[Editor's Note: Drat. I initially started writing this CPK Frozen Pizza review with the intention of having it appear like it was coming from the point of view of a slightly intoxicated alien. About halfway in, however, I realized that it'd be impossible to keep this up. This particular alien's point of view just takes too much fricken work to incorporate. And I don't really think or sound like the alien that I wanted. So, I stopped the joke and I've reverted back to "normal" for the actual review. I'm sure CPK will appreciate that more. Enjoy, or not. ]

Eeetch otch ootch.

Uggabugga.

Now that the usual pleasantries are out of the way, I would like to converse toward you or at you, that is, I would like to pronounce variously diverse syllables of this English lexicon, in the manner of that a humanoid of average influence, so that I may explicate (not defecate!) some ideas about so called “edible” objects. I believe this is known colloquially as “food reviewing”.

You see, I have only recently landed.

Or perhaps rather, what you may call a “spaceship” of mine has come to rest with great force and fire upon the center of the township known as Los Angeles in the grossly misproportioned parcel of land called the State of California, which itself is part of the larger functioning empire known as these United States of Canada’s Large Ballsack. (Excuse moi – I may have got the language incorrect but the general gist or mist of the idea is there.)

And being as it may that the thing which you might call one of my gastrointestinal bodily vessels or “stomachs” that I currently harbor had become devoid of fuel, I endeavored to remedy that situation snappity snap.

Upon entering a “supermarket” (perhaps this is spelled incorrectly, is it “stupormarket”?), I ignored the masses of extremely short, fat, fleeing beings (as I understand, being 10 earthling feet tall, 4 earthling inches wide and possessing the USUAL eight appendages is not greeted with friendliness here) and slithered immediately to where these “foodstuffs” were lined up.

I immediately filled up my second expandable hump (so glad to have had that installed recently) with a large variety of these foodstuffs and voorted the hell in a handbag out of there.

So far I have masticated or consumed a number of these earthling edibles with no ill effects. I must admit some confusion: What, pray tell, is a “pringle”? I shan’t even begin to describe my confusion over why these “hot dogs” are shaped so much like what your earthling women use for…

Sorry, a humanoid dressed in a light blue outfit just came to the hatch door and presented me with a package from a business called Amazonedotcom. I apparently was required to use something called an “oven” to prepare this item known as a California Pizza Kitchen Crispy Thin Crust Margherita Pizza, so I contacted this business to get one. My, their service is quite speedy.

.
.
.

(Alien reviewer suddenly turns back into human reviewer.)

Gah, that was difficult and likely a waste of an hour to write. I promise it won’t happen again.

I’m not really a huge fan of California Pizza Kitchen, the restaurant. To be honest, it’s sorta an embarrassment whenever they have those Best Pizza Joint shows on the Travel or Food Channel. They have New York style pizza, and then they have Chicago style pizza. And then they usually tack on “California” style pizza as an afterthought, so all the rabid fusion pizza eating surfer media mogul dudes won’t go postal.

But I’ve eaten the pizza at the restaurants (usually dragged kicking and screaming there by co-workers) and it’s not bad. The thing is that when I feel like eating A Pizza, I want it to be a dang pizza, not a movie production.

I want crust, tomato sauce, cheese and toppings. Usually, I’d like to have some sort of meat like pepperoni, sausage or canadian bacon on there. Pineapple is pushing it. No sprouts or broccoli. No fricken BBQ sauce. No sweet crap. By the hair of my chinny chin chin, if you put something crazy like ice cream or jello or melonballs on there when I’m hungry for pizza, I swear that I will hunt you down and force you to watch Teletubby re-runs, Clockwork Orange style.

(Italians and such: I know you have something to say about what pizza should be like. We shall have to have that conversation yet another day.)

So I guess that I already set myself up not to like CPK’s frozen pizzas from the grocery store. Let’s get right down to price, which is usually quite expensive. A 10 1/2 inch pie usually runs $5-6. However, I was able to get this Margherita CPK pizza for $3.14. I think it may even go as low as $2.50 if on sale.

This is the Margherita variety which is pretty plain. I actually wanted to get this one, because it didn’t have any crazy stuff on it. Just cheese, tomatoes, olive oil and basil. I guess I’m not such a big fan of pizza that doesn’t have tomato sauce – it’s more like cheesebread if it doesn’t have the tomato sauce (again: Italian friends, we shall talk more about that later, I promise.) I just like the stupid average American pizza the best.

