Say "Happy Birthday" With Flavor!

In what might be one of the most ridiculous product roll outs since Smell-O-Vision, the folks over there at American Greetings (you know, the card company that is not Hallmark) have announced via PR News Wire, their new line of cards called Tasties. That's right. It's a greeting card that you can taste. Wait. What now?

Correct. According to a one Mary McClain, who is the creative director of new product concepts over there at American Greetings, "Just think, haven't you ever secretly wished you could actually taste that delicious looking piece of cake on the front of your birthday card? Well, now you can literally have your cake and eat it, too." Um, well...wait. How many birthday cards have pictures of cake on the front of them? I know that there are probably SOME, but certainly not all of them. And the ones that do, I'm not recalling them looking all that scrumptious. Cartoonish, if anything, would be how I'd describe them. But really, I'm not ever thinking that I wished I could taste the cake on my card because, if I'm receiving the card for my birthday, I know that there actually is a real cake right around the corner! That's what you do on birthdays! You eat cake!

The press release goes on to read that "Each card in the new line features a deliciously dissolvable flavor-strip, safely sealed inside, which recipients can enjoy along with the warm wishes of friends and family." Clearly, the folks over at American Greetings have never met my friends and family. We're not exactly the "warm wishes" type of folks. Good Lord, especially not my friends. We're more of a "Happy birthday, bee-yotch!" sort of crowd.

And I don't know that I'm finding a lot of appeal in the though of a "deliciously dissolvable flavor-strip" that I'm supposed to eat. And of course, with all of those damn well-wishers sitting around you, you wouldn't have any choice but to eat the thing! And probably to chants of "Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!" Good Lord, it sounds like a bad idea all the way around.

Here's an example of what you can expect: " One birthday card in the new line features a mouth-watering image of a cupcake and reads, "If nothing else, birthdays are a great excuse to eat cake." The inside reads, "…lots and lots of cake." The dissolvable strip included encourages recipients to "take a bite," and enjoy the taste of vanilla cupcake, expanding on the fun and sweetness of the greeting. Other flavors to help consumers celebrate include everything from donut to margarita." Eww. Eating a dissolving strip is not like eating "lots and lots of cake". I don't care how good the strip tastes, it's still not cake. It just doesn't sound like all that great of an idea to me. Yeah, so, eww.

What, exactly, does "everything from donut to margarita" include? Because if we're going alphabetically, that doesn't include cake! It also wouldn't include alcohol or tequila. There'd be no pie. No chocolate. No sprinkles. Oh, frosting! There'd be frosting! Again, I'm back to eww. And really, I've never tried to connect the dots from a donut to a margarita. Is it like a 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of thing? Like 6 Degrees of Really Dumb Ideas?

This won't last long at all. The card companies aren't willing to admit it, but we're not all that fond of those musical cards that they insist on shoving upon us either. Those should have gone wayside a long time ago. But I think that it will be pretty evident rather quickly that this was a silly idea (and I use the term "silly" quite loosely, as this is completely idiotic).

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Deep Fried Goodness

If there was ever going to be a reason for me to go to Texas, I have found it. Not that I have anything against Texas, mind you. I'm sure it's a fine place (except for all of the cowboys. And the heat. My God, the heat!). I've just never been much of a Texas person. But who cares what kind of person you are when it comes to the Big Tex Awards at the State Fair of Texas, where they reward only the best deep fried concoctions out there. (And they're deep fried, for cryin' out loud. How bad could they be? Not very, I'll tell you what. I have a feeling that even the losers are winner with this competition.) And while it might not matter what kind of person you are, it probably does matter what kind of health your heart is in because you're not walking away from this one without at least one, probably two, clogged arteries. (No word on whether or not cardiovascular surgeons will be on hand for the inevitable spontaneous heart attack(s) that may or may n.....that will inevitably occur.)

Eight items are competing against each other for the title of the best fried goodness out there. Here are your fried, crispy, dripping in grease, lathered in tasty treats to choose from:

1. First up we have Fernie’s All-American Fried Grilled Cheese Sandwich created by a one Christi Erpillo. You take two slices of white bread and add some American and cheddar cheeses. Then dip that in a batter of egg and milk (it's like the French toast of the grilled cheese world) and throw on some bread crumbs to add the appearance of some degree of sophistication. Comes with shoestring potato sticks, a pickle spear and tomato soup dipping sauce. Good Lord.
   
