2011 – Year in Review

Just because a lot of people seem to be doing some sort of Year in Review, I thought I’d put some thoughts down to quickly document some highlights. That way when I’m old and senile (in two years), I’ll be able to recall what happened in 2011.



Here’s how 2011 panned out for me:

The good stuff!...

• Got engaged to a wonderful Italian red-head in my favorite town in the world – Riomaggiore, Italy
• Finished my MBA
• Travelled to Italy, China, Nashville, Denver, Green Bay, Seattle, Indianapolis, and the Quad Cities
• Watched a TON of roller derby
• Ate the best steak in the world (literally) – Chianini beef from Florence, Italy
• Was the Ethics co-chair of the Minnesota Chapter of the Special Libraries Association
• Went to my first LaCrosse match
• Was shirtless in public more times than I can count
• Sang Anthrax songs on stage with a throw-together cover band at Station 4
• Am learning Greek
• Joined a gym, but was raised to keep it quiet, so I have
• Ate some amazing food – I could include sooooo many things here, but some highlights are the Denny’s Super Mega Slamwich of Doom, Bar-B-Quest 2011, ICP Chex Mix, Eli’s Donut Burgers
• Actually found a legit beer I can drink and enjoy – Kwak from Belgium (one step closer to man-hood)
• Had an awesome birthday party at Grand Slam
• Played more disc golf than I have in years
• Went to some killer Demolition Derby to see Derby Dan crash his car up
• Ate bizarre animals – donkey, horse, jellyfish, octopus
• Won a Halloween costume contest (with D.Rough) at a gay bar
• Bought a new Mac laptop
• Found out the house foundation wasn’t cracked and leaking, but was actually a leaky hose in the air conditioner (saving thousands of dollars)
• Shoveled tons of snow
• Bought an awesome grill for the deck
• Went to the best party of the year – the Special Needs Halloween Party
• Saw some amazing films – Trollhunter, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, 13 Assassins, My Afternoons with Margueritte,
• Went to a rained out major league baseball game and ate non-stop
• Went to a minor league baseball game and ate non-stop
• Saw some amazing local bands featuring my friends – All the Way Rider, Rockford Mules, Lesser Known Saint, Earthrise
• Put multiple ads in the Minnesota RollerGirls bout programs, making all of my male friends mad at me for being the best fiancé ever
• Played in the best kickball league ever
• Got to see my nephew and niece's new babies!
• Presented to a Library Science class about what I do for a living
• Helped B.Sweet move into my old house
• Bought Ladder Ball for our yard – it was only a matter of time
• Hosted hours of Wii Big Buck Hunter on the 12-foot screen in the basement
• Went to the St. Paul Farmers Market a TON
• Saw amazing bands – Madball, D.R.I., The Ocean
• Went to some amazing weddings – Michelle and Isaac, Tracey and Carrie, Sam and Citizen Pain, Hüsker Stü and Scarmen Hellectra, and Reney and Smokahontas
• Did the .10K Triathlon
• Got to go to Cooter's Dukes of Hazzard Museum in Nashville, TN
• Went to my first Horserace at Canterbury Park – but only to go to the Food Truck Festival they were hosting
• Did some culinary damage at the Minnesota State Fair
• Helped paint Garrison and Myrna Killer’s fabulous Victorian house
• Went to my high school class reunion and didn’t make an ass of myself
• Got to go back to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving along with my sister from Michigan
• Decorated as much of the house as I could for D.Rough’s birthday
• Went to my first equestrian show (the fancy gate-jumping one, not the rodeo style)
• Bottled multiple bottles of hard cider with TheDoctor
• Grew some amazing facial hair and cut it into anger-inducing patterns

Downsides:

• Said goodbye to one of the most special people in the world – I miss you, Curtis
• Hosted far too few Bad Movie Nights (I’ll try harder this year)
• Racked up even more school loan debt
• Failed every biometric screening required by my insurance
• Didn’t golf a single time this year
• Missed both the World Pork Expo (Des Moines) AND BaconFest (Chicago) this year
• Only went to the Uptown Market a few times
• Missed every soccer game Killsbury Doughboy and A-Wow invited me to
• Missed the annual canoe trip in Mequoketa – my first miss ever
• Missed going to the Christian Homeschool Science Fair at the Har Mar Mall – those brainwashed kids are insane
• Didn’t get to go sledding once in 2011
• Missed out on significant portions of my social life, thanks to school (sorry Kickball, Librarian, and roller derby friends)
• Missed BobaFred’s annual BBQ – again
• Missed out on the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival (MUFF)
• Missed every men’s roller derby bout
• Saw some really terrible movies – Sharktopus, Zombie Strippers, The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi
• Went to an MMA fight - won't do that again

