Lobster: The poor man’s chicken
As of yesterday, fishermen off the southwest coast of Nova Scotia (where lobster is currently in season) were getting $2.25 CAN per pound. That’s insanely cheap… and worrisome to many a fisher out there. Know who it doesn’t really worry? Me. For me, it just means lots of potential for delicious lobster.
Now, it’s not as cheap in Toronto (note: speculation. I’m too lazy to go to a grocery store with a lobster tank.), but that doesn’t mean we can’t benefit from the cheaper-than-chicken status of lobster (note #2: the weight of lobster includes like… the whole thing, not just the meat you’re going to eat. So you have to factor in all the other junk… but again, too lazy to know what kind of ratio we’re talking there.) So what should you do with this delicious lobster?
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Weird Drinks: Basil Seed Drink with Honey
I’ve recently become obsessed with drinks that have crap floating in them. It started when I had a bizarre craving for aloe vera drink, the kind with floating bits of aloe vera. Mmm. Since finding it in Perth at a Korean grocery store, I’ve been drinking it by the litre.
Anyway, I was in Sydney last week, and while buying vegan Thai lunch in Newtown I spotted a few bottles of Basil Seed drink for sale next to the Coke. It stood out for obvious reasons - the bottle looked like it was full of mini floating eyes that look at you while you drink them. Yum! It tasted like melted popsicle, and the basil seeds were kinda crunchy and slimy at the same time. But in a good way.
Then, the other day I went on a midnight mission to procure some of my delicious aloe 
juice and was super excited to see that they too had the Basil Seed drink, although a different brand (apparently this drink is so popular in Thailand that its made by a bunch of different companies). But, I was disappointed when I took my first sip. It tasted like melted popsicle like the last one, but the basil seeds in this version tasted like dirt.
The dirt taste raises some questions. Is this actually basil seed or something else? While gulping down my first bottle in Sydney (it was a very hot day), I briefly imagined that I was drinking a weird blob creature, made entirely of eyeballs, that feeds on the filth at the bottom of some remote lake. A creature that was put in that by the thriving eyeball-blob-creature-bottling industry in Thailand. And it’s only by some badly translated mix up that Australia gets bottles of this stuff labeled “Basil Seed Drink.” Or maybe that second bottle I got had just gone off.
A new challenge
Ok guys, Kate (via Helen) found our next Extreme Food Dating challenge. Well, I’m the one officially turning it into a challenge, without telling anyone. But anyway…
A 21 year old guy, 5′8, 180lbs, just ate a 15 POUND HAMBURGER WITH 5.2 POUNDS OF TOPPINGS. Yeah, insane, right? The more insane thing is that the restaurant that make the “Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser” is a mere 5 hour drive from Toronto.
So as soon as Kate gets back from Australia, I’m taking her (kidnapping if necessary) to Clearfield, PA, find us some local dates, and we WILL be eating these burgers with some knowledgeable Pennsylvanians. We have good travel policies on our health insurance, so it’ll all be in good fun.
Kit Kat Tourism: Cookies & Cream
There is nothing more exciting than going to Coles and seeing a new flavour of Kit Kat. But it also kinda sucks, because you realise your old favourites like Kit Kat Cookie Dough are never coming back. It’s sorta the fucked up appeal of Kit Kats - they’re always getting rid of flavours you like to make room for new ones that you might not. But you just have to try them all. It’s a neomaniacs dream. Especially in Japan. They have like 50 million different flavours, and weird ones too, like Fan and Black Sugar. Okay maybe not Fan, but that’s certainly what it looked like from the package. Black Sugar looked and kinda tasted like turd. Anyway, yeah, Cookies & Cream - the latest Australian Kit Kat Flavour. It’s in the chunky bar format, rather than the classic four stick style. I like the chunky better. The official description from Nestle’s Kit Kat site:
Smooth Filling with Crunchy Cookie Pieces over a Crisp Chocolate Wafer Finger Covered in Smooth Milk Chocolate.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. You can even taste the unnecessary capitalization, which is probably why I found it overwhelmingly creamy, and not in a good way. It’s supposed to be milk chocolate, but the abundance of creamy filling (which I think is supposed to have something to do with Oreos) makes it taste like white chocolate. And I hate white chocolate. It’s not even chocolate, anyway. Overall, Cookies & Cream is okay, but it’s more like a failure version of my all time favourite, Cookie Dough, which had delicious caramel to temper the creaminess, and just the right amount of salt. But that said, it’s still heaps better than Mint or Black Sugar. Worth trying, but probably not destined to be your favourite.
Best Of: Luke’s Thanksgiving
To start, the actual title of this series “The Best of: Thanksgiving when you’re a single 20-something whose parents are an 18 hour drive away and whose roommate really hates Thanksgiving.” But that would have eaten up a lot of screen space, so I decided to trim it a bit. Also, too, however, and as well (Palin-ism), my Thanksgivings have not always been unfortunate affairs. I used to have great, delicious, possibly nutritious family gatherings that left everyone sleepy and a bit testy, and I’ve even had some good Thanksgivings in Toronto. But they’ve been a slippery slope heading toward a downward spiral. And they are documented… HERE. Read more
Extreme Food Dating: Outback Jack’s
My five odd years of vegetarianism, which promptly ended when I moved from cosmopolitan central Canada to suburban western Australia, has unfortunately left me rather meat obsessed. Especially steak, which I never liked before. My food eroticist friend Matt told me that there was this steak place in Fremantle called Outback Jack’s where if you ate a kilo of steak ass, I mean rump, they’d give it to you for half price, and an XXXL tshirt to prove it. This seemed like a stupid deal - if you’re going to do something that’s gonna make you constipated for days and sweat meat you should probably be able to do it for free. But then I realised this was the best date idea ever. Obviously. What could be hotter than stuffing meat into your face until you feel like barfing? Plus, the jingle that autoplays when you go to their website (always a good sign) had very Australian men telling me that their steak would melt in my mouth. Take a listen, it’s pretty convincing.
My Date, who somehow remained unfazed when I told him that the evening’s activity was competitive eating, came to pick me up to drive down to Fremantle. Read more
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