For the many years that I patronized Katz’s deli on Manhattan’s Lower East Side I don’t recall the smell of egg cream being the first thing I was hit with when I walked through the venerable joint’s doors. It was the pungent scent of vinegar, rye, mustard and smoke that permeated the air like a Romanian storm front.

I guess a pastrami-scented candle won’t appeal to the masses so Katz’s is offering something tame for the Goyim out there. You can buy the candle here. Personally, I’ll wait for one that smells of brine and garlic.
 
Via Ev Grieve

 
I wish I knew about this when it was still active: Scott Thompson, the member of the Kids in the Hall sketch comedy troupe who broke ground as an out-of-the-closet gay performer at a time when homosexuals were still punching bags for some of the world’s most popular comedians, used to maintain a blog about fruits. Ha ha.

Thompson announced the fruit blog’s existence with the following, in February of 2011:

In the beginning there was the apple and everything was quiet. Then Eve took a bite and that’s when the fun started. The apple is the most popular fruit in the Western Hemisphere and grows pretty much everywhere. There are thousands of types of apples. My favourite is the Macintosh or Macs. Maybe that’s why I love my computer so much. I used to love Delicious apples when you only had them rarely. Then one day they were there every day, their bumps no longer exotic, their almost cloying sweetness no longer exciting. And then they weren’t even called Delicious any more and we were all suppposed to pretend that it had always been that way. No thank you Big Brother. I’m fine with my Mac and a hunk of cheddar. And no thank you, you can keep your fancy handkerchief to yourself. I’ll just polish it on my jeans.

New postings ended in September of 2012, roughly coincident with the announcement that Thompson would play crime scene investigator Jimmy Price on NBC TV’s Hannibal. But in that year and a half or so, Thompson (and friends) blogged a ridiculous series of video fruit reviews. He bravely took on the pomegranate, confronted guava with steely resolve, and went toe-to-toe with tiny bananas and lived to tell the tale. It’s pretty obvious these were all made in a single session. Since I’m laughing, I don’t care.
 

Pomegranates, part I
 
More fruit reviews after the jump…

 
Balls, huh? They give you courage? What the fuck was in them?

Here are a few choice quotes from this 1978 ad:

“You need BALLS to conquer the world.”

“Just pop a few BALLS in your mouth and you’ll be ready for anything.”

And my personal favorite:

“Brown-bag your BALLS to work, so you don’t run out of steam.”

Click here to read a larger image.

Via Boing Boing

 
Nancy Carroll and her husband Jan have an artistic bent and a developed sense of whimsy, so when they were casting about for an idea that would allow them to participate in the Art Walk of Ontario, California (near Rancho Cucamonga), they hit on the idea of creating a museum for a ridiculous and perishable item: the donut. They have refashioned the downstairs floor of their dwelling, which also doubles as an “art studio,” into a Museum of Donuts. As Nancy says, “The Museum of Donuts was inspired by our love of the roadside attraction, and of curiosities.”

It’s been a challenge to get people to not grab and eat the exhibits. They put up signs telling patrons not to touch, but they do anyway. As befits any self-respecting Museum of Donuts, donuts for the purpose of eating are readily available elsewhere on the premises. However, the patrons’ confusion is somewhat understandable, as the donuts for eating and the donuts for displaying are pretty damn similar. Nancy says that for the exhibits, it’s important to use stale donuts: “Better to buy that dozen a few days before the exhibition and let them dry out and firm up a little bit.  Nothing sadder than seeing all your hard work sagging on the wall because it was floating in a deep fryer a few hours ago.” 
 

 
The museum featured a “cereal/serial killer donut series,” complete with a “zodiac cruller” donut and the Son of Sam “David Berko-Trix” donut. It also ran a popular “extraterrestrial” series. They should have an exhibit of Kenny Scharf’s signature donut paintings one day, too.  If you’re in the area, you should see about stopping by.

Related to the museum only by content, here’s a fun video of a woman making a sweet watercolor painting of some donuts in a matter of minutes, a bit further north at Colonial Donuts in Oakland, California:
 

 
via Internet Magic

 
Sinatra’s recipe is very clear cut and straight to the point. Just the way I like ‘em. But Dino’s method has a charm all its own!

