29 September 2013

EveryBurger Chocolate Biscuits

When I found these in an international food store (yes, in Lethbridge), they were nestled between two different kinds of ramen.  The only clue I had to go on was their name, EveryBurger, and that there were “two inside.”  But even these snippets of information seemed to raise more questions than they answered. 

I’ve never been seized so firmly by a desire, nay!, need, to know what something is.  And so in a moment of reckless passion, I purchased the only box of EveryBurger available in the store — possibly the entire world.

For a short time I worried they might be a savoury treat rather than a sweet one, or even a weird kind of burger-flavoured bouillon cube; they were, after all, in the ramen aisle.  When I opened the box, I discovered two individually foil-wrapped containers. Ah-ha! A portion of the mystery solved: the “two inside” marked on the box clearly referred to the number of packages, rather than the total number of EveryBurgers in the box.  My prayers were answered when I carefully ripped open the foil and slid out a plastic tray: the “burger” filling was undoubtedly chocolate; the bun was undoubtedly a kind of sweet biscuit (similar to the ChocoBoy mushrooms but denser, and because it had some sort of glaze on it, the biscuit was not quite as crunchy as the ChocoBoy) peppered with some other kind of sweet meant to represent sesame seeds.


It’s hard not to compare these EveryBurgers with the ChocoBoy mushrooms, and invariably the ChocoBoy mushrooms come out on top.  Like the ChocoBoy mushrooms, I really loved the shape of these sweet little snacks. As you can tell from the photos, they’re actually quite realistic, and although they were certainly tasty, it’s their shape that really sets them apart from other chocolate/biscuit combos.  But when it comes to munching pleasure, they just couldn’t compete with ChocoBoy.  The main factor is the quality of chocolate: ChocoBoy was simply better.  Of course the quality of chocolate is important when enjoying a chocolatey snack, but what really stuck out for me was the design.  EveryBurger just had too much biscuit, and the biscuit also wasn’t of the same calibre of ChocoBoy.  So the process of eating a chocolate mushroom that I laid out in the previous post and that was so enjoyable for me, just wasn’t there with the EveryBurger.  It felt like just eating a generic cookie.  Like one of those tea biscuits or something.

I don’t want anyone to think that I didn’t wholeheartedly enjoy these little baby burgers.  They tasted pretty good and their form really was divine.  I really took a leap of faith when I purchased them, but you know what, sometimes taking a risk really pays off.

I really struggled with whether or not to put these EveryBurgers in under the Cartoon Food Update.  After all, they really look like Jughead’s burgers—more so than the gummy burgers.  But I guess what stopped me is that now my idea of “cartoon food” as a genre of food is so wholly wrapped up in the idea of gummy food that I just couldn’t bring myself to include these chocolate and biscuit burger cookies.
Here's me immediately after I found the EveryBurgers.

UPDATE:

I now have a direct line to EveryBurger.  They can be purchased at the same Korean grocery mentioned in the post about chocolatey biscuits.





















 Few things in life have worked me up into such a fervor
As these chocolate filled biscuits in the shape of a burger.
I didn’t know what it was, but I had to find out
Whether savoury or sweet, I had to eradicate doubt.
EveryBurger is not like every burger that I would eat
Their patties are chocolate—not made of meat.
But inspite of this flaw, they're still just as sweet.

27 September 2013

Cartoon Food Update

When my sista and I arrived in Calgary from Montreal, we drove through the hamlet of Nanton on our way to Lethbridge.  That there’s an antique-style candy store in Nanton comes as no surprise, but that they had one of the most well-stocked sections of gummy candy that looks like food was unexpected and ultimately bittersweet. 
Okay, so the selection wasn't that great, but still, I had never seen these before.  The "Lunch Bag" collection wasn't too
exciting because, with the exception of the hotdog and fries, I had already see all these candies before (there are two
Coke bottles obscured by the "Lunch Bag" text).  I have to admit that the fries were a really exciting find, though.  By
no means was the Lunch Bag collection a disappointment, but the Mexican collection was especially fun, if not slightly
disgusting. I'm not sure why there's a hotdog in there. It also comes with two corns and two peppers.

