Funny Key Words

You can find Greg's Gourmet across the Internetz using a variety of search terms.  Here are some of the funniest and randomestestestestest that have found their way to my page:

dick mints
disgusting things
disgusting things to eat
extremely fat wife
gummy shark 7 ft
old fat horny grandma
sdsu uncensored
caesar is so awesome
ceo of dominos is a douche
dominos ceo commercial seems like a jerk
i cant stand patrick doyle
i hate patrick Doyle pizza
ice cream dick
mcbites cannibalism
romantic things to do for guys
strawberries all over face
fat guy in thong
fast food mafia
fat guy in thong at beach
fat ppl ru
i hate that "get your own" cheerios commercial

Not sure how the fat guys and thongs and dick mints are finding their way here, but whatever.

One of my first posts proposed the question of What's the Difference Between Red Vines and Cherry Vines with the most logical answer that the Red Vines are simply flavored as...original.  Or strawberry.  But there's another "Vine" out there making the rounds: Grape Vines!

I first had these last year but didn't think to photograph them.  They're actually really good.  A notable addition to the Vine Family. 

And here's a giant Hershey's Kiss:

Oh, and because it's just so good:

I LOVE these 5 dollar meal deals from Albertsons.  At my wedding these will be all that'll we'll serve.  Oddly enough, I didn't get a stomach ache this time around.  Maybe my body is adjusting to the greasy sodium and gallons of fat juice.

Thanks for reading!

Introducing Gourmet Games!

Okay, so, I've been a bit behind in the Gourmet with work, school, and getting my writing ready for competition...BUT, I've got a fun new thing to share today that may or may not become a reoccurring feature on the site: GOURMET GAMES!

Below is a matching/memory game that I coded in Flash from ActionScript 3.0.  Note: may not work on phones.  I'm still not sure how the Flash and mobile technology work exactly.  Oh yeah, I'm also aware that the site comes out kind of funky on the iPhone, and I'm working on a fix.  Anyway, for your pleasure, Greg's Gourmet: The Matching Game!

Note: if either of the embedded Flash files give you the message "missing plug-in", try installing the latest version of Flash Player.  It's free!

Originally I had included a music player but it made the file too big and in turn took too long to load, so instead I'm embedding it separately in the event that you'd like to listen to some soothing music over the burping and belching:

*Sound provided by freesound.org.  Music and license purchased from footagefirm.com

I really enjoy Flash and the scripting language, especially when I get it to do what I want.  Flash is an incredibly powerful program that you can do pretty much anything with; websites, games, programs, chat applets, animation, music player, drawing - you name it.  It can also be tedious because A) your code has to be 100% correct and B) sometimes your project may not work the way you want because of something rudimentary.  For example, the score and time weren't coming up after the game and I couldn't figure out why.  It turned out the text boxes I had used weren't long enough to display the information.  Hur hur hur.

But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this.  I sure did.  If you'd like to leave your high score and time in the comments, we can create a list and the person with the highest score will win obscenely awesome bragging rights.


                SCORES                    TIMES
              Josh - 1680               Tim - 1:02
              Angelo - 1655             Josh - 1:13
              Greg - 1620               Katie - 1:31
              Tim - 1575                Greg - 1:37
              Katie - 1550              Angelo - 1:55
              Trish - 1470              Trish - 4:38

                                

Thanks for reading!

Ancient Egymtian

I thought these would be fun to share.  There's an old gym at the rec center by my neighborhood that I regularly go to.  It's currently in the process of being renovated, so all of the old, obsolete exercise machines are being moved out in favor of new modern ones.  Regardless of all the junk I post on here, I always stress the importance of everyday exercise in some capacity.  Retroactively, other people over the last 17 decades have felt the same with these machines.  Check 'em out:

An exercise bike that William Howard Taft may have used prior to gaining 300 pounds

This is a nifty little exercise bike.  The ski pole-style handlebars serve as a lever for the front wheel, which is actually a built-in manual air conditioner.  That's right: it's a fan.  Pretty cool idea.  Of course the bikes right next to it come with built-in fans that you can turn on and off, whereas this one you get the cooling system whether you want it or not.  There's a computer on board, but it fried itself back when the country still had 48 states.

