They're After Me, Dad! They're After Me!

I had a dream last night where I was being pursued by a demon that looked a lot like the ghost from The Grudge crossed with the girl from The Ring. Weird thing was, she was a corn demon. Somehow I knew this, and I remember an image of corn in the dream, so yeah. And to fend her off, I was throwing Pepperidge Farm cookies at her to defend myself. I kicked myself awake when the demon tried to bite my feet.

Now be Freud for a second and analyze my dream.

I'm DREAMING about high fructose corn syrup! I can't escape it!

All that's left now is to dream about hydrogen atoms trying to steal my vegetable oil, and the ghosts of murdered orangutans hanging from the palm trees that are, for some reason, in my back yard.

Diet Advice From The Watery Gourmet

The manifestation of your genetic form is your choice. If you are really fat, you can choose to not be fat. If you are scrawny, you can choose to increase your muscle mass. It might be much harder for you than someone else who is "blessed" with genetics that predispose them to whatever figure that you want. If you want to lose weight, your genetics might necessitate a diet of beans, chicken, and carrots for the rest of your life. Is that fair? No. It's not fair. It sucks. But just because the choice is more difficult for you doesn't mean that the choice doesn't exist.

Previously, I put the word "blessed" in marks because it's not necessarily a blessing. Lots of medical research shows that people who are super-skinny regardless of diet are prone to dying of every malady imaginably, aside from diabetes, than those who are predisposed to weight gain. Being predisposed to extensive muscle growth burns more calories Having a healthy pile of fat on your body makes you more likely to survive extended medical problems. Being fatter keeps you warmer than someone with a BMI of 4. These are legitimate advantages and only get glossed over in our image-conscious popular world.

But back to the concept of choice. Much of how you look is determined by your genes. The extent to which certain aspects of your genes are represented is a choice, though. Again, in our image-conscious world, helped along by a healthy dose of religious moralizing, the opposite of the ascetic existence, one in which we indulge pleasure and taste, is seen as necessarily bad. Think about that. When you eat a slice of cake instead of doing sit-ups, you are making a choice. You are choosing that the pleasure of eating that cake is of higher value to you than not eating the cake and conserving caloric intake.

This is not an inherently bad choice. It is our society that tells you that it's a bad choice. You are being a bad person for indulging your desire for pleasure. It's one of the sins, and was written explicitly by Saint Thomas Aquinas as something to be avoided. We eat to live, we don't live to eat. But why? Why shouldn't we live to eat? It's great! We don't do it because abstinence in all things is the Christian ideal, which gets us closer to God. If you don't happen to believe in the Christian god, then you're hosed, because you're still subject to the social expectations that this ingrained value programming has injected into the zeitgeist.

Problems for people arise when they choose cake and then feel bad about it. They then get sucked into diet scams. I went to Amazon and searched for diet products in the Health and Beauty section. I found over 4,000 items. Certainly not the largest section on Amazon, but remember, NONE of these products have been shown in a reputable study to be any better than simply eating a better diet. That's why they all, I'd wager 100% of them, if they make a claim about weight loss on the packaging, print in absurdly small print a disclaimer saying that this must be combined with an exercise routine. It's a scam. Plain and simple. You might very well have lost weight with these products, but I say with nearly complete certainty that the product had nothing to do with it, it was you and your dedication to a healthier lifestyle. On a funny note, I found the pictured Atkins mix to so resemble a bag of "Atkins Chow" as to warrant a new package design firm.

If you want to be thin, and you can't seem to manage it, you have to move even further towards the ascetic lifestyle of 24/7 salads. You might NEVER be able to eat cake. Cheese, cookies, pastries; they're all right out. But no matter what you tell yourself, you can be thin. Jogging five miles, every day, salads with grilled chicken every day. That doesn't sound like something that I'd like to do, frankly, and if that's what you would need to get thin, then that's unfortunate, but still your choice. You are making the choice to continue eating cake, cheese, and cookies. And that's not bad! If I had to make that choice, I'd pick cake on any day of the week. But I am making the choice explicit and do not regret my choice. I embrace it.