You know that feeling when something is so powerful and overwhelming that you’re certain it could happen only once in a lifetime?  And the whole time it’s happening to you you’re playing Celine Dion’s video of “A New Day Has Come” in your head and watching the camera pan around her as she stands in the clouds looking down on the world like the angel that she is?  But then that exact same experience happens again, and it almost cheapens the initial experience?  As if someone with a much weaker voice was now singing “A New Day Has Come”?  You know?  But at the same time, you’ve been here already, you know how great this can be, and to be lucky enough for something great to happen to you twice, let alone once, is really phenomenal and humbling.  These are the thoughts that were rushing through my head when I saw the different gummy candies available in the Nanton candy shop.

I don't want to spend any more time talking about these gummies, so I thought I would just provide a series of photos and perhaps make a few brief comments.

Here are the burgers from the Lunch Box series. Nothing we haven't all seen before.















The fries are new to me, however, and really appreciated.  One thing
that I think is really special about the fries is the sour sugar coating,
meant to stand in for salt.  Without it, they would have been just
gross strands of yellow gummy.  The cardboard fry container
is a really nice touch, too.
Here's the hotdog. I think it's a pretty decent representation, but sometimes these gummy
foods can really suffer when the makers put too much emphasis on condiments. 
I think I would have preferred just the hotdog and bun--just like in real life.











I stand by my original criticism of the gummy pizza, but one detail I really appreciate is that the pizza actually is in
five separate slices.  And, actually, that one mushroom looks pretty good.

Here they are all together, including the cola bottle which I didn't
provide an individual picture of because we've all seen it before.
Moving on to the Mexican collection, these peppers were probably the biggest
disappointment of the pack.  I'm not sure why. They felt like a lazy afterthought to me.
The corn was a really nice surprise for me. I really didn't see that coming.  I worried that I wouldn't enjoy eating
them because they were made of that weird marshmallow candy, but they were actually pretty good.
Now we're getting into the exciting additions to the Mexican collection.  This tortilla is pretty disgusting
to look at, but I'm not sure where the happy medium would lie between this and the pizza. The
pizza is way too busy, and as a result loses the simply quality that cartoon food needs in order to be
appealing.  But this tortilla is too plain.  I think that Trolli missed out on a really great opportunity to
make something special, and the vegetables are obviously way too globular.  That being said, without it,
the Mexican collection would have really been lacking.
Along with the tortilla, this Chili con Carne is the other big draw of the Mexican collection.
It's really disgusting to look at, but a neat detail is that it comes in a little plastic "cast iron"
serving pan.  I could not bring myself to eat this.  One lingering question I had after unpacking
the Mexican pack is why wasn't there a taco included?  But then I remembered that for some
strange reason, there is a hotdog, and now I am thinking that the hotdog was probably intended
to function as a taco.  At any rate, I think that was a pretty major oversight and lost opportunity.

26 September 2013

These Weird Chocolate Mushroom Shaped Biscuits

If the purpose of this blog is to create and maintain a catalogue of all the foods I have encountered, and a brief note on whether I will eat (or will eat again) that food, then let this post be one loud, resounding YES!!!

I bought these tasty treats in Lethbridge, Alberta.  I know what you’re thinking: Alberta? Lethbridge?  When did Alberta—let alone the rural southern part of Alberta—become such a trendsetter and the epicentre of novelty foodstuffs vaguely resembling non-novelty foodstuffs?  The easy answer is whenever the Real Canadian Superstore opened in Lethbridge, but the more accurate answer is whenever the Asian market found out about southern Alberta.


I was tempted to lump this, along with a few other recently discovered gems, under a generic “cartoon food update” header and be done with it.  But there’s something about these ChocoBoy chocolate mushrooms that sets them apart … and I think it’s the chocolate.  These biscuits really
don’t resemble food in the way the gummi burgers did, so I decided to treat them (along with the EveryBurger, coming up soon) separately.  The most important thing to keep in mind, which is something that I hope I stressed in the Cartoon Food post is that cartoon food (I mean that is onTV, not what you can buy in stores) sets a standard for that entire food.  For me, a cartoon mushroom must always be a white mushroom and always be on a pizza.  You know what mushrooms I'm talking about.

There are a lot of things I really liked about this snack.  For starters, I love the milk chocolate and biscuit combination.  It’s a pairing I really got into when I was in France—yes, France—and lived almost exclusively off of those biscuits with a thick layer of milk chocolate on top.   There’s something about the fusion of firm milk chocolate with crunchy biscuit that’s just … so … satisfying.  At first you might think the milk chocolate is too firm, but you would be mistaken.  Pushing down on that chocolately bulb is almost like plunging a French press: you get the same soft compression and slow resistance.  And just as you’re two rows of teeth are getting close to meeting, you snap the brittle biscuit because that tension—albeit slow, and albeit soft—has been building up and is finally released when it comes into contact with the biscuit. 

