Wake Up Call

First off, an appeal to all baboons (the ones with seniority as well as those who are new – I’m planning to take a vacation the week of March 19th. I won’t be writing then, but I’d be happy to fill the week with guest posts if only some guests would step forward to post them. Send an e-mail with your idea. Write to me at connelly.dale@gmail.com!

I say this because I can’t count on getting a timely text from Bart – the bear who found a Smart Phone in the woods. He speaks up on occasion, but like cell phone reception itself, Bart is unreliable and a bit fuzzy at times.

Bart - The Bear Who Found a Cell Phone

Yo. Bart here.

Just letting you know I’m awake. I’m not the only one, either. Word is the bears of Aspen might be out of their dens early enough to hit the slopes before all the snow melts!

I kinda started to come around during the Oscars a few weeks ago because whoever had this phone before me subscribed to some kind of “alerts” whenever an Oscar winning celebrity would do something. And they’re always doing SOMETHING. The constant buzzing was driving me wild, and that’s saying a lot ’cause I’m wild to begin with.

Anyway, that kinda ended my hibernation for this year. Oh, I tried to go back to sleep, but it started getting so HOT. At this time of year we’re usually getting some pretty intense snow storms and crazy, wild, windy weather. When that stormy stuff starts to go down, I’m good for another coupla weeks of dozing. But this year – nothing. And I just can’t sleep when I’m too warm. Plus, everybody (and everything) else is waking up. Try lying down in a shallow hole in the woods when the little creepy buggy things are getting active – ugh! I really don’t like to have stuff crawling on me, which I know sounds weird because I’m, like, a bear and I carry around all this itchy fur. But really, when something burrows down to my skin, I get a little freaked out.

And you don’t want to see me when I’m freaked out.

Plus, the clock changed weird again. I saw it happen the other night when I was lying awake trying to figure out what kind of critter was marching across my forehead … the numbers went from 2:00 to 4:00. I KNOW there’s supposed to be a 3:00 in there, but it jumped. And that means trouble. Last year when this happened, people started showing up in the woods near the end of the day, like they suddenly had extra time or something.

Don’t get me wrong – I like people. But they can’t be trusted. You don’t want to be sleeping, or even in a state of torpor, when there are people around. They’re too dangerous. So I am kind of worried, and also hungry. The stuff I normally eat isn’t really available yet. There’s a house not far from here that has some garbage out where I can get it, but … I dunno. I kinda think I’m better than that, y’know?

I see some folks in Wisconsin got scolded for throwing food at a bear.
If any of them are reading this – you should come over here and try that. No, I mean really. Come try it. Bet you can’t toss a Twinkie right into my mouth! Try it! Best out of a dozen?

Your pal,

Bart

I quickly texted Bart back to tell him Twinkies are horrible for his digestion, terrible for his teeth and useless as nutrition, and he should run the other way if people throw Twinkies at him. But I know he won’t. If he winds up getting hit in the mouth with one, that could be the beginning of the end. There’s nothing good that can come out of a wild bear with an insatiable Hostess habit.

What’s your favorite snack food?

109 thoughts on “Wake Up Call”

  1. Good morning to all. Is chcolate candy a snack food? If that qualifies, that is the main thing I eat for snacks. Any kind will do.

    Apart from candy, I favor corn chips as a snack. The corn chips I like are made from organic high lysine corn grown by Doug Hilgendorf and his family on their farm near Welcome, MN. He has these chips made from his corn and distributes them to various health food outlets in Minnesota as one of the products of Whole Grain Milling Company. He has a number of other products including flour milled in a mill on his farm. The chips are very good. I have meet Doug. I haven’t been to his farm. I have heard him talk about his operation.

    Like

      1. In fact, in the Food Pyramid According to Edith, chocolate is one of the major food groups. It shouldn’t form the entire base of the pyramid, but it is definitely part of the base.

        Like

      2. A long time ago at Minicon, we decided that the four fannish food groups are salt, sugar, fat and caffeine (chocolate is almost the perfect food because it combines 3 of the 4, so I guess Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups would be THE perfect food). We also figured out the ratio of meals to sleep during a con: you can get 8 hours of sleep and eat 3 meals, or 4 hours of sleep and eat 6 meals (or the equivalent in grazing, since it’d be impossible to find enough time for that much restauranting). Unfortunately, too many people got no sleep and lived on cheese popcorn all weekend, but they learn if they live long enough. Congoing is not for the weak.

