Gross Food Week #4: The Hungry Ghost Bakery, Northampton, MA

In planning out my selections for Gross Week, I initially thought it would be overkill to include a restaurant in an undoubtedly negatively centered theme. However, after trying the pizza at The Hungry Ghost Bakery in Northampton, Massachusetts, all bets are off. To some Northamptonites, this review will strike the wrong chord. They will place it in the same shock category as a "Nobama" bumper sticker. The Hungry Ghost, a two-time James Beard semifinalist, is a small town staple atop a small hill in the center of town, flanked by office buildings and groceries just off the main drag. When I first came here for school, it was all everyone spoke about.
"Oh, you must try the Ghost- they only bake one kind of specialty bread a day and don't bake any more when they run out! The owner wrote a ballad about the bakery! They have a schedule for their bread." Handwritten menus and a shabby workspace pass for status indicators in this area, I noticed. In fact, I entered the bakery twice prior to their late 2011 renovation and left before ordering as I was appalled with the putrid state of conditions there. Formerly a dusty, dank bakery, albeit one with lovely smells, the reviews of The Hungry Ghost's bread range from passionate to pallid. But it was their recent renovation and switch to pizza that piqued my curiosity one evening, prompted by an October 2011 review by Serious Eats writer Liz Bomze, when the bakery had first branched out to pizza. I'm not one to place SE on a pedestal, but I respect their input and recognize their experience in eating many different types of pizza, so their range of comparison would be vast and hopefully serve as a good benchmark for my own experience.
What Liz described as "some of the best pizza in New England" was something I wouldn't have the heart to feed my dog. (Who, for the record, was raised on New Haven apizza crusts slipped under the table.) Perhaps this would pass for good pizza to someone who was heretofore fed exclusively Domino's and Digiorno, but for a Connecticut resident, this barely has the life and character of a freezer-burnt Ellio's. Entering the bakery, we were the only patrons yet stood for a few minutes as the cashier finished a lengthy conversation about boys with a friend of hers. When we made a motion to order and ask for a recommendation, as it was our first time checking the place out, it was made painfully clear that the delicate rhythm of the discourse was disrupted by our presence. This was reflected in the service. Hideously annoyed that her soliloquy about menfolk was stopped in its tracks, the cashier was surly, exhibiting a vapid passivity nearing autistic levels, thrusting a paper menu toward us and all but telling us to go screw ourselves. Any further requests for recommendations yielded blank stares and eye rolls.
We finally agreed to try their margherita pizza, a basic set of flavors that, when done well, transport the eater back to summertime. A simple choice for a first time. Informed that the pizza would take twenty minutes to cook, a strangely long time in a brand new Llopis wood-fire oven, we were told to come back. We perused a local deli and returned only to be informed that the bakery was cash-only. No signage alerted us to this fact, nor did our server choose to capitalize on our twenty minute wait by offering up this fact. Thus, our pizza was delayed another ten minutes as we found an ATM per her vague directions and went on our way.
That ten minutes made no difference at all. In fact, I doubt ten seconds would have made a difference, because this pizza was abhorrent both hot and cold. For starters, the composition. A margherita pizza is retardedly simple: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and a little extra virgin olive oil. Our pizza had rivulets of grease pocking its surface and running down the sides and into the crust and was sparse in the basil department. Apparently there's a shortage of skimpy, free-range basil leaves in the region. Fresh tomatoes were replaced with what tasted like canned tomato sauce, and the cheese was barely browned. Checking out the upskirt, we were once again dismayed by the shoddy performance of this seemingly new oven. I'm not sure if the owners got an upcycled oven or if it was left on the curb and posted on freecycle, but it yielded a flaccid, soggy crust with a gummy interior, each piece collapsing on itself, saturated and glistening with more oil than a male model and shedding dandruffy flakes of cornmeal and flour when moved from box to plate.
The first few bites of each slice were wet, thick, and slimy, the result of the copious amounts oil migrating to the center of the pie. With each bite, I was waiting for International Bird Rescue to come clean my mouth in the same way oiled seagulls are cleaned after a disaster. $13 bought an extremely bland, oversweetened twelve inch pizza that left a sheen on our lips and carried a pervasively annoying sourdough tang, more tangy and sour than their bread. I've suffered from heartburn with a more nuanced flavor than this.
Unfortunately, Jesus did not grace our grease-stained napkin with His presence. He must have seen our pitiful meal and appeared in the craggy crust of a McNugget across the street instead.
An undistinguished and frugally filled alfajore did not make for a delightful end to the meal.
We had structured our day around getting this pizza tonight. I'm just pleased that we didn't go "full pizza" and snag more than one pie or even upgrade to a larger size. This was so unappetizing that we didn't even bother to sit down at the table with it, much less open the bottle of Mondavi we'd left chilling for the occasion. From the many Bret Easton Ellis novels and old issues of the New Yorker I've perused, I gather that high-end restaurants of the 80's were proud of being stingy and standoffish, cultivating the type of clientele who would know better than to question the difference between ceviche and cilantro. I don't, however, understand why this snobby "value" is superimposed onto the more mediocre examples of fine dining I've seen in small towns. It seems like a certain strain of naive people equate this attitude with quality dining, and it unfortunately causes restaurants like this to thrive where they can be king of the college pizza scene. Hungry Ghost comes across as a ludicrously arrogant big fish in a small pond. The hype is not deserved.