Click here to view a larger image.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Ernest Hemingway’s burger recipe is the manliest thing you can do with a cow except beat it up

‘The time I met Dean Martin…’ A True Story
 
Via KFMW

That’s a lot of butch in one photo

My favorite Hemingway anecdotes always revolve around him being absurdly macho—like when he mocked F. Scott Fitzgerald for his monogamy, or when, in an attempt to prevent sharks from eating the tuna he had just caught, he opened fire with a Thompson submachine-gun directly into the water. This, of course, was pretty counterproductive, since it only produced more blood, attracting more sharks and exacerbating the feeding frenzy.

It only makes sense that Hemingway would tire of shooting fish at some point, and settle himself down for a nice, slow-moving animal like a cow, and it turns out that he had very interesting (and totally delicious-sounding) specifications for his burgers. Below is his recipe for an ultra-manly, super-robust burger. Apparently, Mei Yen Powder is no longer on the market, but you can approximate the rich, umami flavor with nine parts salt, nine parts sugar and two parts MSG. For 1 teaspoon of Mei Yen Powder, use 2/3 of a teaspoon of the mix, plus 1/3 of a teaspoon of soy sauce. (And don’t believe the hype about MSG—it’s harmless and delicious.)

Ingredients–

1 lb. ground lean beef

2 cloves, minced garlic

2 little green onions, finely chopped

1 heaping teaspoon, India relish

2 tablespoons, capers

1 heaping teaspoon, Spice Islands sage

Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning — 1/2 teaspoon

Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder — 1/2 teaspoon

1 egg, beaten in a cup with a fork

About 1/3 cup dry red or white wine

1 tablespoon cooking oil

What to do–

Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion and dry seasonings over it, then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers. Let the bowl of meat sit out of the icebox for ten or fifteen minutes while you set the table and make the salad. Add the relish, capers, everything else including wine and let the meat sit, quietly marinating, for another ten minutes if possible. Now make your fat, juicy patties with your hands. The patties should be an inch thick, and soft in texture but not runny. Have the oil in your frying pan hot but not smoking when you drop in the patties and then turn the heat down and fry the burgers about four minutes. Take the pan off the burner and turn the heat high again. Flip the burgers over, put the pan back on the hot fire, then after one minute, turn the heat down again and cook another three minutes. Both sides of the burgers should be crispy brown and the middle pink and juicy.

That is one hell of a specific hamburger is it not???
 
Via Open Culture

 
Let’s face it—we’re still in the holiday season, and what with all the snow much of the country has been getting, it’s okay if you want something utterly yummy to stick inside your belly. Exercising doesn’t start on New Year’s, it starts right after Super Bowl Sunday ... everybody knows that.

So I feel entitled to pass on a delicious recipe for ham hocks and red beans that comes from the unmatchable creative mind of Louis Armstrong. The legendary jazz trumpeter used to sign off his letters, “Red Beans And Ricely Yours, Louis Armstrong,” and he talked about red beans a lot in his autobiography, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans. For instance:
 

They used to laugh like mad when I first began to practice my cornet. Then as the days went on they began to listen and to make little comments, the way kids will. Then we began to understand one another. They were growing rapidly, and the more they grew the more they ate. I soon learned what a capacity they had, and I learned to take precautions. Whenever I cooked a big pot of beans and rice and ham hocks they would manage to eat up most of it before I could get to the table. Willie could make a plate full of food vanish faster than anyone I ever saw. (p. 55)

 
Or this:
 

I thought her Creole gumbo was the finest in the world. Her cabbage and rice was marvelous. As for red beans and rice, well, I don’t have to say anything about that. It is my birth mark. (p. 85, emphasis mine)

 
As Satchmo said, “No need to make folks think I like fancy foods like quail on toast, chicken and hot biscuits, or steak smothered in mushrooms. Of course they taste good and I can eat them, but have you ever tried ham hocks and red beans?” Exactly right. And here’s the recipe the way he liked it:
 

Louis Armstrong’s Ham Hocks and Red Beans

Serves 6.

1 pound dried red beans water
1 pound ham hock
1 bay leaf
1 pod red pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
1 onion, diced
1 pod garlic, minced

Wash beans and soak two to three hours or overnight if preferred.

When ready to cook, drain off water and put beans in large pot with two quarts cold water. Let water heat thoroughly, then add ham hocks, herbs, onion and garlic. Cook slowly but steadily at least two hours or until tender enough to mash easily.

