How To Spend Your Money: Waring Pro CC150 Cotton Candy Machine

I don't understand the Ladies Who Refuse Lunch. Why do people eat 100 calorie chemical snack packs when they could have 40 calories of sweet sugary goodness on a stick? I'm sure there's a reason that has to do with blood sugar crashes and refined carbs. Tell me all about it later. Right now I am excited about my latest kitchen toy. After a No Good Terrible week full of Problems I Can't Solve I found myself at Sur La Table. Some people drown their sorrows in sex with strangers. I buy a new spatula. Or a cotton candy machine. You know, like you do.

Commercial cotton candy machines? I've run them, disassembled them, cleaned them, and patronized them. I've never thought a home unit could do more than produce a token puff. The kind (and by kind I mean evil) people at Sur La Table invited me to play around with one of their units. Dude. DUDE! Look at that photo! I used half a tablespoon of sugar! I totally bought it. I also bought a jar of classic pink vanilla spinning sugar by Hammonds. At $9 for a small jar it's 32 cents a serving. The floss sugar Gold Medal puts out is less than 11. On the other hand, you have to store that sugar nice and dry until you've eaten 90 odd sticks of cotton candy. It seems sensible to pay a little more to eat a little less.

I've been playing with the machine a few days running. It's quick to clean and much more fun than most kitchen toys. A cup of table sugar mixed with 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon made a delicious cotton candy but only produced half the fluff of sugar alone. When the flavor mix gets too heavy the sugar builds up in crisp little sticks on the side of the bowl. A good person would crunch it up and respin it, but I have to be honest. I just eat the cinnamon shards outright. (Waring suggests mixing Kool Aid with table sugar. Um. No. Super nasty.) I think later this week I'll mix up a cocoa / sugar base or a ginger / sugar base for some other interesting flavors. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with vanilla. Nothing at all. (If you're going to throw a carnival in your kitchen I suggest starting with a reversed chopstick. Those paper cones aren't meant for home units. They only pack them in because you've been programmed to think cotton candy belongs there.)

Things You Could Eat: Beef Jerky Chocolate Bar by Wild Ophelia

I've been preoccupied with a local murder. (Which I won't name. I really don't want to get blog hits off the death of a teenager.)  I can't cure America's devotion to racism and guns. I can drown my sorrow in overpriced candy. So I did. At $5 for 2 ounces this comes out to about $40 a pound. (If you want to figure it in grams you're on your own. This is being written in America. We don't hold with your newfangled universal weights and measures. Commie.)

It was completely worth $5 to answer the obvious question. What does beef jerky covered in milk chocolate taste like and why would you ever do it? Wild Ophelia, an imprint of Vosges Haut-Chocolat answers the first question but obscures the second in faux-thentic marketing. (Vosges is pretentious on it's best day.) Creating a rural Southern character, giving her a Medusa meets Mucha coif with a name invoking unstable sexual availability fits nicely into modern marketing. (White poverty is super cool when it's set in the past. People are using it for their weddings, their vacations and their family photos. Why not candy?) The design is lovely, bold graphics and striking colors. Ophelia is just like you, she has summer garage sales, relatives that hold her in fear and... wait. She is just like me. On to the eating.

I expected more and less from this bar. Given the company's self promoted stance on elevating American candy I was looking for a fairly superior chocolate. While it's leagues above most candy coatings I'd place it closer to Cadbury than Marcolini on the Meoskop Candy Scale. The texture is familiar. Wild Ophelia has shaved the jerky very thin, it is only a ribbon running through the bar. The result is a familiar chew not unlike the last bits of a Curly-Wurly caramel bar. Like Vosges Mo's Bacon Bar my first thought on this offering is that they skimped on the meat. Eating only one piece at a time you want a bit more chew and a bit less smooth candy. Even to eat the bar in one go I think a smaller size with a better balance would be welcome. Still, the taste is successful. I've had some exotic candy combinations that made me rethink a number of life choices. The Beef Jerky Milk Chocolate Bar does not go on the regret side. Starting smooth and unobjectionable, the flavor increases in smoke and spice as you chew. It's an interesting combination of taste. Perhaps this is the candy equivalent of the potato chip's popular BBQ conceit.

