Wine Review: 2014 Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

We are drunks so we opened another bottle of wine tonight. The first of many, I'm sure. This one was purchased from Club W, which is actually pretty fun if you think $13 per bottle of wine is a cool thing. Depends on the wine, right? I'm not swimming in $13 bills, you know? And if I were, I might have some serious issues with the Treasury Department and/or a severe learning disability.

Tonight's bottle is the ignominiously-named "2014 Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy," made by what I'm sure are very nice Hobbits in New Zealand. Of the three bottles we got from Club W, we chose this one first because, well... I think it was the easiest to reach. Our wine rack is up kind of high, and we are also Hobbits.

Here is Crystal's video review:

In which she discusses the actual flavors present in the wine. You know, like in a review.

Here, by contrast, is Ryan's review, which for some reason involves dicks:

Because of course it does. 

Overall, three out of five lemons. Or dicks. Whichever. 

MILK MILK LEMONADE ROUND THE CORNER FUDGE IS MADE

Wine Review: Husch 2013 Chenin Blanc

I know pretty much nothing about wine, and nothing about making videos. So I drunkenly decided (after months of joking about it) to combine the two. Witness my failure. Witness my embarrassment. Witness my having a good fucking time and getting drunk on shit I like.

Let's keep it simple, shall we?

Our first featured wine is Husch 2013 Chenin Blanc from Mendocino, CA. We picked it up on vacation and found ourselves too drunk to consume it while on vacation so it came home with us. 

Tonight, after a drink - I mean - dinner at Revolution Wine, we came home with a hankering for more wine. Wine. So we shoved this in the freezer for twenty minutes and then poured it into plastic Joe's Crab Shack cups because - and never forget - we are white trash. 

Here's my uneducated stupid fucking opinion.

Ryan didn't have much of an opinon because I think he was less drunk than I was.

Stay tuned for the next episode of us wasting decent wine on our hideous fucking faces.

Shitty Food in Review: TJ's Shells with Brie and Asparagus

I will never understand why Ryan allows me to go to the store hungry, but to his credit, I'm pretty much always hungry. Especially after something that burns a lot of calories like driving, playing Words With Friends, or blowing raspberries on my dog's belly. Long story short, we went to Trader Joe's, I was hungry, and I ended up going down the frozen food aisle (ahem, FROZEN FOOD WONDERLAND OF LET'S EAT ALL THIS STUFF) and buying this. Actually, that is the long version of the story.

 

 

It is made my "Trader Jacques," who I can only assume by the name is some kind of up-and-coming French chef. Plus is has brie in it and shows the dish being served in a bowl with a handle, so it's basically like dropping $100 a plate on a nice dinner out. Pop some Two-Buck - excuse me - Two-Dollar-And-Fifty-Cents-Chuck (hm, doesn't have quite the same ring to it anymore) and you've got a romantical evening of romance (or a lunch at your desk job that might make your day 2% less shitty). Plus, the box boasts that it is "sinfully rich and worth every bite" so by eating this I get to throw some shit in the face of Christians for all that sinful stuff I love AND people who think money is better currency than bites - HAHA! SUCK IT!

 

Side note: why THE FUCK can't I drink wine at work?

 

Preparation was simple. The situation is - crack a corner open, nuke for three and a half minutes, loiter in front of the microwave and pretend that the microwaves are aborting whatever possible hideous fetus may have defied my birth control, and then open the lid and stir. Now that's what I call cooking. When I opened the lid though, I was actually a little taken aback...

 

This motherfucker has an actual good-sized slice of brie in it! I was not aware that you could 1) freeze brie, 2) microwave brie, or 3) stir brie into pasta. When I read "brie" on the box, I assumed it was some lump on processed cheese-shit. Brie has long been the stinky cheese that I linger around at parties, scooping awkward globs onto crackers. Apparently brie can exist in many forms and is as versatile and useful to the human body as water. 

 

Staring down into the cardboard box of dreams, I was momentarily transported to some awesome fantasy-reality where I have made $10,000 because I patented cheese-infused water. I would rehydrate on gouda-water and ride my unicorn through the streets to a fountain whose center is just a giant piece of swiss cheese with water squirting out of it. The crowds would sing songs in my honor and shower me with handfuls of feta and flaked parmesan. It would be so beautiful.

 

This is sad for a lot of reasons, least of which is the fact that I consider $10,000 a fortune beyond any I will ever possess. Did I mention I like cheese? Cheese.

 

Returning to reality, I managed not to end my life right then out of disappointment and instead stirred the cheese, asparagus, and shells around as instructed. This created an actually not terrible looking dish, which I of course added a bunch of black pepper to because it keeps the demons away. It smelled good and the texture wasn't so goopy that it was fighting for control of the fork. So far, so good.

This is easily one of the better frozen meals I've had. It was the perfect amount of food, the taste was good, and the only hiccup I ran into was one or two pieces of asparagus that were too chewy and should have been hacked off and disposed off. I was able to deal with this because by then I was thinking of this frozen meal as a neat group of friends I got to hang out with (and eat), and in any group of friends there are a few that should be hacked up and disposed of.