Popped the pizza into the preheated oven for 12 minutes like they said. I cooked it right on the grate as they suggested, instead of using the pizza stone that we got recently. If I remember correctly, they actually said NOT to put it on a pizza stone directly. Interesting.

It came out looking very nice, like what you would expect a frozen Margherita pizza to look like. Overall, the best part was the fresh tomato taste – surprisingly good. The basil flavor was lacking a bit, but I can’t really blame them for that. I know this is probably asking for the impossible, but if they could get a better Basil taste to the pizza then I might be sold.

The crust was crispy but sort of cakey. This seems to happen with a ton of frozen pizzas that I try out. It doesn’t taste like a crispy yet chewy pizza crust. It’s more like a cracker, though nice and thin as advertised. I’ve wondered if it was the cooking method, but I’ve tried all sorts of different ways and it always comes out the same.

The mozzarella cheese actually had good coverage which is sometimes a problem with these frozen pizzas. They made a big deal about the “olive oil” flavor but I guess it didn’t really hit me all that much. It’s probably hidden in the crust somewhere. Not a big deal I guess.

The basil was the main downer – there were sprinkles or flecks of it all over. But, as I mentioned, what do you expect really? At least they were honest in the picture on the front cover. I woulda been pissed if they showed big basil leaves all over the place. I guess I coulda just clipped a few leaves off that plant in the corner (yep, we’ve been attempting to grow our own).

I think overall, this wasn’t as bad as I expected. The crust could use some more life to it, but it was pretty good for cheesebread style pizza. However, I definitely wouldn’t get it if it wasn’t on sale – and even if it was, there’s a ton of cheaper alternatives that to my untrained Americano mouth taste a lot better.

Price: $3.14 for 12.8oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10

I am an egg paranoiac.

I admit it. Yes, you may have seen one of those obsessive-compulsive, sweatpants-clad egg fondlers at the market just a few weeks ago.

That was ME fondling your eggs Mr. Stater Brother.

I open up a box of eggs and then set them up on the shelf to check and see if they’ve slipped any fake candy eggs in the box. These things happen sometimes at the egg factory, especially around Easter time.

I smell the eggs for any hints of radioactivity. I rub them for good luck. Then I place them, lengthwise between the 2nd back molars on the right side of my mouth and tilt my head toward the light to see if any pictures of Spock are transmitted into my brain. (Walter Bishop told me to do that, you know, just in case. In case of what, I’m not sure…)

Then I roll them across the floor to make sure the yolk distribution is correct.

The trajectory on the floor must inscribe a certain parabolic arc, and if it does not, then I put them back in their container and start all over again with another box. You see, you must never, ever mix up the eggs that come in a box. They are meant to be together and CANNOT be separated.

If they are separated, an immediate high frequency coded signal will begin to be transmitted from a hidden circuitboard embedded at the base of each cardboard box of eggs. This will contact a base station at the factory and immediately alert the chickens to which these eggs belong. The chickens will then start to run around clucking as if their heads were cut off.

The factory manager, noting the obvious egg space-time continuum disturbance, will then send out sleek Lincoln towncars filled with men in black to the supermarket where the signal has come from.

They will be instructed to apprehend any bad eggs.

LOL.

The above scenario, while not exactly true, is not exactly false. I do check my eggs before buying, because I’ve gotten some cracked ones before. It’s good idea to at least open the box, hidden microchip circuitboard or not.

Recently, we came into an overabundance of eggs due to the perfect storm of an egg fire sale at the market and a shopping list gone awry. I was just going to boil ‘em up and make an enormous egg salad sandwich the size of an alligator. But then I decided to try out a recipe for a type of egg that I’ve never made before. These are tea eggs.

I’ve been a tea egger (a consumer of tea eggs) for awhile now.

No, not a tea bagger. A tea EGGER.

These tea eggs are pretty much just boiled eggs that have been infused with various spices. While most recipes I’ve seen call for particular separate spices, I think there’s actually a packet of stuff that you can buy at specialty markets to make tea eggs – something similar to a “five spice” taste. I decided to make it from scratch because we happened to have the star anise and the cinnamon in the pantry.

One of the coolest thing about the tea eggs is the spiderweb lines that appear on the surface. This comes about because you crack the eggs lightly after boiling and then put them into a liquid mixture. The area where the cracks are gets darker, resulting in the lines.

