dreyer's slow churned, more flavors

First, the disclaimers & acknowledgements: hoo-ha to Dreyer’s for trying to go lower-fat w/ its slow-churned light ice cream, w/ 5 more flavors being added to the 30+ list: almond praline, cherry choc chip, double fudge brownie, PB cup, & raspberry chip royale. And it's not the WORST sweet item out there. But I’m sorry: this slow churned crap is god-awful. It’s touted as a miraculous process that creates a creamy texture; but there’s something weird about it. Something fake. Worse, it provokes an unpleasant reaction, GI-wise. Seriously, there’s something funky going on. Unfortunately, there’s so little innovation in ice cream right now that everyone’s copying it and idiots such as the WaPo are crediting it w/ reviving ice cream’s sinking sales w/out acknowledging that sales were sinking becuz everyone’s too scared shitless to intro truly new flavors (cuz "cherry choc chip", "double fudge brownie" etc ain’t really NEW).

Starbucks tea frappuccinos

this prob won't be the Best Blog Item Ever Written, but at least it'll be a blog item posted (rather than the desert this place has been ... very bizzy lately), and it is, of course, about starbucks: namely, new Pomegranate and Tangerine Frappuccinos made w/ fruit juice & Tazo tea. officially, frappuccinos should be coffee-based; if it's fruit, call it a $#!& smoothie. but they can't call it a smoothie cuz smoothie implies a certain degree of healthfulness i.e. fruit etc, and these are really just juice & ice. which makes them no less welcome - fruit-ish is an ok alternative to the usual coffee/dairy, and anything thick & icy is good. and lookit sbux, jumping on the pom wagon. really they could call it a slurpee but that name's already taken. (sbux vets might recall that they kinda had these last yr in mango & citrus flavors.) meanwhile, also new at sbux: Iced Cafe con Leche, made w/ coffee, syrup & whole milk


Hey, sorry to bog this item down w/ activist stuff but TODAY the Senate Commerce Committee is debating Net neutrality. If you're not up on it, here's a good summary. Make a quick call to these slacker senators and ask them to support Internet freedom via the Snowe-Dorgan Amendment:

Chairman Ted Stevens (Alaska): 202-224-3004
AZ Sen John McCain 202-224-2235. AR Sen Mark Pryor 202-224-2353. FL Sen Bill Nelson 202-224-5274. NJ Sen Frank Lautenberg 202 224 3224. LA Sen David Vitter 202 224-4623. MS Sen Trent Lott 202-224-6253. MT Sen Conrad Burns 202-224-2644. NE Sen. Ben Nelson 202-224-6551. NV Sen John Ensign 202-224-6244. NH Sen John Sununu 202-224-2841. OR Sen Gordon Smith 202-224-3753. SC Sen Jim DeMint 202 224-6121. TX Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison 202-224-5922. VA Sen George Allen 202-224-4024. WV Sen John Rockefeller 202-224-6472.

root beer float ice cream

thanks to the pack mentality of the big ice cream makers, today is a 2-in-1: 1. A&W Root Beer Float ice cream from Breyers: vanilla ice cream w/ RB sherbet. 2. Dreyers Root Beer Float ice cream: vanilla + RB ice cream (as opposed to sherbet) (and a ltd-ed, btw). OK so here's the obligatory JITB nod: last summer JITB had a RB float. More precedents: If you’ve visited the folks in Fla, you’ve seen RB float ice cream by smkt chain Publix. Smkt-brand ice cream seems 2 B the last bastion of innovation. To wit: Dreyers’ other summer-’06 flavors are both candy-themed (nestles crunch & butterfinger), done forever already by smkt brands.

Bits 'n' Pieces shakes

More idea-borrowing from JITB (altho this time the JITB idea isn't worth borrowing): Steak n Shake’s Bits ‘n’ Pieces milk shakes, wherein PB cups, cookie dough, M&Ms, and cookies & cream are blended into the shake. Steak n Shake is a decent chain which sells steaky burgers and makes the ultimate customer-service sacrifice by staying open 24 hrs. Its shakes, made w/ real ice cream, are already perfect. So why gum things up w/ a buncha straw-clogging crap? And get this: a "regular" 20-oz shake has 964 cals, 34 g fat, & 149 carbs which is 50% of your daily allotment

coke: run by graduates of clown school

coke's trying to figure out how to salvage the fortunes of Blak. A survey found that 1/3 of consumers who got sucked into trying it found its $7/8-for-a-4-pack price was "too expensive". duh ya mean no one wants to pay $2 for a mini bottle of coke whose only added component is the flavor of bitter coffee dregs, like that which one would ordinarily leave at the bottom of a coffeepot becuz it is too undrinkable on its own? the survey showed "initial response" to be "similar to trends seen for Coke Zero." so that would be like an arrow that points directly down

roundup

sumfin different today, hope the links work:

