I Need to Do Groceries: Stale Wafers

Even mushier when dunked in coffee.

I desperately wanted some dessert. I was working from home with a cold. I was going to have some coffee and a I really desperately wanted something sweet to go with it.


I looked in the pantry and found an open pack of Loacker chocolate wafers with exactly two wafers left in them. I had no idea how long they had been there, forget about how long they'd been open. I was desperate, so I had them.

They weren't just stale, they were hellastale. There was no crispness left in them whatsoever. They bent rather than snapped. But at least they were dessert. Plus, once you dunk them in coffee, it doesn't make much of a difference.

At least they reminded me that I should put them on the list for the next grocery run.

Migraine Medicine

Drink Me!

I knew from the moment I got into the office that it was not going to be my day. I could feel the pressure around my temple and the heavy feeling around my eyes. I knew what was coming: a migraine.

I worked through it as much as I could, but then I couldn't do it anymore and went home.

The next day, I woke up and my migraine was slightly better, but not by much. So I worked from home and made myself some "migraine medicine": hot chocolate with coffee.

I swear this stuff keeps migraines at bay!

You make hot chocolate by combining cocoa, sugar, cinnamon and milk to make a paste, then you add boiling water a capful of (real) vanilla. Stir. Let cool so you don't burn your palate, and drink.

For migraine medicine, you add some instant coffee to the cocoa, sugar and cinnamon mix.

A few minutes after you drink it your migraine will miraculously go away.

Except when it doesn't and you end up in the dark, curled up in the fetal position.

Food Kirsten Ate, But Which Shouldn't Have Been Eaten By Anyone

A Special Report on Fecaliscious Chocolate by Kirsten Koza, misadventure travel writer.
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Snad, I hope you never see this on my dining table again – for many reasons. Normally I’d have sent you a photo of a wrapper. But the fact is, I can’t finish these bars of Maria Tepoztlan chocolate / xocolatl, made by Villa Vainilla.

You can taste the gritty reality of life in Mexico!

My parents were fooled into their purchase by the pretty boxes with Fair Trade stamped on the outside, while they did some last minute shopping as they left Guatemala - obviously without their reading glasses because the chocolate is apparently from Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. I say “apparently” because I’ve been virtually driving around the back streets of Merida for days, using Google Street View, looking for Villa Vainilla’s factory in Cuidad Industrial. I can’t find it.

This chocolate is grit held together by possibly some sort of industrial lube or peasant toe jam (not listed in the ingredients) that coagulates in your mouth and finally dissolves (but not fast enough) so you are left with just a mouthful of debris that honestly feels like something swept off a floor. I even can taste someone's banana peel, in the dark chocolate and cinnamon bar - overt banana peel. And the bars are boxed and then sealed in foil. So I'm thinking the banana peel is actually in the chocolate - not because my parents were smuggling bananas into Canada (which they weren't).

I wish wish I wasn't polite and didn't try so hard to appreciate the chocolate for my parents’ benefit - as if it was a taste that I was going to acquire or explore. After my folks left my place, I inspected the ghastly product and saw hacho en Mexico written on the box and immediately cracked a Montezuma joke. Six hours later, I was running from my bed to the toilet. I thought my two day bout of Montezuma’s Revenge that followed was most likely from the chocolate, but it could have been because I mocked the Aztec King.

Then, when I was feeling better, I did something really stupid. I thought I should have one more bite of the chocolate to see if it was as bad as I remembered it. It took three hours for Montezuma to pay another visit. I have no one to blame but me - but I wanted to make sure I was being fair. Villa Vainilla didn't deserve my quest for fairness. Even if their chocolate didn’t cause me to spend sleepness nights sitting on the toilet – it still tastes like shit.

I read in the Nutrition Advisor that Montezuma drank 50 cups of unsweetened cocoa a day. A mug of homemade hot chocolate today, made with a good brand of cocoa, has about 3.8 grams of fibre in it - so one can imagine how much more fibre would have been in Montezuma's (I always assumed that all that fibre was the truth behind Montezuma's Revenge). His cocoa was probably much like Maria Tepoztlan's debris filled chocolate - this is probably really authentic Aztec chocolate - but then Aztecs used to do things like genital blood-letting before leaving for work in the morning, enjoyed human sacrifice, and Aztec burglars used to carry around the severed arm from a female who died during childbirth because they believed that made them invisible (did I just make that last bit up - I don't think so) - anyway  - it stands to reason then, that their chocolate wasn't very good, either.

Less revoltingly stinky than the chocolate.