This can be really cool if you take a few eggs to lunch and tell your unsuspecting (soon to be ex) friends “Did I ever tell you about the alien chicken at home that lays eggs? Here’s proof…”

Guys: This is also a great conversation piece at bars. You accost a pretty girl, whip one of these bad boys out, and say “Hey baby – let me peel my egg for you.” You can also follow this with: “Now imagine what the rest of me looks like!”

Well, without further ado, and with much trepidation, here is a recipe of sorts:

Tea Eggs

6 eggs — $1.00
2 tbsp loose tea (or 2 tea bags) — $0.25
1/2 cup soy sauce — $0.50
2 tsp sugar — $0.05
3-4 star anise pods — $0.25
1 cinnamon stick — $0.10
1 tsp pepper — negligible
optional salt — negligible

Total: $2.15

You get a pot. You fill it with water. Then you lay your eggs. (Dang. I’ve been trying to use a nice pun about laying eggs in this post, but it just never worked its way in.)

Boil the summabitch. Well, get it up to boil anyhow. Then turn the heat off, and put the lid on. Let it sit for 12-15 min. I don’t know if this is really necessary for this recipe, but this is how we usually make nice boiled eggs that don’t have a powdery center. Thanks Martha Farking Stewart…

Take the eggs out with a spoon or whatever, and put ‘em in a bowl. Run cold water on it if you don’t want to burn off your fingerprints. Then lightly crack the eggs. I just cracked them on the sink, but I heard sometimes it’s better if you whack ‘em with a butter knife or heavy spoon. Whatever. You just need to make sure they’re cracked enough so the flavor can enter the eggs.

Put ‘em back in the water in the pot. You can use new water if you want. Add tea, soy sauce, sugar, star anise, cinnamon and pepper. You might need to add some salt. Or, you could just add more soy sauce.

Get the thing up to boil again, then reduce the heat to low and simmer it for 2 hours or more. I think it depends how strong you want the flavor. During the cooking process, you might need to chuck some more water in there. To make sure you don’t end up a dry pot with exploding eggs, and trust me I have done that on occasion while boiling eggs.

When done, let the eggs cool, crack ‘em and eat. You can fridge them for a few days at least too.

You can increase or decrease the amount of spices to taste. The batch I made for the first time didn’t seem to have enough flavor, so I returned the eggs to the pot and cooked for another hour or so. They tasted better after that. I didn’t add salt, but many recipes I’ve seen call for both soy sauce and salt. You should play around with the proportions.

I still have hesitations about posting these 3 dollar and under recipes. I know they’re a lot of fun for people and very popular, but I sometimes feel like I’ve gotten myself backed into a corner with them. It’s really hard to come up with recipes for $3 or less, because I haven’t adjusted for inflation. Or for people who write in complaining that I don’t know the price of [insert food item].

It’s also harder for keep the comedy going with recipes like this because I feel the need to actually write something of use to people.

In any case, that doesn’t matter because I’m going away.

Yesterday, I went to Fresh & Easy and randomly swapped out 5013 eggs between boxes while the workers weren’t looking.

The men in the Lincoln towncars are coming.

They’re coming to take me away, HO HO HEE HEE HA HA to the funny farm.

Where life is beautiful all the time.

[Editor's Note: If you didn't understand that, then you should probably listen to this song. Also, you are probably why I didn't make the obvious joke about how tasty my "star anise" is in this post. I thought it was too easy, and I don't want to offend all the star anise fans out there.]

Truthfully (and when, good peoplepersons, have I ever NOT been truthful?), I’ve been thinking hard about this review for the past month or so.

Thinking hard has gotten me exactly nowhere.

So I decided to sum up what few thoughts these few brain cells have squeezed out about White Castle Microwaveable Hamburgers in two sentences:

“John Cho is, like, a god to me.”

and

“These square hamburgers are rather small.”

The End.

I would elaborate more on the first sentence, but I don’t think it’s really worth your time see me heave my enormous Jabba the Hutt bulk up on a soapbox. Or maybe it would be, if I had a fat wormy body like Jabba the Hutt. Jabba the Hutt would probably also have something nice to say about mini hamburgers. OK, I’ll stop saying Jabba the Hutt so you won’t jabba me in the hutt. I mean butt.

Superb. Butt-jokes in a hamburger review.