So many pricey candy bars end up thrown away, a bitter half eaten disappointment. Vosges Haut Chocolat has overcome my rejection of the Wild Ophelia marketing to deliver a bar we fought over. While I would not specifically seek it out, members of the household are already scheming for a new delivery. I think you can do equally well for a candy splurge (perhaps even at lower price points) but I don't think you would be wrong to check the Beef Jerky Milk Chocolate Bar out. Pair it with the upcoming book Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. I think she'd probably want it that way.

Review: Josie Loves J. Valentine

This Is How We Do Christmas, a photo by meoskop on Flickr.

You may have noticed a lack of content in the last few weeks. A certain unseen person in our household gave himself a Blu Ray dvd writer for the holiday and has been updating all of our home movies. Since it takes about 24 hours to process each disc and he is a bit of a home movie fanatic - well, let's just say my access to the home network has been limited. I finally get to show you my favorite holiday gift. (No, not the guy. That's my brother. I got him for the holidays before the bicentennial. He is so out of warranty it's ridiculous.)

The guy is wearing (and quite well, I must say) the Monster Vest in black from the Josie Stevens Josie Loves J. Valentine collection. I love everything Josie designs, but I can't pull all of it off. (Ok, at various times in my life I could, but I'm a realist who lives in the now.)

I love her design sense so much it's probably a good thing there isn't a local retailer for me. I think I would try it all on, and once tried... likely buyed. (Um, should that be bought? Doesn't sound so snappy.) I adore this vest. It's crazy warm, it has teeth (teeth are underused in fashion) it's fun, it's faux fur and it's made in America. The inside is lined, the detailing is there, it's adorable. It's also a fascinating litmus test. Wearing it gets you the most fantastic reactions. My friends adore it, think it suits me perfectly, and love it. My acquaintances either ask if I'm kidding or (loved this one) say they didn't even notice I was wearing something new. Strangers are evenly split down the middle. I could save so much time screening new social contacts. Love my vest? I'll probably love you! Just to be fair, I'm going to include a photo of myself so you can see that once again, it's my brother that rocks the style in the family while I drag it along behind him. (It's not my best photo, but my cousin snapped it and so I have it ready to go.) I totally need more from this line. It could get addictive pretty easily. If I'd had this back in the day, I'm pretty sure I'd have worn it with a bikini and stiletto boots.

Spending Your Money: Yanni Cheese by Karoun

Brazilian Beach Cheese, a photo by meoskop on Flickr.

Technically, this is neither Brazilian Beach cheese nor Karoun's Yanni brand Grilling Cheese. The photo was taken at Lollapalooza so it is actually Brunkow Cheese out of Wisconsin. Brunkow isn't available near me but grilling cheese changed my life. Seriously. If you are thinking about giving someone a holiday basket with odd culinary delights, please get them some grilling cheese. It's easy to find the sheep's milk based Halloumi, but I find that too salty. The cow milk based Yanni (and Brunkow, if you're lucky) is amazing. This cheese cooks like a meat. Put your grill on medium, soak the cold cheese for a few minutes in your choice of spices (I like olive oil, red peppers and garlic) grill for a few minutes, die and go to Heaven. (It's ok, Heaven can totally wait. They will just kick you back when you finish chewing.) Be sure and tell your lucky recipient how to prepare it, because this would be a waste if sliced and put on crackers. Thank me later, I have to go grill some and get back to my book.