I’d say I had a pretty good year. No wonder I’m so exhausted all the time. For those of you who have been following me for a while, you know that I like to do a theme each year. 2011’s theme was the year of being shirtless in public. I’m down to the wire for 2012, but I’ve got a few ideas. Here’s to 2011 being a better year than 2010. And 2012 should be even better, what with a wedding in April, trip to Greece in April, another wedding in June in Seattle, and roller derby trips to Niagara Falls, Seattle, and Atlanta!

Grandma’s Bakery – White Bear Lake, MN

D.Rough had purchased a bacon-covered donut for me from Grandma’s a few months back and I haven’t found a time to get up to White Bear Lake to check out what else they’ve got. But when the guys wanted to play disc golf near there, I knew I’d be able to hit up the bakery for some pre-game goodies. I’m also a gentleman, so I figured I should purchase a little extra so others could enjoy the donuts, as well.


Grandma’s is in a weird location. A sort of industrial park back behind the main road. I drove past it, in fact, the first time. I looped back around and went inside. I will say this – these guys have the largest set of display cases out of any bakery I’ve been in in the United States. Seriously like 7 or 8 separate units filled with breakfast-y baked goods. Cakes, cookies, donuts, cinnamon rolls, and a bunch of other things. I was a tad overwhelmed.

The inside of the place is absolutely enormous. I think they supply a TON of the restaurants, gas stations, and coffee shops in the twin cities, so you can see the cavernous warehouse are behind the retail portion. The entire location is filled to the brim with sugary-sweet deliciousness. It took me a while since they have so many things to choose from, but I finally opted for the bacon-covered donut, a white-frosted raised donuts with Christmas sprinkles, a chocolate covered donut, and a glazed. I asked if they had any raised donut holes, but they only had cake donut holes. Worthless.

I was pretty happy with these donuts. They aren’t the best in the Twin Cities, but they’re good. They were a tad dry, but were about perfect on the sweetness. Not over the top, but really just about right. The bacon donut was decent. The bacon was cooked well, but again, the donut part was a bit dry. And it sucked because I had forgotten to grab a carton of milk to drink. It was a long round of disc golf with a pasty mouth after that.

The other guys were happy to get some breakfast, so there were no complaints from them. And of course, I got the left-over donut that no one wanted. Thankfully, I was smart enough to buy only donuts I would eat. Hahahahaha. I still win. (…At least at donut eating, not as disc golf. I lost miserably on the last hole… sigh)

www.grandmasbakery.com

Uncle Buck’s Bacon Jerky

My awesome cousin Mimi sent me a surprise present in the mail this year for Christmas. It was a package of Uncle Buck’s Bacon Jerky from Bass Pro Shop. She and her guy know I really love bacon so she bought a package after sampling it first. Despite the fact they felt like they were eating dog treats, they knew by the flavor that it was a must-have for me.


The pieces of jerky are actual meat – not fabricated pseudo-meat like some jerky tastes like. It’s not stringy or anything. Very tender pieces of meat that you can tell are pieces of real bacon. I brought it to work with me and am enjoying a few days worth of breakfast, without that troublesome grease spot you get when you try to sneak bacon strips into the office in your pocket – I hate that.

Thanks a million for my amazing present, Mimi. You rule.

(If I was really smart, I’d make this bacon last longer by thinking of new food items to add bacon crumbles to – it won’t last that long, I assure you…)

Bueno (from Kinder)

I’ve been to Europe a bunch of times and one of the candies I look forward to when I’m over there is Kinder chocolate (pronounced like tinder). That’s why I was surprised M. and Trash Giant hadn’t ever heard of it. I’ve seen it in stores in the U.S. more and more. Kinder is a German company owned by Ferrero (an Italian company) that makes candy. Kinder means “children” in German, so it makes sense they do a lot of marketing of candy towards children. It’s really light and cheap milk chocolate.


Kinder does half a billion different kinds of candy shapes, flavors, and injections, so they really know how to build out a product line. The Bueno candy (which cracks me up that it’s a Spanish word made by a German company owned by an Italian company and sold in the U.S.) is a chocolate wafer candy with a bit of milk crème inside.