But if I could just make one little observation: John Cho, and of course Kal Penn (he is also, like, a god to me), have done more good for Asian Americans and White Castle hamburgers than any mortals from this multiverse have ever done.

I speak, with reverence bordering on the supernatural, of that peculiar película known as Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.

Definitely one of the top 20 films of all time.

I have watched it 813 times, 26 of those in a row while sitting on the couch while eating Pocky and drinking Boba milk tea.

If you have not seen it, you have not lived. Or at least identified heavily with a film about two Asian American guys who don’t kungfu-fight (and also don’t travel through “time and space” with a bad accent) who just want a fricken hamburger. Plus, man, does John Cho has a way with ladies of different persuasions.

You go, Cho.

But all that is water under the bridge, meat under the table, and so on. This is a review about hamburgers. According to the movie (and nearly everyone from the East Coast with a heartbeat), they are supposed to be the shiz. Or is it the shiraz? I’m not a wine person, so you’ll have to excuse me. Or excommunicate me.

To those east coasters who say that I can’t possibly write up a review on White Castle hamburgers without having flown over there and tried the Real Deal, I say, “You’re absolutely correct. Now get on a plane and fly over here and have a real hamburger at In-N-Out.”

No really, I can’t say that. I’m sure White Castle does indeed rock the cow. It’s just that a lot of people from the other side of the continent have a highly disturbing way of dismissing In-N-Out hamburgers as hippy California Pizza Kitchen surfer burgers.

As if, dude.

But in any case, I didn’t expect making these little burgers in the microwave to compare to getting the real thing. Although, they sure look VERY similar. I’m not used to “slyders” or “sliders”, unless you mean the great TV show that they should bring back starring, guess who – John Cho.

I don’t even know if they’re supposed to have what amounts to raw onion chunks sprinkled on each one. I didn’t really enjoy that part so much. Also, I could’ve used some cheese on them. And tomato and lettuce. Heresy, yes.

They came in three 2-packs of hamburgers. You just open up the plastic on a pair of the burgers and separate them. Then you nuke for 60 seconds from frozen. I had a little trouble getting the little buggers, er, burgers, to cook completely. Your mileage may vary, especially if you’re a frequent flyer.

The taste is – not so great. The meat was sort of lifeless (on second thought, that may be a good thing!) and a bit pasty from the steam. I can’t understand what it is with people liking the hamburger and the interior side of the bun to be all sopping wet and melded together. Maybe it’s a West coast thing, but I really like them distinct and separated. I realize that large “Helen of Troy”-type wars have been fought over different hamburger styles, so I’ll just stop there.

The bun itself was OK, but nothing to write home about. I really could not get past the onions – scraping them off proved helpful, yet messy.

The price is the straw that broke the cameltoe’s back for me. At 60 cents each, these just weren’t worth it. I don’t even know – how much do these cost normally at the actual restaurant? I feel they should be a quarter at most for the amount of meat inside. Oh sure, you’re getting authentic White Castle hamburgers. But I’m not sure why anyone would pay the premium unless they’re nostalgic for them. Or, like me, you’ve watched the movie too many times and you just have to try them, and you don’t want to fly across the country.

And now, it is my great pleasure to end this narrative WITHOUT a picture of my original idea for this review which was a photo of my naked chest with two White Castle Hamburgers covering my mannipples like pasties.

Eek!

Price: $3.69 for 9.5oz (6 slyders)
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 3/10

[Editor's Note: Any fools out there who would like to have a picture of me fondling White Castle Hamburgers on my mannipples, please send $9.95 to "Burger Pasties, 31539 Scam Street, Burger City, CA" Thank you.]

Salutations.

So, I’ve been monkeying around with the new WordPress install that I grumbled about earlier. Surprisingly, I’ve been finding it hasn’t been grinding my Cheap Eats blogging mojo down.

If anything, it’s made it easier to make posts. There are still a lot of things I hate about it, but it’ll work for now.

I’ve also had some time to think, which is likely a dangerous thing. Deep thinking is not my strong suit. And anyway, I hate to wear neckties.

But yes, I got to thinking that as much as I hate to acknowledge the folks who dislike the “windbaggy” part of this blog, they probably have a sixteenth of a point. In particular, I’ve been complaining too much.

No one likes a complainer.