I'm still sick. It took all my will to open the boxes of chocolate and just take a picture. I'd rather have opened my box containing the shrunken head I bought last week - and he makes my entire house reek - I'd rather kiss my stinking little Amazon on the lips. 

From Kirsten Koza (www.kirstenkoza.com)

The Ulterior Motives Behind My Croissants Purchase

I bought croissants for the first time in a while.  I was on my way home from the grocery store when I decided that I'd stop by the local pastry shop.  The pastries they make are OK, but their croissants are pretty damned tasty.

I used to not be able to get croissants on a Saturday.  They used to make a few in the morning and then let them run out.  Presumably this was because morons were running the place.  The front-of-house was staffed by a bunch of disinterested and dopey-looking private school girls and I assume the back-of-house was staffed by similarly disinterested people.  

But things changed recently.  Now there  are these eager young'uns at the counter who are somewhat above HS age.  They may confuse chocolate croissants with almond croissants, but at least they don't have a chit-chat about what Taylor wore yesterday to the mall while you stand there waiting for them to acknowledge your existence.  

Most importantly, I was able to secure four croissants, two chocolate croissants and two cheese danishes on a Saturday.  I also bought a caramel donut, which was a "new feature".  It was an impulse buy.  They had samples and a zillion of them on the counter, calling to me.  

Anyways.  I had the donut and half a chocolate croissant with espresso, made with my home Bialetti.  That was a fucking tasty donut!  The dough was soft, but not mushy and because it wasn't super-sweet, it countered the oozy sweet caramel insides.  It took a lot of willpower not to go back and buy a dozen of them.

Now, you might wonder how two adults and a small toddler can eat through all that flaky pastry.  Well, the answer is that I deliberately bought too many croissants so that they'll go stale and I can make Nigella's croissant pudding.   OK, I make a variation on it that doesn't involve cooking sugar (instead I just add maple syrup, because maple syrup is awesome and I live in Canada and I can get it all the time). But I'm looking forward to that in a day or two, once the croissants are nice'n'stale.  

Is that a fish stick I see before me?

Today's lunch was brought to you by sitting at home alone, somewhat sick.  Because of this, I didn't put much effort into lunch.  Instead I just warmed up a Jane's something-something frozen pollock fish fillet thingy.  It was OK. I prefer the beer battered fish that tastes mostly of oil and fat and sad desperation.  This one just kinda tasted of fish, breaded.

I washed the whole thing down with some coffee, natch, and some chocolate.  Now, a note about coffee: I usually buy Kimbo espresso coffee in the black packaging (Napoletano?  Who the fuck knows), but it's been kinda scarce lately, so I've had to buy other coffees.  The before-last time I bought coffee, I bought Illy coffee that costs $14-$16 a container, about $10 more than the Kimbo.  

Now, many people have said to me, "Snaddy, Illy coffee tastes no better than regular $5 coffee.  You just think it tastes better because you paid more for it."  To those people I say "Pffffffffffft!" Especially after I essentially did a blind taste test with Kimbo Gold Medal coffee.  

As the Black Kimbo was still unavailable the last time I went grocery shopping, I bought Kimbo Gold Medal coffee ($6).    That evening, I asked my Spousal Unit to make me an espresso.  I figured he was making it with the Illy since there was still some left.   When I went to taste the coffee, I was amazed at how bitter and tasteless it was.  So I says to the Spousal Unit, I says, "Dude, did you make the coffee with grey water or something?"  And he's all, "Dude, no.  I made it with the new coffee."  And there you have it:  there is a difference between Illy coffee and Kimbo Gold Medal.

I swear I ate something other than coffee and chocolate today!

Twas the day after Halowe'en and all through the office not a healthy snack was consumed, not even a muffin. 

Here we have the very tasty mini Aero bar I had as a mid-morning snack with my coffee.  Look how clean my desk looks.  So uncluttered and pristine.  You'd never know that I had shoved everything to the side to take this picture.

Not pictured: the two mini Kit Kat bars I had already eaten at this point.

I did have an actual lunch, but I totally forgot to take a pictures of it.  I remembered to take pictures after I had my little espresso, made with my electric Bialetti.  It makes two cups and I share with people.  See?  Sharing.  Like in Kindergarten!

Anyways, you can see my chartreuse mug with the leftover morning coffee in it, as well as my navy mug that has water (yes, water) in it.   Oh, and those are my sneakers.  I was hoping you could see the coffee stain on the right one, but it doesn't seem to have come through.

Not pictured:  The mini bags of Cheetos I ate as an after-lunch snack.