Pillsbury Pizza Pops

Never again.

Melona Ice Bar (Strawberry Flavour)

Do any of you remember how, approximately three months ago, I set myself the seemingly impossible task of trying all four Melona Ice Pop flavours (widely touted as the "Melona Ice Pop Challenge")? Well, I did. And then I never got around to trying the strawberry flavour and it just languished in my freezer. Until today.

I didn't make a .gif. Partly out of laziness and partly because
I forgot to take enough pictures to do it. I guess it was
ultimately just out of laziness.

 I started to write the strawberry post shortly after I posted the banana post, assuming that I would just fill in the blanks when I actually tried it. This is what I wrote:

"Lately social media has been a-buzz about the ice bucket challenge, but absolutely no one is talking about my recent Melona Ice Pop Challenge. Rather than dumping a bucket of ice water on my head, I managed to consume all four Melona flavours over the course of approximately one month, and in doing so, raised just under four dollars for Binggrae. Today I will be writing about the final flavour: strawberry."

Well, now it's nearly November (or perhaps it is November--I guess it depends when I will get around to posting this), and no one even remembers what the ALS ice-bucket challenge was. In a sense this means I beat ALS (in the sense that this Melona Ice Pop Challenge has dragged on way longer. I didn't cure ALS ... yet).

So let's wrap this up: the strawberry flavour was pretty good. I still don't love these things, but for what they are, yeah, I would say the strawberry flavour is a good flavour. I didn't love it. It didn't shock me in the same way that the melon and banana flavours did; it was more or less what I expected it to be. It's definitely the "safest" of the flavours, so I think that if I, for some reason, bought one of these things again (I really don't think I will), it would probably be the strawberry flavour. There were no surprises here, and that is how I like my food: predictable.

In conclusion, here are the awards I would give to each flavour if I was in the business of handing out awards to popsicle flavours:

• Mango - Biggest Disappointment
• Melon - Most Closely Resembles a Honeydew of the Four, or so I Assume. I Have Never Tried a Honeydew.
• Banana - The Dark Horse
• Strawberry - Safe & Predictable

I finally tried strawberry, and yeah, whatever.

I'm just glad this stupid challenge is over.

Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream

Last summer I was in Overwaitea (obviously) and saw two German tourists in the check-out line with a basket overflowing with Häagen-Dazs. It wasn’t even on sale. Häagen-Dazs isn’t even German. They were traveling and it seemed unlikely they would be able to consume so much Häagen-Dazs before moving on. Nothing made sense.

Here's this tub of Häagen-Dazs that I'm currently eating.
I've always wanted to know what it feels like to lay in bed,
eating a tub of ice cream, while watching TV and crying
about everything that's wrong in my life. It feels fine, but
I don't understand why this is such a popular trope.

I have long maintained that Häagen-Dazs is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, it’s decent ice cream, but by no means does its quality justify its price. A tiny little tub of Häagen-Dazs—and let’s be real for a moment, one of those tubs is really only good for one serving—is not worth $7. Especially when the Colville WalMart is right across the line and sells Tillamook ice cream (which truly is quality ice cream) for about $1 a gallon. Sure, it’s an American dollar, but still.

My mum bought a tub of Häagen-Dazs on sale to accompany my birthday pie. And first of all, even on sale it was still $5. Is anyone actually buying this product at full price? But second of all, it just reminded me of how while Häagen-Dazs does make a good ice cream, it likely will never be good enough to warrant that outrageous price. Ice cream can be a tricky product. Some ice cream is truly terrible. Cheap Breyers is probably the worst ice cream on the market, and I don’t think it’s even a dairy product. They would probably be more successful peddling their garbage discount ice cream as vegan rather then trying to pass it off as an ice cream fit for consumption. So, yes. Häagen-Dazs is better than Breyers. But it’s not better than Chapman’s, or President’s Choice, or no-name/sans-nom. I’m not really going anywhere with this. I just don’t think that Häagen-Dazs deserves all the hype it gets.

A seven dollar price tag is practically thieving,
And that umlauted “A” is pretty deceiving—
It took me several years to determine
That Häagen-Dazs isn’t even German.