That is, except my secret horde of Cheap Eats zombie groupies that follow me around the Dollar Store documenting my every move. “Oooh, is he going to grab the Beanee Weenne? Or the Smoked Oysters?

And at night, I lock my lovely food zombie groupies in the pantry where they order my Earthquake food by expiration date. They also type up my ingredients list which is handy because I get tired of writing Thiamine Mononitrate and Disodium Phosphate over and over again.

Yes, zombie groupies are awesome. But even they get tired of me complaining. So I’ll try to wankle and complain less. And write more reviews. Better ones. With better sentences and more grammatically correct.

And I’ll also try to save America from its own gluttony, a la Jamie Oliver, by importing 55 herds of fresh Swedish ox-fish which poop out dynamically balanced meals of meat-veg that school kids will love to eat.

And also, I’ll sail my bathtub to Iceland to put out the volcano so planes can get up in the air already and bring us our imported frozen meat pies, Cadbury bars and haggis.

And so on.

(I lied about the Haggis, I don’t think they can import that to the U.S.)

Speaking of Haggis, this Cook’s Classics Beef Ravioli sure does NOT have anything to with that.

I often get suckered into buying cheap crappy canned food. For some reason, I have this hopeful thought every time I pick up a can of cheap food that it will somehow bring about Everlasting World Peace. But it never quite does. Go figure.

This was pretty cheap at 69 cents for a can. I’m trying to recall if the standard Chef Boyardee Ravioli gets down that far. I think it does at certain stores, but the price I see is usually around a buck. I figured that if this was anywhere similar to Chef Boyardee, I should just put this stuff in the earthquake pantry. I love to buy these off brands for that purpose.

But this Cook’s Classics ravioli really confused me. It smelled exactly like Chef Boyardee’s. The sauce was pretty much the same – gloopy, orange corn starchized puke with bits of “Meat” floating around. The raviolis seemed about the same too – little 1.5 inch pillows of bland, slightly stale-tasting, crackerish (hint, the ingredient after beef is “crackermeal”) paste-pouches.

But the more I ate, the less I liked it. This is somewhat contrary to what usually happens with this kind of food-travesty-in-a-can. What happens normally is that after awhile your taste buds sort of become immune to the crap assaulting it. Either that, or the episode of So You Think You Can Dance you’re watching starts to really heat up, and you forget about meat paste pouches so you can concentrate on all that revealed flesh jiggling onscreen.

Come on. You don’t watch it for the dancing. ‘Fess up.

But truly, I did sort of become more disappointed as the minutes went by. I went from about a 7 score, to a 5 score and finally to a 4. Then Lost came on the TV and I forgot all about scores, as I continued my weekly daydream about kidnapping the cast and holding them hostage in my pantry so that my zombie groupies would have something good to munch on while they’re typing up my reviews.

I think one of the issues is that there is this tangy aftertaste that I can’t quite describe. Kind of like a sour pickle, if a sour pickle was a sauce-drenched pouch of beef paste. Or maybe a cross between a tomato and a pile of metal shavings, if a tomato and a pile of metal shavings was a sauce-drenched pouch of beef paste.

Funny Man needs to end this review soon.

Without further ado, I will now state that this Cook’s Classics Beef Ravioli did not completely suck. However, I would not really suggest you eat this if you are alive.

What I mean to say, is that, zombies and food-reviewing undead, if they are reading this, should immediately go to the Dollar Store and purchase cans of this to take back to their lairs to consume instead of their normal dinner of human flesh.

(If this works, you can thank me later for saving mankind.)

Price: $0.69 for 15 oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 4/10

Great Things are afoot. Or, more likely, Things Have Changed Forcing Me To Finally Get Off My Ass And Upgrade Stuffs.

You know how it goes.

Well, maybe I should explain. Last week the Cheap Eats website went kablooey. Thank Jeebus it happened on a Saturday, when traffic was at a lull. In any case, this was entirely the fault of the server that this site lives on. Some flag of some sort went “ding” (or more likely the site tripped it, or some over-zealous, newly-hired employee decided to bust our balls), and we started getting 500 server timeouts.

I ended up having to upgrade the WordPress that this site runs on. Let me just say that this has been a LONG time in coming. You’re not going to believe how old the previous WordPress version was. That part was my fault. But I have my reasons.

Most importantly, I just hate to be told what to do.

