Budweiser: Belgium for beer

July 14th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 6 Comments »

I’ve probably drunk less than half-a-case of Budweiser in my life. I know, I know that’s very un-American of me and very, very un-Midwestern American of me. But Budweiser has brought me great joy, all the same. (And NO, Annie did not fall for me after a night of heavy Bud drinking either.)

I’ve enjoyed Budweiser’s ads, especially the Real Men of Courage ads – brilliant.

And I always enjoy being in a foreign country and seeing Budweiser listed under the imports. Do foreigners actually pay more money to drink American beer than their local flavor, which probably tastes better (and less filling), anyhow? Why? Does it help them capture some of the rugged, do-it-yourself boot-strap-pullin’ up, raw Americanism?

Alas, those days are gone. Now Budweiser is a Belgium beer. Even though it will probably start tastin’ greater and be less filling, I’m sad to see Budweiser go the way of so many other victims of American inflation.

Budweiser…(grabs bottle of Becks)…this ones for you.

A Confession…

July 6th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 1 Comment »

THIS CONFESSION DELETED AT THE DEMAND OF MY WIFE.

Ever really thought about the banana?

June 26th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Dan Koeppel has. He wrote a book on the fruit titled Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.

Koeppel in the NY Times about bananas:

That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They’re grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they’re cut off the tree. Apples, in contrast, are typically grown within a few hundred miles of the store and keep for months in a basket out in the garage. Yet apples traditionally have cost at least twice as much per pound as bananas.

I’ll never look at ‘nanas the same.

Happy Cows More Expensive to Eat

May 27th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 5 Comments »

Annie and I rode our bikes to Scotty’s Brewhouse yesterday. Scotty has a build-your-own-burger option where you can select the type of cheese, condiments, bun, and meat. For $6.75 you can order the groundchuck. For $9.75 you can order meat from grass-fed, free range, happy cows described as such:

half pound grass-fed, $9.75
usa born and raised product. strict animal welfare and animal care protocols. never confined to a feedlot. rather, they are in a “free range environment.” produced without the use of feed grade antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones, or animal byproducts. have never been fed corn or other grain at any time in their lives. packaged at plants that have a documented record in animal welfare, food safety and sanitation. higher in omega 3, CLA, vitamin e and other antioxidants when compared with grain fed beef.

I find this to be an interesting ethical decision. Is it worth paying $3 or 144% more for a clearer conscience? If not for a cow, how about a Fair Trade, ethically produced T-shirt?

Mrs. Butterworth,

May 10th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 1 Comment »

A “still boobless” Mrs. Butterworth has sunk to the level of Geico commercials. Sad. One has to wonder, if she had boobs would she be doing this? We’ll never know.

Michael Pollan’s call to Action: “Plant a garden!”

May 6th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Author Michael Pollan (In defense of Food, The Omnivores Dilemma) recently wrote a call to action in the New York Times Magazine, including this little mid-paragraph nugget:

Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will.

Mainly, he’s talking about the environment, but his message can be applied universally. As I read, I found myself substituting “clothes” for “food”, and “what we wear” for “what we eat”.

Here’s a longer excerpt:

Whatever we can do as individuals to change the way we live at this suddenly very late date does seem utterly inadequate to the challenge. It’s hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: “Personal choices, no matter how virtuous [N.B.!], cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.” So it will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle — of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences.

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.

Bangladesh garment workers want wages to rise with soaring costs of food

April 23rd, 2008 | By Kelsey | 1 Comment »

15,000 workers go on strike. When you earn $25/month and rice is 25 cents a pound, something has gotta give.

Cheesy Press Release

April 16th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 4 Comments »

For some reason I started getting travel-related press releases by email and mail.

Yesterday I received a packet with a map encouraging me to take a road trip to visit “116 tasty points of interest across America’s Dairyland” – Wisconsin. The following sentence says it all:

“The possibilities for fun are endless, including information about specialty cheese shops and cheesemaking facilities, where you can meet many of the nation’s most awarded cheesemakers, tour their “workshops” and sample some of Wisconsin’s best products.”

Among the things that I include on my endless possibilities of fun list are NOT “information about specialty cheese shops” or “cheesemaking facilities” or “cheesemakers.”

Even though I will never visit one of Wisconsin’s 116 tasty points of interest, I would like to encourage the Milk Marketing board to continue to send me their PR’s because I really do appreciate their effort. Plus I learned a fun fact: there is a Colby Wis. Who knew?

Pepto Bismol is calling

March 19th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 4 Comments »

Literally.

I got a call from Pepto Bismol yesterday.

Apparently, I’m on some travel writing marketing list. I get a couple of press releases a day and a couple of phone calls a month about new products, books, and events.

Anyhow, Pepto is synergyzing with the Travel Channel, specifically the show Bizarre Foods with host Andrew Zimmern. The nice Pepto lady asked me if I read the press release, which I hadn’t. So she resent it. The release includes travel tips from Andrew, half of which involve Pepto. I’ve pasted it below the cut.

I’ve never used Pepto once at home or while traveling. This is for two reasons:

1. Their commercials freak me out. I don’t want my stomach slowly coated with pink paste.

2. I don’t eat like an oinker and therefore don’t require stomach meds. I’m either a-okay or experiencing the subject of the previous post.

If you could be sponsored by a drug what would it be? Me, I would be sponsored by Coppertone Sport SPF 30. I have albino tendencies and can hardly leave the house without it.

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The fortune cookie says: The one who is truely wise won’t spend 6 years thinking about his cookie

January 17th, 2008 | By Kelsey | 6 Comments »

The New York Times has an interesting article on the origin of the fortune cookie, but I just couldn’t get over this…

Ms. Nakamachi, a folklore and history graduate student at Kanagawa University outside Tokyo, has spent more than six years trying to establish the Japanese origin of the fortune cookie…

6 years!? Researching the fortune cookie!? Is the world a better place? Does anyone really care about the fortune cookie – that much? I’m really not sure if I can think of a less worthwhile topic to research for 6 years. One month – maybe. A year – that’s pushing it. 6 years – no way.

Get your online fortune cookie (more fortune, less cookie) HERE. Share ‘em if you like. Mine says…

“It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as warning to others.”