Tokidoki Is My Higher Power Now

Ok, that's not a book. (Technically, it's a book bag.) I'm backdating this a day so it won't (I hope) clutter your feed but my thoughts on the new Tokidoki Fall / Winter 2011 bags were too long for the message board I frequent. We'll be back to books and ways to read them right after this. I totally promise. You can trust me. While I have an absolutely absurd amount of Tokidoki items, how do often to I talk to you about them? (Define absurd? Um.. a skateboard deck, 4 hoodies, a couple dozen t-shirts, a couple dozen toys, 11 cosmetic pouches, 4 hairbrushes, 5 plush items, at least 35 handbags, 2 backpacks, 4 wallets... Hey! You're judging!! I don't feel safe discussing this with you. My bank account and I are leaving.) First up, this new Mini Crossbody bag. The size is roughly the same as the LSS Ciao. The two pockets on the front are versatile, most of my e-readers fit in the taller one. The main section has a zip compartment of it's own for stashing your wallet or stranger's hotel keys. (Or your hotel key and a stranger's wallet? Whatever works. Not my business.) On the opposite interior side there are two pouch pockets as well.

As you'll see, the lining is a lot like the current Sephora interiors. Interestingly, the company hasn't gone with the very popular nylon material used on the last two Passe Pouch sets. The bags are a polyester that gives off a slight shine. The material is soft, but I wonder about it's durability. There won't be any scrubbing of these bags with a Clorox Bleach Pen after you drop a slice of pizza on it. I can see these eventually showing wear in a way the other bags didn't. I could be completely wrong about that, it's the impression the material gives. I do like the feel. Colors really stand out on this print making it a bag that needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate. The cording on the sides has also changed. Instead of using the Pantera Print as older bags do, the new side cording is Pleather. I hate this choice. While it's visually neutral, I tend to damage pleather easily. Hopefully I won't snag or scratch it. The transition to plastic zippers I have mixed feelings about. They won't rust, they may even prove more durable, but I still prefer the Riri Rainbow. I do find the plastic zipper an improvement on the stiff metal silver zipper of the last few runs. Put the zipper down as a wash.

Tokidoki has decided to include a dust cover with each purse. Praise the biscuits and pass the butter. Made of a woven material familiar to anyone with inexpensive reusable shopping totes, the dust covers are sized to fit the bags perfectly. I wish I could order these in custom sizes for my past bags. Love This So Much. I think at MSRP $69 this bag is well priced for the quality changes they've made and a decent impulse buy for Tokidoki fans. I also ordered the Double Handle. (Love the naming of these bags. It's like, "This is my bag, Bob" instead of the naming in the past which was "Meet Alfonzo Romanatski! He's fancy!" I think I'm gonna call it Love, because Double Love Handle is often how I roll.) Love is about the same size as a Graziosa, just slightly larger than a Stellina, but with a much better capacity than either of the other two bags.

My new favorite bag size is the Double Handle. With one outer zipped pocket and three zippers across the top, this handbag is ridiculously easy to organize. The center section is the deepest and widest, offering what could be packing space for a gym trip or a sweater. One outer section has two pockets (like you would find in a Carino) and the other outer section has a zipper pocket. While the Double Handle looks small compared to a Graziosa, it easily fits my iPad in it's Zazzle case. I want a Double Handle in every print ever made. At MSRP $140 it's not quite the what the hell purchase of the Mini Crossbody, but it's great styling and perfect size makes it worth skipping a few months of Starbucks. (Wait - I don't drink coffee.) I could see using this bag as an everyday workhorse for a variety of situations. Absolute home run for me. Except I have to return it.

Click Here For A Fabric Close-Up

Sadly, my Double Handle has a crooked name plate. It would drive me crazy trying to straighten it, especially since it's riveted in place. Tokidoki responded to my email on this in about 4 minutes, promising to exchange it quickly and with the "exact same bag". I'd tell them I'm not that high maintenance but I am. I totally and completely am. (This is where you protest. You're not working with me at all today.) I really love the back of this handbag, the pattern placement was just about perfect. I'm just going to trust in Simone, Ivan and my new pal Kevin to bring Handbag Happiness to my life. Tokidoki is my higher power.