I’ve been accused, by my parents no less, of having what some bears or giraffes (or extinct dodo birds) may call a “Hard Head“. That is to say, if you tell me I ABSOLUTELY need to do something, my first response is to say, “Why?” My second response is to ask all sorts of annoying questions. My third response is often to delay the inevitable.

Basically, I will go far, far out of my way to avoid doing something you tell me I have to do.

I am not a team player.

So let’s talk about WordPress. Amazing, amazing open source software that is currently caught up with pleasing all the teeny weeny 15 year old bloggers who want to talk about Miley Cyrus’s magical Diplodocus. (What’s that you say, there IS no magical Diplodocus? Damn damn damn.) Upgrades every 3 weeks, plugins to put a single line of text into your blog, and AJAX Oh My.

I have hoisted myself with my grubby middle-aged hands up onto my soapbox.

[Editor's Note: Now is about the time you should tune out in case you are allergic to boring rants.]

Whatever happened to writing a few lines of text in a program to do something you want, instead of complaining to the community to get that new Facebook plugin sidebar doohickey into the next upgrade? (Don’t get me started on how much I hate Facebook or how many people have asked me if I’ve joined yet.)

Me, I just want to write some crap every 2 or 3 weeks. This crap, if people like it, may be commented upon. People can also visit old archived crap if they wish. If they wish to contact me, they may use a crap form. Also, if you happen to have a laptop, you may read my crap while you take a crap of your own on the crapper.

La la la la It’s simple, and it works.

I seriously believe, if it ain’t broken, then by Ganesha’s wonderful elephanty trunk, Don’t Fricken Fix It!

We all have better things to do than worry about upgrading, or whether or not something is breaking in the custom code that I’ve written. Like go and eat a mythical KFC Double Down today. (I time travelled back 5 days to get the picture above – you like?)

Yes, I know you’re saying – “But WordPress has the auto-upgrade thingy so you don’t need to worry.”

Let me tell you, young grasshopper, that I used to have over 50 different WordPress sites. This was before WordPress MU days, or at least before it worked well. If you have ANY sort of custom code in your blogs, be prepared to update it manually and continually, whenever the WordPress geniuses decide they need to roll out another Miley Cyrus-centric update.

Yes, I know that the majority of this code will be contained in the theme if you’re smart. And oh sure, you can rely on plugins, but that’s even worse. What the bollocks do you do when a plugin that is essential to your site becomes incompatible with the “new” version of wordpress? It happens more often than you think – wiz kid plugin author gets bored / gets a job / gets laid / gets married / gets religion / gets greedy / gets drunk. It isn’t a question of IF it will happen. It’s a question of WHEN it will happen. There is no money to be made in free plugins.

To make a long story longer – I was pretty happy sitting around with the WordPress 2.0.11 branch, which the WordPress Gods had decided not to upgrade any longer, but would support as far as security updates went until 2010 (I think that was back in 2007 or so). Well, then they decided to go against their word and throw in the towel long before they said they would. And I decided to say “F-em”. I decided that the probability of some hackologist figuring out some new exploit in WordPress 2.0.11 was so unlikely that if they could do that, they would probably try to take over the world instead a la Pinky and the Brain.

La la la la website stopped working last week.

Well, I decided to upgrade at the same time I fixed the mess. It turned out that quite a few people visit this little blog, more than I had realized. (I have no idea why any people other than my food reviewer friends would visit – there’s so many better options out there.) As such, it was wonking major gremlins with the shared server that it sits on. The solution was turning the dynamic pages (yes, WordPress pages are usually dynamically served) into cached static pages. But it was way too difficult for me, with just my old Electrical Engineering degree, to figure out how to do it. And the plugin required me to upgrade.

La la la la so I upgraded the bizatch.

I wasn’t happy about it, though. In fact, I was VERY unhappy about it since it cost me a whole Saturday and half of Sunday. You have won this round Matt Mullenswag, but I will be coming for you with fricken bells a buzzin’. And I will be taking no prisoners. I will strike you down with great vengeance and then make you eat my poo.

What I’ve done is remove all plugins that were “unnecessary”. Plugin authors who decide not to support their plugins any longer are the Absolut vodka bane of my existence. It drives me crazy. There should be a law against it.

So I’ve vowed (I’ve vowed this many times in the past, but always cave in when some new cool Miley Cyrus quote plugin comes about) to use as few plugins as possible, so that I don’t have to pull out my non-existent hair when I have to upgrade yet again to satisfy the WordPress Gods.

