December 3, 2010 in food,
A casual boast on Facebook has led to a new feature here on juniorbird.com: Wade Eats So You Don’t Have To, a series in which I try wacky-ass shit and tell you what it’s like, so that you don’t feel like you need to try it yourself. Our first entry here comes about because I casually posted a Facebook status update about this classic item when drinking it. Two people actually commented on it, which is two more than usual, and that’s enough data points for me to consider it useful market research for the purposes of figuring out what I should publish here. We’re going to start easy and then build to something awesome like Four Loko or Hột vịt lộn
Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt is an energy drink with a remarkable number of relatively-natural ingredients, for the product type. Despite its contents and its pitchman, somehow this product has failed to catch on — I bought my 16-oz can at the 99 cent store.
Packaging
The packaging itself is hideous, with an awful drawing of Seagal himself, a logo that brings no meaning to English-speakers, and type that’s too small everywhere. And I think the registration is very slightly off. Maybe that’s why it’s at the 99-cent store? Either that or because it’s as revolting as the Clamato Energy Drink they sell there too. (Disclaimer: a Clamato energy drink is just too stupid for me to try. Don’t even ask.) Anyway, we’ll know after we try this outstandingly unique product.
Look
The first thing I have to say here is that I apologize, I’m new to this reviewing crazy food shtick, so I didn’t really think things through: I didn’t take a picture of the drink itself. Trust me when I say it was watery pink. That’s not such a crazy color, actually — I’ve never quite understood why Red Bull was yellow, for instance.
Ingredients
Now, about the ingredients: the honest truth about energy drinks is that virtually all of the energy value comes from the sugar, caffeine, and taurine. This drink contains none of those, although it does have cane juice, which is of course made from sugarcane and which is supposedly metabolized more slowly than straight sugar or corn syrup, with less of a crash afterwards. I lack the scientific background to assess this statement either way. Overall, it’s unlikely that any of the other ingredients would have any substantial effect on your energy, although that definitely depends on individual sensitivity to ingredients like Ginseng and Guaraná. If, however, you have a sensitivity to some artificial ingredient but still want an energy drink, this is a place to look.
Taste
Now, as for the flavor… it lacked the “slightly carbonated” bite of most energy drinks. In fact, it lacked a lot. It tasted like watered down something… maybe tea? It’s not as sweet as other energy drinks, but it does the whole not-sweet thing in a very dull way. I think they tried to make it more “adult” and less sweet, but I’m not sure they got there while still driving through Deliciousville. Lightning Bolt, Asian Experience flavor, is boring, but not bad-tasting.
Energy
The effects are also boring, but not bad. I drank this 16-oz behemoth when quite tired, and it picked me up a smidge, something more than a soda or even a cup of tea, but not at all in the range of your typical energy drink. It lasted pretty well, but then I was down again. I fought that off, and had another period of energy about an hour later. Was this the energy drink that kept on giving, or did I just dig deep and finish my project? I couldn’t say, but neither energy peak was worth it. At the same time, I never got that “oh please let me sleep on my desk right fracking now” experience that often comes from other energy drinks. So, that’s a potential small benefit.
Conclusion
Steven Seagal’s Energy Bolt is an energy drink that gives you a little energy with a little flavor at a little price. I suppose you could do worse, but why care?
September 26, 2010 in family, food, photos,
We were on our honeymoon — in Queenstown, NZ — when our one-month anniversary came along. Now, being newlyweds, we were thrilled at any chance to celebrate our wedding, so we went on over to the fanciest restaurant we could find. Then we looked at their price list, and decided to sit down in their lounge and enjoy an appetizer and some cocktails instead. We ended up with a couple of glasses of the local bubbly and a little plate of toast rounds, local goat cheese, and local honey. And boy, it was delicious. Who thinks of cheese and honey? But it’s outstanding. And, when we got home, it just seemed like it should be a tradition.
So, every month, on the 12th — that’s the day we got married, folks — we sit down for a dinner of goat cheese and honey and toast or crackers, with some bubbly to go with. Now we’ve had 12 of these great evenings; the first one we were too enamored to shoot, another was in France, and we forgot to take photos back in January, so you’ll only see 9 shots here, but we’ve celebrated all 12, and they’ve all been delicious and perfect. (You’ll notice that we swapped our wedding cake for the cheese for our one-year shot; that was delicious and perfect too!)
Yeah, there was some mixing it up in there — different cheeses (something peppered works wonderfully), different honeys (we highly recommend Avocado), different sparkling wines, different things going along with the whole plate… we had fun with it. And, of course, with so many good options, and so much to celebrate, we really did have a good time with our monthly celebrations!
Today is one year since our second wedding celebration, back out West in Culver City. We both send our thanks out to everyone who made it special on both coasts, and then I’d like to thank Courtney, for saying “OK!” when the waiter put the ring in front of her back on April 29 of last year, and for making this such a wonderful, perfect year for me. Happy Anniversary, baby!