Melona Ice Bar (Banana Flavour)

The Melona taste challenge rages on, with three Melonas down and only the strawberry yet to come. Today I tried the banana flavour, mostly because I expected it to be the worst by far, and I wanted to end on what I would hope to be a relatively positive note (strawberry: among my favourite artificial flavours).

But in a bizarre, totally unforeseen twist of events, banana might actually be my favourite Melona of all--which isn't actually saying much, because none of them are particularly good, or at least not outstanding. But the banana flavour was surprisingly good, which is weird because banana is, hands down, my least favourite artificial flavour. Even the idea of artificial banana is revolting to me, so I had extremely low expectations for this Melona. Perhaps that's why I think it's so good--just because I expected it to be the worst, and it wasn't. But ... I don't know. It was pretty good. It was definitely better than mango and melon. Even the melon flavour was surprisingly okay, or at least a lot better than expected.

Here's a rare gif set of me having a change of heart.

I mean, the banana one was good. I still don't think I would go out of my way in the future to procure it, but I don't know, I'm kind of into it. I think I might eat it again at some point. It definitely has a banana "flavour" without actually tasting like a banana. I think maybe the creaminess is what made it better than just an artificial banana candy? I'm not sure. I really don't know what to think. I feel like everything I thought I knew about the world was just turned on its head, and I am having a hard time coming to terms with that. I thought that writing out my feelings might help me try and clarify all of the emotions I'm experiencing right now, but it hasn't. I am still confused. I'm obviously glad that it wasn't as terrible I was expecting, but I'm also kind of disappointed in myself because I feel like I generally have a pretty good grasp on what kinds of food I will like without having tried them before, and I don't like having that sense of self challenged in such a fundamental way.

I made a commitment to eat

All of the Melona ice bars--what a feat!

Artificial banana (I thought it was obsolete)

Turned out to be a most surprising treat.

Melona Ice Bar (Melon Flavour)

I'm nothing if not fair, and so tonight I tried a second Melona ice bar, and this time it was the melon flavour. I mentioned in the previous mango Melona post that I thought that a specifically honeydew-flavoured popsicle is a weird choice. And aside from the banana flavour, I was pretty certain I would hate this one the most. But you know what? I didn't. I kind of liked it. I didn't love it, but I definitely didn't hate it. And maybe I even liked it more than the mango? I don't know. I'm very confused right now. So if you're going to try a Melona ice bar, I think I might recommend the melon.

Here's this gif.

But can someone who has actually tried a honeydew confirm whether or not the melon flavour actually tastes like a honeydew? Because I have never had one and I never will.

Anyway, now there are two flavours left for me to try: strawberry and banana. I am really not looking forward to the banana one. That sounds so disgusting.

Oh a little icey pop, icey pop

It's Korea's biggest export: the Melona

These flavours aren't great, when you gonna stop?

When you gonna give it up, Melona? 

Although the melon is kind of okay

But the creamsicle I will not betray

My tastebuds you will not sway

You're not m-m-m-my Melona.

"Dear Food Thoughtz:" Melona Madness

Dear Food Thoughtz,

Have you ever tried these delicious ice cream pops called Melona bars? They come in Melon, Mango, Banana, and Strawberry flavours. They can be found in most grocery stores, but I buy mine in a discount store called No Frills, and can sometimes get them for as cheap as $3.50 a box (they are about twice as much in other grocery stores). This is where my problem comes in. Because there are 8 bars in a pack, I see it as such an extremely good deal, and I feel like such a clever shopper I end up buying multiple boxes at a time, thinking that I will share them with my roommate and my bf, and that I will eat them casually over the course of the summer. This never seems to happen since I end up stuffing my face with them because I find them so absolutely pleasing.

I want to know if you have tried this treat in any of the different flavours, or if you will consider trying them?

If you are not into them, please tell me why so that I can hopefully learn how to see things your way and stop. I also really want to know what advice you could give to someone who just cannot behave around their favorite food....It is so very shame-making.

Thank-you very much,

Yours gratefully,

Melona Maniac

 

Please note: In the picture the box is quite torn. That is because I could not control myself from tearing it open in anticipation. You can see the problem is quite serious.