Preparation: Super simple if you can handle stirring up brie.

Cost: I think this was like $3, which is kind of high for frozen food but not bad if you like eating something that is slightly above the normal frozen dog shit you usually find.

Taste and Quality: Not bad. Would buy again.

Healthiness: Fuck you, okay?

Overall Rating: 5/5 Unicorns with Asparagus for Horns and Frozen Brie for Hair

Bad Food Review: Some Kind of Udon, I Don't Fucking Know

So a long time ago, I used to think Udon was like a fancier version of Ramen, but then, a long time ago, I believed lots of stupid bullshit. This was before the proliferation of upscale Ramen places in the city I live in, which for all its progress has historically been about as cosmopolitan as the menu of a Claim Jumper.

Until then, Udon was a neat soup you got at Japanese places with big fat noodles, and Ramen was the stringy bricks of carbohydrates pooped out by questionable factories directly into the mouths of People Who Just Need Food Right Now. That their respective noodles are of different size and consistency seemed to me more a matter of pragmatism than of a true culinary divergence. Spaghettios are probably round because that shape is easier to force through whatever mechanical anus creates them, right? Stick with me, here. I said I was wrong.

Also, Ramen came in flavors like Beef, Pork, and the enigmatically simplistic "Oriental," whereas Udon broth had Japanese names like Tonkotsu and Shoyu. Turns out you can put anything in these, but again, I was wrong. How many times? Jesus.

This was also before the much more enjoyable spread of Asian/World food superstores through the greater metropolitan area, which has afforded me access to ingredients to interesting recipes I could never have attempted before. This has also exposed me to about a hundred new brands and flavors of Ramen. And, to my now relatively marginal shock, the same abundance of shitty, packaged Udon.

This is one of them. It is FLAVOR: BEEF, like many of it's dried-noodle counterparts. And since this specimen is indicative of its kind, I'm going to review this based on how it compares to the Ramen of my youth. And adulthood. The shitty kind, I mean.

"Serving Suggestion" translates to "If I wanted to cook I would've fucking cooked" in every language.

The brand name is "Myojo," which I've never heard of, but that's hardly surprising considering my native culture and language affiliations. I looked up the word, and all I found out was that a shocking number of people post comprehensive reviews of instant noodle soup (shout-out to my favorite, http://www.theramenrater.com/), and that from 1900-1908, Myojo was a Japanese literary journal published between 1900-1908. If this brand name is a tribute to that publication, then that fact was lost in translation.

Anyway, here is the back, with the standard abbreviated English directions and dubious description of origin.

Notice the calorie information is under the package flap. THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU.

I ripped the thing open kind of clumsily, so I still don't know how many calories this thing has.

Inside it looks like Ramen. There's a single flavoring packet, as opposed to some of the more interesting varieties of instant noodles.

Braaaaaaaains

The nice there here is that instant Udon is generally refrigerated, so the noodles are "fresh" instead of a dried, matted-pube mess like instant Ramen noodles, which are often also flash-fried in lard. Vegans, take note. Then Shut up, already. Damn. We get it. Fresher noodles seem so much more appetizing.

'Seem' being the operative word.

They're entombed in a shrink-wrapped plastic bag that you have to open with actual scissors, though, so that's kind of annoying. No, really. If I have to use more to prepare this foodthing than the utensil with which I plan on shoveling it into my mouth, then I'm basically cooking, And if that were the case, I would put more effort into it than this.

This should be enough. The scissors are slightly out-of-frame, out in cootieville, like they should be.

Anyway, following the directions, which called for a suspiciously small amount of water, I grabbed my trusty Ramen-sized pot and got to work. Turn the stove to MAKEWATERGOHOT, wait for bubbling to ensue, and then drop my noodle brick in there. Aw. Well, shit.

Of course, this is my fault.

The brick loosens up nicely, unlike its Rameny cousins, and actually starts to look like food.

Protip: Metal chopsticks are great at conducting heat right into your fingers.

Somehow at this point, though, too much water had evaporated, or been absorbed, or both, and by the time I was supposed to add the mystical flavor dust, I was left with less a soup and more a pile of hot noodles.

Behold: ESSENCE OF BEEF! Oh wait, no, that's something else.

So, much like standard, twenty-five cent bricks of regret, you have to adjust the directions a little bit according to preference and practicality. No one I know who's had Ramen more than a few times ever follows the directions precisely. Some people like it a little crunchy, others rendered into a paste-like pile of goo; I've seen Ramen enhanced by Sriracha, blasphemed by ketchup, and once even thoroughly misunderstood by the addition of cheddar cheese. So a little modification is fine.

Not that this is good, or anything.

Far from being different animals all together, Ramen and Udon are both traditional noodle soups from Japan, usually accompanied by all manner of vegetables, meats, garnishes and condiments. The instant versions of either one, it would seem, are essentially the same. I like the big floppy Udon noodles better, but for under a dollar, you pretty much get what you pay for.