        Like

      3. Barbara: Minicon used to be the biggest science fiction convention in the state, until politics happened and a lot of people got disinvited–mostly, the people who did the actual work to make the con happen. Minicon got a new concom (convention committee) eventually and is soldiering on as a small literary SF con, but CONvergence is now the really big dog.

        Like

      4. Of course, Anna, dark chocolate – good quality dark chocolate – is what I’m referring to. Although I’ve been surprised by quality milk chocolate – it is also good, and bears little resemblance to the hershey bars of my childhood.

        Like

      5. B. T. McElraths’ Salty Dog Bar would have to rank up there with peanut butter cups as the perfect food, since it also combines all 4 of those food groups.

        Like

  2. chips, i have chips call out to me from the cupboards and pantry sheves and they are relentless. i have a healthy respect for diet and dont eat a lot of crap but chip miss the discussion. they tend to end up in my mouth.
    looking forward to a week of guest blogs next week. i will try to come up with one but i a looking forward to reading yours.

    Like

  3. Ah, let me count the ways… one favorite is homemade red pepper hummus to go with Doug Hilgendorf’s corn chips. But I think the hands down all time favorite is popcorn, esp. the way Husband makes it with butter and a little Parmesan.

    Like

      1. mig, that was frequent Sunday night fare at our house when I was growing up… as we watched Disneyland. 🙂

        Like

    1. All right, BiR. We agree on the Hilgendorf corn chips and I also like hummus. I’m sure I would like red pepper hummus. Our favorite hummus is hummus made with black beans. Popcorn is another favorite here and we do sometimes put parmesan on it.

      Like

      1. I made my first batch of hummus last week, and it turned out as good as the stuff I was buying. Very simple and very forgiving recipe! My favorite kind is red pepper; sorry I missed it, Steve!

        Like

      2. So OT: how was the Downton Abby gathering? Husband and I have, finally rented and watch the very first two episodes (back to back, couldn’t wait), and now understand what the withdrawal might be about.

        Like

  4. Pretty quiet here – makes me wonder if everyone knows about the daylight savings time switch, which we didn’t figure out till about noon yesterday…

    Like

  5. I love Milk Duds, bagel chips, pitsachios, and cashews. I think the time change has been hard for baboons on the trail. Does the time change really result in sufficient energy savings to justify it?

    Like

    1. I really don’t like the time change. It is not good for a person like me who has trouble with sleeping. I don’t need the problem of adjusting my sleep patern to a time change on top of the problems I already have with establishing a good sleep patern.

      Like

      1. Yes to cashews, almonds, pecans and macadamia nuts (I rarely find/put them in Christmas stockings). NO to Brazil nuts – to me they taste like dirt. (some people say cilantro tastes like soap (?) but I love it). Chacun à son goût.

        Like

  6. I changed all the clocks except the one my body runs on.

    I like chocolate covered raisins. Bioflavinoids wrapped in decadence.

    Like

  7. ’tis Spring Break at our house, so we care nothing about what time it is.

    Snacks, oh dear. If it is salty and crunchy the words of a dear friend of mine are most apt:
    “an open bag is an empty bag”, so I try very hard to not have such stuff on hand.

    I also love the sweet/salty/crunchy goodness that a bowl of mixed roasted peanuts, candy corn, raisins and M&M is. Nice people put a bowl of that out for nibbling around Halloween, and you can almost convince yourself it is kind of healthy, like Jim’s chips.

    Like

  8. I have mostly conquered junk food urges, but I’m able to make a vice out of eating healthy foods. So my favorite “snack” item is a Melba cracker sold as a health food. If you eat enough of those with fancy toppings, you have an unhealthy snack food, and that is what I eat. And if you eat a whole box of healthy crackers in one afternoon, it isn’t such a healthy thing. I have to keep learning that being healthy is mostly about what I do not eat, not how many healthy foods I can knock back in an hour.

    Like

    1. Healthier cold cereal started out as a reasonably good snack but when abused, no.
      Cold cereal used to be a favorite snack, always there and at the ready. Now I’ve decided that I can’t have THAT in the house because I could keep having a little bit more and a little bit more as I read the paper until amazing amounts were gone.
      I’m not good at that ideal of JUST eating without listening to the radio AND reading the paper, too.