   
2. Next, what is sure to catch on around the country, Chicken Fried Bacon, brought to us by Glen Kusak. Glen takes that really thick bacon with all of the pepper on it and dips that not once, but twice, twice in some battery batter and then into the cooker o' grease it goes. It comes with ranch dressing or honey mustard sauce and a generous portion of guilt.
   
   
3. Shirley Weiss gives us the Fried Banana Split which has banana and honey peanut butter rolled in balls (mmmm....butter balls) and then, naturally, dunked in batter and fried right on up. As is with a banana split not dripping with lard, it is topped with some powdered sugar, caramel and chocolate syrups, chopped peanuts, whipped cream, banana split-flavored ice cream bites, and a cherry. (I'm not sure what the "banana split flavored ice cream bites" are doing in there. That's like saying I'm going to cook a steak and top it with some steak flavored sirloin strips. A fine idea, but this will not win.)



4. In the "I'm Doing This Just To Be A Little Weird" category we have Justin Martinez and his Texas Fried Jelly Bellys. Deep fried, flavored jelly beans. Um, OK. So, it's just the Jelly Bellys rolled in funnel cake batter and fried. I'm having a hard time with this one. I could take a bunch of Skittles, shove them in a Hostess cupcake and toss that in the vat and it would be basically the same thing. Again, nice idea, but you're not winning. (No WAY you finish ahead of deep fried bacon God guy.)



5. Deep Fried S’mores (Oh, good God, it's like camping with the feel of heaven thrown in.) are brought to us by Tami Stiffler as she takes marshmallow fluff and chocolate chips and puts them between two graham crackers. Give the mandatory dip in some sort of heavenly batter and into the fryer they go, to be dusted in powdered sugar when they emerge. Now you're talkin'! Experience camping without all of the bugs and the dirt and all of the God-awful time in the mountains pretending to have a good time because "you're camping"!


6. Abel Gonzales has invented what he calls the Fire & Ice. And while that's a catchy name, it might more aptly be titled, "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" Abel utilizes a pineapple ring which he has battered and then, surprise, deep-fried. So far, so good. Boring, but good. The fried fruit is then topped with banana-flavored whipped cream, but not just any banana-flavored whipped cream. No, this is banana flavored whipped cream that has been frozen in liquid nitrogen. Apparently, when you freeze banana flavored whipped cream with liquid nitrogen, it causes it to smoke. The smoking fire hazard is then covered in strawberries and syrup and the fire department is alerted that it's desert time over at Abel's. This isn't Abel's first time entering the contest. Previous year's entries included Fried Coke, Fried Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches and Deep Fried Cookie Dough. (Good Lord, Abel, you might be my hero.)



7. With no science lab type ingredients, Nick Bert Jr. presents us with Fried Chocolate Truffles. Nick makes these dark chocolate truffles by hand and then rolls them in cocoa powder where they await to be battered and deep-fried. After all of the frying, there is the obligatory truffle dusting with sugar, cinnamon and more cocoa powder. Again, nice try, but it's just like taking a See's Candies truffle and giving it a dip in your Fry Daddy. Not that there's anything wrong with that!



8. How do you like your balls? With chocolate? With strawberries? Deep fried? On a stick? (Ouch!) Then the Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Waffle Balls that Mark Zable has created are for you. Fresh strawberries with a chocolate shell, dunked in waffle batter and fried up to a greasy, tasty golden hue. Then dust with powdered sugar, skewer with a stick and you've got yourself a very tasty ball to go! Well played, Mark.

Now, according to the fine Southern folk over there at the Dallas Morning News, the Texas State Fair starts on September 26 and runs for a glorious 23 artery clogging days until October 19. Seriously, what's not to like about any of those entries? Cheese, bacon, bananas, jelly beans, graham crackers, liquid nitrogen (OK, that's a little weird), chocolate truffle and balls?? Mmmmmm....balls. This will be the fourth year for the Big Tex Choice Awards. Previous year's entries have included Fried Coke, Fried Pralines, Fried Macaroni and Cheese (Waiter!), Fried Lattes, Fried Avocados and/or Fried Guacamole, and Fried Cosmopolitans. I have no idea how the things that are liquid are fried and I can't even begin to envision a scenario that would allow them to be fried. But all of this is very, very good to know. Either that or it's very, very bad to know. Hard to say. Depends on whether I'm in Texas when the State Fair is going on.

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