 Dear Melona Maniac,

Thank you for such an interesting query. I apologize for the lateness of my reply, but I have a good excuse: yesterday after work I went out to Dufferin Mall where I know there to be a No Frills grocery story. There is also a Gap Factory Outlet Store, but there were no good deals there yesterday. I searched high and low for these Melona ice cream pops in both No Frills and then in WalMart, but to no avail. The packaging does not look familiar to me at all, so I suspect that, like most good things, they are not available in Ontario. I was hoping to try several boxes myself to write a more informed response to your question, but unfortunately I will just have to make a bunch of unfounded assumptions. 

To quickly answer your questions (which should have already been answered by that introductory paragraph): no I have not tried them, but yes I would consider trying them—although not the banana or melon flavours because I think that’s disgusting. I like bananas, but I hate when anything is flavoured like a banana because … obviously. It’s a terrible artificial flavour. And, honestly, the natural flavour of a banana isn’t actually good enough to try and replicate artificially. I would never try the melon flavour because I hate melons and think they’re repulsive. Although I must say that I find it surprising that the Melona melon flavour, based on your attached photo, appears to be honeydew, which is strange because I always assume a company would go for watermelon flavour if they’re going to feature any melon flavour at all. Or a melon blend. The honeydew flavour doesn’t appeal to me any more than a watermelon—quite a bit less, actually—but still, just an interesting detail to note. I would like to try the strawberry and mango flavours, but again, to be honest, these aren’t really my favourite flavours for an ice treat. If anything is going to be berry-flavoured, I typically prefer for it to be a berry-burstmashup featuring the four most prominent berries (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry, obviously). As I mentioned in my first-ever Food Thoughtz post, while I don’t like mangoes as fruits, I really do like mango flavouring, which in and of itself is enough to justify the existence of mangoes.

I’m not sure I will be able to offer you any practical advice on how to stop gorging yourself on Melonas, although from the sounds of it you have taken matters into your own hands and tried to substitute them with a ridiculous apple cream pie or something. Without the cream part, this would be a great solution. Apple pies are delicious. Anyway. Whenever I have faced a similar problem and just can’t stop eating something—even after I promise myself that I will ration it like a reasonable human being—it usually just goes away after a fairly short period of time. Earlier this year I went through a phase where I couldn’t stop eating Lucky Charms cereal. I had just discovered that they’re even better with milk, and I was going through a box every day or two. It was horrific. And then I just stopped. And now I don’t let myself buy Lucky Charms anymore. 

I know this isn’t helpful advice, but I think you’ve already taken a very important firs t step by writing in: admitting you have a problem is the best thing you can do. You have also already admitted to yourself that you don’t buy these ice cream pops in bulk with the actual intention of sharing them with friends or ingesting them slowly over the summer, which is something you need to keep in mind the next time you’re tempted to buy these. It seems to me you have three options: you could go the AA route and try to cut this cancer out of your life all together; you could go the Dutch route and try to re-program yourself to consume responsibly; or you could do what I would do, which is to stop buying them regularly, but allow yourself one day a month when you can buy a box and eat them in one sitting. Eight popsicles per months is probably fairly normal, and I can see no reason why you shouldn’t eat all eight of them in the space of 20minutes rather than dragging it out over the course of an entire month.

I’ll be honest: it’s not going to be easy. But if you are serious about getting a grip and taking control of your life, then you don’t have much of a choice. Or you could just move to Ontario where there are exactly zero good things to tempt you because this province is the absolute worst.

Booze Thoughtz: Rosé fröccs with a single frozen strawberry

Hungary has a long list of accomplishments under its leather-satchel-affixed belt: it was a Hungarian who first isolated vitamin C; it was a Hungarian who invented the rubik's cube; and it was a Hungarian who invented the ballpoint pen (fun fact: his name was Bálpont Zoltan, which is where we get the word "ballpoint" from*). But perhaps their greatest achievement of all is fröccs, a delicious wine-soda water hybrid that probably isn't Hungarian in origin at all, but rather Austrian (?), which is why we normally refer to the drink as a spritzer and not a fröccs. Even so, my first encounter with the drink was in Hungary, and even though I also procured a wife from Hungary, by far my greatest takeaway from that proud nation has been fröccs. 