The second reason I really liked these choco-mushrooms is because they’re shaped like mushrooms.  In terms of balancing the biscuit-chocolate ratio, a mushroom design does make sense: it’s really nice to have all of the chocolate concentrated in one area so that you can decide which part, the chocolate or the biscuit, that you would like to really focus on and savour.  But on the other hand, isn’t it so weird to make a little cookie shaped like a mushroom?  And not even a normal white mushroom, but one of those weird, wild, really phallic mushrooms? Like, what a weird choice for a cookie.  But you know what? It works.  And it especially works for someone like me who would never actually eat a mushroom (or would I?).

The third great thing about this product is the packaging.  I remember going into the Shell when I was younger and being so jealous that they had entire box displays of Baby Bottle Pop or Ring Pop.  Until I realized you could just buy all that stuff in Costco, I really thought that it was a sign of success to have the display box.  These ChocoBoy mushrooms come in a similar display box, but obviously were not designed to be sold in the same way as Ring Pops (in part because there are too few in a box, but also because they’re all just loose in there and that would be disgusting).  At any rate, the packaging was a nice little bonus.  They didn’t have to do that, and you know, I really like when companies say to themselves (or so I imagine), “You know, we really don’t have to do this.  But I tell you what — I bet there’s a little girl out there who’s really going to appreciate it.”  (This is actually how I imagine a lot of businesses working.)  And this goes without saying, but the cartoon versions of the mushrooms on the packaging really wet my appetite.  At first I thought there was no way the real cookies would be anything like the depiction on the box, but then I opened the box and was like, wow, these cookies are really similar to this depiction.

Overall, this was a really positive experience for me.


UPDATE: 
A fellow food hero has already written about these and it turns out the ChocoBoy (a Korean company) chocolate mushrooms are a knock-off of the Japanese Kinoko No Yama cookies, which have been in circulation since 1975 and, according to the author, have been the leader in the "'sweets that look like mushrooms' market."  What is it with all these amazing food blogs lately?


FURTHER UPDATE:

After reading about an entire world of chocolatey biscuits that I didn't even know existed, I used the internet to track down a cache of Japanese snacks.  I discovered that the Korean supermarket a block away also carried Japanese products, and so I hotfooted it over and bought the following:
I also bought a box of the meiji Kinoko No Yama chocolate mushrooms, but they're not in the picture because I
gobbled them up immediately. A picture of the empty package will follow.  From left to right: some Japanese chocolatey biscuit in the shape of what I assume are pinecones (by meiji); some Japanese chocolatey biscuit in the shape of tree trunks (by meiji); a Korean chocolatey biscuit in the shape of koalas and called "Koala's March" (by Lotte).





And here's a picture of meiji's Kinoko No Yama, which I believe translates to "mushroom mountain."

Here are some pictures of the tree stumps:
The interior of the carton is similar to EveryBurger: two foil-wrapped plastic trays full of cookies.  The others only
haveone large foil pouch, which you will see later on.



Here's a closeup of the biscuits themselves.

And now the pinecones:




The opened package.
The individual biscuits.  These were my least favourite of all the snacks, and it definitely had to do with the biscuit
part,which was much more crumbly than the others. It almost had an artificial nutty taste.
The actual biscuit in comparison to how they are presented on the packaging.  I wish they would have included marzipan
facial hair and sunglasses on the actual biscuits.

Last but not least, Koala March:
And finally, Lotte's "Koala March," which I haven't tried yet, but
am really excited to open. Apparently all of the koalas are different,
and there's even an "appendicitis panda," although I believe
it is quite rare.

A brief note on my experiences: The link posted above to serious eats is a taste test between ChocoBoy's mushroom biscuits and meiji's Kinoko No Yama. The taste test revealed ChocoBoy to be the better biscuit, despite a general consensus that Kinoko No Yama is better quality. What sealed the deal in favour of ChocoBoy was the taste of the biscuit, which is a lot sweeter than Kinoko No Yama. My impression is that while both are great, I too must side with ChocoBoy. Unlike the taste testers at serious eats, I didn't really discern any difference in the quality of the two chocolates, but I definitely did prefer the ChocoBoy biscuit stems. One point in favour of Kinoko No Yama (although this might just be an issue of shopping) is that there were fewer broken biscuits.

