The Rebel Palate

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, Comu si Beddra by Angelo Daddelli & i Picciotti!) Ciao, ribelli. Gangster media is a staple of American pop culture. Everybody knows about The Sopranos, The Godfather and Goodfellas. Sometimes we sympathize with Mob characters or fantasize about being in their shoes. They have just about every status symbol- money, power, and ways of showing their money and power. Plus people have a morbid fascination with crime. But at the end of the day, we don't want to catch ourselves thinking we like the Mafia. In real life, they're real trouble. And forget about joining them- even the movies can tell you it's not a good idea. The victims are real, but in Sicily, they're taking a stand. Addiopizzo (or "Goodbye Pizzo"), is a nonprofit organization based in Sicily. They have a travel service and an online store . They partner with local businesses that refuse to pay the pizzo, or...

Turns out acorns aren't just for squirrels. They're for humans, too- and they tase pretty darn good in biscotti. Weird, natural AND obscure! (Click here to jump to the recommended song, Brains by Aurelio Voltaire!) Howdy, rebels! Sorry for the embarrassingly short post on Thursday . I must take full responsibility for the crappy way I handled it. I didn't think the subject matter would be an absolute nothing sandwich, and I'd already "promised" to write something about maple syrup being out-of-season . So yes, apologies. Can't say it'll never happen again because I'm in the Early Installment Weirdness phase. I'm sure one day I'll regret 11 out of 10 of these posts. Anyway! Every fall I used to make acorn bread. My family hated it, but they were too nice to say so and ignored it instead, making me (read: our chickens) eat the rest. My dad said it "tasted honest", which I take as a compliment, but ...

Happy Labor Day, rebels. In the first part, I found out not only are Biggy Iggy and Chewy Louie still around, they’re at Richmond Market of Richmond, Vermont. (Click here to jump to the recommended song, "The Swag" by Link Wray and his Ray Men!) Happy Labor Day, rebels. In the first part, I found out not only are Biggy Iggy and Chewy Louie still around, they’re at Richmond Market of Richmond, Vermont. And that using Google instead of DuckDuckGo and just letting the store’s website load would have gotten me that information much faster. The Biggy Iggy is a whopping seven ounce, 530 calorie ice cream sandwich that brags about its “premium vanilla ice cream” between two chocolate-chip cookies that stay chewy right out of the freezer. They also get a lot of hype by the people who have had them before. According to the Flash Microsite, one convenience store cashier said “Biggy Iggies sell like flapjacks on a cold morning in Wisconsin.” The people of Massachusetts...

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, the Sam and Max Office Theme by Jared Emerson-Johnson!) I leaned back in my chair with my feet on my desk and my fedora over my face. I was contemplating the disappearance of someone well-known in his neck of the woods. Went by the name of Biggy Iggy.  He was the face of a line of ice cream sandwiches, a big hit in Massachusetts and Vermont. He was a big fella with a big smile, great hair and a winning personality.  He was often seen with his kooky partner in crime, Chewy Louie, but for some unknown reason the two of them vanished. Just disappeared off the face of the earth. No goodbyes- and the craziest part was, no one seemed to notice. I saw a picture of Iggy once, on a wrapper to one of his fine products. Found it on the side of the road in ‘17 or ‘18. But I threw it away when I got home. Never saw it again. It was a shame. Something about him really clicked with me. Maybe it was his old-school style. Woulda liked to meet the gu...

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, Burning Love as performed by Wynonna Judd!) It's June 26th, which means it's time to celebrate the best and cutest long-eared, beady-eyed Disney alien: Stitch! If you don't know, Stitch was one of the main characters in Lilo and Stitch. He was the 626th experiment by the mad alien scientist Jumba Jookiba, specifically designed for evil. In the movie, Stitch steals a spaceship and crash-lands in Hawaii, where he meets Lilo. As Stitch learns about Earth and becomes a "model citizen", he and his new friend bond over Elvis songs and their difficulty to fit in. Sounds like my kinda people.   Where'd he get that suit? I want one.   Here's why I decided on coconut tiramisu: in  Stitch! The Movie,  the third movie in the franchise, Lilo asks Stitch if he had coffee that morning because he was being hyperactive. He says he had "Coconut cake and  coffee!" I realized if I combined those two, I'd have a coconu...