Picture a couple layers of wafer candy (like what’s inside a Twix, but not as thick), put a dollop of sugary sweet crème sugar on top of it and then cover it lightly with milk chocolate. There are four in each individual sleeve and two sleeves per package.


This is most tame candy I think I’ve ever received from M. and Trash, so I ate this one up before they could change their mind about giving it to me. It is very smooth chocolate and not waxy. You can tell it is inexpensive chocolate, but it doesn’t take away from the flavor. The added crunch of the wafer makes this even better. Plus the added sweetness of the milk crème on top of it pretty much made my afternoon meal.

I’ll look forward to getting more Kinder chocolate the next time I see it in the store. It isn’t made with children. It’s made FOR children.

Dippin’ Candy Banana Split Flavor Candy

As I said before, M.Giant had bought a large bag of gross candy and brought some of it to lunch with Trash and I. We had just tried the Maynard’s Wine Gums – which sadly were non-alcoholic – and now we were on to the Dippin’ Candy. If you’re unfamiliar with Dippin’ Dots, it’s basically ice cream flavored sugar that people claim is eaten in space. It isn’t. They claim it’s the ice cream of the future. It isn’t. This is the candy, aka non-refrigerated, version of Dippin’ Dots.


This was the banana split flavor, so we kind of knew what we were expecting flavor-wise. There are four different colored sugar balls in this package. Some are smaller than others, but there’s pretty much a standard small-pea-sized piece of candy with pink, white, brown, and yellow colors. It is safe to assume this point that the pink is representing strawberry, the yellow is banana, the white is vanilla, and the brown is chocolate. Did each individual ball taste different though?

The answer is…. Yes! They do. You could have your butler pick out all of the banana ones if you wanted him to (you guys have butlers, right?). So M and I set about picking out individual flavors and eating only what we wanted. To get the maximum banana split flavor though, you have to eat a handful and mix it all together like in the real life non-dippin’ world. IT actually does taste pretty close to a banana split with some alterations. I’ll explain.


You know how banana flavoring tends to over power every other flavor, no matter how small of an amount is in there? There were an equal number of banana balls in with the other colored candy. Uh oh. Also, these things are pure sugar, so you should probably borrow your little brother’s insulin and shoot up before doing this (if you guys don’t have butlers, you surely have diabetic little brothers, right?).

So translated into the real world, you’d have this. First, take those trays you get for tooth whitening or for fluoride treatments or maybe a hockey mouth guard and fill it with sugar. Then put it in your mouth. Then take some sort of heat source and mold that half-inch thick layer of sugar to your teeth permanently. Then, take about 200 bananas and somehow get them all into your face hole. When you’ve done that, get one scoop of vanilla ice cream and one scoop of chocolate ice cream on top of that. Finally, stick two small strawberries into any space in your mouth possible. Now you’ve kind of got the proper ratios to visualize eating this kind of candy.

I was sick of this candy within about 5 tiny morsels of Dippin’. I know kids go crazy for this stuff, but obviously, those are the same kids who are doing lines of pixie stix dust off of pre-whore butts. I don’t think the human body can process that much sugar, and it certainly can’t process that many bananas. No way. Also, I can't imagine giving children access to a million tiny balls of sugar that you'll never be able to find unless you're sitting in an enclosed glass box while eating them (the candy, not the children). These little bastards roll EVERYWHERE (again, the candy, not the children).

Thanks for letting me try this candy, M. and Trash, but I don’t think I can have any more of that stuff. I’m going to go chisel my teeth now. Again.

Maynard’s Wine Gums

While having lunch with M. and Trash Giant, Trash had brought a couple of candies for M. and I to try. Apparently, M. had picked up a large back of grotesque candy and Trash loves to watch M. and I’s faces contort as we try to power through them.


The first on the list was Maynard’s Wine Gums. Yes, as in wine-flavored gummi candy. They come in a tightly wrapped plastic tube and look sort of like JuJu Be’s or Dots. We sorted them out, so both M. and I got the same number of each color. With the exception of the green one. Wait, what? Green? Yes. Green.