La la la la now I only wish they would get rid of that idiotic Hello Dolly plugin once and for all.

So, finally, this is what it has to do with you, dear reader or readerette. The site may look a little different, but hopefully all the main functions are there. I purposely waited a week to say anything, just to make sure. One of the main changes is that I had to get rid of the Poll plugin, and I don’t really want to find a new one, unless it is completely 100% independent of the core code. I just don’t want to have to worry about not being able to upgrade the poll in the future. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. But please remember it has to be 100% independent of the stupid WordPress core code.

I’ll be holding my breath quite literally everytime there is an upgrade. Because who knows what monkeys they’ll throw into the wrench. But other than that, reviews and such should continue as they have previously. I’ve settled into one post every 1-3 weeks. Seems OK to me. I get mail every so often from a new razzafrazz jumpin’-at-the-bit food blogger who seems to think that it’s an afront to the senses to post less than once a day. Let me tell you, young Beeblebrox, that you will learn that it’s quality and not quantity that will contribute to your longevity in the blogosphere. And no, I won’t link your new blog unless you give me $1,583,302. And 35 cents.

I guess what it comes down to is: I Fear Change. I hate changing things up. I want people to listen to LP records and cassette tapes again, heck even listen to CDs. I want my Wendy’s Pasta Bar back. I want my McDLT. I want Carl’s Jr. not to suck ballz. I want Facebook to die a horrible death.

I guess that a food blog that doesn’t keep evolving is eventually bound for the Internet Archive Death Star graveyard. But know that you stormtroopers will have to drag me there kicking and screaming.

La la la la la Hooray Cheap Eats is running again.

Whassup.

Yes, I did buy this Wasa Crispbread entirely for its moniker’s resemblance to the catchphrase from that outdated, archaic, so-1999 commercial filled with telephonically challenged idiots who look sort of (but not exactly) like your brother’s inebriated dog’s girlfriend’s owner. I do things like that.

I also smell my armpits. Hmm… Oniony.

You see, the other day I was at Whole Foods.

Wait, back up there Mr. Moneybags. You were at Whole Foods, the mortal enemy of Cheap Eaters around the land? Don’t get me wrong, I like a little expensive toejam tofu now and then. But for the most part, I stay out of Yuppiefoodville. (Incidentally, Sandra Tsing Loh of the Loh Life has a sort of funny series called
“Escape From Whole Foods”.)

What’s the negative of slumming? I don’t have a word for it, but let’s call it “riching”. Every so often I like to go riching it up: rolling down the aisle, eating Parmigiano-Reggiano and sippin on merlot and Reed’s Ginger Ale. With my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

I usually don’t buy anything, merely limiting my interaction with the soccermoms and yogamasters to surreptitiously sampling the cheese platters. Sometimes I can make about 3 rounds before the cheesemonger calls security.

But this time I was stopped in my tracks in the cracker aisle. Excuse me, the crispbread aisle. There are no crackers here – only ryebread, crispbread, bagel chips, melba toast and dehydrated dollar bills. I saw these Wasa Crispbread crackers and though, “Dang, that would make a nice easy review. Just look at the name. Whassup.”

But at $3.29 a pack of crispbread (I actually can’t find the receipt but I know it was at least 3 bucks) this would set me back almost an entire meal or so. So, I headed back out to the car and dug underneath the seat to see if I could find any change. No, of course I’m just jerking your chain – I actually whipped out my bright and shiny American Express card and paid for that bad boy box of crispbread with a single swipe. Damn, that felt good.

But when I got home, I found much of the Whassup magic had evaporated. Would most people who read this blog even remember that commerical? What, they were like 8 years old? And more importantly, even though the ad campaign had been inducted into the CLIO hall of fame, would anyone WANT to remember it. Was I opening up a whole can of whoopass worms that would come back to bite me in the form of commenters who tell me to please jump in a boiling vat of Velveeta cheese? Would people hate me for reminding them of their brother’s inebriated dog’s girlfriend’s owner? Would the castaways on Lost ever finally get off the stupid island?

In the end, I decided to go with it – mostly because of the stunning appearance of these crispbread crackers. A lot to talk about there. Have you ever seen a cardboard box disassembled into 12x6cm rectangles, covered with glue and then sprinkled with sawdust shavings left over from chainsawing a barn door in half? If you have (and I know you have), then this is what Wasa looks like.