Next I tried the tree stumps, which taste nearly identical to the meiji mushrooms. I love them for their novelty factor -- seriously, tree stumps? -- but ultimately I preferred the shape of the mushrooms when it comes to actually eating the biscuits. What I don't like about the tree stumps is that you pretty much have to take bites that are both chocolate and biscuit, whereas I like to be the master of my own destiny when it comes to what section of the cookie is in my mouth at what time.

Finally, I tried the pinecones and as I mentioned in one of the photo captions, these were my least favourite. The biscuit was decidedly different from the others, and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much. What I think I would have liked a lot more is if they had made the biscuit a hollow cylinder because I think I would really enjoy lodging the point against the back of my front teeth, and then crushing the pinecone by forcing my tongue into the hollow cookie.

I have yet to try the Koala March biscuits, but it is my understanding that they are merely the Korean version of the meiji pandas, which I have had and which I really, really liked. I've always been a fan of cookies that are chocolate pockets, which is exactly what these are. The added bonus is that each cookie has a printed image of, in this case, a koala. Apparently each koala is different, so I will be sure to update this post with some individual pictures of the biscuits themselves.

And finally, to close things out, here's the poem that was missing from the original post:

So you have a selective eating disorder, what could be worse?
What sins did your parents commit to burden you with this curse?


You won’t eat sandwiches, salads, or fettuccine alfredo.
You won’t eat red pepper, beet, cucumber, or tomato.
But do not despair; there’s more to this world.
There’s the entire Far East just waiting to be unfurled.
Korea has ChocoBoy, the chocolate-capped mushrooms
And Japan has Meiji, with its entire forest in bloom:
Mushrooms, and pinecones, and tree stumps — oh my!
A whole new world of chocolately biscuits for you to try!

25 September 2013

A Long Over Overdue Potato Update (2)

In April, 2013 -- approximately one month after this blog went on summer vacation -- my ham sista came to visit me in Montréal and help move me back west.  Leading up to her arrive we talked a lot about all the potato feeding frenzies we were going to have. In the end, we only had one.
Maybe you're thinking, Wow. Only one potato feeding frenzy? That's pretty pathetic for someone who claims to really like potatoes. But you guys. They were delicious and I have no regrets about our culinary choices that week.

A more recent potato update would regrettably not exist because--would you believe it?--I've been in Toronto for three weeks now and I haven't bought potatoes once.

Brain Thoughtz: Eating Selectively is not a Disorder

According to the archives (btw, I am on my way to becoming an archivist now), I haven’t blogged about food since March 13, 2013, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been having a lot of food thoughtz in the meantime.  I spend a lot of time thoughtzing about food, whether it be a mere question of what and when to eat, or grappling with more complex issues surrounding why I won’t eat this or why I will eat that.  Lately, I have been focusing my entire mental capacity on trying to figure out what in the heck is “Selective Eating Disorder” and what it might mean for me.

From what I can tease out, “Selective Eating Disorder” (SED) is presumed to be a more mature way of saying “picky eating.”  Apparently there is a growing community of adults who, for any variety of reasons, have an extremely limited diet, which runs the gamut from eating only potato products (living the dream) to a diet more like mine, which does offer variety but is extremely restrictive in several ways.  It is perhaps incorrect to describe this community as “growing”  rather than one that is increasingly asserting itself.  As of now, SED has yet to be recognized as a legitimate mental illness/eating disorder (there is some confusion in the literature regarding how this should be classified, or else there is some confusion in my own brain about how disorders are classified), but attempts are being made to have it officially recognized as such.  Before we go any further, let me just state for the record that I take issue with the “disorder” classification.  Being selective about what food items gain access to the inside of your body is hardly a disorder; if anyone suffers from a disorder it’s those vile people who eat egg salad sandwiches.  And, since we’re on the topic of egg salad sandwiches, let me just say that once I’ve written a post on sandwiches, I plan to start work on a post dealing with egg salad sandwiches, in which all of my fear, hatred, and anxiety will culminate.

