So You Don't Have To

In the great quest to eat things with odd flavors and report back to you, I have consumed two items within the last couple of months. First off, there is a new Pop Tart flavor. Now, I don't go out of my way to eat Pop Tarts. I was actually looking at cereal or breakfast bars to keep in my desk drawer at work. The breakfast toaster pastries are in the same location. Colorful graphics on the box drew my eye, as it's supposed to do.

I like watermelon. I regularly buy it at the store, but, seriously, in a toaster pastry, warmed? Reddish-pink with green swirls of icing. This should be "interesting".

Visually, it looks like these were sat upon before going into the bag. I think we can figure out how Pop Tarts are made. They lay down the bottom crust. The next machine lays down the filling and another machine applies the top crust. They are squished together, probably just like your mom does to the edges of a fruit pie. Perhaps there is some cooking here to make the toaster part of this food simply a warm-up. After the sandwiching of the tart, another machine applies a layer of frosting and, if necessary, yet another machine gets to apply a squiggly something or other. The whole thing is dried and then shoved into bags, sealed and shoved into boxes. Human hands do not meet this pastry until you open the bag and move the tart to the toaster or, in the case of some of them, eat them without toasting. (I'm looking at you, plain blueberry or strawberry flavored.) I'd be interested to know exactly how many Pop Tarts can come off a conveyor per hour.

But how do these taste? I can say, unequivocally, blah. There was a watermelon sense about them, but that was completely lost in the bland flavor of the pastry itself. I was disappointed. I expected these to be weird in a "Whoa. Watermelon" sort of way and they were weird simply because they weren't watermelon. If you have young kids, these might be amusing, but don't expect any watermelon enthusiast to enjoy them.

Next on the "Oh look at that" is a new flavor from Oreos.

Honestly, I'm not going out of my way to look for things. If those things happen to cross paths with me when I'm looking for something else, well then, it's my duty to try them. Otherwise, I'm not in the cookie aisle. For the record, none of the breakfast bars I saw was remotely appealing. I have to pass through the cookie section of the store to get to oyster crackers so that's how I happened to spy these. Perhaps this isn't a "new" flavor, in that it was released this month, but it's new to me.

Peel back the top of the package and there are dark and white layers. There was a slight aroma of s'mores, but if you were blindfolded and had this under your nose when the top was opened, you'd have a moment of, "I know that smell, but I can't place it". It was the same with opening the Pop Tarts. Seriously, if you are going to incorporate some flavor we are not expecting, make it obvious when I open the package. This limp attempt at a scent doesn't entice me to want to try the cookies.

In true Oreos fashion, I had to pull them apart.

They are constructed as all Oreos are, excepting there are two layers of filling. You can, if you like, peel the filling layers apart, but it doesn't always separate easily. The fillings remove easily from the cookie so if you like to completely separate your Oreos, you can do that.

Taste. Bland with a side of bland. Oreos chocolate cookies have a good chocolate flavor. When they step out of that box and make vanilla cookies it's akin to vanilla-flavored cardboard. The cookies were mealy and crumbly and just didn't hold up to being dunked in milk, something Oreos takes great pride in trumpeting. The chocolate filling was grainy and the marshmallow filling was barely marshmallow flavored. You'd do better to toast a marshmallow and stick it on the filling. I think the cookies were supposed to be graham cracker flavor but that was nowhere in evidence. I wasn't disappointed, per se. I bought these expecting them to live down to low expectations and they certainly did. If you have access to a microwave, you can make close to campfire s'mores. Stay with that and save your dollars.

So, there you have another installment of "So You Don't Have To". I haven't bought anything strange lately. I'm changing my diet around so the Oreos and the Pop Tarts were kind of a last hurrah for awhile. But, you never know. I'm out of the bags of sugar snap pea pods I've been taking to work for lunch and eating while playing WOW. Plus, I'm out of dish soap. I have to go get more which means walking into the store. You never know what will hop off the shelf and into the cart totally unaided. I swear. I had nothing to do with the 2 boxes of Triscuits in the cart.

Beverage:  LaCroix Berry flavored seltzer

Deb

Day 2 and we move on.

I think it dawned on Betsy early yesterday afternoon that Rascal wasn't coming back. I don't know if she'd gone up to Rascal's body although she was at the back door and meowing at me when I got home on Wednesday. The vet told me, when I had to make the decision for Shakespeare, that having the other cats smell the body is a good way for them to understand the other cat isn't coming back. Animals grieve as we do and it takes various forms.

She was clingy yesterday and stayed in the office with me. We napped a couple of times after I got home and she was content to be next to me in the bed. She nibbled at her food but didn't eat as much as she had been. I guess that's to be expected. I sort of roamed the kitchen knowing I needed to eat but unsure exactly what it was I wanted. I eventually made microwave s'mores but that wasn't really what I wanted. I need to clean out the cupboards and make a comprehensive grocery list. It's time to spend another $183 to forget bananas.