Recently, as I was browsing the fröccs hashtag on instagram, I came across a delicious looking rosé fröccs with a frozen strawberry as an icecube, and I had to have it. A week later I bought one of the cheapest bottles of rosé I could find a proceeded to recreate the drink. The results were anticlimactic. It wasn't bad by any means; just uneventful. A normal food critic might not even bother with a review of such an unimpressive drink, but here we are. The strawberry, despite being a better-than-average organic Ontario strawberry, did nothing to improve the taste of the fröccs. In fact, its addition wasn't even noticeable. The biggest disappointment, though, was that the strawberry actually tasted worse when infused with wine than it did in the first place.

So while the drink wasn't terrible, I definitely wouldn't recommend trying this on your own. Or, I mean, do, but be prepared to be underwhelmed.


*Not true. His name was Bíró József, which is why the English call it a biro.

The Cranberry

Can someone please tell me definitively whether or not cranberries exist in any state other than the following: (canned) cranberry sauce; frozen cranberries; dried cranberries; or cranberry juice.  Is there such a thing as a “cranberry”?  Has anyone ever seen one?  Are they really harvested in revolting swamps?  If anyone read this blog or cared enough about it to comment, the answer would probably be yes.  I’m sure that someone, somewhere, knows what a cranberry is, but I have never seen a cranberry—neither in its natural environment, nor for sale in a store—and it seems really bizarre to me that there is an entire culture of food that surrounds a particular “berry” (is it even a berry?!) that no one seems to eat in its natural state.

Frozen Cranberries: Of all the manifestations of the cranberry, the frozen cranberry seems the most capable at signalling towards a natural cranberry.  Presumably frozen cranberries are actual cranberries that have been frozen, and so perhaps by examining the frozen version, we can better understand the elusive cranberry. I once bought a bag of frozen cranberries as smoothie ingredients because they were on a steep discount and because I initially mistook them for raspberries.  By the time I had realized my mistake, I thought I might as well see this thing through to the end (smoothies provide a really safe environment for trying new foods).  Their contribution to my smoothies were not remarkable in any way.  I tried one in its frozen form and did not like it.

Cranberry Sauce: I know that a lot of people are really into this and that it’s considered a staple at Thanksgiving dinners, but argh, this is disgusting.  Maybe on its own it’s not too bad (although probably still not very good, unless you add sugar to it or something), but I have never understood the appeal of drizzling a fruit sauce over meat.  Worse yet is that unless you eat your turkey on a separate plate or bowl, that sauce is inevitably going to come into contact with whatever other food you might happen to have on your plate, like stuffing, mashed potatoes, or steamed vegetables.  Unfortunately I think this might be part of the appeal for a lot of people.

I'm really getting into the idea of me riding on top of certain foods as if they were a hot, metal goat.

Dried Cranberries: I’ve never been able to figure out whether or not the term “craisin” refers strictly to dried cranberries, to a mix of raisins and dried cranberries, or to a process of fusing grapes and cranberries together into one fruit before the drying process occurs.  But whatever that word refers to, it doesn’t really matter because when you already have a plentiful supply of raisins that exist in this world, why would you ever need dried cranberries?

Cranberry Juice: Alleged health benefits aside, pure cranberry juice is overpriced and disgusting to boot.  If I’m going to pay $9 for 1L of juice, I want to be able to actually drink it.

Cranberries in juice form brings up an important point: aren’t these berries disgusting?  If they do in fact exist in some sort of pure form, shouldn’t they not?  Based on my experience with the juice and the frozen variety, they really don’t taste very good.  I get that they’re supposed to be a super-food and loaded with a bunch of whatevers, but so are a lot of other things. Including the other berries, like strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries—all of which are delicious.  I'm here to tell you that you don't have to limit yourself to this one disgusting berry (which may or may not actually exist), because the world around you is bursting with delicious berries, if you'll only open your eyes to it.

 Have any among you seen the cranberry in its natural state?
Or is it less what is is, and more how it can be used to create?
It comes to us as sauce, dried fruit, or over-priced juice,
But for such a “super-food,” it’s kind of a recluse. 

