Although it’s made by Kraft, it never caught on in the US and thus, is hard to find. I find this odd, especially here in Wisconsin, where the fact that it is a byproduct of the beer making process would ensure it’s popularity. Not so. Cheese curds yes. Yeast extract no.

Anyway, I was able to get some online but it’s expensive and the shipping is murder! I tried calling all the gorcery stores in town… no go (though some do cary Marmite (Vegemite’s sweeter (and lamer) cousin)). Then lo and behold… my friend Gina produced two 150g jars of the delicous brown ooze… from World Market no less. As the folks from OZ would say: “Good on ya’ World Market”!

Addiction pacified.

Since I no longer have access to my beloved BevMo, I’ve been forced to find a new source for my wine fix… the nice folks over at Steve’s Wine Market offer up a lovely, upscale establishment for me to score my junk. This is where I scored a 2004 Cousino Macul Antiguas Reservas Cabernet Sauvignon. Two words: “it good”. It comes from Chile, part of that “other America” down south… It’s pretty big and round and has a nice sweet fruit splash and a decent amount of depth. My guess is that the snobby-wine-tweakers would rate it in the high eighties… something like an 88 and I think that’s where I’d put it too. It’s the $12 bottle of wine that drinks more like $20.

Personally, I’ll be keeping a bottle of this in the cellar (okay closet)… but as always, your milage may vary. Oh, and by the way, on this same trip I also picked up a 2004 Wishing Tree Shiraz… which left me wishing I hadn’t. Mostly because it totally blows… mostly.

Is there a better shiraz out there for under $16? One can only hope… This one blew me away and IMHO, deserves at least the 90 points it got from Wine Spectator. I found it a few BevMo runs ago but it’s now it’s part of my standard rotation. highly recommended. It’s absolutely fantastic. Juicy, fat and fruity…

As my friend Russ pointed out… when we turn 30, we no longer worry about drinking alone. Of course this is absolutely true but I would add this… alone or not, there is no reason to drink bad wine…

You’d be a fool not to try it… (sorry)

Now… why? I’m not exactly sure. They seem to be cooked at a high temperature… like a good steak would be. In fact, like a medium rare steak would be seared on high heat to lock in the juice, a Stan’s Donut seems to be heated quickly to allow some of the dough to not fully cook. I would say Stan’s Donuts are indeed cooked medium rare. Crispy outside, gooey inside and drenched unevenly with yummy sugar glaze. While you eat one, you can actually hear yourself getting fatter (TB)!

Stan’s shop is not exactly pretty… in fact, it’s a dump… and you better get there early or they’ll be out! But get there you should. And don’t look for their website… they ain’t got one. But you can see what folks around the web are saying about Stan’s…

I hadn’t gone out for a proper breakfast in some time. This is mostly due to my single-ness I suppose… I had even intended to bring a book to read to kill the time between sitting and paying. It turned out to be dumb luck that I forgot to bring one.

Being single does have some advantages. With a line out the door of people waiting for a table, I casually walked right past them and took a seat at the counter. I sat next to my single brethren and sister-en whom where all busy eating or watching the TV mounted to the wall behind the counter or reading the book they had remembered to bring. While my waitress failed to notice she had one less vacant chair, I was eyeing the multitude of plates being pushed from the kitchen–each seemingly heaped with more egg-tastic goodness than the last. My stomach insisted on three changes of mind before I actually ordered… as it turned out, today I would discover Eggs Florentine.

Oddly, for thirty plus years, Eggs Florentine had been known to me by name alone. I had no idea they were just Eggs Benedict with some spinach stuck in there. Something new everyday… Well, with my order placed, book-less and not interested in TV without audio (though it was Wolf Blitzer… and the lack of audio seemed an improvement really), I began one of my favorite pastimes… people watching.

The counter in a diner on a Sunday morning is something to see. It’s like a feeding frenzy back there! I sat and watched the waitstaff become a blur of Hawaiian shirts and black pants as they taxied the stacks of plates off to their next destination. The cooks, in classic, crisp, white chef-coats, provided a constant beat of clanking, pounding, hissing and whisking noises. Quick and precise movements obtained through excessive repetition–elbows and shoulders bumping to prevent full-on collision–chatter, seemingly (and in some cases actually) in a foreign language, leaving only tone and volume as hints to their meaning. As I took it all in it occurred to me how similar to a stage this counter was–the waitstaff and cooks so much like actors and musicians–together, performing a highly choreographed play. And myself, just another member of the paying audience.

Then suddenly my meal appeared. It actually startled me. I realized then how much I had been enjoying the “show”.

Oh, and Eggs Florentine… yummy.

• Mark West – Pinot Noir – 2003
  This is my favorite of late. Big fruit, strawberries, light… Killer.
• Cellier des Dauphins – Cotes du Rhone – 2003
  The guy at BevMo recommended this one to me. It’s really smooth with great fruit and tons of tannins. It makes me crave cheese… (I’m drinking it as I type).
• Papio – Cabernet – 2003
  A nice little cab… not fantastic but very good. This has become my default table wine. It’s only about $5 at BeMo and Trader Joes. Smooth and spicy… less fruit that I usually like. A deal.

From the article:

Developing a beef-based alternative was a process that took about two years. According to Tony Mata, the technical coordinator of the association’s research and development branch, the final shape of cheeseburger fries was almost an accident. “There’s an interesting twist to how this product came about,” he said. “We were actually working on a cheeseburger by the slice.”