When done, place in a dish and lay ham hocks on top. May be served with rice.

 
I propose serving it for your Super Bowl gathering, or barring that, then for the “Big Game.” Doesn’t it look good?
 

 

 
Source: Freda DeKnight, A Date with a Dish, a Cookbook of American Negro Recipes. New York: Hermitage Press, 1948. Forgive the title, it’s a very old book. Freda DeKnight died in 1963 at the young age of fifty-three. She was the cooking columnist for Ebony and her books are still in print.

 
I occupy a weird space, generationally. I’m an older “millennial,” but my mom was young when she had me, making her a “Generation Xer.” So while most of my friends grew up with properly established adult boomers for parents, I had the younger “cool mom.” I had the mom who had Nirvana’s “Nevermind” on cassette, and this was largely positive for me. She never experienced parenthood as a break with popular culture the way a lot of older parents did, and to this day she remains very open-minded about music, art, and literature.

So when I learn about stuff like OK Soda, Coca-Cola’s desperate attempt to court the youth market, I have to wonder… how stupid did they think she was? I mean, as a parent, she might have been more “adult” than your average Gen Xer, but did they really think the tagline, “Things are going to be OK” would relate to the disaffected young masses? As if the flannel-wearing youths would watch these commercials and think, “Yes. This is a soda that isn’t trying too hard with its Charles Burns-designed cans. This is the soda of choice for Ethan Hawke’s character in Reality Bites. This soda speaks to me.”

OK Soda had its trial run in a few test markets from 1993 to 1995—it was a total flop. But while we’re left with only a few remaining cans on eBay and this absurdly transparent marketing campaign (commercials in the video below), these ads are such a perfect moment in 90s pop culture. At a time when Vogue was doing high-end grunge fashion spreads, OK Soda was doing the exact same thing—trying too hard to look like you’re not trying too hard.
 

 
David Chang, the culinary mastermind who created the Momofuku restaurant empire and elevated the stature of porkbelly buns in the hierarchy of tasty treats, has long been known as a Pavement junkie. He once named “Summer Babe” off of Slanted and Enchanted as his “ultimate side one, track one” (far be it for me to disagree!) and slotted Wowee Zowee in his top five Desert Island Discs (I’d go with Slanted, myself). When Pavement reunited in 2010, Chang flew down to Melbourne, Australia, so great was his excitement—he just couldn’t wait the extra six months it would take for the legendary indie-rock quintet to make it to New York City.
 

 
So it’s only understandable to realize that Chang is probably royally geeking out this week, thanks to the announcement a couple of days ago that one branch of his Momofuku Milk Bar (not sure which) will be unveiling a special Stephen Malkmus soft serve ice cream flavor in the new year (January 7, to be exact) to coincide with the release of a new Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks long-player called Wig Out at Jagbags. The flavor is called “Cinnamon and Lesbians,” after the album’s 11th track—for which there is a video! (See below.) It will not be a permanent addition to the menu.

Adding to the general artistic firepower involved in this soft-serve concoction, the flyer above was designed by Gary Panter, a comix artist who created a terrific book called Jimbo’s Inferno, which featured his signature character Jimbo, whom many knowledgeable people regard as perhaps the inspiration for a character named Bart Simpson. He also worked on Pee-wee’s Playhouse and did The Screamers’ logo.
 

 
Here’s the video for “Cinnamon and Lesbians.” It’s highly reminiscent of the Pavement videos of yore, which is definitely a good thing, and feels like an absurdist version of a Portlandia episode—it’s hard to dislike any song in which the singer admits, “I’ve been tripping my face off since breakfast!”
 

 
via Brooklyn Vegan

 
Just in time for the holidays, a recipe for “Krakatoa Surprise,” a disgusting delicacy created by none other than Lemmy. The recipe comes from the book Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal.

Krakatoa Surprise

¼ pound flour
½ pound chocolate syrup
¼ pound refried beans
½ pound curry powder
1 bottle strawberry syrup
¼ bottle brandy

Mix flour, syrup, beans and curry powder into a model of Krakatoa Island. Pour strawberry syrup over it to simulate lava. Pour brandy over all. Strike a match. Eat while still burning.

Below, an image of Lemmy’s Krakatoa Surprise via BaraMetal:

 
With thanks to Cherry Bombed!