      Like

      1. To be perfectly GF, I can only eat the plain ones. I can put things like peanut better on them, and I love pb, but peanut butter is now one of my triggers. Chocolate is the same, as is coffee. Same with popcorn, which used to be our every-night snack. Thank heavens for all the new Chex GF cereals. You can do good things with the Chex stuff, such as use it in meatloaf. Last night I made chicken strips for our grandkids to go with their pancakes. I made the batter from corn Chex. It was excellent. They thought my combination of pancakes and chicken strips for them (no pancakes for us) was weird until they started eating it.

        Like

      2. Our daughter is GF and we were just talking about the Chex GF cereals. The meatloaf w/ Chex sounds good, But how do you make batter with it? Just crush it up?
        There is a GF bisquick we’ve been using.

        Like

      3. Ben: I will post the meatloaf recipe later (gotta run my wife to, guess where, the doctor). For the chicken strips I pound down breast meat to a thinner layer, cut it in strips, put in in milk, roll it in crushed Corn Chex, fry it in a little canola oil with Lowry’s season salt on it lightly. My grandkids who are lovers of chicken McNuggets and similar things liked it very much. To me that taste sort of like chicken corn dogs.

        Like

      4. Notice now my ambiguous sentence. I did not make pancakes with Chex. Just the coating for the chicken. We do make GF pancakes but from buckwheat and other flours.
        The GF meatloaf is from a decent book called “Gluten Free Made Simple,” although I think any book saying “Made Simple” is an admission it is not simple. As a failed publisher I am reluctant to post their recipe, but I will for the sake of your daughter. The book, I got it a B & N, is decent, except it does call for the expensive sorts of flours, which we can get at one of our Hy-Vees.
        So GF meatloaf:
        Mix 1.5 lbs ground beef, i cup cooked rice (white or brown), 2 eggs, 3 Tbsps ketchup, 1 tsp dried parsley, 1 tsp finely chopped onion (I used dried onions), 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp pepper.
        Put 2/3 cup Corn Chex in plastic bag and crush down with a rolling pin. Stir Chex into mix. Form two loaves on a baking sheet.
        Mix 1/3 cup ketchup and 2 Tbsps baked brown sugar. Spoon over top of each loaf.
        It says bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, but it takes more like an hour.

        Heinz Tomato Ketchup is GF.

        Like

        1. That meatloaf sounds pretty good. It reminds me of a games day I hosted where one of the guests needed a GF meal. Without any recipe, I sort of faked some meatballs using rice as the substitute for breadcrumbs. They were passable. When I told her that I’d made them that way especially for her, she reminded me that she doesn’t eat anything with four feet. (sigh)

          Like

      5. Clyde and Ben, i have no idea what the book is like, but the Baker’s Catalog sells “1000 Gluten Free Recipes” by Carol Fenster, along with a couple of other GF baking books.

        Like

  9. This time of year I am all about those Cadbury eggs w/ the filling inside. The originals are my favorite, although if push comes to shove, the other kinds will do.

    I’m also way too fond of sandwich cookies. Hydrox are my favorites but I can never find them anymore so I have to settle for Oreos. As I’ve said here before, the fact that they come with different colored fillings to match the seasons makes them irresistible.

    Like

    1. Man, I have to work reeeeally hard not to eat too much of either of those items. I like ’em both! I don’t buy them for that exact reason, but when I’m at my sister’s she always has Oreos, and sometimes I liberate a few from her pantry.

      Like

    2. …and those Cadbury Mini-eggs (in the purple package), just pretty darn good milk chocolate with a sugar shell…

      Like

  10. Morning–
    Spring break at the college and for my son and two hour late start for daughter so they get one day to adjust that internal clock.
    I think cold pizza is my favorite snack.
    Beyond that it varies. Sometimes it’s peanut M&M’s. Or chips. But ice cream is good too. Either plain vanilla, or cookies and cream, or vanilla with peanuts and the Reeses hard coating on top. MmMmMm!
    Did someone say chocolate chip cookies?? Or popcorn. The possibilities are endless!

    Like

  11. I’m wondering if I’m part bear. Like Bart, I have trouble sleeping when it is too hot and when there are lots of people around. Of course I can have trouble sleeping no matter what the circumstances, but heat and people just make it worse. Daylight savings time does not help the insomniac.