September 18, 2010 in food, health,
I’ve lived in the Los Angeles area since 1993, and still I don’t think myself a native. Nonetheless, in some small ways I seem to go a little more of that native every year. There was that time a while ago when I gave up the t-shirt peeking out from my collars, or even earlier, when I moved on from rugby shirts. I learned to live without American League baseball (sorry, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). Lazy lunch became a burrito, not a chicken box. Heck, I even got used to being a member of a racial majority.
One thing I never thought I’d do was cleanse. It’s practically a personal-care tradition out here, as normal as foregoing carbs or asking for dressing on the side, but the idea of turning a week or two over to cabbage soup or apple cider vinegar or something like that struck me as… silly.
Until we got back from France. After a wonderful trip, enjoying all kinds of meat and cheese and wine and digestifs, I came home and went to Krav and felt… awful. Awful in the way that you sometimes feel awful after a really good massage, when everything’s all acid and toxic feeling. And then I got allergies and a cold to boot. I just couldn’t shake the thought that somehow that ill health was related to all of the crap I’d been (justifiably, and deliciously) putting in my body. Maybe even worse, I couldn’t shake the sugar and fat addictions; my typical dinner diet went from a moderate meat portion; a moderate-sized complex carbohydrate dish; a large cooked vegetable dish; and a giant fresh salad; to burgers, fries, and cookies.
S
o I figured I’d try the trendy thing: I did a cleanse. On my wife’s recommendation, I went to a method involving mostly vegetable soups with some fresh fruit as well. Vegetable soup not being a very calorie-dense option, eating a lot all of a sudden became a top priority, and cooking a lot followed along in turn. After all, I needed not only a bunch of soups to eat, I needed variety in my meals. (Thanks to all of the walking we did in France, I hadn’t actually put on any weight, so I wasn’t trying to cut calories and lose weight; in fact, thanks to feeling so miserable, I’d actually lost some pounds already. Weight maintenance was my primary caloric goal here.)
Part of the question became, of course: how many soups can one cook? We made a cauliflower-leek soup, and a velouté of zucchini, and an asian-flavored soup with mushrooms; we made more of the velouté, a recipe we got from friends in France, because it was so good; and I made a delicious pea soup. (Hot tip for those on diets: peas are surprisingly calorie-dense, almost all thanks to sugar. Spread their good flavor out with some cauliflower.)
I also cut out soda, and replaced it with iced tea that I brewed myself — some green tea, lightly sweetened with agave, and an herbal concoction I brought back from Vietnam. Given that I typically drink green tea all day long at work, this added up to a lot of tea. Those antioxidants had better be as good for me as advertised! If they’re one of those things that they discover in 20 years turns out to be awful for you, like milk and steak for people with ulcers, then I’m boned.
Anyway, with all of this liquid, I knew I needed some kind of solid to mix in. At first I tried to make it on shirataki, but not only are they low-carb, but they’re almost entirely free of nutritional content, including calories. They filled me up but didn’t, um, cancel out the inevitable effects of eating so much liquid (and so many fruits). That is to say, I pooped. I pooped for days. So I had to add something in, and finally broke down and got some lovely quinoa salad from my neighborhood gourmet healthy food joint, the Curious Palate. That set things straight.
OK, so I stuck with it. The first day was tough; the second was worse, probably especially for my wife, who had to put up with my cranky, cranky attitude. Such are the wages of a modern sugar and fat addiction. But it got easier from there, and I really did feel better, physically, starting on about the third day (this was probably around the time that I actually started to accept just how much I actually had to eat). My head cleared, my muscles felt fresh, and my stomach placid.
And now I feel great. I don’t wish I had a ton of cheese, or a delicious bacon cheeseburger from Jack in the Box down the street; I splurged and poured myself a glass of wine tonight, and that was enough. Snacks? No cookies for me, I’ll have a fruit or maybe some nuts. And after krav? Well, I’m sore and exhausted from all of the Turkish get-ups, but not from the crap I’ve been putting in my body. It’s a nice feeling, one I plan to keep. I’ve brought back a wider diet, but still I’m keeping it heavy on the fresh fruit and vegetables. The long LA summers are perfect for it. I guess this practically makes me a local.
August 27, 2010 in food, true-life stories,
Every once in a while I feel inexplicably compelled to confess to something that’s bound to make all six of the people who read this blog hate me. Today’s just such a day; today I will confess to hating breakfast for dinner.
I realize that not wanting to have pancakes and syrup instead of, say, Chicken Cordon Bleu is equivalent in its anti-American-ness to say, something like stating “that Nikita Khruschev, he sure was a frood with a lot of good ideas,” or hating Law & Order. But there are things that are right and things that are wrong, and, just like it’s wrong to wear denim on denim (ed. note: not anymore!); one of those is having breakfast for dinner.