Let's close this out with a quick size comparison photo. It I didn't cover something you wanted to know about the bags, ask me here or in the forum of choice. I think Comics is a great print it would be a shame to miss. Favola went so quickly that I never got the Carino placement I wanted, but my unused Carino is paying for my Double Handle, so I can't be too bitter. (I know! It's like it's not even english!) On the adorability meter Comics is off the chart. It reminds me of Citta in it's long distance appearance while being an obvious use of the best of Sephora's Robbery print. I'm not crazy about the Royal Pride yet their use here is so clever I wouldn't want to do without them. Simone Legno's bags are at their best when he's playing around with his characters instead of randomly smacking them on a background. I like almost everything about this collection even as I wish it had a slightly higher price point so the zippers and trim were back to Riri and leather. On the other hand, at a higher price point it's probably a lower sell-through for the company. You give and the economy takes. More detail pictures (including interiors) are on my Flickr Account for those interested (and you know who you are).

The Mini Crossbody and Double Handle pictured for size comparison with a Citta Bocce and Eco Mondo Graziosa

Review: Carnivale by HBO

Ok, this wasn't in my book bag. 


The thing is, it's rare to find a work as detailed as Carnivale. The casting is so perfect, the myth so well assembled, that I am willing to forgive it being so celebratory of rape culture. On the surface, Carnivale seems anti-woman. As the show progresses, we come to understand that the women are central. (It doesn't resolve Babylon, one of the most haunting and disturbing hours ever filmed, but it mitigates a lot.) Carnivale is also very white world. All the major players are white, all the minor players are white. If you want a minority you can choose from whores or tribal dancers. (And did I mention rape?) Yet I still loved it.

The basic set up is that during America's Dustbowl the forces of good and evil came to a major clash. The pace is as slow as the times with sudden shocking bursts of momentum. Events shift in and out of focus, motivations and allegiances are rearranged with each revelation. What keeps Carnivale from collapsing under it's own ambition are the actors. This is a remarkable work. As a human character study Carnivale is perfection itself. Late in the series a character (Samson, played by one of my favorite actors, Michael J. Anthony) is challenged for hypocrisy. Why will he undertake an action for one person but not another when the stakes are unchanged? "He was my friend. You ain't." Exactly. In the land of Carnivale, in the human fight between good and evil, the personal is what matters. Personality dominates morality.

Carnivale is not without flaws. Aside from rape and race there are moments where characters should challenge each other but do not. As most of this occurs late in the second season, I suspect cancellation was upon them and the push to tie the series off was strong. While I had heard the ending was a sharp cliffhanger, I disagree. Obviously written while hoping for a renewal, Carnivale's ending is perfectly suited to the tale it tells. There are no full stops in the struggle of light versus dark, there can be no true resolution. The big wheel has to keep turning or the ride is over.

I think Carnivale is well worth the time. It's opening titles are unsurpassed, it's visuals are exceptionally well conceived and it's acting is largely perfection. There are exceptionally dark moments but rarely gratuitous ones. (Again, accepting it is super white and rapey.) I found that watching too many episodes in a row was bad for me. Like potato chips it was hard to stop cramming them down, but without a break I felt sick for days. Carnivale could easily be rebooted, the action moved forward a few years, the actors returned to their marks. It is a series you never forget with plenty to fire the imagination. Or you could hate it. That's the beauty of a Carnivale, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Review: Boozehound by Jason Wilson

Y'all may be aware that I'm southern. Not Southern, capital S which involves the misguided use of battle flags and excessively short denim cutoffs. (Oh hush. It was the 80's. What happened in the 80's stays in the 80's.) Being southern and having Southern family members, I grew up around a fair bit of drinking. For a time, I drank myself. Now the other half of my people (See? Only the southern talk like that.) are Yanks. Prohibitionist Yanks. Writers of famous screeds on the evils of devil rum and it's sister the demon of drink. (That stuff is hilarious, actually).

