For those of you that have seen Food, Inc., or read Fast Food Nation, you may remember pretty horrendous descriptions of how chicken’s are raised in the United States on factory farms. Antibiotics are typically used primarily because chickens are housed so close together that they can’t actually move around.
This sucks for all us chicken lovers; have you ever had free range chicken? My goodness gracious it is delicious! Less stress, hormones, and antibiotics makes for better chicken. Anyone that tells you different probably doesn’t cook much. Unfortunately, free range chicken is expensive. Chicken is expensive on its own, but free range chicken is even more expensive than that. Why? Well – there isn’t THAT much demand for it. Well, that all may now be changing. Rather than endure California style chicken law, producers in Ohio have started negotiating with animal rights activists to get a gradual transition to slightly more human chicken farming.
It’s gonna take a while, but this looks like progress. Or is it? I’m interested in what our readers think!
I had to go to the mall, a place I try to avoid at all costs, the other day to have my iPod looked out by the too cool tech-geeks at the Apple Store, when I saw something that made me cringe in what was almost actual, physical pain. No, it wasn’t unfettered consumerism at its overpriced worst. It wasn’t bad mall food, as our local mall here in Ann Arbor actually boasts a couple of decent eateries: Sushi Café (yes, sushi at the mall and it is delicious) and Chipotle. It was a cupcake kiosk.
When did the cupcakes invade and why have we let them take over? A kiosk at the mall, a store devoted entirely to cupcakes just off Main Street in Ann Arbor, and my DirecTV has 250 channels, 90% of which are devoted to cupcakes all of the sudden. It seems I can’t go to a party or function without some too cute dessert with pink frosting staring at me.
This is what we are up against, my friends. Let's kill it before it has a chance to breed.
I don’t have anything against dessert, but I am more of a main course kind of person. The cookie will always hold a special place in my heart, but I’d take fried chicken or cheesy potatoes over dessert any day. So I ask again, what is the deal with cupcakes? They can certainly be delicious, but so are bacon smores and I don’t see kiosks at the mall for them. Besides, cupcakes suffer from many of the same issues as muffins do. The top is inevitably more delicious, but enveloping a full cupcake bite leads to frosting on the nose. Not a good look for a man. The solution is to lop the top off. I just don’t trust a dessert that needs to be mutilated to achieve full deliciousness.
The working theory I have about their popularity is that they are portable cakes, and if there is one thing we Americans love, it is portable, fattening, sugar-laden food. But they are also cute, which annoys the hell out of me. At my son’s school, every Mom had to be Sandra Lee and make some pink princess designed cupcake or Spiderman themed cupcake for their little snowflake’s birthday. (If they have to be Sandra Lee the least they could have done was bring cocktails for the adults, but I digress.) Call me a rebel, but I made chocolate chip cookies for my son’s kindergarten class on his birthday. And yes, I do bake when I have to, if I have to be a stay-at-home Dad you can damn well be sure I’m going to make some cookies. Delicious ones, too. Might as well fully embrace where life has taken me…
I was going to include a review of Cupcake Wars, but our friends at Would I Buy It Again did a solid, in depth review and I would rather direct you to their page than force myself to watch it. Besides, it surely would have been a hateful rant and I like to limit those, otherwise you will be desensitized to them. Can’t have that happen. As for cupcake shows, no thank you. I can’t stand Ace of Cakes either; Duff is actually pretty cool but baking shows in general are not on my list of things to watch. Ever. I even turn Alton Brown off when he is baking.
Just like Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day, let me warn all of the impeding invasion of the cupcakes. Maybe it is too late. Their saturation is close to critical mass. In the mean time, I’ll be in the corner with a bucket of fried chicken.
I’m pretty pissed off right now. Like, Mel Gibson not getting blown before the jacuzzi pissed. I was at the grocery store the other day and I noticed that Stouffer’s has some new Corner Bistro meal options that come with a stuffed melt and a bowl of soup. Perfect, right? I can’t think of a better lunch than soup and a sandwich. I decided to pick up three of the Chicken Bacon Ranch Melt with Loaded Baked Potato Soup options, mainly because they sounded and looked rather edible. Delicious, even.
Try reading this description and tell me it doesn’t sound like it would make your lunch break at work at least 38% better:
“Herb-topped focaccia bread filled with white meat chicken, bacon and swiss cheese and a buttermilk ranch sauce, paired with creamy loaded baked potato soup”
So today I decided I was in a soup and sandwich kind of mood and remembered the frozen dinners I had bought. Three short minutes in the microwave, and it was time to feast. To my complete dismay, this is what I found..
Stouffer's New Chicken Bacon Ranch Melt and Loaded Baked Potato Soup
At this point, I felt like punching Stouffer right in the face. What the hell kind of meal is this? The “stuffed melt” was the size of a deck of cards, and the “loaded” baked potato soup tasted like a bowl of cream with cheese and three ridiculously large slices of potato added to it. Thanks for reminding me that this is a potato based soup, Stouffer. Also, that bowl may look large in the picture but it has about the same depth as a petri dish.
Thanks a lot Stouffer. I’m not going to get into burying you in rose gardens or setting your house on fire or anything like that, but we are taking a break due to the shittyness that you put into this box and allowed to be sold to me at my local grocery store. I hope you feel bad for completely ruining my lunch.