* Mcdonald’s just figured out that people are drinking bevs other than Coke, and is testing alternatives from coke’s competitors in some Texas outlets. (But don’t worry, they say; maybe if people come in to buy an iced tea, they’ll get a coke too!)
* Houlihan’s is coming back to Dallas, sez the Dallas Biz Journal. (Unfortunately, the CEO says the following: "it’s not your father’s Houlihan’s". a certain pompous, old-coot writer at the dallas morning snews uses that "it’s not your father’s blah-blah" cliche all-the-time. it's the ultimate in hackery. But I digress.) W/ this big "comeback" (snicker) Houlihan's will tout a "foodie-oriented menu": goat chz bruschetta, pan-seared tilapia, and mustard-encrusted salmon. whooHOO. & instedda golden oldies, the music'll be "indie sounds". (Not making this up) the D branch will be across from northpark.
* Whole Foods is trying to figure out humane ways to sell live lobster. by giving them little "condos". if that doesn’t work, they may stop selling them altogether. If you don't really give a shit about how horridly most supermarket chicken-pork-beef has been treated, then maybe you’ll respond to this: humane processing makes the food taste better.
* 1 cup of coffee a day cut the risk of cirrhosis by 20%, sez a study of more than 125K people. Four cups /day cut it by 80 %.

Tootsie Roll Mini Chews

One benefit of blogger being a huge big fat pita lately: posting has been so impossible that it made time for a tasting on these new Tootsie Roll Mini Chews – choc-covered mini tootsie rolls. In a word: awesome (tho they may not be for everyone; a fellow taster found them to be too small). these nullify all of the liabilities of regular tootsie rolls (even the midgees), namely that they are 1. too big 2. too chewy 3. not chocolaty enough. The minis have a smaller chewy ctr so you don’t lose yr fillings, and the coating makes em chocolaty-er. (I say this fully recognizing that they are also pretty damn sweet, but the ingredient list includes condensed skim milk, so that makes em healthy, right?) This 4.5-oz box has approx 30 pieces, and 3 servings, 10 pieces per, 170 cals, 7 g fat, 27 carbs.

JITB vanilla malted crunch shake

Lemme tell ya it's been tough times uncovering viable news-you-can-eat. (and not just cuz blogger has been a HUGE pain in the ass. too many new blogs, man) Oh there’ve been new prods. New prods that deserve a blog item. But tragically, none has been available at NYCE HQ. Thus no blog item re the new Dunkin Donuts smoothies (sold only in east & mid-atlantic). No blog item re starbucks’ breakfast samwiches (only in chic & seattle). No blog item re Pepsi Gold (only in india). But Jack in the Box comes to the rescue with its vanilla malted crunch shake. It’s part of JITB’s annual retro-deal (patty-melts-etc) and is really just a vanilla version of the extant choc malted crunch shake. But underestimate-not its greatness, which derives from two sources: 1. MALT. The all-time best flavor ever. 2. seems like it'll have a better balance than the choc which truthfully is a bit much.

UPDATE: Piece-of-shit alert (and no this is not about blogger, altho it should be) - have sampled this shake and THERE IS NO MALT. repeat, THERE IS NO MALT. it's a frigging vanilla shake. F JITB

Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream

Marc, the Indian scout of NYCE, suggested LaLoo’s goat’s milk ice cream as a blog item wks ago but it got (unfairly) dismissed as some kinda west coast boutique thing, cuz what’s the point of spotlighting a product most people can’t get? But then WF picked it up; CM, too. So now it’s still a boutique item but one-you-can-get-in-more-stores. "boutique item" in this case = $$$$, or more specifically $7.99 for a frigging pint. The rationale for this steep price izzat it takes 10 goats to produce the same amt of milk as a single cow. Goat’s milk iz said 2 B digestible for lactose-intolerant people so that’s a built-in mkt, altho the flavor of this stuff definitely has more of a tang than regular i.c. They have some interesting flavors: choc cabernet, pumpkin, cheesecake, molasses tipsycake, & mission fig which has nice little bits of seed