That being said, very few people need to make that choice. Do you have a glandular or hormone problem? No you don't. You're lying to me and to yourself. Alright, yes, some of you certainly do have medical problems that result in your body turning even carrots into fat. People with severe glandular problems make up less than 1% of the population. People with moderate glandular problems and depression included only bring that number up to 1%. That means you are fat because you are making the choice to be fat.

Weight loss is a simple equation of fewer/better calories and more exercise. Every day. You need to integrate it into your life. Going to the gym once or twice a week will DO NOTHING. You need to go every day and make a fundamental shift in your diet. If you can't find anything that is acceptable on a daily basis, then you either need to change your expectations or accept the fact that you are choosing to not lose weight. I've lost nearly 50 pounds from my greatest weight of 260 pounds. I woke up early to make sure I was able to eat a high-fiber breakfast. I made sure to walk or jog multiple miles every day. I stopped drinking sweetened drinks of any kind. I do pushups and pullups randomly throughout the day. I integrated all of this behavior into my day. It stopped being exercise and diet and simply became part of my life. If you can't do that, stop fooling yourself. You'll fail, and then you'll go back to complaining about how you can't keep the weight off.

I have been discussing fat at this point, but many of the same criticisms also apply to those who wish for greater muscular definition but find it hard to achieve. Some people can lift a weight once per day and look like Hercules. Others can lift weights all day long and still only see middling results. These people have it easier than those who are overweight because of our focus on an ascetic ideal, but it can still be difficult for them.

These poor saps are taken for a ride in ways that dieters aren't. Magic pills and powders intended to make you FREAKIN' 'UGE sell for silly amounts of money and usually don't do anything. At least lots of the diet foods out there are still food. It might be terrible food, but it's at least a meal. Pills, powders, shakes, creams, bars, and all of the other things promising you an Arnold-like physique only work with extreme work-outs, and then you don't need them. The difficult part is already done. Just eat chicken and rice.

Our world is an Eden of excess. Our primordial drives don't know what to do with what we've wrought. Food and pleasure is everywhere, so we indulge it. We then feel bad about it. The problem is not the desire, or even the indulging, it's the regret that we as a society feel afterward. We eat like crazy and lie about, then we say that we simply can't avoid it! We say that we'd have those six-pack abs, only if this or that was different. We'd be thin, only if. We'd run every day, only if. All excuses for a choice that you are making but then pretending like you didn't. No. You made the choice, and it's time to stop whining that you did so.

My father has given me a few choice pieces of wisdom. I'd say the one that has had the greatest effect on me is that a loser is not defined by what they have achieved in life, but whether they whine. If you spend all day long complaining, it doesn't matter whether you live under a bridge or in a palace, you're a loser. By rendering the choices we make explicit and taking responsibility for them, we lose the ability to whine and complain, because it was our choice. It is our power. And they are our bodies.

My New Qik Stream.

I have started a new vlogging channel at Qik where I will upload videos. I've wanted to upload videos from the places that I visit and review, but the post-processing takes so much time that I never find the drive to finish it. Qik gives me the ability to not only make videos but directly upload them on-site. They're rough, unpolished, and the video isn't of terribly high-quality, but it's stupid-easy. I'm hoping that this will be the motivation that I need to start creating more, higher-quality videos to go along with these impromptu ones.

UPDATE: I just realized that my old videos display with that, as such, you should probably ignore them.

UPDATE AGAIN: I just uploaded my first real video and I've found that there's a pretty bad delay such that the end of my videos sometimes get cut off. I'll try to compensate for that in later videos.

A Very Long Engagement

I've been a bit lax in posting, lately. I'm working on an epic how-to about home espresso that's taking awhile to write, film, and edit. It'll be up soon, along with a redesign of the blog. Yaaaaay.

