KFC Butter and Honey

I noticed something while eating biscuits at KFC, and I have no idea how long this has been the case. KFC no longer provides honey and butter for their biscuits. If you ask for honey and butter you actually get Honey Sauce and Buttery Spread.




If we look a little closer at the packages, we find that the Honey Sauce is mostly inexpensive corn syrup and contains a whole 11% honey.





At least they actually give the ingredients for the honey. For the Buttery Spread, all we know is that it's Artificially flavored. If it's flavored to taste like butter, and they apparently can't legally call it butter, it's a safe bet it's not butter, so where are the ingredients?

Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wing Sunflower Seeds, by Big's

Bigs Sunflower Seeds promotes themselves as having larger seeds than other brands. While it's not a huge difference, I've found their claim to be accurate on average. What really drew my attention to their brand, though, were the brand name flavors they create. While I haven't had a chance to try them all (they're really hard to find in this part of the country for some reason), they include Vlasic Dill Pickle, Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wing, and Bacon Salt flavors. They also have a basic Salted and Roasted, as well as a Zesty Ranch, which I've tried.

A couple of weeks ago the Big's facebook page asked people to list which flavor they'd like to try for a random drawing giveaway for a bag of seeds. My name was selected and I got a chance to try the RedHot Buffalo Wing flavor for free.

I think I set too high of an expectations about how accurately they'd be able to recreate the taste of a sauce as a sunflower seed flavoring. There's something very different about the flavor of a sauce compared to a dry powder form. According to the ingredients, they've combined a dry form of the buffalo wing flavor, dry standard cayenne flavor, actual buffalo sauce, and added in some garlic and ground habanero peppers.

The flavor is certainly hot and spicy, so hot sauce fans should enjoy it. The flavor of the pepper comes through, and the vinegar is evident, but perhaps not as strong as in the sauce from a bottle. One cannot discount the fact that the nutty flavor of the seed with the cayenne flavor is going result in something different than chicken smothered in Frank's and butter.

It may not be perfect, but for no one who likes sunflower seeds and Frank's is going to want to pass these up.

The Voice in My Pocket

Monday night I had about an hour between my flight and our monthly Aero Club safety meeting, so I decided I had enough time to go to City BBQ and get a pulled pork sandwich. I've never been a real BBQ fan until a friend took me there a couple months ago. As you walk in, the entire place smells like smoke and meat. I had been getting the chicken, but it hasn't been as smokey-tasting lately as I remember in the past, so I started getting the pulled pork.

None of this has anything to do with the point of my post. On my way back to our meeting, I had the radio on WHIO. I don't actually listen to any radio stations that play music, since I can pick my own playlists by having CDs in my car. Yes, I still listen to CDs, even though I have an iPod. 99% of my music listening is either CDs in the car or mp3s on computer speakers. On the flip side, 90% of my iPod use is listening to podcasts. Since it was about 10 after 6, Clark Howard was on the radio and I was about 2 blocks away from the meeting when I realized I could hear another voice faintly coming through underneath and between the one on my car speakers. At first I thought WHIO was letting another show sneak through on the airwaves, so I turned up the volume knob trying to hear this mystery voice, but of course that only made Clark Howard louder. So I tried to turning it all the way down to see if it would go away. No luck, it must not be coming from the radio at all. I checked the cell phone laying in the passenger's seat, but it was dark, and the keypad was locked. I was starting to worry and feeling a bit like Truman Burbank, and getting a little distracted from my driving.

Did somebody plant something in my car? Were my dental fillings picking up secret Air Force transmissions? Wait, I've got my iPod in my inner jacket pocket with the ear buds still plugged in. I guess the slider lock must have gotten turned off. Peter Kreeft was giving a lecture on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. How long had it been playing? Just about 10 minutes, apparently, so about the time I got in the car at City BBQ, somehow pressed just right by the seatbelt. A rather anticlimactic explanation, but thankfully innocuous.

Indian Cuisine in the Dayton area

I flew with a student early this morning, but had to cancel my noon flight, so I decided to check out the lunch buffet at Maharaja Indian restaurant in Beavercreek behind Sam's Club. One of my students had taken me there earlier in the week, and it was the first time I was even aware it existed. They don't have buffets in the evening, so I have terrific dinner serving of Chiken Tikka Masala and Peshawari naan. A month or so ago I had taken a friend on his first visit to Jeet India in Beavercreek. Towards the end of our time there, the line was nearly to the front door, so I was sad to see a restaurant with at least equal quality food that was completely empty at 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon. I can only hope the intense rain was keeping people at home.

I'm not very much into the lentil dishes, but there were plenty of vegetarian choices, including potatos and peppers in the same type of sauce as the Chicken Tikka Masala. The other chicken dishes were Chicken Curry, and Tandoori Chicken on a huge bed of onions. I have to admit, I prefer the spinach from Jeet India, but the naan at Maharaja is the superior of the two. Mahraja also offers a different cold bar, with fried cheese curd in syrup, a different flavor of "exotic" ice cream, and pineapple for dessert.

So now to the real reason I'm writing...to encourage anyone with a taste for Indian food in the area to give Maharaja a try. Both times I've been there the food and service have been terrific. The owner and staff are very friendly. "They" say when people have a good restaurant experience they tell just a few people, but then tell or 5 times that many people about a bad experience, so this is me telling as many people about a good place to because I'd like to see them do well, and selfishly want it to stay open, after having seen it so empty today.