The fan.  Cool combo deal

Another fried exercise bike that looks like it was made out of Legos

So this bike I've never used or tried to use.  The design of this is just...square.  It's lame.  I think maybe one person has used this in the two years I've been going here.  

I think I saw one of these in those old gym photos from the Titanic

Okay, so, I have no idea what this is.  I use it for pull-ups, but all these other bars and weights and gears are a mystery to me. 

There's weights, there's a sort of bike-chain thing, and there's a little hook down there.  I have no clue.

Stair machine that pre-dates escalators

This machine actually still works okay and it's pretty straight forward.  Get on the steps, go up and down, get ripped calves.  

If the machine a few pictures up was on the Titanic then this one was on the Mayflower

This is a machine for working your mid-section/abs/torso/whatever.  I avoided this one for a long time because it looked so outdated that I thought it would break if I sat on it.  Still gets the job done, though.

Do they even make these anymore?

So this scale here has a ledger on it for when it was last inspected, and the most recent date goes back to February 1985.  To put things into perspective, that was before Marty went Back to the Future.  

I spend most of my workouts using the dead-weight machines, barbels, and the elliptical, but those are a little more modern.  While most of these machines still work, it's pretty obvious how out-of-date the technology is.  It'll be nice to get some new equipment, but these have an understated charm to them.  They also help work off stuff like this:

50 extra pounds for only $3.95

So the Bone Crusher left these for me, unknowingly exposing one of my greatest weaknesses.  I haven't had real donuts in years.  Like, years.  I had Krispy Kremes a couple years back, and prior to that it was in Rocklin when I last had some.  I don't know why I've gone so long or even how I've managed to do it.  But seeing these was like setting off a bomb in my head.  I ate 3 that night, ate the other 3 the following day.  And they were so frickin' good, holy crap.  They came from a place called Christy's Donuts in Point Loma, and upon first glance on the Internets it looks like there's multiple restaurants but I can't tell if it's a chain or coincidence.  

They also tasted just like the donuts my dad and I used to get from the Donut House in Redwood City, CA.  That brought back nice memories.  That old fashioned donut in the upper left was the best.  An oldie but a goodie.  

Egg Salad from Mt. Soledad Market & Deli

Man, those were good.  Needed every bit of oil left in those old machines to work them off ahaha.

Thanks for reading!

Great Success!

It's not quite Food On My Dog, but it's a start! 

Cara really doesn't enjoy being taken advantage of for entertainment as evidenced by her stoic, I-want-to-eat-your-face-and-floss-with-your-tendons expression...but she did get the corn flake.

Thursday Night Junk

Developing story: I enjoy snacking on Mott's apple sauces.  Strawberry, blueberry, original - they're all good.  But recently a flag went up with the purchase of the Country Berry sauce.  This stuff tasted TERRIBLE!  Like the thought of James Blunt coming out with a new album terrible.  It tasted like it was coated with coagulated cardboard covered in stale dog vomit.  I'm not joking - this stuff was just rancid.

So I contacted the company asking if they had changed the recipe.  I know it's hard to believe, but sometimes companies willingly make their products worse for whatever reason (New Coke, Windows Millennium Version, any change Facebook has ever made).  Mott's has stayed in contact with me, being very insistent on sending me a coupon for a free product for the trouble...but no one has answered my question.  I think the second time I e-mailed them I also asked if perhaps the product "wasn't prepared properly" to put it nicely.  But still no answer to my specific questions.  I'm curious.  Will keep you posted.

Anyway, I've got some delicious junk food to show off this evening from none other than the Great Plaza Buffet in Pacific Beach:

Steak that's still moving around - just the way I like it

Little bit of everything here: more steak, potatoes, pizza, ribs, chicken

A blend of orange chicken, honey chicken, hot pepper chicken, teriyaki chicken, and Mongolian beef circulated around white rice

The Transition Plate: salad and fruit (strawberries, banana, grapes, kiwi, cantaloupe)

Pretty bad plating, but dessert of two cream puffs, chocolate cake, Jello, chocolate/banana pudding, and raspberry mousse

Five full plates nearly got me sick but it was totally worth it.  Nothing quite like stuffing your face at a buffet.