I’ve always felt this way. There’s a legend, when I was about 9, of a time when I was left with a family friend’s teenaged boy and girl; I asked them for dinner, and out came a bowl of Rice Krispies. Naturally, I broke into tears and was inconsolable until I was allowed to play in front of the TV with my new Space Shuttle toy (broke its landing gear on the deep-pile orange shag carpet, by the way).
When my friends — or, worse, the national media — suggest breakfast for dinner, they get to see me look dejected and throw in a gag for drama’s sake. Sorry to deprive you of all of that delicious syrup, but it just sounds so… awful. Don’t you want some savory in the evening?
Although, I’ll allow, butter and bacon both are good at any meal.
August 1, 2010 in booze, food,
If you’re a long-time reader, you may remember the old days of the Drink of the Month. Well, we might not make this a monthly thing any more, but I think it’s time to try new things again. So, today, I fixed a Cold Comfort for the wife and a Barbed Wire for me.
A few years ago, I picked up this book, the simply-named The Martini Book. The wife and I used to drink a lot of Martinis, and it seemed like such a book would get a lot of use. Not so, perhaps since I discovered Scotch. So, Courtney (formerly known as Mrs. DJ L’il Bit, even more formerly known as the AIG, and now approving the use of her real name in this here forum) has been suggesting that we crack open this book. Summer being perfect for clear liquors such as Gin and Vodka, this seemed the perfect weekend to do so.
Anyway, that picture: on the left is the Cold Comfort, which is:
- Vodka
- Juice of a lemon
- A heck of a lot of honey
Honey-lemon martini? Absolutely! Heck, that’s one of the few things that could get either of us drinking a vodka martini, rather than the provably superior gin version. Now, I used mesquite honey, which is fairly mild, and I used a ton of it, and I got good honey flavor, but not a lot of sweetness, because, frankly, the honey didn’t enter solution in the cold vodka well at all, even after a lot of shaking. Next time, I’d use a stronger honey, maybe even avocado honey, plus a bunch of agave for sweetness, since agave will dissolve in a cold drink. (Simple syrup would even be easier, of course.)
On the right is a bastardized version of the Barbed Wire. The Barbed Wire is:
- Vodka
- Sweet Vermouth
- Pastis
- Chambord
We’re out of Chambord, so I made an ersatz version with Campari and a big chunk of the above-mentioned agave. I might’ve used Triple Sec too, were I not out of it. (It’s an odd feeling for any Certified Mixologist, such as myself, to be out of Triple Sec!) I’d love a little more berry flavor but, with enough agave to provide sweetness, it’s a very drinkable and refreshing beverage. The anise flavor really comes through.
It’s kind of a new resolution to put aside my stalwart Scotch for the hot summer and enjoy some gin and even vodka (as seen here! again, shocked, shocked that I’ve made two vodka Martinis today). So, probably more new drinks coming up!
April 4, 2010 in food,
First, let’s get one thing straight: I’m a bad Jew. I don’t know what holiday it is (It’s Passover - Ed.) and I’m unclear on what my legal obligations are at any given moment. This makes me feel free to also be a bad Catholic, by marriage. Thus it came to me as rather a surprise when I decided to join my wife in giving up cheese for Lent. But here we are, 40 days later, and there’s been no cheese. Well, until now. Today, I get cheese.
I went to the Cheese Store to get something worth celebrating with. Cheese, to me, is kind of like bacon to other people. Or maybe sausage to me is like bacon to other people, which would make cheese my… pancakes? Anyway, cheese is awesome, and good cheese is even better. Usually the Cheese Store is a great place to shop because you can try as many cheeses as you like before you buy, but this time I couldn’t try, because it wasn’t Easter yet. (For the non-Catholics out there, Lent is a 40-day-long period ending on Easter in which you give up stuff. There may be other important religious aspects, but I’ve exclusively had romantic relationships with Catholic women for seven or eight years now and have only ever heard about the giving up bit. On Easter you get to start back up on whatever you gave up. Lent, by the way, starts on Ash Wednesday, which is that odd day on which Catholics all look like they’ve escaped from a mildly burning building.)
Anyway, after having my parents try a bunch of cheeses, and communicating with the cheese store clerk as if by semaphore — I asked him for a cheese with a flavor and texture profile, my parents tried a couple, they gave me some feedback, I asked for something else — I ended up with a soft, grape leaf-wrapped Sheep’s milk and two Basque cheeses. We generally like the Basque cheeses around here. For a little variety, I matched them with a baguette, arugula salad, and a little bit of proscuitto.
Cheese: it’s everything it was knocked up to be.
The funny thing is, I really enjoyed the challenge of giving up cheese for 40 days. I’m actually excited about the idea of giving up something else soon, maybe soda or cookies or something else I could do without. It’s pretty awesome, and I’m glad I finally decided to catch Lent fever!
Also, dearest wife: I signed you up for the cheese e-newsletter. I figured you wouldn’t mind.
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