Fatal Error: There Has Been an Exception in Your Butter

I am now keenly aware of keeping my butter out of the sun.

Paula Deen Cutting Board

I bought this Paula Deen cutting board because it was the biggest cutting board I could find for cheap. Thankfully, they included this helpful weights and measurements on the side to remind me of such important data as 1 cup equaling 8oz and 2 cups equaling... 16oz. They apparently think that people will be so consumed with their cooking that basic math will just be too freaking much. We're only human! No one can live at this speed!

Uh Oh, LaGasseos

Oh Emeril. You whore.

The End of the Beginning

Well, Thanksgiving has come to an end, ushering in the beginning of the rest of the holidays. Soon, the malls and shopping centers will be choked to overflowing with raging, zombie-like, consumer whores. Soon the television will be screaming desperate screams to come in and, for the love of Christ, shop. But before all of that, we have the simplicity of Thanksgiving. It's all about getting together for a big meal... and that's it. Nothing else. No gifts. No decorations. No maxed-out credit cards. Just food, family, and friends.

In all honestly, Thanksgiving is also one of those days where I would jump straight to the dessert if I could. Pies are usually had, and pies are one step below Ambrosia for me. Trust me, it is not possible to live on pie, because if it was, I'd be doing it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, The Village Hearth, likely my favorite bakery in Rhode Island, had pies available for order. My sister was making the apple pie, so I didn't get to try that one, but we ordered one of the other two: pecan maple brandy, and sweet potato pumpkin.

I'm not the biggest fan of pumpkin pie. Never have been. I don't really enjoy the flavor and the texture is just terrible. The weird, gelatinous body makes me feel like I'm eating a large, whipped booger. I'm also not the biggest fan of pecan pie. So of the two pies that I did purchase, I'm not a big fan of either.

That affords me an interesting perspective, though. Namely, I can say how someone who doesn't like the pies, likes the pies. And I say very well. The pecan pie is the best pecan pie I've ever had. It's sweet, earthy flavors and gritty, sugary texture paired well with the more savory, soft texture of the nuts. As I said, it's hard for me to say anything definitively since I've only ever eaten three slices of pecan pie in my life, but for my friends and family, all fans of pecan pie, it's easy to say. Universally, this was the best pecan pie that they've ever had.

The pumpkin pie was also a hit. The decorative leafs on top and deep color made the pie attractive, to say the least. It was palatable. That's saying a lot. The sweet potato, aside from adding some real depth to the flavor, also lended texture. The aforementioned gelatinous texture of pumpkin pie was kept at bay, and made the pie feel like something in my mouth. The best pumpkin pie I've ever had. And I've actually tried a lot. Everyone else seems to enjoy pumpkin pie so damned much, why can't I?! Ah well. Again, with others, the pie was a big success. Not orgasmic, like the pecan pie, but excellent nonetheless.

One thing I want to mention, though, is the crust. Oh how sweet it is. It was dense, DENSE, crispy, with great snap, and buttery beyond belief. This is where the real quality of the pies stood out for me. The crust alone distanced the pies from anything that is purchasable anywhere else. La Salle, Seven Stars, Emilio's, they all pale in comparison.

Simply because they had it, we also ordered a loaf of cranberry chocolate bread. I've never been the biggest fan of dessert breads. It just makes no sense to me. It's as though someone set out to make cake and somehow got lost along the way. Regardless, I liked the bread. We went digging around our fridge and found a variety of jams and jellies that went very well with the dark chocolate and tart cranberries inside the bread. We heated it up, which brought back the crisp to the outside, and piled high. One thing that blew our mind? This bread went really well with turkey. Turkey! With chocolate and cranberries! Who knew that poultry went well with cocoa?

Now, the pies are all gone, the stomachs are still distended, and the shopping season is beginning in earnest. Soon, people will be shooting each other for Zhu Zhu pets, flipping each other the bird in traffic, hollering and gesticulating in parking lots, and peace and goodwill will descend upon the sphere. Santa will complete his heathen trip across the sky. Jewish Santa will deliver crappy gifts to Jewish kids. And at the end of it all, I'll get another chance to eat pie. Happy holidays, indeed.