Also, see that raspberry mousse up there?

Okay, so, when I was living at State, we would frequent this place for dinner called Cuic, and it was basically an all-you-can-eat buffet for $10.80.  The food was mediocre at best.  Sometimes they had good stuff, but most of the time we'd leave there feeling really, really sick.  I remember one night they had a seafood bar and mostly everyone in our group got sick from it (except me.  I was on my seafood strike at the time).  BrandonWhereLandon, Austin Ferrari, and JZ were all sent to the latrines that night.  But anyway, one night they had this thing for dessert called Raspberry Mousse. 

It looked similar to the above and unlike everything else at Cuic, it tasted delicious.  Every night afterward we would go back anticipating its return to the dessert display...but it never came.  They had blueberry mousse once or twice and I think they may have had a watermelon mousse...but never again the raspberry mousse.  Seeing it at the buffet was pretty remarkable.  It didn't taste anything like the Cuic version, but it was still kinda funny to see again.

And here's a fantastic cake put together by Creative Distribution Specialist Caroline:

Tom Brady probably still couldn't complete the Hail Mary even if this was the field

Thanks for reading!

Food. Dog. Head.

You've gotta check out this blog called Food On My Dog.  Required Gourmet viewing material.  It's absolutely hilarious.  It's always a popular trick to try and balance food on your dog's head/snout, but it's one of the toughest things to teach and train.  This dog, Tiger, has it down to an art.  It's amazing to see the kind of stuff this dog will balance on her head.  Everything from fried eggs to cucumbers to crackerjacks.  It's pretty amazing.  And she gets to eat most of it, so it's got a good payoff for her.

Special thanks to longtime friend of Greg's Gourmet, The Original Goonie, for supplying the link.  I actually had no idea of Goonie's YouTube account until I asked her if she had a site I could share.  If you ever need, want, or desire anything Goonie (and if you don't know what I'm talking about then shame on you) she's got the hook up to pretty much the entire Goonie universe.  Anyway, her YouTube has an arsenal of Goonie-related videos including interviews and interactions conducted by her with members of the cast, with some of the videos eclipsing 100,000 views.  Check it out.

Back to the main topic, there's no way I can do this with Cara, but I managed to get away with it with one of the pits:

All of a sudden that raw fish stench from next door kinda smells like filet mignon

The dork actually had no idea that I had put the beef on his head.  He was just sitting there for over a minute while people were laughing at him and he couldn't figure out why.  Eventually he stood up and it slid off but...I mean damn, dude.  He's a really bright dog and learns fast, but he's evidently slow in certain areas.  Cara, on the other hand, is really, really smart so there's no sneaking food onto her head.  I tried today and failed.  But here's an old picture of her from the Sacramento days with an empty box of hot chocolate on her snout:

And here's a picture of her chewing a giant block of ice, also from Sacramento:

So obviously there's no amazing junk food today.  Check out the dog blog instead.  Though here's a picture of a really creepy looking empty vending machine that you'd find at some abandoned gas station in the middle of West Virginia...except this one was outside my dentist's office:

It's amazing that that one Red Vines pack is still there.  Plus some candy bar and cracker pack on the bottom level.  I dunno, seeing an empty vending machine is usually the first sign that cannibalistic hillbillies are nearby.  Or, on the other hand, since it's outside the dentist's office, maybe they raid it so we don't rot our teeth with sugar and sodium.  Could be a conspiracy...of course, if it's a dental conspiracy then chances are they'd WANT it to be stocked with as much sugar as possible so we rot our teeth which in turn pushes business.  It's an interesting question that I should probably submit to the GOP for one of their debates.  

Oh, here's a scone from Charlie's Best Bread for good measure:

Thanks for reading!

Thursday Night Gourmet

Here's some impressive junk food I've eaten in the last week that'll be sure to anger even the most powerful stomachs before hitting the hay tonight.

