Spiked Milkshakes, making a come back.

The world we live in may be going to hell-in-a-hand-basket, our nation is poorly led and on the road to perpetual indebtedness, Islamo-Fascism still plagues our security paradigm, Paris Hilton is a coke-head, but it looks like gourmet spike milk shakes will help ease the collective journey down to Hades' realm. Celebrating the small stuff makes it all a tad more tolerable. According to this piece from the NY Times online,which is exploring this emergent adult milk shake trend,

"Where the original fusion boom of the 1980s had chefs ransacking Asia, now the place to find inspiration is over on the kids’ menu. Ice cream. Plus liquor. Together. In a big glass. Could there be a better emblem of the sort of juvenilia-with-a-wink that defines the current food aesthetic?"

"As anyone who has survived a frozen mudslide could tell you, the spiked shake is anything but a new idea. But it seems to be experiencing a sudden uptick in ubiquity, respectability and, here and there, craftsmanship."

Updated culinary nostalgia is a legitimate and acceptable escape hatch. While most chicks may eventually wear such indulgent drinks on their buttocks and thighs, getting occasionally loaded on a few old-school milkshakes  could be an incredibly liberating way to recapture reckless innocence of my early teenage years spent haunting Johnny Rocket's on Melrose and Ed Debevics on La Cienaga in the Los Angeles that defined my youth.  Indulgent ice-cream, whole milk, some egg yolks, and a nice smooth hit a bourbon sounds like a perfect concoction and meal-substitute.

The questions remains, will the mixologitsts are gourmands find a way to eventually include bacon in the mix? There rests the real challenge.

Nifty New Cooking/Foodie Blog "La Petite Bouche"

For all you epicureans out there, the blogosphere birthed a new blog late last month that is certainly worth your time. I highly recommend you all drop by La Petite Bouche. Sadly, this confirmed bachelor hasn't a speck of culinary talent beyond mixing a smooth, liver-eroding Old Fashioned, and grilling a decent pedestrian steak. Sometimes we have to live vicariously through the talents and gifts of others. The question begs, will La Petite Bouche cater my next party? Kudos on launching the blog and sharing your wonderful cooking gift with us all.

Expiration dates: What they really mean.

According to Slate, consumers should "Ignore Expiration Dates" on perishable food items. The werewolf is skeptical. Two events have scared scarred the werewolf. Accidentally taking a swig from a cartoon of rancid milk and consuming some yogurt on its sell by date which turned out to have gone south. The resulting stomach ache was none to pleasant. The emotional barrier to eating foods past their "sell by" dates is permanent for him. Having food with a shelf-life incentivizes using what you've purchased. He'll stick to those rules. However, some readers may find the knowledge in this article empowering. Enjoy.

Walmart vs. Whole Foods: Who rules the roost on locally grown fresh produce?

Corby Kummer (sounds likes a porn-star moniker, doesn't it?) over at The Atlantic, has penned a fascinating piece titled "The Great Grocery Smackdown." It is a thorough examination of a yuppie-liberal trying to procure fresh locally grown produce via two well established mega-chains, the iconic feel good Whole Foods, and the dreaded corporate titan Walmart. The piece makes for an interesting read because at prima fascia, everyone thinks the answer to this question is a no-brainer, right? Whole Foods dominates, hands down. Well, wrong. Based on the evidence provided by the author, the answer is actually colored by several shades of gray.  Walmart and Whole Foods each have distinct advantages and disadvantages in certain realms of local produce sourcing and quality. By virtue of that simple fact, this turns out as a rather massive victory for the Walmart brand.

The werewolf loves each enterprise for different reasons and holds them both in high esteem. Walmart has revolutionized the retail industry on so many levels that addressing it merits a post unto itself. It has lowered prices for consumers, leveraged its volume to influence CPG manufacturers to make more sustainable packaging and shipment operations that benefit most stakeholders, and become a staple of the American consumption psyche. Sure, it gets accused of cultural and product homogenization, squeezing out mom and pop shops, paying its employees what the market says they are worth, and being evil on account of its massive success. While, some criticism is warranted, most criticism is rooted in typical liberal economic bigotry and ignorance.

Whole Foods has captured the yuppie, bourgeois aspirations and demands for premium foods, exotic spices, diverse offerings that theoretically are all well sourced and organically produced where it counts. The werewolf thinks Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, is one of the finest honchos out there and has done marvelous things with his enterprise. There is an arrogance and entitlement to Whole Foods that it is somehow intrinsically "better" by virture of the aforementioned business value adds. It has earned the pejorative name "Whole Paycheck" in some circles, and whereas Walmart is every-man's store, Whole Foods still maintains a bit of an exclusionary cache to its brand. Plus, one could argue that Whole Foods aggressive acquisition growth strategy is more corporate than Walmarts organic growth approach turning the whole presumptive nature of which company is more in-touch with its base on its head.  Regardless, when times are good, the werewolf is a patron of Whole Foods. 

The moral of the story is that the fierce competition of the American marketplace is forcing American's best and biggest retailers to respond to the needs of consumers in innovative ways. Trends like this are a win-win for just about everybody. The added bonus of rattled rattling the cages of economically ignorant and elitist yuppies is a just a cherry-on-top.