The Evolution of Fast Food

What started with girls on roller skates and has ended with organic beef burritos? That's right! Fast food.

Isn't it amazing how far fast food has come? In many ways, it could be argued that fast food started as high quality, simple recipes made by mom-'n-pop restaurants, mutated into high-speed, low-quality restaurants, and after many years is finally morphing back to a business model built upon quality instead of speed and price.

While I don't remember it all that well, I assume that this progression has been going on for some time, and was salient enough of a market movement for McDonalds to conceive the Arch Deluxe back in the mid nineties. I suspect that it was this market foresight is what has allowed McDonald's to strongly outperform pretty much every one of its competitors in recent years. This was long before Panera Bread, or Cosi, or Chipotle, and yet McDonald's was already aware of the market shifts that would give rise to those now-ubiquitous brands.

Today, we've got so many fast food options is actually a bit amazing. You can satisfy nearly any craving for any food type on the run. I'm sure that lots of people will decry this as further fuel to our expanding waistlines, but from a gourmet's perspective, I see it as the continued advancement of food in America. It's because of our culture that gives the US, bar none, the most diverse diet on Earth.

I'm sure that there are studies about this somewhere, but I don't think I need them. Use Google Earth to take a stroll down a street in London, then do the same thing in Boston or New York. The difference is stark. London has half the variety of foods that NY has, and that doesn't even include the limitless variety of ethnic foods available from street vendors.

But that's neither here nor there. Street vendors could be seen as the original fast food, but they were limited to high-density areas that could support a business based on walk-bys. No, American fast food exploded when the car culture reached from coast to coast, and decent roadways started extending out in more rural areas. It's actually stunning to think that way, but going back less than a human life presents a country that's startlingly different from today's. In a very, very short time we saw the mass acceptance of the car, car culture, highways, fast food, and urban sprawl. Go back just sixty years and these things didn't exist. Think about that. A sixty-year-old isn't even old, anymore, and yet when they were born, those things didn't exist.

Now, my lord, now we have so much freakin' fast food. We've got the big guys, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and their ilk, but we also have countless smaller institutions such as In-N-Out. We've got alternatives to burgers that made their fortune as the "anti-burger" like Subway, and companies that made their fortune as the "anti-Subway," like Quiznos.

What's amazing is how much of a frontier this still is. It's tempting to almost think that we've gone as far as possible, that there is nowhere else to go in fast food. But finding how far efficiency can be pushed is an ongoing enterprise. Chiptole is only ten years old, and there are many small operations trying to figure out the sweet spot between efficiency, quality, and speed. Fresh City is basically fast food, but their Warwick location struggled for most of its life and finally succumbed early last year.

Moreover, I can only imagine the number of restaurants that are going under all across the country every year, all holding the possibility of becoming the next Chiptole. The next big hit might be Chinese fast food, or maybe falafel. All that might be needed is a good brand.

When I reviewed Chipotle, I called it the new fast food. I was wrong. The new fast food had been here for some time

On Restaurant Business.

As I discussed in this post, I have good reason to believe that restaurant business is slowing. Not only were there some persistent rumors that Providence Prime was, and a number of other restaurant were, closing, on a recent visit to Prime, their menu has taken a turn for the, dare I say it, cheaper.

I mentioned that absolute head-count is only part of the story, it's the quality and profits derived from those crowds that can make the difference between open and closed. And if Providence Prime's increase in seating, at the cost of ultra-cushy booths, offering of cheaper, cured meats, panini, bar food (which is 50% off from 5-7pm daily), and $30 pricks-ficks menu, is any indication, the high-end places in RI are doing all they can to weather the storm.

