afford to eat regularly. Now, eating snacks as a meal is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, and even I knew that as an untiring 18 year old. Clearly, the majority of snacks just do not possess the materials for your stomach to send the necessary signals to your brain indicating satiation or contentment. But Doritos kind of sneak in the in between. While their flavorings are certainly fattening with no nutritional value, the corn chip itself was enough of a compromise to my 18 year old self to make me believe that if I ate enough of them, I could actually consume enough corn to substitute for an entire healthy meal. I imagined it was like substituting 5 quesadillas, just without the cheese. Surely 5 quesadillas is a big and nutritious enough meal for me! So instead of taking home the incredible sandwiches that got thrown out every night at the cafe I worked at (sandwiches that I would LOVE to have now), I would down a half to a full bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and call it a night (the large bags). The danger would only come when occasionally I would want desert and I would go up the street for something like a 2-pack of Hostess Cup Cakes. Throwing those on top of a stomach full of Cool Ranch Doritos produced a queasiness strong enough to cut through the lies I would tell myself about the harmlessness of a meal of Doritos.
Cool Ranch Doritos stuck with me long after that era, which amazes me because I ate enough for anyone to be sick of them for life. I often accredit that to the complexity of the flavoring mixture that is used. Trying to describe the mixture, I actually find myself at a loss for words. Fifteen years after I first started eating them, they are still a regular part of my weekly diet, and the experience of eating them has dulled only so slightly. They are still the rule by which I judge any other chip or breaded light snack.
Planters Cheez Balls:
I can't talk about snacks at 52 Green without mentioning the ever-present round tin can of Planters Cheez Balls. While I certainly never tried to make this a meal, these were consumed almost as frequently as Cool Ranch Doritos. The craving for these hit me around the time I first moved into 52 Green, as I found myself needing a more potent munchie. I had always eaten Cheez Doodles, but shied away from the Cheez Balls because they had a bit of an extra cheese kick to them and were much saltier. Those inhibitions faded. I remember buying these at the CVS up the street from me in the largest container I could find. They were also a hit with the guests, so much so that I had to horde and defend them. We would go through a canister ever other day. At a certain point the empty canisters became trash cans, lying around on the floor of my bedroom. This soon became a problem when they also started to double as ash trays and the dried up "trash" inside would start to smolder and almost catch on fire.
To me, Cheez Balls were decadent. They represented a leap I had made in expanding my horizons. The packaging was incredibly unique and unforgettable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them in a long time and I hear that they are now also discontinued.
Older packaging, this style of packaging was the one right before I jumped aboard. The basic colors and layout remained the same but some formatting and font changes occurred.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
March 25, 2009
Lunch:
Nothing special. Few Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The uber-small kind, individually wrapped, Christmas treats.
Dinner:
I hauled out the sack just to tempt myself with an extreme amount of selection.
Ended up eating more Christmas treats. The marshmallow santas in foil wrap.
Then moved on to some gummy worms, "Sweet Rainbow" brand. I had never heard of the brand, but picked them up in the photo-shopping free-for-all. They come in those packs that are about 3.5 ounces and used to be sold two for a dollar but now sell for 99 cents. There are so many companies that make gummy worms and package them in this format, and for a while I figured they would all be the same level of quality of taste. This brand, however, was surprisingly sweet. They tasted .... more pure; a good analogy would be the comparison of Mexican Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar cane, to US Coca-Cola, which uses corn syrup sweetener. This brand would be the Mexican Coke.
Bad things happen to good snacks.
Nothing special. Few Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The uber-small kind, individually wrapped, Christmas treats.
Dinner:
I hauled out the sack just to tempt myself with an extreme amount of selection.
Ended up eating more Christmas treats. The marshmallow santas in foil wrap.