We started out with the darkest one. We figured we’d bust out the lighter wines first to maintain proper palate, right? Yeah, we’re classy like that. We jumped right into what was sure to be a Zin or maybe a Pinoi Gris. Frankly, it wasn’t bad. It chewed like a JuJu Be or a Dot, and stuck to your teeth like one, as well (remember this part). It really didn’t taste a whole lot like wine, but I guess you could kind of see where they were going with it. Not a bad start.

We headed for the darker colors next. In fact, there was an orange-ish colored one that I went right for. I’m not sure if it was meant to be a rose or something, but it was delicious. It did taste a little like orange, but I wasn’t sure if my mind told my tongue it was going to taste like that due to its color. Stupid brain. It was good though.


Then, M. claims he read “Claret” on one of the gummis somewhere, but I couldn’t see that anywhere. That one was far less tasty than either of the first ones. Not sure exactly what the flavor was on that one. Not awful, but not good.

We finally got to the darkest of the bunch – I’m sure it was Merlot. It wasn’t Merlot. It was basically a rubber tire flavor. Absolutely disgusting. Not quite a black gummi, it was such a dark purple that it appeared to be black and evil. It tasted awful. I finally decided we should split the green one. What wine was going to be green. None at all, in fact. It was lime. I’m not sure how limes made it into a wine-flavored package, but one of them did. I thought perhaps maybe it was supposed to represent a margarita or something else alcoholic. It wasn’t bad, though.

And for the finisher, I had stashed an extra orange one to cleanse my palate. It was probably the smartest thing I had done since starting this odd version of adult gummi bears. I don’t think I’d recommend these gummis to anyone. They’re not terrible and they’re certainly edible, but if you’re looking for a buzz, go ahead and soak some gummi bears in vodka like a normal person.

Surabhi – Bloomington, MN

One of my blogger friends, Jen, recommended this place to me after reading one of my reviews on a local Indian buffet in Bloomington. I took her advice and tricked M. and Trash Giant into meeting me there for lunch. It’s in a strip mall, so it’s already got something going for it. Minnesota is known for having amazing strip mall food. Seriously.


M. and Trash got there before I did and were seated and given a pitcher of water. This is the last time there would be interaction with the staff until we got up to pay. Really. Hilarious. We even get to fill our own water cups with the pitcher on the table.


When I sat down, Trash was excited to show me that M. had commandeered a giant bag of gross candy and we’d be finishing our meal with some tasty desserts. Brilliant. Let’s get started.


This place has many of the things you’d expect to see on an Indian food buffet, Tandoori chicken, Naan, garlic naan, different rices, palak paneer, goat curry, and a few others. But it also has Okra Masala, butter chicken, some other paneer with orange mush and cheesy bits (shahi paneer, perhaps?), potato pakora, sambhar and a bunch of other things. They even have the rolled up crepe-like things called dosa – there wasn’t any filling, so I’m assuming it was the Moong Masala Dosa (based on their website photos).


I loaded up the plate with considerable portions and then laid my various breads over the top of everything. There wasn’t a single thing I didn’t like, but I will tell you one of my favorite surprise things I liked. The Okra Masala was sooo good. Very spicy and not at all what I expected. I’m not always a huge okra fan, but prepared this way was the best I’ve ever had it. It wasn’t slimy at all and had great seasoning, heat, and flavor. I had to get seconds of this stuff. The goat curry was nice and tender and fell off the bone, which was nice. The butter chicken also had some kick to it, so I really enjoyed that. And you could tell M.Giant also did, since he loaded his entire plate with that and naan. He doesn’t ply around when he finds something he likes.


And of course I went back for a second plate. I mainly got the same things I did the first time, since I didn’t fine anything I didn’t like on the buffet. The paneers were quite good and had flavor, which some Indian places manage to cook OUT of the dish sometimes.


M.Giant also pointed out a hilarious note taped to the buffet. “Please ask your Waiter/Manager If you are Allergic to Nuts of Spices.” M.Giant simply asked, “How would they know?” We chuckled about this throughout the meal, trying to figure out if they had some sort of mind reading ability, or millions of years of Indian medicine had flown under the radar. One of the best signs ever.

This was one of the best restaurant recommendations I’ve ever gotten, and I can’t thank Jen enough. She’s absolutely right. It was some of the best Indian food I’ve eaten and it was spicier than any I’ve eaten, as well. Be ready for it! I can’t wait to come back to this place.

Despite sharing odd candy for dessert after the meal, I’ll review the candy in separate posts. They deserve their own attention.

www.surabhicuisine.com/SurabhiHome.htm