These are dangerous times for a gourmet. Not only are our own budgets strained, but many of our favorite eateries might not be able to make it. Hell, even fast food is having a hard time. The $1 double-cheeseburger is causing litigation between BK corporate and its franchises. For October, McDonald's is flat (and that's considered outperforming), BK fell 4.6%, and Arby's plummeted 9%.

About the only one doing well is Chipotle. I assume it's because people can now more freely eat it thanks to Chipotle Away.

I Totally Forgot.

I completely forgot to mention in my workup of the New Hampshire Highland Games that a very good gourmet shop is nestled on the main drag, just waiting for tourists to wander in.

Make no mistake, it may be in a town heavily dependent on tourists and ski bums, but the Abbey Cellars is a legitimate gourmet store catering to gourmets, and not just tourists. The prices are competitive and the selection is good. They have a wide selection of cheeses and have a small tasting area. They've got chocolate from around the world on offer, and a good selection of fine wines and beers.

I didn't know this, but apparently New Hampshire has a weird set of liquor laws. Everyone knows about the duty-free shops just over the border, but apparently that's the only way New Hampshire gets liquor into the state, via the state. All private businesses have to buy their booze through the state supplier, and if the state supplier doesn't have what you want, well, you're shit out of luck, buddy.

The owner of the store said he's always trying to convince the state buyers to expand into more exotic offerings, and he appears to have at least made progress. Their selection of wine was impressive for any state, and they had a decent selection of beers, as well.

If you plan on being in Lincoln for more than a few days, make a trip to The Abbey Cellars to pick up some much needed snacks. They're the best game in town.

http://www.abbeycellarsnh.com/

Hours
Tuesday through Saturday 11:00am to 8:00pm
Sunday & Monday 12:00pm to 6:00pm

It's Harvest Season! Bring Out the Pipes! (Part 5)

Kenyon's Grist Mill has, after a multi-year hiatus, returned with their festivals. Knowing this, I give them a lot of credit for what they've pulled together in less than a year.

As with the Middletown Harvest Fest, Kenyon's is a great place to check out since everyone there is local. Celestial Cafe, Updike's Newtowne, and Gerb's Pumpkin Seeds are some of the small companies that give Kenyon's festival a distinctly non-global feel.

It's much smaller than the Middletown festival, with maybe one-tenth the number of stands, tents, and crowd. This is certainly a good thing since they really don't have parking for large crowds. Even as the festival was beginning to wind down, the crowds were so dense cars had a hard time making it through. The poor sap walking in front of me got nailed by a passing car's side-mirror. Thankfully, the walk is very pretty, with a large pond and waterfall adding serious ambiance to the rural, farmy exterior.

It's a fun little distraction, but there's not much here to occupy your time for more than an hour. And perhaps that's just fine. Not every event need be a multi-hour endeavor.

This greeted people as they walked over a bridge to the festival grounds.


One of the best parts of the Kenyon's festival is that everyone who participates must give away something for free. As you would expect, some were better than others. Celestial Cafe brought home the bacon with some delicious cinnamon-rum apple pancakes. Since I hadn't had a chance to have breakfast, this was a godsend.






Mark from Updike's Newtowne was also there, supplementing the breakfasty nature of the tent with multiple types of free coffee to try. Combined with Celestial Cafe, this tent was definitely the star of the show. The biggest crowds, and the best free shit.


Kenyon's shop, which is a GIANT tourist trap. Fair dinkum, their corn meal is more expensive here than at actual stores.


All credit to Sophie's Coffee, which recently started making ice cream and brought along a number of varieties to try. They had run out of everything by the second day save for the pumpkin, which was surprisingly good. A very subtle pumpkin flavor with a little spice won me over.


Also as you would expect from a down-home, farmy sort of festival, there was LOTS of crap made from more crap. I'm sure that if you have one of those rooms no one lives in in your house, you'd be on this like white on rice. I don't. So I wasn't.








They had llamas! And the llamas had eyelashes! EYELASHES! And they made the weirdest whining noise. Almost like they were trying very hard to push out a fart.