I had a large corn on my foot, but I used a slice of Wasa to grind it down to a manageable nubbin.

And so on.

Seriously, the crispbread does look rather woodchippy. Or rather, as more people would say, it looks rather healthy. That never stopped me from putting someting in my mouth, so I went ahead and jammed it up between the choppers.

Bit of a mistake. Slicing up eyeballs, ow ow ow ow. You have to be sort of careful eating these things, but then a lot of these healthy crackers are like that. The look and taste sort of reminded me of Ryecrisp, though I haven’t had those for umpteen years. If your teeth aren’t so good, you might want to opt for something softer. Either that, or soak these in milk first. Or bacon fat.

I suspect things could get really delicious-er if you added grilled chicken, lettuce and curls of parmesan cheese as they suggest on the photo on the front. Then again, if you add grilled chicken, lettuce and curls of parmesan cheese onto a 12x6cm rectangle of cardboard, I think I could probably choke that down.

Incidentally, long ago I attempted to eat a small square of cardboard on a dare. The ex-friend assured I was going to get in the Guinness Book of World Records or something. I did not get in. However, I did feel like a termite for just a little while.

Cardboard resemblance aside, these crackers are ok. A bit dry, but I bet they would be great with some sort of spread on top. I have a problem with paying over 3 bucks for it though. If it wasn’t for that momentary Whassup weakness, I never would’ve brought them home. I considered going back to Whole Foods and returning the opened package. But that cheesemonger – ah, he’s got his eye on me.

Price: $3.29 for 9.7 oz
Found At: Whole Foods
Cheap Eats Score: 4/10

Fresh on the heels of a small earthquake that rocked me out of bed at 4am, I’m just not really feeling excited about reviewing food this morning. Oh, it was no Haiti or Chile (or Whittier Narrows, in which I was on the second floor of a 1930s era school building), but definitely not the type of thing to calm your nerves.

Because of that, this review of Campbell’s Chunky Grilled Chicken & Sausage Gumbo is going to rely on a tried-and-true, boring, unimaginative review “device”. That device is to present you with the raw list of things I wrote down whilst sitting eating this soup. It’s entertaining for me (but maybe not for you) to try and decode what I wrote down, sometimes months ago.

Yes, I actually sit with a pen in one hand, a spoon in the other, and I try and think of witty things to say about canned soup. It’s a wonderful life.

Transcript follows, with later commentary in brackets:

Chunk Gumb Soup

Smell – Smokyness is pleasant, pretty good, very peppery – Jalap & green peppers, if you don’t like, then bad. [Spelling, grammar: terrible. 10 Demerits.]

Soup Consistency – More watery than some Chunkys I’ve had [erm, isn't that Chunkies?]. Bit “slippery” like gumbo should be [I've no idea what I meant by this].

Salt – Med. high, would dilute it for most ppl. [Usually dilute it nearly two to one with water].

Spice – Med. heat, pleasant – I like more. [Please sir, may I have another] Not sharp, but this may be just right for majority.

Taste – Tiny bit of metal tincan taste overall [Good for goats]. But not bad. Slight smokiness [I thought we already covered the pleasant smokiness in detail, must be important]

Broth – Good flavor [Gee, THANKS FOR NOTHING]

Rice – I personally like rice “soft” in soup. If you’re used to crunch of risotto, may not like it. Almost like noodles. [Definitely showing my age here, but I do still have most of my teeth]

Veg – Tomatos [Ding. Quayle issues], Cellery [I kid you not, I wrote "Cellery". Did I mention that I used to spell at a 5th grade level in Kindergarten? I dunno what happened], Bell pepper, decent amount [As opposed to an indecent amount, I guess]

Chicken – Breast meat – a little dry bland. If I was make homemade would use non-breast or brin it. [LOL - just grin and bear it, or brin and gear it.] But at least not salty.

Sausage – Pretty decent size [Insert joke about my sausage and your sausage, and how one may or may not be lengthier than the other], has some heat to it. But in general, not much flav [Flavor Flav] believe it’s given its all to the flavor of soup. If homemade, you put sausage in later. [At least this is somewhat true, I've found it's better to delay putting in sausage into gumbo until like 1/2 hour before serving.]

Score – Probably 7, but price? 1.49 not bad. Overall excellent [My, my - very descriptive]

Price: $1.49 for 18.8 oz
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10