Eating this with any regularity probably results in an early death.

http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/

Wouldn’t you know it? Just yesterday I wrote about Obama’s visit to Tastee Subs in the neighboring town of Edison. Today I visited their sister store for some subs.

I was to meet Pam for lunch in the park today and I planned on bringing some non-sub sandwiches from Rufino’s Deli. (They’re not online AFAICT – I should work on that.) But Rufino’s was closed.

Running a little late now, I piloted the motorcycle down 27 south to the Tastee Subs in Franklin Park. They were open

Today, of course, is the day Obama’s scheduled to visit the Edison store. The line of customers at the Franklin Park store stretched out the door and across the front of the building. It’s a bigger store than Edison, has bigger parking lot, too. Seldom are lines there so intense.

I passed the time with the other folks waiting on the line. It felt good when the staff greeted me – I’m a regular – and I enjoyed congratulating them on their day in the sun. I picked up my subs and soda, paid the bill and grabbed a few napkins on my way out the door. The line had grown even longer. I fired up the bike and hit the road.

The subs were superb, as usual. (They seemed like just might have been stuffed with a little extra meat.) Like I said yesterday, I’m glad Tastee Subs was chosen for the presidential visit. I hope the surge in customer traffic I saw today continues.

Today was the day. We spent some time going through the fridge, freezer, pantries and so on, pulling everything out, squinting at expiration and sell-by dates.

It’s amazing how much food you accumulate that slowly makes its way to the back, never to be seen again! Some stuff was pretty darned old. A packet of cherry Kool-Aid, for example, had a package so discolored and crumpled, almost leaking, that even I wouldn’t consider drinking it.

Well, it’s all gone now. There’s lots of new space. I guess it’s time to go grocery shopping!

 

Some time back I wrote about Chocolate Skittles. Well, the other day we stopped at a supermarket on the way home from the gym and Pam spotted this on the shelf.

It’s not very often that a product is discontinued even before the package changes to lose the ‘new’ moniker (the yellow blob to the left of the product name), but there it is. I can’t say I blame Mars one tiny bit for shutting this product down! It simply could not have sold very well at all. Incidentally, I don’t think a 33% discount is near enough.

As to the quality of the image, well, all I had available was the camera in the phone. It might have helped if I had remembered to wipe the lens off a little before shooting.

Did you ever notice that M&Ms usually have incredibly good quality control? You don’t see many that aren’t very regular, perfect in size and shape. This past Halloween I had a bunch of those little mini-packs, though, and it seemed to me that way too many of them were poorly built. Or the sorry mis-shapen speciments hadn’t been culled by the quality control process as usual. So I did what any normal techie would do: I began to collect them!

None of these are altered in any way, they are just as they fell out of the package. No, silly, not all the same package – but it sure would have been cool to get one pack containing nothing but mutants. Now that would have been something to write about!

The incidence of mutants has fallen way off lately (but every now and again someone will point one out to me). I hypothesize that Mars ramped up production while simultaneously reducing costs as the economy went into a tailspin, and quality predictably fell off. What do you think?

I’d been riding by this place for long time and always meant to stop in, and I finally did. You see, Route 18 in East Brunswick is one of those roads that you use because you have to, not because you want to. A divided highway, malls of every size on each side, traffic lights at close intervals, choked with slow-moving stop-and-go most all the time… well, you get the idea.

But if you’re stopped at the Arthur Street intersection most any weekend you can’t help but notice the American Harvest Gourmet Market. Their staff is out there making BBQ beef and pork for the shop, as well as selling sandwiches and sides (and bulk, too). I finally took the time to stop in and sample.

I was not disappointed! My test was the beef brisket while my Pam had a pulled pork sandwich. Both delicious! The sauce was their own, too – a little less hot ‘n spicy than I prefer, which means that most will find it just right. We chose to sit outside to eat (but there are tables inside, too). The ambience out there wasn’t the best in the world: the Route 18 traffic, the stack of cars on the jughandle waiting for the light, the parking lot, and the building’s air conditioner were each annoying. But the BBQ was simply outstanding.

If you’re in the neighborhood – or just stuck in traffic and need a break – stop and check this place out. You won’t regret it.