Hello, Truffle Shuffle

The $5 Meal Deal from Albertsons.  This is quickly becoming one of my favorite "fast food" meals, especially when they give me far more food than they should, as seen here.  But really, the above is quite ample.  In fact, I usually struggle to finish and actually wound up saving a couple of the wings and wedges.  But man...wings, wedges, mac n' cheese.  Few things taste as good.  Few things also give me as bad of a stomach ache as these meals do, but I love them anyway.  This is actually one of the few meals that can impair me if I workout in the afternoon.  McDonald's?  Not anymore.  Buffets?  No problem.  Albertsons $5 Meal Deal?  Gets me every time.  And I love it.

Hello again, Truffle Shuffle

Here's a Pipeline, a burger topped with chili and bacon, from Islands.  Usually I don't get bacon...or chili for that matter, but I was especially hungry on this day.  Let me tell ya - Islands makes big burgers.  You get your money's worth.  Now if only they could make better drinks...

And this tasty little tidbit is from the Bone Crusher:

Extra Dark for extra late Gourmet

Thanks for reading!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

Real quick announcement: A reaction video put together by my most excellent friend and business partner Angelo Mike is going to air on Jimmy Kimmel Live TONIGHT at midnight.  You can check out the video and his other work here.

You ever wonder what a carbonated peanut butter and jelly sandwich would taste like?  Of course you have, we all have.  And now, my friends, I have an answer to this most baffling question:

Carbonated PB&J converts to a pumpkin-orange color.  Everyone knows that!

This was picked up at Rocket Fizz, a really cool candy shop with unusual candies, sodas, and toys.  I actually thought this was an independent place, but this was in Santa Clarita which has approximately one business that's not a national chain.  But anyway, here's the video of the taste test with Josh in Japan and LandonWhereBrandon:  Enjoy!

It was really weird.  This stuff smells fruity, like strawberry kiwi as Landon pointed out.  The carbonation hits you pretty quickly and the after-taste is just disgusting.  It's not overpowering, but it lingers.  The company, Lester's Fixins, apparently distributes exclusively through Rocket Fizz.  According to their website, they have "6 amazing flavors": Bacon, Buffalo Wing, Sweet Corn, Coffee, Pumpkin Pie, and Peanut Butter and Jelly.  Yeah...

The novelty soda market must still be going strong because those appear to be their only products.  I used to purchase Jones Soda's holiday flavors, so it's nice to see this kind of thing again.  

Anyway, here's a blooper for you as we try to get the bottle open:

Thanks for reading!

Boycotting McDonald's

UPDATE: According to BADRAP, McDonald's has been quick to act: "In our effort to spread the word about our new Chicken McBites, one of our local markets ran an ad that inadvertently offended some of our customers. The ad was insensitive in its mention of pit bulls. We apologize. We are pulling the ad, and will review our creative screening process. It’s never our intent to offend anyone with how we communicate news about McDonald’s."  Clearly they saw that Greg's Gourmet was getting involved and didn't want anything to do with it!

A rare Friday post but an important one.  A little thingamajig has been circulating about a new McDonald's radio commercial that essentially asks what's more dangerous: trying a new Chicken McBite or petting a pit bull?  It first came to me in the form of an e-mail this morning with this attachment:

Now, this was NOT put out by McDonald's, as a few dense smartasses "cleverly" pointed out.  Pretty surprising message, but I wanted to wait to hear the ad for myself.  For those who don't know, I've done a lot of work with rescued and shelter pit bulls for the last year and a half.  One of the goals of anyone involved with such work is to show the world that the breed carries an unfair and untrue reputation as some sort of killing machine.  I've seen so many disgusting accounts of abuse and neglect - all perpetrated by humans, yet the word "pitbull" is such a magnet for attention for failing newspapers, poor media outlets, and, evidently, McDonald's marketing campaigns.

But one of the things I've learned while doing this pit stuff is to be patient and to ALWAYS get all of the facts.  Not surprisingly, many stories of pit bull attacks in the news aren't 100% accurate and sometimes the dog in question isn't even a pit bull.  Likewise, it's important to know all of the facts, always ask questions, and not to run with a rumor.  So while the Internetz were up in arms and launching viral protests, I searched the Google for the ad and just a few minutes ago finally found it.  It was just recently uploaded to YouTube and is rapidly circulating:

The original video I had posted was removed.  I'll let you form your own thoughts on that one