And just in case you wanted to add them as a friend, their Facebook info.





I have no idea what this guy's deal was.





Just me, but I've never understood pumpkin seeds. My dad tried so hard to get me to eat them when I was younger. Every Halloween, "hey, kids, let's make our own roasted pumpkin seeds!" And we were all like "Uhhh, ye...ah. Yaaaa...aay?"


Oh right, that's where I've seen this guy before. At every other local festival. He's damned pricey for not-very-good kettle corn. Nine dollars for a large bag of barely-salted, barely-sweet kettle corn. I pretty much paid a Hamilton for a bag of plain popcorn. Score.


Hopkins Farm had a really exciting little tent with lots of fun, homemade goodies. Including these Halloween Oreos...


And these chocolate covered Pringles. I dunno', I've never been the biggest fan of the whole sweet/salty thing. Kettle corn is alright, but even there, when I make it, it's basically a fused ball of melted sugar and popcorn and 4-5 femtograms of salt.


This was the only real, purchasable food aside from the clam cakes and chowder. It was an alright burger, but cost me $5 with nothing on it.




And to close up, these little bastards were everywhere, enjoying the warm weather and harassing you for whatever you had. They didn't seem to care what. All they knew was that you had something and they fucking wanted it.

It's Harvest Season! Bring Out the Pipes! (Part 4)

Middletown Harvest Festival

I love the harvest festival. It's one of the few festivals that has a wide variety of local vendors selling local things. Every time something gets large enough, all of the local vendors are squeezed out by larger, interstate salespeople hawking the same shit from fair to fair. Eventually, instead of painters from the next town over, you have painting factories from up and down the eastern seaboard selling perfectly generic portraits of sailboats in the sun to hang next to the painting you bought at Sears. Even worse is when the event gets big enough to attract vendors of shit that HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EVENT.

The biggest culprits of this crime against locality that I can think of are the Situate Art Festival and the Washington County Fair. Everything is local, except all of the shit that isn't. At least the food vendors at the County Fair are local, but none of the vendors selling stuff are. The marines have a setup. Verizon and T-Mobile are at the art festival. Because cell phones are artistic.

This sucks because these vendors are willing to pay much more, thus driving up the prices of a spot, and thus driving out local talent. Eventually, you end of with sad pieces of shit like the Glastonbury Apple Harvest Festival. Which has a competition for best apple pie... And one, count'em ONE, vendor selling apple pie. They have a contract to be the only seller. And it sucks. Hard. One would expect to have APPLES at an apple harvest festival. Apples from lots of different farms, selling different pies and home recipes. Instead, you get a pie competition in which only the judges get to have pie. Shitty pie from the local church. And one place selling every kind of pie but apple.

On top of all this, you then have a large carnival, and a giant aisle of vendors selling -you guessed it- the same damned shit as every other line of vendors at every other damned festival. The only saving grace of the festival are some live bands that frequently end up being quite good. Whoever plans the music should be in charge of the entire fair. Maybe it wouldn't such so badly.

But the Middletown Festival is different. EVERYONE is local! All of the crafts tents are local. You have jewelry makers from Pawtucket, woodcarvers from Wickford, and dollmakers from Cranston. Some of it is rather pricey, but the same crap from vendors from New Jersey and Florida is usually the same price and of lower quality. The food is still pretty crappy, but it's local. There are games for the kiddies, setups by local organizations, like a robotics club from URI, and it all feels local. It feels like your buying from your neighbor.

That's a great sensation. I'm all for globalization, I don't hate giant corporations, and I shop at Wal-Mart. Still, given the choice, I'd rather give my money to someone I kind of know. Someone who might live one town over. I'd rather take my money and inject it directly into the local economy instead of funneling it out to some other state/country/planet. This fair feels like I'm doing just that.

A woodworker straight from Wickford, my homeland. If you're interested in his work, he's Tom Schwab, at 401-295-0492. I bought a thermometer/barometer/hygrometer from him. Pretty, with perfectly molded wood.