Therefore, the first thing to hit me on reading Boozehound was how lacking in shame it all was. This guy, this Jason Wilson, he just travels around trying drinks? Hasn't he been arrested for disorderly a lot? No? How does that work? And these people in these other countries - they have drinks together at dinner as a family? And this is a happy memory? It was a strange land indeed. I want to throw my arm around Boozehound's shoulder and scream in it's ear how much I love it. Half my beer is probably going to end up on Boozehound's jacket, but that's ok. We're likely at a Hold Steady concert and everyone is wearing some beer at the end of those nights. Boozehound is part memoir, part travel diary, part instruction manual and all love. Jason Wilson loves his booze, from the obscure to the common (but not so much the vodka) and all points in between. He wants you to love it too, to have the chance to sample the sort of things our forefathers sampled before our forefathers became Methodist ministers. He is to spirits what Alice Waters is to fresh food, an advocate and a lover. Maybe we'll call it the Slow Drink movement.

Wilson would like you to stop judging a drink by it's radioactive qualities (looking at you TGIF) and start thinking about how it tastes, what it reminds you of, how it enhances your life. He is not so interested in waking up smashed (although a few Lady Gaga tunes on the Karaoke are fine by him). Reading the history of some fine alcohols made me realize how little I knew about them and how what I drunk in high school hardly compares to what my grandfather sat down with after work. (My grandmother was partial to a creme de menthe.) From talking about booze's actual medicinal qualities (slight as they may be now) to the evolution of overpriced fruity vodkas, Wilson held my interest. I couldn't read Boozehound in one sitting, anymore than I could knock back a bottle of Boone's Farm these days. There is just too much content in Boozehound. It needs to be taken a chapter at a time as the mood strikes. I can't say I'm going to resume imbibing (I want to keep that S a lower case one) but I found myself wishing I knew a friend with a well stocked bar at the end of every chapter.

• Warning: contains recipes. May induce drinking in all readers. The surgeon general probably frowns on this. Not for use by those under age or trying to hold onto lower case status.

Review: Homemade Soda by Andrew Schloss

You know how some things once known cannot be unknown? That's how I feel about the ingredients for Cola and various Root Beers. Thinking about drinking Kitchen Bouquet Browning Liquid makes my rejection of commercial soda all the more sincere. I'm a changed woman. (Ok, on vacation I am totally going to relapse. Let's be honest.) Homemade Soda sometimes gave me that feeling you get watching an evening news report on food standards for your child's chicken nugget versus Fido's pet food.

Sure, it's called 7-Root Beer, but actual roots? Carrots and parsnips and licorice? I think I'll go back to Grapefruit Soda, it tastes like a Fresca without the artificial kick in the finish. Strawberry Pineapple Soda is ridiculously easy to make the syrup for. Homemade Soda has the right combination of accessible and outrageous. I like a cookbook that blends things I can make tonight with things I'll never make but tell myself I'll try next weekend, or maybe the one after but certainly by the end of the month...

Graphically, the book is beautiful. The font and layout has a strong early seventies feel which is an emotional heyday for me and soda. Schloss gives clear and careful instructions for a variety of methods, from a simple mix with seltzer to using a siphon or fermenting your own concoctions. I think this is the next foodie craze - can you imagine throwing a party where all the mixers or soft drinks were made in your own kitchen? Go ahead and cater the main course, everyone will still talk about your mad kitchen skills the next day. Especially if you mix up a batch of Blazing Inferno Chile water. Homemade Soda is comprehensive, fun and beautifully designed. I'm going to be using it as a gift book this year, as I continue my crusade against waste by urging everyone to give up commercially bottled beverages.