    I’m trying to train myself to like snacking on mainly fruits and vegetables, but I know I will always like sweets. So I’m trying to limit the quantity of that. If I eat things like chocolate (and chocolate-fudge cookies with dried cherries) slowly and savor it, I can be satisfied with a smaller amount. But it’s hard to re-train myself. Popcorn has been a favorite snack ever since I got off the microwave popcorn when I found a stovetop popcorn maker at a thrift store – it’s shaped like a bucket and has a crank you turn which turns a thing at the bottom of the pan so the popcorn doesn’t sit and get burned. It pops super fast and is really good. Drizzling some sunflower oil and sprinkling a little brewer’s yeast on top makes me feel virtuous, but when I eat the entire batch by myself, it’s not as virtuous as I like to think it is.

    Like

      1. One of my downfalls is “I deserve this” or “This will make me feel better.” As in -“I am so lonely/depressed/confused that a little chocolate/cookies/popcorn will make me feel better.” Then that turns into “If a little chocolate makes feel a little better, a lot of chocolate will make me feel a lot better” or “Something good happened and to celebrate, I’m going to eat!”

        Like

  12. my husband is diabetic and he snacks on olives, nuts, pickled veggies, and feta cheese. He is slim and trim and keeps his blood sugar in the normal range.

    Like

  13. Tortilla chips with Paul Newman’s peach salsa. It’s shocking how much of that I can eat in one sitting. Thank goodness my husband likes it too, and he eats enough so that I don’t feel all that bad.

    Like

  14. I admit that I am powerless against salt and vinegar crisps, Black Pepper and Olive Oil Triscuits, Rustica’s olive bread, smoked almonds, wasabi peas, and guacamole. I love dark chocolate, but salty snacks seem to get me every time.

    Like

    1. Salt and vinegar crisps are something of which I am also quite fond. I like cheese & onion crisps, too. My husband’s from the UK and I blame him for introducing me to some very, very bad snack habits.

      Like

      1. No, fortunately not. I have tried a few deep-fried things that really shouldn’t have been deep-fried (like Mars bars) on trips to Scotland to see his family. But deep-fried animal parts…that’s an unexplored area for me, and it shall remain so.

        Like

      2. Holy cheese, deep-fried ostrich?!? Nope, never been quite that adventurous. I would try the hell out of a deep-fried peach, though. Twinkies, I could live without, fried or not. I made the mistake of reading the label once. They’re too much like a lab experiment for my liking, albeit a temptingly tasty lab experiment.

        Like

      3. i was thinking of the pork rinds and pig ears i see in the uk in the form of chips. to eat chips in uk you have to look crisps and then be certain they are from potato not bovine or some other strange source.

        Like

    1. You beat me to it: cookies are my favorite. I try not to have any snackie foods in the house because my body’s rule is that they HAVE to be eaten that day. Making them last (“lasting them” as my firstborn used to say) is almost impossible.
      Unlike Tim, I’m much more of a sweet craver than a salty craver. But if salty is in the house (e.g. leftover chips from party), they are doomed.

      Exception to the rule: with age and forgetfulness, I was able to make a jar of peanuts last a long time because I would have a handful, put them back in the obscure part of my cabinet and then 2 weeks later discover them again. “Hey, I’ve got peanuts!”

      Like

      1. Ha! Lisa, I’ve done that with stuff in my pantry many a time. I go to the grocery store, absolutely certain that I’m out of taco shells, and then I go home and find, like, 3 boxes of taco shells in there. Pathetic, I know. 🙂

        Like

      2. not me, those Newtons are GONE!

        One of the joys of serving coffee at church is it gives me permission to buy all sorts of lovely stuff I ought not eat an entire package of, but can have “some” of.

        Like

      3. I actually knew one of the “Newtons” when I was living in Milwaukee. He wore a big costume around to various functions and more than once regaled us at the bakery (he was one of our drivers) by singing the Fig Newton song!

        Like

        1. I once lived in Milw, never met a Newton though. And I lived out of the country for 5 years, from 1970 to 1975, so I must have missed the dancing fig! Thanks for filling in that cultural gap in my life—gotta love YouTube!

          Like

      4. I have strong memories of the commercial with the fig on the roller skates…”ooey gooey rich and chooey insides…golden cakey tender flakey outsides…” (otherwise potentially useful brain cells are storing that 40 year old commercial).