Then moved on to some gummy worms, "Sweet Rainbow" brand. I had never heard of the brand, but picked them up in the photo-shopping free-for-all. They come in those packs that are about 3.5 ounces and used to be sold two for a dollar but now sell for 99 cents. There are so many companies that make gummy worms and package them in this format, and for a while I figured they would all be the same level of quality of taste. This brand, however, was surprisingly sweet. They tasted .... more pure; a good analogy would be the comparison of Mexican Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar cane, to US Coca-Cola, which uses corn syrup sweetener. This brand would be the Mexican Coke.
Bad things happen to good snacks.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
March 24, 2009
Lunch:
No morning treats from my buddy Ju. at work. I figured it was my turn, so I gave him an individually wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Yesterday, he brought me a cup full of these bizarre marshmallows. They were typical marshmallow size and shape but they were duo-colored. The outer shell would be one color, and the inside would be another. The colors spanned the range of pastels. They also tasted a bit different. I couldn't really distinguish tastes between the colors. The taste resembled the mild sugar flavors of Pixy Stix or Sweet Tarts, but without the tangy, tarty flavor. They were an interesting little morning adventure, but not something I would pursue in the future.
Today for lunch I finished off a larger sized Russell Stover Chocolate Marshmallow Rabbit that I had began yesterday at lunch. These are different from the ones I reviewed earlier. This one came in a box with a cellophane front for you to see the rabbit inside. The previous ones come in foil wrappers and are smaller. I have to say I prefer the foil packaged ones, although this one was good as well. This larger one advertised milk chocolate but kind of tasted like a dark chocolate. I also wasn't as fond of the proportions of chocolate to marshmallow on this larger one: there was much too much chocolate.
Dinner:
I had a Snack Pack Triples Chocolate and Vanilla single serving pudding. I was pretty pumped for this because I had totally forgotten I had two left from my 4-pack when cruising the fridge tonight. For whatever reason this was just what I had wanted. I also threw down a couple of Snackwells Devil's Food Cookie Cakes. You know, Snackwell's advertises Fat Free on most of their cookies, but don't let that discourage you. As you probably know, these cookies are pretty dope. They're soft and flavorful, and, although not mentioned on the package, they have a slight mint taste to them.
No morning treats from my buddy Ju. at work. I figured it was my turn, so I gave him an individually wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Yesterday, he brought me a cup full of these bizarre marshmallows. They were typical marshmallow size and shape but they were duo-colored. The outer shell would be one color, and the inside would be another. The colors spanned the range of pastels. They also tasted a bit different. I couldn't really distinguish tastes between the colors. The taste resembled the mild sugar flavors of Pixy Stix or Sweet Tarts, but without the tangy, tarty flavor. They were an interesting little morning adventure, but not something I would pursue in the future.
Today for lunch I finished off a larger sized Russell Stover Chocolate Marshmallow Rabbit that I had began yesterday at lunch. These are different from the ones I reviewed earlier. This one came in a box with a cellophane front for you to see the rabbit inside. The previous ones come in foil wrappers and are smaller. I have to say I prefer the foil packaged ones, although this one was good as well. This larger one advertised milk chocolate but kind of tasted like a dark chocolate. I also wasn't as fond of the proportions of chocolate to marshmallow on this larger one: there was much too much chocolate.
Dinner:
I had a Snack Pack Triples Chocolate and Vanilla single serving pudding. I was pretty pumped for this because I had totally forgotten I had two left from my 4-pack when cruising the fridge tonight. For whatever reason this was just what I had wanted. I also threw down a couple of Snackwells Devil's Food Cookie Cakes. You know, Snackwell's advertises Fat Free on most of their cookies, but don't let that discourage you. As you probably know, these cookies are pretty dope. They're soft and flavorful, and, although not mentioned on the package, they have a slight mint taste to them.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Weekend Action 3/20 - 3/22/09
So this weekend was The Snackmaster photo shoot.
I feel it best to hold off on the full description of the shoot and it's content until I have the photos ready to put up.
In the meantime I'd like to discuss the prep for the shoot. I spent a little bit over $100 on snacks, treats and desserts.