Blatant Yet Heartfelt Product Placement For SodaStream USA

Meet my friend, the Penguin. We got together a few months ago over an earnest conversation with my family about the role of Cola Addiction and High Fructose Corn Syrup in my life. You might call it an intervention, but I think I'll stick with earnest conversation. I freely admit that I am powerless over sugary fizzy drinks. I was one of those kids raised by parents who put discount grocery soda in my baby bottle. (It was cheaper than milk and I seemed to like it.) Soda and I, we go way back. Caffeine  was my close friend, aluminum cans littered my life like beer bottles after a frat party. I would talk to my kids about soda like other parents do about beer. "That's for grown-ups, honey. Get away from Mommy's stash." Just like kids everywhere, things for grown ups took on an impossible allure. Soda was the most desired item on the planet.

It was time to quit.

That lasted about three days. Maybe two if we're honest about it. I actually snuck out of the house to buy and drink a soda. Really, it was like that. I started to get defensive. What's wrong with a little sugar? A little carbonation? Who was I hurting? Pepsi Throwback didn't even use HFCS. Meanwhile, I was getting caffeine shakes and stockpiling cans against future shortages. My girlfriend Amy suggested I get a SodaStream because she lost like, a bajillion pounds cutting out commercial soda. Given that I'd rather skip food than soda (and ultimately deny myself neither) this had it's appeal. Instead of raising a generation of fat soda addicts, I could mix juice spritzers for the kids and sell it as soda. This was huge. Penguin and I hooked up.

SodaStream makes a line of flavors, but the organic ones were out of stock and the basic line was Splenda infested. (Hate Splenda. We had a bad night once.) Penguin and I came home to experiment. I discovered that a 1:5 ratio of orange juice to seltzer makes a pretty outstanding Orangina clone. I stuck to carbonated juices for about three weeks before my eye started to wander. Orangina is delicious and all, but what about a nice lemon lime? Perhaps a slightly sweeter taste.... I was off to the world of flavoring syrups. I woke up a few days later with a litter of Torani syrups around me and a new understanding of the Swedish affinity for Lingonberries. Suddenly I realized I was off the caffeine, my garage was ant free and I hadn't hauled the recycling bin out for over a month. That was a lot of consumer waste avoided by keeping a pitcher of cold water on hand for carbonating.

I still wasn't going to come here and let my addiction flag fly, this is a book blog. You're here for the reading. Two things happened. The first was an offer to review a Soda Cookbook. Seriously! A book on how to actually make soda from a pile of sugar and a dream? Count me in! The second was a school fundraiser. With donations down a call had been made to find desirable items for a silent auction. I am all about the kids having toilet paper and crayons, but our taxes don't pay for glue sticks, let alone fresh markers to sniff. With so many of the parents shopping at the Whole Foods or the Greenwise or the Gourmet Good For You markets, why did I find out about SodaStream from a friend in the (insert regional shudder) North? Obviously our market was underserved. (Do you know how much I've heard about Mona Vie and Acai berries? This isn't a market to keep fads to itself.)

Under the "all they can do is say no" theory I sent out tweets and emails. Nora Roberts stepped up. So did Alina B. Klein. The book community is a generous one. Before the hour was up I was feeling pretty good about the first round of solicitation when suddenly both my tweet and my email were answered. SodaStream would be happy to donate a Genesis unit with a dozen or so syrups for the kids to auction off. Not only was SodaStream my new best friend, they also believe in kids having tissues and construction paper and fresh pencils. As I expected, parents from the two schools were unfamiliar with and intrigued by the product. I bid pretty high myself (hey, I need one at my brother's house, don't I?) but I didn't win. I felt bad taking attention away from the truly amazing Angry Birds cake someone crafted, but an Angry Birds cake is for an evening - SodaStream is more of a long term relationship. I offered to review the product at Amazon and both my blogs, which SodaStream said wasn't necessary, but was awesome. Since I think the product and their donation policy is several shades of awesome, I'm breaking my book only policy to talk soda. Ask me anything soda related, I'll answer in crazy obsessive detail.

I hear this product works great with booze too, but I have kids. If I started drinking alcohol I'd never stop.