What we have here is a failure to communicate

Click here to go to most recent posts.

How it's made

What popular food item is produced by combining these ingredients?:

Enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, palm oil, soybean oil, sugar, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate, glucono delta lactone), nonfat milk, dextrose, defatted soy flour, rye flour, whey, buttermilk, egg yolk, eggs, mono and diglycerides, milk protein concentrate, salt, soy lecithin, modified corn starch, sodium diacetate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, sodium propionate, dextrin, tapioca starch, guar gum, meltodextrin, natural and artificial flavor, butter, karaya gum, nutmeg oil, yellow 5, red 40, polysorbate 60, sugar, water, maltodextrin. propylene Glycol, sorbic acid, agar agar, natural and artificial flavors, heliotropine, hydrochloric acid.

Hydrochloric acid! What went through someone's head when they were preparing a list of ingredients to buy when they decided to make a fresh batch of...doughnuts. Yes! Doughnuts! Hydrochloric acid! Maybe the baker originally left out the ingredient from the shopping list, but as his assistant was walking away and looking over the ingredients, he stopped in his tracks, turned around and said "Bob, you forgot to add hydrochloric acid".

And what the heck is "agar agar"? Is it a double dose of "agar"? I understand why a muumuu isn't a just a muu (so as not to be confused with a moo of course), but what's agar agar's excuse? I had to look this up. As it turns out, agar agar is yet another delicious part of some of our favourite doughnuts. Specifically, it is "a vegetarian gelatin substitute produced from a variety of seaweed vegetation". I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly thinking fondly of that next doughnut I'll eat.

If you don't believe me, check out these links:

http://www.honeydewdonuts.com/products/nutrition/donuts/honey-dip-sticks

http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/dairyfreeglossary/g/AgarAgar.htm

Click here to go to most recent posts.

Deep, philosophical question

Why do I have to pay for unlimited TV watching if I only watch a few hours per month? Why isn't all TV programming "pay per view"? It's like driving your car 100 miles per month but paying for as much gas as if you drove it 24/7. WTF? Why aren't there the multitude of packages and options that we see for phone (land or mobile) service? I mean besides the fact it would be more fair and provide less profit for our overlords. It's like having to buy a public transit monthly pass when you only need to travel once per week. WTF? It's like wanting a coffee and doughnut but every restaurant forces you to pay $20 for all-you can-eat. WTF? Feel free to post your own analogy in the "Comments" section. And don't forget to tack on "WTF?" on the end.

Doughnuts 'n stuff

I recently made a trip to Dallas, Texas. While clearing airport security at my stop-over in Detroit, I accidentally spilled some of the contents of the tray containing my metal objects, namely loose change. So as not to disrupt the flow of the line, I quickly got on my knees and collected all the coins I could see within my vicinity and put them in my pocket.

When I got to my destination, I reached into my pocket, grabbed the handful of (Canadian) coins I wouldn't be needing during my stay and placed them on a dresser. There they sat for 10 days.

When I picked them up as I was getting ready to head to the airport, I noticed a couple of odd-looking coins. My immediate thought was that the taco lady in Detroit had ripped me off, giving me "slugs" instead of quarters. I have a bad habit of never even glancing at my change whenever I'm handed it.

Upon closer inspection, they were each a 2-Euro coin. Four Euros! I'm not sure how much that is, but I seem to recall that the Euro is worth more than a U.S. dollar and a U.S. dollar is worth more than a Canadian dollar. Ok, I just checked. My little windfall has netted me just about $6 Canadian. Not bad for five seconds work. I'm going back to the airport tomorrow. This time I'm going to borrow a metal detector from the security staff.

By the way, I'm not sure if this is true of every Dunkin' Donuts shop in the U.S., but the one in the Memphis airport has the biggest apple fritters I've ever seen in my life. They are no less than three times the size of our Tim Horton's equivalent. I'm not exaggerating. I bought one and was expecting to pay like $3 for it or something, but it cost me no more than a regular doughnut, whatever that was. Amazing! It took me about 15 minutes to eat the damn thing which was delicious, and it sufficed as my lunch. What a deal!