Frozen Pea Update

Dedicated Food Thoughtz readers should know that the President’s Choice petits pois in the white bag are my #1 go-to choice when it comes to frozen peas, but one of the hard lessons I’m having to learn by having a roommate is that not everyone has the same preferences you do.  It can be really hard when you love something so much (the President’s Choice petits pois) but struggle to communicate that love to others, or fail to convince them to switch brands.
This is the situation I currently find myself in.  My roommate is stuck on Green Giant frozen peas … And look, I get it.  I used to get my peas from the Green Giant, too.  I used to wonder who could possibly put out better frozen peas than the Green Giant?  You know?  How could it get any better than this?  But for the first time, I really feel like these President’s Choice petits pois are actually the President’s choice. They are so good.

Anyway, whatever.  This isn’t even what this post is supposed to be about.  What I wanted to say is that because I now live with someone committed to Green Giant frozen peas, I’ve had the opportunity to actually closely examine the packing of Green Giant frozen peas, and … well, it kind of made me uncomfortable.  The frozen peas are described as “Sweetlets: tender young peas.”  Does anyone else find that a bit sexual and inappropriate?  Like that it’s a bit sexual, but then you feel weird about thinking that it’s sexual because of the age thing? Tender and  young?  And that it’s also really weird because it’s frozen peas?

Potato Update

The other day I bought a bag of frozen hash browns and consumed it in an embarrassingly short period of time. I took several pictures to commemorate the occasion, but I am only posting a few because I worry that the only thing more embarrassing than eating that many frozen hash browns that quickly is taking 15 pictures of myself doing so and posting them on the internet.

This is the first picture I took. I look pretty at peace with the situation. I now
regret that I didn't take a series of pictures of myself struggling under the
burden of shame that was the inevitable result of this potato feast.

And then I found out that you can take a series of four pictures in sequence,
so of course I took 13 more.

I meant for this post to be a warning to anyone who has ever idealized a certain food from their past, as I have with McCain's frozen hash browns. I was going to write about how sometimes you remember something being so delicious, but when you revisit it, you're kind of disappointed. I was going to write about how it's easy to conflate these foods with past emotional states, and why it's wrong to think that eating a food from your childhood--a time in your life that you typically associate with happiness--will ever be able to fill that void that has been steadily growing since those first tinges of adulthood. But now that I am looking at this mound of hash browns, I kind of just want to go out and do the whole thing over again.

Frozen Peas

If you’re anything like me when it comes to food (and there are pretty good chances that you’re not), there’s nothing worse than having to go a dinner party. But do not despair, fellow foodphobics: those that care about you will ensure that there is at least one thing that you will eat, and if they don’t, then you can sit and sulk quietly in front of an empty plate and they’ll learn for next time. One of the easiest ways to please a person who won’t eat any of the regular trappings of a communal meal is to serve them a bowl of frozen peas--everyone has them in their freezer and they make for a delicious snack.

There's something really special about eating peas--fresh or frozen--and I think it has something to do with being able to hold several in your mouth at one time without them losing their singular identity until you crush them between your teeth. Sometimes the inevitable clumping in a bag of frozen peas can prove to be a problem, but usually breaking up these
clumps--squeezing them so hard that they just fall apart in your hand--is half the fun.

At first you might think that dipping your claws into a small bowl of frozen peas is more shameful than pretending you’re engaged in the conversation while staring at an empty plate. But the one thing that I’ve learned about shame is that showing shame is actually shameless, so you can look at me and think to yourself I’m so ashamed for/of you, but at least I’m not the one eating a salad right now.

In hindsight, eating frozen peas is pretty disgusting. The only food that should be eaten frozen is either food that was designed to be eaten frozen (i.e. ice cream) or frozen green grapes or blueberries, but not vegetables. And despite my unaccountable love for frozen peas, I would never consider eating a frozen bean, carrot, or corn niblet. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I've been eating frozen peas forever, and even though I know it’s wrong, old habits die hard (or don’t die at all), and I still spend most of my nights tucking into a bag of President’s Choice small sweet peas (seriously, best frozen peas on the market. Forget the Green Giant).

A note of caution: eating frozen peas will make your hands smell disgusting and fungus-infested, but I think it’s a pretty fair tradeoff.

Peas, peas, peas, peas--

Frozen in a bowl!*

*This song, quoted here in its entirety, was written for me by my sister's friend, ca. '97/'98.