The first thing I noticed was the use of the word "stray".  Nobody had reported that, which, case in point, is why you always wait for all of the facts to properly verify something.  Does that make this any better or make me feel any better about McDonald's?  Not really.  Look, it's risky to go up to any stray dog.  You don't need Einstein splitting the atom to give you that valuable tidbit of information.  But calling out the pit bull when there are so many people out there who dedicate so much time and energy to rectifying this breed's image is simply infuriating.  Especially since uhhh it's McDonald's, bro. Risky? You want risk? Here's a clip of Morgan Spurlock throwing up from McDonald's:

Ironically I was thinking of getting some McDonald's when I received that e-mail.  But now I'm thinking that after all I've been involved with, after all I've seen, after all I've done for the breed, I don't think I can go to McDonald's in good faith.  And I'm really bummed about it because I love McDonald's.  The cheapness, the fat, the grease.  I love it all.  But like, what's the point anymore?  Last night I ranted on Jared from Subway, which really seems like nickels and dimes to this.  Jared wouldn't hurt a fly.  He may hurt someone who tries to steal his porno collection, but never a fly.  

The other thing to consider is that a lot of people will hear this commercial and not think twice about it, which is good.  There are plenty of people who simply aren't interested in dogs and this commercial will just bounce off them.  But for one of the most popular breeds in America, with millions of owners across the country, and for the people who dedicate their lives to helping these animals and trying to cut down on the millions that are euthanized in shelters every year, this ad is really a slap in the face, stray or no stray.  If my dog, a golden retriever, got out and was wandering the streets, she'd be a stray, too.  If frickin' Scooby Doo was out wandering the streets he'd be a stray.  

Pit bulls are not dangerous.  There is no breed that's more dangerous than another.  I can talk a whole lot about the subject but this is a frickin' food blog, not a humanitarian cause.  But you walk into any given animal shelter and the chances are good that half of the dogs will be pit bulls, abandoned, neglected, or abused, and this ad isn't doing them any justice.  You can send me a message or something if you wanna discuss it.

Cal, who was once a stray pit bull.  As you can see, I'm terrified

This isn't to say I'll never eat at McDonald's again - far from it.  I'd like for them to acknowledge how dumb of an idea this was and that'll be good enough for me.  Until then, though, I really don't feel I should go.  In the meantime, living in Southern California, I'm fortunate to be located in the birthplace of one of the best burger establishments in the history of the world: In-N-Out!

Just go to 19 seconds to hear my excitement

Thanks for reading!

Jared From Subway is a Lame Spokesperson

Let me just start by saying that I do enjoy Subway.  I think it's convenient, tasty, and the company tries really, really hard to promote a positive aura in all of their stores.  However, one thing that I can't stand about Subway is their marketing, which all starts with Jared Farking Fogle.

If you were to have a season of Survivor featuring the spokespersons for all of the fast food chains, who do you think would be the first to be voted off?  JARED FOGLE.

If all of the fast food spokespersons were running for the GOP presidential nomination, who would be the first to drop out due to lack of primary delegates?  JARED FOGLE. 

Who would be the guy to replace Sammy Hagar as lead singer of Van Halen and ultimately plunge them into a more than decade long hiatus?  JARED FOGLE.

If seven eight nine, then who ate all three?  JARED FOGLE.

Who would be the player on the Championship Dallas Mavericks squad that would come in behind Brian Cardinal?  JARED FOGLE.

Who would be the boxer that Floyd Mayweather would fight instead of Manny Pacquiao and ultimately lead to disappointing everyone again?  MIGUEL COTTO.  JARED FOGLE. 

The thing about Jared is...he just doesn't come off as cool, and Subway's marketing isn't doing him any favors either.  Case in point with this commercial that I listed in Food Commercials That I Hate Volume 2:

It's hard to point out the lamest thing about this commercial, but I'd say the cake goes to the part where "Mrs. Jared Fogle" says "How about something new for dinner?  Something romantic!  Like French!"  to which he responds "OOOOOOOH AND LOW FAT!!!!!!"  That sound you just heard is me smacking my head on my desk.  Look, guys say a lot of stupid things to get a woman's attention.  That's just what we do.  But how painfully lame do you have to be to say "OOOOH AND LOW FAT!!!!!!" when your hot wife says she wants something romantic?  