I've already posted this picture on Food Thoughtz, but I
think it's a really great illustration of my eating habits.
It's usually not too difficult to find one or two things that
I'll eat at a dinner party, but the amount of that food that
I can take is often a bit of a problem. (This is not a good
example because we had two enormous ham nugs, and
for some reason I just didn't take advantage of them.) Of
course it also illustrates how I like to keep my food
separate, but, I mean... duh.

I have gleaned from the internets that people who consider themselves to be sufferers of SED love to begin their internet posts with an anecdote about some woman named Jennifer.  For some reason it’s often “not her real name.”  I don’t know why, because even if Jennifer’s real name is Katey, it’s not as if Candace in Omaha is going to start worrying about the diet and health of some Katey she might have some fleeting acquaintance with who lives down the street.  Anyway:

“Jennifer (not her real name) is a happily married mother of two. By all accounts her life seemed perfect, but one thing plagues Jennifer’s health, happiness, and even marriage: Jennifer is one of the many adults who suffer from Selective Eating Disorder, which is currently being reviewed for official recognition as an eating disorder.”

Then the article will go on to talk about how Jennifer is not alone, and there are hundreds — if not thousands — more like her:

“Most people think that ‘picky eating’ is just a phase that kids will eventually grow out of, but for x-amount of adults, this is a very real disorder disrupting the lives of many.”

Then the article will go on to list how SED can disrupt lives: health concerns, extreme anxiety, additional stress on careers and relationships, etc.  There is always a disproportionate amount of interest given to how some people don’t even feel comfortable going out for dinner with friends (although it is never made explicit if this is because there isn’t anything on the menu or because the person inflicted with the “disorder” feels uncomfortable in social situations involving food).  But what a terrible point to stress!  I can just imagine Jennifer and her cronies knocking on the door of the American Psychiatric Association saying, “You guys! This is a real thing! I missed four dinners last month!” Please.  Stop thinking of it as a loss, and start considering it as a gain: "Jennifer" just saved herself over $150.

Here's a great example of one of my favourite dinners: mashed potatoes, ham, and a glass of Quebec cider in a wine
glass that I stole from a hotel that my mum was staying at. Although it looks like the mashed potato is touching the
ham, I can assure you it's not. It's just hovering above it.


The article will go on to say that although no one is quite sure what causes SED, many believe it to be an early childhood food-related trauma, like choking or (seriously) seeing a food tube.  Some articles claim that picky eating might be a kind of evolutionary safety precaution, because as modern science has taught us, species that have been evolutionarily successful have been those who limit themselves to a diet of baked potatoes.  Although, the self-preservation article isn’t completely outrageous.  Some argue that picky eating is a developed trait to ward off unknown foods and, therefore, potential threats.  (I would just like to add, for the record, that if this were true, it’s a pretty faulty self-preservation system.  Even rice, the dish you thought you knew so well, can poison you. Et tu, Oriza?)  If, for example, I was presented with baba ghanoush, some primal, instinctual thing would trigger in my brain telling me that I should not eat this because I cannot discern each individual ingredient, and because I cannot be certain what’s in it, I can’t be certain that it’s safe.  Frankly, I think the reason I don’t want to eat that baba ghanoush has to do with the fact that it looks like I already tried it once and it didn’t go over so well (because I threw it up. Because I think baba ghanoush looks like vomit).  But the first argument isn’t too bad either.  Because while there are a lot of foods that I have tried and don’t like — brusselsprouts, turnips & corn, that one cucumber slice I tried, vegetarian lasagna — so what, right? Everyone has foods that they’ve tried and don’t like.  What’s weird is the inability to try new foods, and the resulting anxiety attacks and burst of adrenaline when confronted with the possibility of having to try something.
This is another example of a pretty typical dinner for me, this time plain basmati rice with butter and a separate bowl of vegetables and cheddar cheese. The only thing that could improve it is perhaps some sausages or ham, of course
on a separate plate. (It's especially important to keep meats separate because they're always leaking)

This is something I noticed more and more as I filled out a Duke University Survey about picky eating (the preliminary findings are here and Duke's health page on selective eating is here), because obviously I had to fill out this survey.  Like any survey, it was pretty flawed and I don’t think the answers I gave are reflective of my deepest heart thoughtz, but nevertheless some of my answers indicated a deep desire for consistency — a character trait I’ve always known myself to possess, for for some reason have never connected to my eating habits.  I grew increasingly frustrated with a series of questions (which I’ve screen-captured below, along with my answers) that seemed too general to really speak to my specific food concerns. Luckily they provided a text box below so that you could clarify your answers.

