Cultural Cuisinart

For those who read this blog, you may notice from the posts that I have 3 main interests: video games, football and politics. They make me happy for various reasons (though politics makes me unhappy as a citizen, as a consumer of entertainment, the spectacle is hard to beat). The three topics appeal to various parts of my personality: the geek, the athlete and the conscious American citizen.

Another of my interests is food. At the moment, I'm particularly obsessed, as I am soldiering through the Induction phase of the Atkins diet. While I'm happy with the weight loss (7 lbs so far!), the craving for carbs is insane. So, today's post is all about food.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is the Deep Fried Twinkie. I try to eat one (and only one) once a year. A Deep Fried Twinkie (or DFT) is basically a Twinkie that has battered in dough similar to what they use on funnel cakes, deep fried in fatty oil, covered in powdered sugar and presented for your consumption on a stick. It is one of the greatest taste sensations you'll ever experience. It's not subtle, I grant, but it's sure tasty. The reason I eat only one a year is because as you can imagine, it's probably somewhere around 30000000 calories. I can feel my heart start to labor about halfway through.

Now, you might ask yourself, what entree would I pair with this wonderful dessert? Ask no longer, for I present to you: The Hamdog. What's that?

The Hamdog, of mythical proportions but oh so very real, starts with a hot dog wrapped in a beef patty. This massive meatwad is then deep-fried. Not enough for you? It's then topped with chili, cheese, onion, a fried egg, and two fistfuls of fries. All of this is nestled in a giant hoagie bun.




That is crazy. Eating a Hamdog, followed by a DFT might literally stop your heart. Awesome and yet terrifying. Real Life Comics has a great strip on the Hamdog.

In other news, more zoos are putting animals on Weight Watchers-style diets. This makes me think of the advice that our vet gave us, regarding our very lovable, but very pudgy cat Ellie. The vet recommended "Catkins", which much like the Atkins that I myself am on, consists mostly of meat (i.e. canned food), instead of the dry food, which has lots of filler with lots of carbs.

Lastly, the top 5 foods I'm going to pound when I get to Hawaii (the trip that is motivating the diet in the first place):

1. Kalua pork
2. Malasadas
3. Portuguese sweet bread (with a side of guava juice)
4. Dim sum
5. Fresh udon noodles from Jimbo's