Unfortunately, I left the shopping to the very last minute and had to rush around a bit. This did not compromise my selection, but it did compromise my really being able to savor the experience of spending $100 on pure junk food.
Truth be told, I was somewhat anxious about the process of buying so much snacks. When it comes to shopping for snacks, it is always best to be impulsive. Often, I will anticipate something very specific less than 3 hours ahead of time. Any more time than this you really cannot accurately gauge what you will we be in the mood for when it is time. Any attempt that I have made to pre-empt what I really want too far ahead of time has almost always spoiled the eating experience for me. This, for the most part, holds true for meals as well. So going shopping for about a month or two's snacks in advance was a bit disorienting for me. I did not doubt that I could do it, rather I knew I would have to overcome some sort of mental obstacle in order to execute the shopping experience. I ended up hitting up 2 grocery stores and 4 convenience stores.
I only gave myself two simple rules:
1. Only buy stuff that I KNOW I like and that I know that I will eat. I was not going to spend $100 on props. Everything I bought has value to me and has history with me.
2. Try to buy as much of a variety of snacks as possible.
Number two is pretty obvious. A larger range of labels will make for a more interesting picture. Practically, a more diverse range of snacks will not feel like a responsibility in the coming month or two when I eat all of these snacks. I won't get bored or tired of eating the same thing.
Nonetheless, the huge sack of treats that now sits in my room does have a bit of an intimidating presence. My approach has been to not think about it. The enormous bag of snacks is there. It is not going anywhere. I do not have to eat something every chance I get. (Everything is pretty much packaged so I also don't have to worry about anything going bad.) My feeling is that I will pick at it whenever I feel like it, and within a week I will have forgotten most of the stuff that I bought, leading to some pleasant surprises and internal self-congratulatory thoughts for being smart enough to have picked up such and such item.
Another point of anxiety was that I was not going to get enough for the shoot. I was worried that I would hold too tightly to the variety rule, and end up not getting enough sheer visual quantity to make the photos effective. One hundred dollars worth of treats looked a lot smaller than I thought it would have. Fortunately I pretty much got JUST enough to make one of the shots look just about right.
Onto this weekend's actual consumption:
It was a pretty slow weekend for me. I had no appetite on Friday night, and I went out on Saturday night. Sunday night I had dinner with my sister's family over at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle made an awesome dinner and brought out some brownies engineered to retard the ability to move one's body. They had chocolate frosting on them as well, something that I really don't see often enough on brownies. Add to that a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and I felt that I had made up for the weekend's drought. At the end of the night my aunt sent me home with some food and about 1/3 of a plate of the brownies. Also, my sister gave me a bag full of my Christmas stocking candy that I had left at my parent's house and that my parent's had brought up and left with my sister. Carrying that stuff back home to be greeted by the garbage bag full of junk food, I felt a rising sense of pressure inside me....
One specific highlight of the weekend I have to mention is the acquisition of a handful of Little Hug juice drinks. These have gone by many names. When I was a kid the corner store stocked "Teenis", which is pretty much the exact same product. They are the tiny, clear plastic, kool-aid type drinks that come in a container that resembles a mini barrel or jug. The tops are sealed with foil on which the only type is found. The classic move for these bad boys was to bite into the foil with your teeth and immediately begin sucking the juice out. As a wee-lad, the pro technique was to bite down and immediately suck the entire contents out in one motion, imploding the cheap plastic container. They come in like ten different flavors and all are pretty decent. Amazingly, these drinks seem to be inflation proof. When I was REALLY little, I believe I first got them for like 15 cents or something. Not soon after, they were selling for a quarter. I didn't check the price last weekend, but I did get six for a dollar at the same store about 9 months ago. You GOTTA love that.
Little Hugs in all it's simplistic glory.
I feel it best to hold off on the full description of the shoot and it's content until I have the photos ready to put up.
In the meantime I'd like to discuss the prep for the shoot. I spent a little bit over $100 on snacks, treats and desserts.