American Harvest Gourmet Market
629 State Route 18 
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Google Maps

[2 November 2009: edited the Google Maps link, which seemed to have gone a little sour]

I haven’t eaten “fast food” in so many years now that I’ve simply forgotten exactly how long it’s been. Okay, technically that’s not quite true. I’ll eat the fries from time to time. McDonald’s fries are the best. What can I say? Those yellow strings of potato, soaked in beef juice, fried and salted are pretty darned tasty. They’re different from the others. It must be that beef juice.

My avoidance began rather abruptly with a McDonald’s chicken sandwich. Maybe it was the mayo, maybe something else that had gone a bit bad. Whatever it was, it ravaged my digestive system for about four days. The most unfortunate thing was that those particular four days corresponded with a four-day weekend. When you mess with my four-day weekend there will be consequences. I swore the stuff off.

But yesterday I broke my resolve.

My wife and son had planned for a couple of days to have lunch at McDonald’s. She was off from work early, it was the day before my son’s birthday (he likes the stuff – as most young people do), and they invited me along if I could manage to get away. My plan was to grab a slice of pizza beforehand and have some fries and a coke while enjoying their company. But my business at the bank ran a little over and I was hungry. As we queued up I decided it couldn’t hurt – just this once – to have something more.

The menu had changed a great deal since I last read it. The store wasn’t crowded so the girl behind the counter waited patiently. I opted for a rather large burger with mushrooms and Swiss cheese. Angus beef, the menu stated, a third of a freakin’ pound. That’s a big burger! I added fries and a coke. (I had to dispense my own soda, too. Is that common these days?) Overkill, no doubt, but I figured it would be okay given how little of this kind of stuff I eat. Besides, I wanted to feel the effect, if any, that it would have on my system.

After that burger I was no longer hungry. I wasn’t for the rest of the day. I burped and farted my way though the afternoon. I think I felt bloated, fatigued, but those around me said it was my imagination. Dinnertime came and went. My desire for food had been erased!

It’s the next morning as I write. I’ve got my usual pot of strong black coffee at my side. Usually breakfast would be on my mind. It’s not. I didn’t get sick from yesterday’s lapse. But I’m thinking it’ll be a long time before my next fast food adventure.

I had lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise in Woodbridge, NJ today with my wife and son. This is the second time we’ve eaten there and each time both the food and service were impressive.

We had the same appetizers each visit. We remembered them from last time and ordered again: fries because my son likes ’em and the shrimp because we do. We’ve really got to try some of the other selections!

The burgers are delicious. I had the Bleu Cheese burger on my last visit – tangy and tasty. The broccoli I had with it was prepared just the way I like it – just the tops, no stalks, pan-fried and crisp. On our previous visit my wife opted for the pressed burger. The bread is fried and she found it to be a bit oily for her taste toward the end. Our server, Nicole, was attentive without being overbearing.

Today I opted for the burger of the day, the Cajun burger, with Swiss cheese and Cajun seasoning. It wasn’t too spicy, just enough for flavor, quite good (even though I really like the hot stuff). I ordered rice on the side and it was, well, rice. Not a lot to say about rice. My wife enjoyed the shrimp wrap. Erica provided great service, very attentive and conversational.

Oh, my son? He’s a teen, not particularly into variety in his food, and he had the signature Cheeseburger in Paradise – hold the onions – each time. He went back this time without complaint and I’d call that a rave.

We (well, not my teenage son) enjoyed Margaritas and Sangria. But not to excess, driving on Route 1 in Woodbridge is fraught with peril in the best of circumstances!

Oh, one other thing worth mentioning. Every hour on the hour they play their signature song, interrupting whatever’s already on. It was jarring to hear Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company doing Piece Of My Heart preempted by Jimmy Buffett. The nerve!

If you’re near Woodbridge craving a burger, this is worth checking out.

Added July 11, 1:26 PM:
Erica, our server, admitted to having a bit of a cold and by 10 July my wife seemed to be picking it up.

Added July 14, 10:00 AM:
And by July 13 I had signs of getting it, too! The moral of the story is that we should have left or asked for a different table/server.