It’s been a hectic few days over here in Canberra-town. It’s getting close to move-in day for Smurf Kitchen, so there’s been much lugging of books, kitchen equipment, shelves, and miscellaneous bits and pieces up many, many flights of stairs. (Elevators are for the weak. As are dishwashers. And beds. Okay, maybe my lack of a bed is more to do with Freedom taking their sweet time to deliver it than some courageous and awe-inspiring lifestyle choice of mine, but still. Let me find at least some light at the end of my mattress-on-the-floor-for-several-weeks tunnel.)
Fantastic sashimi platter at a restaurant in Seattle. Yes, this has no relevance to the story at hand, but see below for the explanation.
There’s been appliance-buying, driving parents to the airport, a distinct lack of sleep (dear 3am, why do you constantly want me to be awake for you? You ain’t that special) and then, out of the blue, the discovery that my university is offering a mid-year PhD scholarship that my Honours supervisor wanted to put me up for. The tricky part came when we discovered that the university was giving us less than 48 hours to get the application, proposal, and multiple referee reports together and submitted.
Fun times indeed. (My Honours supervisor is, for the record, somewhat like superman in how quickly he put everything in motion.)
All this is to say that I haven’t had a spare moment in which to write a chocolate review, so I thought I’d showcase a few more hilarious/interesting/delicious/horrific – depending on your viewpoint – eats and sights from my 2007-8 exchange year in the U.S. Clearly, the photos have already begun, but enjoy!
Holy bucket, when I was young I read books like The Silver Brumby, Little House on the Prairie, and occasionally something trashier like The Babysitters’ Club. This is the “range” of novels aimed at female teenagers today? These all look exactly the same as each other. And as nauseating as each other. I feel sad inside.
Okay, now I’m just laughing inside. Leaf-covered bikini? Frustrated grunt? Pretty Committee? Right boob? Stomping of feet? Surely no one could take this seriously... right?
Party on a stick? More like Party In My Mouth. (Except I didn’t eat this, because I don’t like the combination of chocolate and fresh fruit. Still, a girl can dream of world where she does like such flavours and therefore did eat this monstrosity.)
Not a match made in heaven. A match made in HEAVEN. Are we clear?
Baja Ensalada with Chicken from Baja Fresh in Berkeley. Mmm, tortilla strips and pico de gallo...
I fully expect there to be a Ben & Jerry’s photo in every retrospective post I do about my exchange year. Just warning you. This was Strawberry Cheesecake: Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream with Strawberries and a Thick Graham Cracker Swirl. Probably my least favourite flavour. It was ooky.
is that really a carmel apple? Ha, I thought it was a muffin! I WANT IT!
Kettle Chips – sour cream and chive. BEST chips ever!
Ooh ooh ooh so you have applied for a PhD????? Woot woot!
I hope you stop waking at 3am soon. I’ve been waking at 4am for some reason. It makes me grunt frustratedly. Luckily it doesn’t make me wiggle-whine like I’m holding in pee (wtf?).
$13.75 for a frickin apple?! Oh, my dear, you really must come to the Midwest. That thing would be all of $5-6, tops, around these parts.
The passage from that book might give me nightmares.
I love the B&J Strawberry cheesecake-I love how they have the biscuit crumbage in it! And I’ve had one of those monster apples (not from that brand) and they’re not bad. Does that mean that you are resistant to tehe David Jones fruit dipped in chocolate? The strawberries and figs are my downfall!
good luck with the phd app – at least you sound like you have a fantastic supervisor and good luck with the move – sounds like lots of change
and I did read a few of those novels in my teens but never as booby as that – these look terrible – they would be far better used for roof insulation than polluting the minds of American girls
Was that the Paris Hilton book? Yeesh!
You do know, you must share your thesis topic. And I STILL have to read your undergraduate thesis …
I can find Kettle chips here in Greece… not with cheddar/beer though… plain tastes… salt or pepper. The caramel apple was a little big or not??
Simply Life: Oooh, a white chocolate and peanut butter muffins… now *that* I could go for!
Stacy: I remember loving the Jalapeno flavour – we don’t get jalapeno flavoured snacks in Australia! I wish the Death Valley Chipotle flavour had been available when I was in the US…
Conor: I was feeling very woot woot as I thought I had everything sorted in my head, but now another possible topic has been thrown at me and I’m terribly confused. I might just have to wiggle-whine, albeit without the pee component (I was hoping someone would notice that sentence
)
Amber: Sweet dreams til sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you…
I can think of a better reason than cheap caramel apple to visit the Midwest, by the by! 
Lorraine: The graham swirl was the part I did like – but I’m just not a fan of fake strawberry flavour. Yep, chocolate-dipped fruit is not at all enticing to me. At least there’s one chocolate-treat out there that doesn’t affect my bank account
Johanna: Absolutely. Replace asbestos with this kind of poison and the world would be a far, far better place
I mean, I did read the odd Sweet Valley book, but I remember the naughtiest part of those books was bra-snapping, not 15 year olds trying to seduce each other. Ugh. P.S. Thanks for the well wishes – I’m feeling a bit mixed up about the PhD thing again!