Faking it

Today, on my way to Chick-fil-a, I stopped by Best Buy to pick up the new Devil Wears Prada album (even heavier than the last, without sacrificing songwriting or melodic structure), and I happened to park next to a large pickup truck. There was nothing special about the truck, but my attention was drawn to the gas cap door. I'm sure everyone has seen a chrome gas cap cover like this:


This particular vehicle owner apparently thought he could get away with not spending the money on a real one (and really, why would anyone want to?), and instead had a silver reflective sticker (!), designed to look similar to the above photo, affixed to his gas cap door. It was rendered even more absurd by the fact that it covered only about 90% of the surface of the door, and it was a flat sticker that could not be made to lay flat against the convex lip of the door (again, as above).

I really need to do better at having my camera with me whenever I leave the house.

Banana burger

Yesterday I had a really unique pairing of flavors on my lunch sandwich, and wanted to share. T.G.I. Friday's has a "Chipotle Grilled Steak Sandwich". Nothing unusual about that.
"Tender Cajun–rubbed skirt steak served on toasted ciabatta with a blend of Colby and Monterey Jack cheeses, lettuce, tomato, onion & Chipotle mayo. Served with beer–battered onion rings."

Since I despise mayonnaise and tomatoes, I skipped both, but there's one very important flavor to this sandwich that I left out. Roasted plantains. Much more colorful and tasty than bananas, and it worked surprisingly well on the sandwich. If the steak was a little more tender it would be outstanding.

Lunch

I usually have a frozen Lean Cuisine for lunch at work, but I don't think I've lost any weight. Maybe if I start eating two Lean Cuisine's for lunch, they'll work better...

Snack time

When I was about 9 or 10 years old my brother and I used to make a snack that normal adults probably wouldn't even consider eating. We would take a piece of bread and add a slice of Kraft cheese. Microwave for about 10 or 15 seconds to get the cheese soft. Now comes the interesting part. A layer of peanut butter. Then cinnamon and sugar. The optional finale: Reese's Pieces.

St. Louis

My weekend in St. Louis ended up being something like our own episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

Dewey's Pizza - All fresh ingredients. They don't own a freezer!

Ted Drewes (In STL since 1931)- Local frozen custard icon. There was a line at 8PM on a Monday night in 40 degree weather.

Chuck-A-Burger (Since 1957) - Classic diner.

Crown Candy Kitchen (Since 1913!)- The line never let up the whole time we were there, which was about 2 hours. We had roast beef and shakes...but no candy.



Sen Thai - Top reviewed Thai restaurant in the city. I usually get Massaman curry, but I had Japanese-style "Stew" curry which was thicker, like gravy.

Jennifer's Pharmacy and Soda Shop - I had a delicious coconut phosphate (carbonated soda water, flavored syrup and phosphoric acid), and some Gus's Pretzels. I wanted to go back for a Lime Rickey. I'll just have to wait.

Fitz's Root Beer - Had to pick up some of the local favorite for my brother.

And of course I have to mention Ericka's store, The Cupcakery. Two words: Buttercream Icing.


Also did a little bit of shopping at Vintage Vinyl.

Road Trip

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I had to go to Columbus this morning for a friendly visit to the FAA. Mostly I just had to drop off my paperwork to renew my flight instructor certificate for another two years, but I also had message on the answering machine yesterday from someone in Operations that wanted to speak to me about an incident involving one of my students. So I combined those two things and also stopped into Sam's Club to get some New Mexican salsa with flame roasted green peppers. It's shipped from Albuquerque, but I don't understand why only 3 stores in the whole state are listed on the 505 website as carrying it. I bought four 40-ounce jars.

It's only about an hour drive, but when you consider that the Columbus skyline can be seen from an airplane flying over Xenia at 3,500 feet, it leaves a person wishing it was quicker. There's actually quite a lot of farmland between Dayton and Columbus and at one point I saw a field with tall grass and just hovering there above the top of the grass was a deer's head. That doesn't sound right. I'll clarify. The head was still attached to the deer, but she was standing in the tall grass so that's all that could be seen.

I paid $3.97 to get gasoline before I left, so there was no way I was going to waste gas by going over the speed limit, and there were plenty of people on the road thinking the same thing. Here's what I don't get, though. Does the state of Indiana require people to actually do anything to earn a driver's license, or do they just mail them to people automatically? I lost count of how many cars with Indiana plates there were driving 70 in double-fine, 55-mph construction zones, weaving in and out of traffic without using turn signals. Why do Indiana drivers act like they own the roads in Ohio?

In My Opinion

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Cake is just a socially acceptable excuse to eat frosting. The dominant food of celebratory events should be replaced with bowls of frosting eaten with spoons.

Mike-Sell's

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I used to work for this company.

Jungle Jim's

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1,600 cheeses from 40 countries.
100 varieties of honey.
Almost 1,000 hot sauces.
More types of olives than you'd think exist.
More than 44,000 imported groceries from more than 75 countries and regions around the world.
Even kangaroo meat.










More pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/BubbaCoop/JungleJimS03
or
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m140/BubbaCoop/JungleJims/

Blazin' Buffalo and Ranch Doritos

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In the course of some Thanksgiving grocery shopping I happened upon a new(er) flavor of Doritos I had not seen before. [Repeat subject line here.] I picked up a bag on impulse. I like most "buffalo" flavored foods, and I like Cool Ranch Doritos, so what's not to like?. I guess I was expecting a bit of literal taste interpretation of the name. Like Frank's RedHot with some creamy ranch dressing. But it seems they really did just mix together Cool Ranch with one of the spicy Dorito flavors, so there's not really a creamy flavor at all, and the buffalo portion, while spicy, is only arguable as "buffalo".

The original buffalo sauce was nothing more than Frank's RedHot and melted butter mixed together at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. (Pay attention Jessica Simpson. No buffalo meat required.) So until Frito-Lay is prepared to partner up with Frank's to get some real "buffalo" flavor, I'd suggest a more conservative use of the word. That being said, as corn chips go, you could do a whole lot worse (unless you just hate spicy, cool-ranchy flavors, of course, in which case you need help.)