One of the best tents from the show, the wood pen lady! Hand-made and polished wooden pens of various types, which can be paired with a matched letter opener. Gorgeous pens.

The food tent was large, but the food selection was surprisingly thin. Take a look at the lower left; it's just a table with some pizza boxes. That's... gourmet.


I was seriously not expecting to find fine teas at a local harvest festival, but here they were.


Unfortunately, I can't say anything about Empire's quality since I never bought anything from them. They have a great variety of teas and coffees, including those weird bubble teas that I seriously don't get. I'm going to check out their Newport location and see if they're any good.


I was happy to see a genuine ice cream stand set up. The large power infrastructure obviously made this possible.


And behold! The ice cream I got. Not a terrible price. About three bucks for my cone. And the ice cream was good, too! Not at all icy, which seems to be the biggest issue with ice cream, these days.


Some of the better hand-made pottery available was from Rising Sun Earthworks. They had a wide selection of plates, mugs, and other dishes. The best thing had to be the hand-made french salt dishes. In the Wal-Mart era, $20 seems a bit pricey, but I have no regrets. I love my soft, spreadable butter.


The tree of mugs from Rising Sun. See the one in the upper left? That baby came home. Very playful designs, sturdy, perfectly glazed. Very good mugs.


This guy looks familiar... where have I seen him?


A necklace made from two sanded mussel shells, molded together with a silver frame. Very pretty. Bulky as all hell, though. Not a very good prospect for jewelry. Come to think of it, it may have been intended as a door hang. Regardless, you like? Buy your very own at http://www.freshcutglass.com.


The amount of stuff for the kids was amazing. Tons of games, tents, toys, big... things...

...like this. I think they lit a fire in it sometime later in the day, but I'm not sure. It was big and it was smiling, which of course means kids will like it.


Some of the nicest jewelry of the day came from Ellora Janes. Not cheap, nothing here is cheap, but not terribly expensive, either. Very fine details and good aesthetic quality. Where many of the other vendors were making jewelry out of stones and whatnot, Ellora was light metal.


This just seems pretty dodgy to me. $10.99 for two lobster rolls? Where the hell did you source the lobster? Your koi pond? Well, I didn't hear of anyone dying from mad lobster disease, so I assume it was ok.


Cory's Kitchen was another highlight of the day. Excellent muffins and cookies and some of the most fruit-packed jams I've ever had. I'm talking huge, fuck-off chunks of fruit. Bumbleberry jam was the bomb-diggity, yo. Sweet, with a strong tartness zinging through the raspberries. It is one hell of a way to wake up the taste buds in the morning.


Clam cakes compliments of Kempenaar's Clambake Club. I'm all for fried food, but these bad boys were like eating clam-flavored blocks of hardened arteries. I didn't even finish them. Very greasy. So afterward, still hungry, I went to another stand.


I'm glad I did. Candy apples! You have no idea. I am singularly obsessed with apples dipped in stuff. You want caramel apples to SCREAM about, use butterscotch ice cream topping. Knowing this, it's amazing that all I got was...


... a hot dog! It was what you would expect. At least it was a decent hot dog. Ballpark, I think. And for only two bucks, it was a great fairground price. I think I avoided the candy apple because I knew that Amy's Apples lay just a few hundred feet away. There was no need to even look twice at these pathetic, unelaborate concoctions.


Speaking of Amy and her Apples (not THOSE apples), they had one of the most densely-packed stands of the show. It was absolutely overflowing with chocolate-dipped goodies. At $12, their apples are to die for. To DIE for. High quality chocolate and toppings, decent prices, and a huge variety of creations truly won me over. That giant apple can go screw.


This necklace was compliments of Very Petra designs, out of Pawtucket. It's representative of something lots of the artists had a problem with: subtly. It's one chunky, bloody necklace.


This is URI's ball-throwing robot in action.


I have no idea what these people were here to do, or what they signified.