Lauren: No, not Paris Hilton… I didn’t even realise she’d written a book. Horror. A week ago I would have very excitedly shared my topic, but it’s all up in the air again, and I might end up doing something I’ve never considered before. Confusion! My undergraduate thesis? Hmm, if you really want I could probably send it as a PDF?!
Eleni: The caramel apple was huge! In Australia we don’t have Cheddar Beer either, though we do have some interesting flavours. My favourite would probably be the chili one
Dune Baxter, in nothing but board shorts and body oil? HAHAHA!
Good luck with the move – the waiting is the worst!
That book made me laugh! There are so many great quotes in it: “Massie wiggle-whined like she was holding in a pee”. Hahaha.
Hey! Woah!! I just looked at the photo of the caramel apple again. Is that seriously just a large toffee apple with stuff on it? FOR $13.75??? For an apple with stuff on it?!? For that price, it better jump in my mouth and make me chew.
Hungryandfrozen: That’s how I like my men. Be still my beating heart
Four more sleeps until I’m fully installed in Smurf Kitchen!
Agnes: I now feel that book’s existence has been somewhat validated by the smirking enjoyment it’s given us here. Though I don’t know if that’s a good thing…
To be fair, the apple was the size of a baby’s head. Which leads us to the existential question – what price is a baby’s head worth?
Ah, Kettle Chips. I remember when they only came in plain flavor. (I think the flavors are a definite improvement.) Oh, how I miss Baja Fresh/cheap, quick Mexican food. If/when Chipotle ever opens in Paris, you will be able to find me there bimonthly, at least. That book is awesome in its terribleness. Do Claire and Cam end up together? Does whatsername manage to find a bathroom. What is that rubber snake symbolic of, anyway? So many unanswered questions!
Well before we can determine the price of a baby’s head, we need to clarify whether the baby’s body is attached or not. :p
Camille: That’s something Australia and France has in common then – a complete dearth of quality Mexican food! Would you believe I never ate a Chipotle though, despite there being one in Charlottesville? No one told me it was actually a good option. I thought it was like Taco Bell.
P.S. Please don’t make me track that book down and tell you the ending. I think I’d end up beating my head against the wall.
Agnes: Hmm… what do you think, does the attached body raise or lower the price?
Well that also depends on whether the baby already belongs to you or not.
For me, it would lower the price! Hahaha.
On second thoughts – let’s buy the $13.75 apple! Total bargain! It’s all relative, isn’t it?
Agnes: BFF high five! At this point in my life, I agree. Until someone creates a self-cleaning nappy, I’ll stick with the head.
You know what would be a better idea, though? Buying an apple and dipping it in white chocolate and peanut butter ourselves. INGENIOUS.
Ahh, that’s why you’re the St Ends – you’re the ideas person! We could start a business selling apples with stuff on it and baby heads!
Agnes: Mmm, toffeed peanut butter baby heads…
Oh lord, you have no idea how much I love posts like this with crazy awesome or crazy horrific foods from overseas. I went to a conference in March in Toronto, then extended my trip to New York and Montreal (well I had to go to Montreal for a workshop), and my photo album is basically 80% photos of foods that either delighted or appalled me. The most appalling was the photo I took of an ad for the KFC Double-Down in New York. It looked terrifying enough in the ad that I would never want to see a REAL one…
Jess: I firmly believe that exploring grocery stores and the like overseas is not only highly entertaining, but one of the best ways to get an insight into other cultures. Isn’t the Double Down horrifically hilarious? Such the epitome of terrible American foodstuffs
(And yes, I realise that that sentence would make grammar sticklers cry.)
Any chance you’ll be sharing such photos on your blog? I’d be there with bells on
All my very food-centric travel photos from my most recent trip are uploaded here if you want to take a look: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/jjm.barnes
The good, the bad and the ugly! I thought I got a photo of the clam juice I saw in Toronto (it was perfectly transparent like water and freaked me out just by looking so innocuous) but apparently I didn’t upload it… that was one of my favourites. As in, least favourites. I went over to Toronto with some colleagues from my lab for a conference and one of them gave me a cup of clamato juice (yep, clam + tomato) on the plane without telling me what it was. Disturbing. Then a couple of us went on an expedition to find clam juice in Toronto and found it just in the local convenience store down the road from out hotel. We didn’t buy it though because we’d never have anything to do with it except stare at it in horror.
However, just last week, one of my PhD supervisors challenged me to make my own special version of clamato juice, and I did… and because I succeeded at the challenge, he had to drink the clamato juice. Oh man that was amusing, although possibly traumatising for him. I’ll post my various bizarre juices soon – I’ve made a few using some weird filtration processes, but I need at least one more interesting example before it’s worthy of a blog post!
Jess: Clamato juice? Clamato?! Oh dear holy cloud on a stick, that is bizarre. Do people actually drink that as a beverage? That’s like bottling the liquid the oozes from oysters when you shuck them and selling it alongside lemonade. Ooky. (And now I’m off the gleefully peruse your photos.)
Clamato is an essential ingredient in the Bloody Caesar cocktail. It is also used as a shortcut when making cioppino (shhh….)
Clam juice should probably only be used for cooking things like clam chowder or as a rplacement for fish stock (again, shhhh….)
Camille: Okay. I’m going to accept its existence now. You got me with cioppino