Unfortunately, I left the shopping to the very last minute and had to rush around a bit. This did not compromise my selection, but it did compromise my really being able to savor the experience of spending $100 on pure junk food.
Truth be told, I was somewhat anxious about the process of buying so much snacks. When it comes to shopping for snacks, it is always best to be impulsive. Often, I will anticipate something very specific less than 3 hours ahead of time. Any more time than this you really cannot accurately gauge what you will we be in the mood for when it is time. Any attempt that I have made to pre-empt what I really want too far ahead of time has almost always spoiled the eating experience for me. This, for the most part, holds true for meals as well. So going shopping for about a month or two's snacks in advance was a bit disorienting for me. I did not doubt that I could do it, rather I knew I would have to overcome some sort of mental obstacle in order to execute the shopping experience. I ended up hitting up 2 grocery stores and 4 convenience stores.
I only gave myself two simple rules:
1. Only buy stuff that I KNOW I like and that I know that I will eat. I was not going to spend $100 on props. Everything I bought has value to me and has history with me.
2. Try to buy as much of a variety of snacks as possible.
Number two is pretty obvious. A larger range of labels will make for a more interesting picture. Practically, a more diverse range of snacks will not feel like a responsibility in the coming month or two when I eat all of these snacks. I won't get bored or tired of eating the same thing.
Nonetheless, the huge sack of treats that now sits in my room does have a bit of an intimidating presence. My approach has been to not think about it. The enormous bag of snacks is there. It is not going anywhere. I do not have to eat something every chance I get. (Everything is pretty much packaged so I also don't have to worry about anything going bad.) My feeling is that I will pick at it whenever I feel like it, and within a week I will have forgotten most of the stuff that I bought, leading to some pleasant surprises and internal self-congratulatory thoughts for being smart enough to have picked up such and such item.
Another point of anxiety was that I was not going to get enough for the shoot. I was worried that I would hold too tightly to the variety rule, and end up not getting enough sheer visual quantity to make the photos effective. One hundred dollars worth of treats looked a lot smaller than I thought it would have. Fortunately I pretty much got JUST enough to make one of the shots look just about right.
Onto this weekend's actual consumption:
It was a pretty slow weekend for me. I had no appetite on Friday night, and I went out on Saturday night. Sunday night I had dinner with my sister's family over at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle made an awesome dinner and brought out some brownies engineered to retard the ability to move one's body. They had chocolate frosting on them as well, something that I really don't see often enough on brownies. Add to that a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and I felt that I had made up for the weekend's drought. At the end of the night my aunt sent me home with some food and about 1/3 of a plate of the brownies. Also, my sister gave me a bag full of my Christmas stocking candy that I had left at my parent's house and that my parent's had brought up and left with my sister. Carrying that stuff back home to be greeted by the garbage bag full of junk food, I felt a rising sense of pressure inside me....
One specific highlight of the weekend I have to mention is the acquisition of a handful of Little Hug juice drinks. These have gone by many names. When I was a kid the corner store stocked "Teenis", which is pretty much the exact same product. They are the tiny, clear plastic, kool-aid type drinks that come in a container that resembles a mini barrel or jug. The tops are sealed with foil on which the only type is found. The classic move for these bad boys was to bite into the foil with your teeth and immediately begin sucking the juice out. As a wee-lad, the pro technique was to bite down and immediately suck the entire contents out in one motion, imploding the cheap plastic container. They come in like ten different flavors and all are pretty decent. Amazingly, these drinks seem to be inflation proof. When I was REALLY little, I believe I first got them for like 15 cents or something. Not soon after, they were selling for a quarter. I didn't check the price last weekend, but I did get six for a dollar at the same store about 9 months ago. You GOTTA love that.
Little Hugs in all it's simplistic glory.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Quick Note
You will never catch The Snackmaster discussing "a piece of fruit" or "some celery with peanut butter". These are not "snacks." Those are a joke.
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