This morning, she followed me all over the house, not that she hasn't been doing that already, but the meow was different. Maybe it wasn't a "Don't leave me alone" meow, but, in my current state, that's how it sounds and it breaks my heart. I'm really hoping the boss leaves early as he is want to do on Fridays because I'm going to the grocery for vittles for tonight's Tempest Keep raid and then heading home and I want to leave early.

I know it's because of my state of mind, but I kept hearing noises that sounded like Rascal Wednesday night and yesterday. I kept hearing things like a cat jumping off the windowsill or out of the papsan chair or her meow from the kitchen or the sound of her footfalls in the hall. I still look for Shakespeare to come up from the basement or Penney to come out of my closet or Half-Pint to walk up my body in the morning to stick her face in mine, "Time to get up. It's light out and I don't care that it's 5:24 a.m." But then, I still sort of expect my dad to call to chat and sometimes, I can hear him clear his throat.

Fortunately, my travels are minimal now so the two of us can be middle-aged ladies living together. I hope the budget allows for her blood work that we can stabilize her. Once we both get through the grief, I have a feeling she should be better. There's no competition for affection or food now and she doesn't go outside without me. Although she gets annoyed with my repeated head scratches, she likes the attention. We will get through this.

I do know that I won't have to share my next Domino's pizza with anyone. Rascal adored Domino's and I wound up getting a large to share the meat with the cat. Betsy sniffs, but she's not interested. Oh! I need grenadine. I need real cherry Cokes tonight and chocolate cake.

Beverage: Blackberry tea

Deb

S'mores for supper

It's what I want tonight, so there. I have a very old, falling apart kettle grill which needs to be replaced with something smaller that I would actually use. I would prefer my marshmallows to be crisped on the outside and mushy on the inside but it does not pay to use the big grill for crunchied marshmallows so I do the "nuked" method. 40-45 seconds in the microwave and I have adequate s'mores for yet another rainy and chilly night.
It was 80° today. I had to go into the city to pull equipment from a demolition job that went 2 months longer than anticipated. I then went to this large hospital construction project and swapped out 2 machines, one because it's up for calibration and one because it's acting funny and we can't have equipment acting funny, only me. No coat and a light breeze. Even overcast, it was nice out.
The rains came as I was walking out of Subway with my lunch. It hasn't stopped. I think this would be termed an "unstable air mass", if I remember the weather people's terminology, but I'm really, really tired of unstable. Give me "stable" and I'd even take hot without complaint.
Got the hairs cut and now I run around feeling all those microscopic cuttings that inevitably fall under the collar of the cover up and your shirt. This last dye job is nearly faded. It did not last very long at all, but that's okay. I'm going gray anyway. The gray does stick out like a white light, but that's probably my perception because I know it's there.
On the home front, I had 2 hungry cats when I got home. I fed them half a can of Science Diet k/d, which is for kidney disease and they snarfed it down. Rascal jumped into the papasan chair to spend the next 10 minutes grooming so I know that's a very happy cat. There were some "surprises" on the floor in the hall and the extra bedroom which ants had discovered. That's gross and I'll have to clean that up...later.
I figured out how to pay for the ultrasound so I need to make the appointment tomorrow. As I'm gone on Friday and Saturday, I maybe should wait until next Monday to do it, get through the weekend. I still don't know about the car, but one step at a time. Hence, I figured I deserved s'mores for supper. Just watch it when you nuke the chocolate. It's really runny and I've ruined many a tee shirt with chocolate stains.

Beverage: Assam tea

Deb

Oh my!

Just go to this link. Just go. Do it. You too will say, "Oh my." This is a case of not understanding the consumer to which this was marketed. It should not have been designed to actually work. They should have just made them and sold them as novelties.

New from the candy aisle, at least new to me, Twizzlers Rainbow Twists, the original twist licorice in fruit flavors. How do you want your sugar today, with the flavor of strawberry, orange, lemonade, watermelon, blue raspberry or grape? I will have to conduct full taste tests and issue my report once the bag is empty, which might be Friday.

And Hershey bars were on sale so microwave s'mores, here I come. Yes, I would very much rather have the marshmallows charred over an open fire but it's just me. I'll be happy with the nuked ones.

I had to go to the grocery store to get tuna, chicken and chicken baby food to get Rascal eating again. Lunch was a large tossed salad. My allergies must be getting better because I could taste the poppyseed dressing.

And the other question you want to ask me, I have very little to do, so I'm catching up on my eclectic web sites.

Beverage: cold assam tea. If I want it hot, I have to walk to the microwave. Meh, I'll drink it cold.