Continuing my Friday theme of food posts, I switch from savory to sweet. This week, it’s Emily Mangini’s article for Serious Eats which goes into the history of Nutella. Okay, apart from a lot of hazelnuts, it might not be that nutty, but if you like food histories like A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, you’ll find this a nice appetizer of an article. A connection to last week and…
Rogue One is my favorite of the new (read: Disney) Star Wars installments by a country parsec… although I do agree with the honest trailer in several respects. So, from that perspective, it’s hard for me not to like the trailer for the upcoming series, Andor. In fact, there’s no compelling argument for me to not look forward to the series. Cassian Andor, as presented in the film, is a capable, if haunted, rebel operative.…
Look, I’ve been doing food posts for the past few Fridays, so I’m not going to stop now… certainly when I can share the story of Sriracha, which is a surprisingly American story. Okay, maybe it’s surprising to me because I first noticed Sriracha when I was in Indonesia, which was sometimes next to homemade sambal on the table. I got so used to its omnipresence at Indonesian food stalls, the first time I saw…
I’m well overdue in updating my rankings of every episode of every Star Trek series because, in case you haven’t noticed, they keep on coming out with new seasons… and new shows! And if you’ve seen my rankings for both Discovery (seasons 1 and 2) and Picard (season 1), you’ll know that I am okay with both, space warts and all. There has been far, far worse Trek. If anything, I’ve grown weary of the…
Continuing the Friday food series and hinted at earlier this week, it’s time to talk about the McRib: McDonald’s occasional and much-coveted porcine menu item. Unlike the Choco Taco, I have had a McRib within recent memory (though I think it was still in the Before Times). I have not used the online McRib Locator, though I know people who have that site permanently bookmarked on their browser. Now, I am somewhat interested in comparing…
I greatly enjoy the expert-reviews-movies-depicting-the-area-of-their-expertise videos, especially when it’s clear the experts understand some creative license occurs in the best of times. So with that, and for the 10-year-old boy in me (and possibly you) here is one about tanks. My favorite part: he confirms what I always suspected since the first time I saw Kelly’s Heroes: every tanker wants to be Oddball.
Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed that the Choco Taco was being discontinued. Indeed, there was a public mourning worthy of the McRib (more on that artificial food product later). So, in what one friend cynically thought was Unilever’s plan all along, they are reconsidering the discontinuation, as noted in Fortune. I don’t know what to believe, other than the fact that I believe I want to see more pictures of a giant…
Continuing my Friday series on the origins of various food items, I was all ready to delve into the history of the Choco Taco, possibly the best ice cream-based mimicry of Mexican cuisine. Jason Cohen’s article for Eater does a great job capturing the unique, American mass-produced mystique of the Choco Taco. And now, this week, we learn that Klondike may have people do many things for its bars, but it won’t be standing by…
On this date in 1997, the TV show Stargate SG-1 premiered. To this day, 25 years later, that still elicits “wait, like that 90s film Stargate?” Indeed. The series soldiered on through 10 seasons and a couple wrap-up movies. Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe followed, and a legion of fans are still very much around for this lesser known, but very much beloved “star” franchise. Over at Inverse, Ryan Britt details some of the ways…
In last Friday’s post about the not-so-secret history of Fanta, the author of the Atlas Obscura article goes a little bit into the history of Coca-Cola itself (since that company begat Fanta). And got me thinking a bit more about the origins of Coke and cocaine and then I got to Drunk History, a series that, if you’re in the right frame of mind (or sheets to the wind) is tremendously fun. Happy Friday!