        Like

  15. Chocolate chocolate chip ice cream, dark chocolate (the darker the better), Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies crackers, frozen Thin Mints cookies, fresh-out-of-the-oven brownies…and I have learned that I cannot keep dark chocolate covered ginger around. I will eat as much of that as I buy almost in one go.

    Like

    1. Goldfish crackers by the big boxful-they must be carefully cracked sideways in your teeth for maximum enjoyment!

      Like

  16. my blessing or curse is that i dont like sweets. i can do them , they just dont call out to me. i was thinking about back in the day when i would come home about 10 grab the munchie pile. similar to bens list, with chips pretels peanut butter sandwich a big ol glass of milk and my bong. a perry mason episode of the night and of to lala land, peanut m and ms are good but they get too sugary after 9 or 10 handfuls, i find cutting them with pretzels is a fix i can live with. oh yeah… pecan sandies

    Like

  17. just stopped in before a quick trip to the store. Hah! What are the odds of me coming back without a Reese’s PB cup. I think the question is, the 2 or 4 pkg. On the other hand I think my best/worst store-bought snack things list is easier to make after reading above posts. oreos, pecan sandies, chocolate covered ginger, peanut m&ms and more. I have learned not to keep them in the house.

    Like

  18. Don’t know if this counts as Baboondipity (stolen from the glossary). As I’m reading here about Twinkles, PB cups, chocolate covered ginger, M&Ms, Oreos/Hydrox (I’m totally an Oreo person; what IS the difference between those?)… a song comes on my Dan WIlson album with the line “You’ll have all the sugar you’ll ever need”. Of course, I don’t think he’s singing about cookies.

    Like

    1. In a recent article about the 100th anniversary of Oreos, the original difference between Oreos and Hydrox was that Oreos used lard in the filling and Hydrox did not (so they were kosher). Oreos no longer uses lard – and I think Hydrox may be out of business.

      Like

  19. so, i was lurking along until i got this huge craving (curious because i just had my pizza breakfast about two hours ago, VS 🙂 so while i was making the collard green/black-eyed peas for the rice tonight, i whipped up our favorite decadent and easy cake: put one box of chocolate cake mix in a bowl. add and stir will until blended: 2 eggs, a tsp of almond flavoring (or more if the bottle slips from your hands), and a can of cherry pie filling. dump in a greased 9×13 pan and bake at 350 degreesF for about 25 to 30 minutes. cool slightly. while the cake is baking, put 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup milk and 5 Tblsp. butter in a small saucepan and stir well. heat and bring to a boil – boil for 1 minute. turn off heat and add 1 cup of your favorite chocolate chips. stir until smooth and creamy and dump over the cake. it’s embarrassingly good. try not to eat the whole thing in one day – i find i don’t sleep well with that much chocolate in me 🙂
    still waiting for goat babies – 13 or fewer days. i’ll keep you posted on our FB farm page:
    https://www.facebook.com/pages/MeadowWild-Farm-Alpine-Goats/213813478686775 and click “like” and you’ll get the updates (can always “unlike” if you tire of them 🙂
    thanks, Dale. always enjoy Bart. always hear Jim Ed’s voice as i read……

    Like

    1. I make a similar recipe in a Bundt – no frosting, and chocolate chips go in the cake. You’re right, BiB, it is embarrassingly good (and frightfully hard to stop at just one, er, three pieces…).

      Like

  20. my dear friend told me that, when one takes a piece of cake – take the whole slice all the way across the pan, because that way no one knows how big your piece was. that’s called a “Kumsha” (i think her Dad made that definition up, with their last name) works unless it’s the first or last slice. 🙂

    Like

  21. I just realized now that I am home again – Dale referred to “Baboons with seniority”…eek. If I came over from the old TB on from TLGMS, does that make *me* a “Baboon with seniority”? Oh my. And what, exactly, does it mean to be a “Baboon with seniority?” Are there responsibilities? A secret handshake?

    Like

  22. Survey of the household felines…
    Jory: Ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, bacon, spaghetti sauce, parmesan cheese, salad dressing, toast crumbs, chicken, milk, butter, anything plastic that tastes vaguely like chicken or milk or butter.
    Isabel: Ice cream.
    Sammy: Just any old dry cat food, thanks. Maybe a little tuna if it’s very fresh.

    Like

Leave a reply to Steve in Saint Paul Cancel reply