Fail.

Oh, here's another terrible commercial:

Did anyone notice that he just walked out without paying?  Who does this guy think he is?  Newt Gingrich?

Here's one I don't understand at all.  This commercial is celebrating Jared's 10 Year Milestone...whatever that is...but he doesn't even appear here.  Watch:

What's the point of having a commercial that commemorates someone without actually featuring said person? See, Jared is just...not cool.  Jack is a businessman.  Ronald McDonald makes kids happy.  Dave Thomas was a G.  Papa John is a baller.  The King is a creeper who wakes up in bed with people.  What exactly is Jared?

Okay, let me be serious for a second, cause this is something that's bugged me for a long time.  The issue I take with Subway's marketing, other than Jared, is sometimes it just doesn't make a lot of sense.  First of all, the promotions.  They have waaaaaay too many promotions.  You go to McDonald's and the prices are pretty much set in stone.  You go to Subway and the prices today will be different than the prices from yesterday because of some promo they're running.  This month every footlong is five dollars.  Thankfully that's an easy promo to remember.  But in the past they've had these sales where certain footlongs were reduced at certain hours on certain days but you had to buy something else to get that sale.  It was ridiculous.  Maybe they're simplifying things, I dunno.

I kinda think they should adjust their prices for something more permanent.  Promos are good, but too many can be bad.  Look at Jones Soda.  For those who don't know, Jones is a quirky Canadian soda company that earned a cult following in the early-to-mid 2000s before fading into oblivion.  I was at the front of marketing them in the Bay Area and Sacramento before the direction of the company turned me off...and ultimately I think I was getting tired of soda at that point.  But anyway, Jones would launch this thing every November called Turkey & Gravy Soda.  It was an Internet sensation and would sell out in 10 minutes upon its announcement.  It was so huge that they started launching accompanying flavors in one big Holiday Pack.  The Packs would include the Turkey Soda, Mashed Potato Soda, Green Bean Casserole Soda, Fruitcake Soda, and Cranberry Soda.  And a utensil (straw).

Those early Holiday Packs were huge, too.  I tried so hard to get one when they were released but they sold out.  My folks wound up getting me one for my birthday off eBay and it was so freaking cool!!!  I brought the flavors to school and let people do taste tests.  It was awesome.  Jones was awesome.  They were on top.  But then these special flavors started appearing at every single holiday.  Halloween you'd see stuff like Candy Corn Soda.  Valentines Day would bring a fruity flavor with a romantic name.  Election Day would bring Sodas with names based off of candidates.  Basically every month there was some "limited edition" soda pack being released.  It just defeated the novelty of Jones which is pretty much what they marketed themselves on. Other more important factors ultimately led to Jones' decline, but the ridiculous amount of promotions, at least in my opinion, damaged their reputation as a novelty/specialty drink.

So you see what I'm saying?  Too many promotions can overwhelm your customer base.  Granted, Subway doesn't make peanut butter and vacuum lint sandwiches so they're not in as shallow waters as Jones, but I just think they should try to integrate all of these big promotions to somehow maybe reduce their prices?  Permanently?  I'm planning to do a post about Jones soon.  I've got a lot of great pictures and stories.  I always look back at Jones with warm thoughts.

Anyway, back to Jared.  He's not just the Subway Guy, but he's also the Pornography Guy.  In college he was known for his extensive collection of porn.  I don't even need to make a wisecrack about that.  To Jared's credit, he does inspire a lot of people to improve their eating habits, and I tip my hat to him for that.  He talks, he lectures, he encourages.  I respect that very much.  But when it comes to attempting to be cool in commercials...ehhhhhh.

But really, I do like Subway.  It's nice to hear "Welcome to Subway" upon walking in.  It's nice that the employees are trained to be pleasant...at least most of the time.  And the advantage that Subway has over the burger establishments is that you can have a sandwich any number of ways.  Burgers are burgers.  Meat and bun.  Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you, but I really admire Subway's extensive menu.  Subways are also clean.  I like that.  Here's an Italian BMT I picked up from the Subway in Carlsbad today:

I'm guessing Jared didn't typically order a sandwich with salami, pepperoni, ham, cheese, and mayo.  I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Thanks for reading!