And my clarification:
What foods are safer for you to try? Is there any pattern that you notice?
Unmixed foods are generally easier for me to try (but I just want to say right now that I don’t consider plain cheese pizza a “mixed food.” I consider cheese pizza to be one solid food that only becomes mixed when you start adding peppers or mushrooms).  I have certain requirements for certain kinds of food. It would be really difficult for me to try a food that I would associate as a "hot" food if it was served cold (e.g. a casserole; pasta).

A lot of my answers for the above questions would depend on specific situations. For example, I feel comfortable eating buns or bagels, but only if they are a specific kind, and only if they are served plain (e.g. I would not eat a ham & cheese croissant). I also feel comfortable eating pasta, but again, only under certain conditions  (that it is hot, that it is either plain, or, if it is not plain, that it is served only with an accompaniment that I have pre-approved and have already tried).

It also depends if I am expected to eat these foods in a social setting or not, and if it is a social setting, what kind is it? Is it a casual dinner with a sort of buffet table? Or is it a sit down dinner where dishes are passed around?  If it’s the former, it would be easy to avoid foods that I don’t want to eat, but if it’s the latter, then I would feel a lot of pressure to eat something.  Typically there is something at a dinner party that I don’t mind, so it’s never too much of a concern. But if it was a question of trying something really extreme that I have never had before, I think I would be more likely to try that new food if I am alone. Then again, there’s really no impetus for me to try a food on my own, unless I really wanted to for personal reasons. (e.g. once I tried a salad in this way).

Of the above listed options, I definitely feel most comfortable trying fruit, fruit juice, or beer. I think it is because with these foods or beverages, it is less likely that a third party has interacted with them or has projected their own personal food preferences onto the provided food. Of course all food is processed or handled in some way, but I guess what I am trying to say is that I imagine all foods exist in a kind of “natural state,” although this, for me, very rarely has anything to do with nature at all. Beer, for example, is in its natural state if it is in a bottle, can, or keg. I think what I am getting at is that even something like 100% fruit juice has to be processed in someway before it is bottled, but I don’t have to see that process. But if someone makes a casserole, then it is glaringly obvious that the food has been tampered with by the host. I mean, they MADE the casserole. Back to the fruit for a second: if there is a fruit platter, I will definitely have some of it if I feel like I have to (if I can get away with not eating it, then I won’t). But I don’t like the idea of fruit sitting out on a platter. For some reason, this doesn’t bother me in the same way with a vegetable platter. I would even eat a piece of cauliflower if it had been leaning up against a pepper or a radish (although I would rub it with my thumb where it touched before I put it in my mouth).

I cannot eat anything off of a bone.
Through the course of the survey I began to lose interest in what I imagine I am inflicted with and, as a result, should care about.  But I don't.  Because while the Duke health page claims that some people who suffer from SED will refrain from applying for a promotion in fear of increased company dinners, I am never going to be in a position to apply for a promotion anyway, so... This might sound especially callous even for me, but if you can't just say to people, "Look, I'm a really picky eater so I'm probably not going to eat anything off this menu. Don't worry, I ate before I came," then maybe you're not the best person for this promotion anyway.  And also, not eating 95% of the food out there doesn't really impact my life in a negative way.  Sometimes it has been a bit awkward and when I've travelled I've definitely wished for a broader culinary scope (not so I can really experience "the people," but because sometimes I want to eat something more than just salted peanuts).

Maybe I don't know what it's like because my diet is not as extreme as that British woman who only eats baked potatoes, and there probably are a few more out there who really do struggle with extremely limited diets.  But for the most part I think this is just a case of someone being a picky eater and needing some sort of substantial, medical explanation for why they don't like broccoli.  My eating habits are restrictive and they weigh on me.  But I guess they don't weigh heavily enough for me to become "a person with an eating disorder" (at least partly because eating disorders are real things, not like, just being grossed out by eggplants).  Not to sound like I try to have a positive outlook on life or anything--everyone knows I don't--but I really don't consider my selective eating a disorder.  I do, however, consider it disorderly, which I guess is the main reason that this blog exists.

And so, on that note, welcome to a new year of Food Thoughtz everyone.  Upcoming posts are likely to include chocolatey mushroom-shaped biscuits, plums, and maybe even an in-depth post on sandwiches or ham if school continues to be as boring as it has been thus far.