Gross Food Week #2: Yoplait Splitz Birthday Cake

Long-time reader MrsBug was being optimistic when she commented that Gross Week could only improve from here. So, riddle me this: is there birthday cake in hell? The obvious answer is "no" as there are no birthdays, but I'll leave that one up to the theologians. After tasting Yoplait's birthday cake flavored yogurt, I can definitely assure you that there is some form of birthday cake in hell, as this is as abominable as they come. Yoplait's new Splitz line, which coincidentally sounds like an incredibly flexible line of Bratz spinoff dolls, combines flavors of foods that traditionally come in or eventually turn into liquid form: rainbow sherbert, strawberry banana split, and strawberry sundae.
And then there's birthday cake. Yes, now you can have your cake and eat your live bacteria, too. As you can see on the package, they're not talking about some sexy Elizabeth Faulkner-commissioned dealy either. We're talking low budget, half-off day old birthday cake with Cool Whip frosting and a misspelled name in cursive. Classic grocery store fare, misery guaranteed. Ignore the festive bunting and sprinkles: it all tastes the same after the first bite.
This is something a kid gets when his dad has a new hippie girlfriend he's trying to impress. He can't shake the novelty of buying dessert-flavored products but has switched to yogurt for the kids to look like he doesn't order Taco Bell for dinner most nights a week.
The yogurt is translated into a "layered" format with a frosting-inspired layer and a cake-flavored base, all studded with sprinkles. It's the little sister of its adult counterparts scientifically designed to make adults resent dessert. Weirdly enough, the yogurt definitely smells like vanilla cake frosting but does not taste like it at all. There's that weird super-vanilla flavor all yogurt has, the one that tries to be dessert but simply lacks the sugar to do so. The creaminess is indulgent and thick with a solid body to it that makes it feel less like light yogurt. I feel like I'd have enjoyed this more if it was a pudding. It just seems like it's tiptoeing the line between health food and dessert and falling off to its death.
Even sampling this frozen didn't improve its flavor. As a child, I had a friend whose birthday fell on Passover every year. Her Orthodox mother would always make her a birthday cake that looked beautiful, but had a strangely subdued, bready flavor that put it squarely in the savory category rather than dessert. This yogurt brought back memories of those awful cakes because it had the same visual appeal with the same disappointing flavors, only this time I wasn't encouraged to have seconds and didn't have to play with pipe cleaners afterwards due to there being no television to entertain ourselves with.
The sprinkles, typically the most enjoyable part of a birthday cake, made this one fall apart worse than a Cake Wreck. For whatever reason, they were grossly oversized and rather waxy, giving the impression of biting into a crayon every few spoonfuls. Their two-tone neon color did no favors to the anemic yogurt and tasted bitter, much like the Funfetti sprinkles in my failed pancake experiment. If you're feeding this to your kid on their birthday, they're either ingesting this via IV because an actual cake was too difficult to liquify or you should have had your genitalia removed years ago. Yoplait has made birthdays sad even for the under-10 set now.

Hungry Jack Funfetti Buttermilk Pancakes

Well, it's happened. The internet's obsession with combining the crap out of various foodstuffs has seeped out, like a spilled red velvet cupcake fudge milkshake onto a white Maud Sienna carpet, staining the world of brands as we know it. Yes, Virginia, there are now Funfetti-flavored pancakes, Funfetti being the socially acceptable way to literally eat candy with candy. And I have eaten them and lived to tell the tale.
Hungry Jack, the company that brought you breakfast by Dad on school days when Mom was busy and the Australian Burger King now offers up an easy pack of pancakes dotted with the perennial birthday party favorite, sprinkles. Visually, these look like the calling card of a rogue, murderous IHOP employee on a quest for vengeance. I'll call him Murray the Pancakinator. They're upsettingly neon with a lazy heaviness to them, a density that emcompasses a mental weight far beyond sprinkles and pancake mix.
The mix, which could double for a My Little Pony recreational club drug, ballooned from a scant two cups to like, thirty cups of gloopy batter a result of sitting out on the counter for five minutes while the stove heated up. The first few pancakes were pretty and evenly speckled with sprinkles, while the remaining pancakes took on a dingy grey tinge, the result of the sprinkles melting together like a cheap watercolor set.
After cooking, the result was fairly underwhelming from an edible perspective. Funfetti is just another way to add delicious sugar and birthday colors into an already sugary edible, the cupcake. When you take the sugar out, in the case of the pancake mix, you're basically eating the poor man's Funfetti. And man, is it awful- the flavor is chalky with no sweetness to speak of outside of a few sharp little pockets of astringency from eating straight up sprinkles. The heaviness from the batter translated poorly to the pancakes. Each one was leathery on the outside with a burnt flavor, despite being a perfect golden brown color, and had a doughy chew to them.
But there are options. Yes, there is always a plan B, in this case, B for Birthday Massacre. Also known as, BM. In true Buddy the Elf fashion, we pimped out these pancakes with three different kinds of frosting, butter, syrup, and powdered sugar. We even garnished them with candy canes because we are literally sugar pimps. And you know what? Despite looking like clown vomit, they tasted pretty darn good. The excessive amounts of sugar definitely gave it a more cake-like flavor, which made sense being that it contained all the components of a cake but fried in a pan, and even moistened the dry little suckers up to make for a fairly manageable one bite before we and everyone in a three mile radius contracted diabetes.
So, the moral of the story is this: when you have a product that tastes like sand, copious amounts of frosting and food coloring will prevent it from being bland. Or so the saying goes. Honestly, the real moral of the story is that it's never good to trust $1 pancake mix, even if it does seem to be a small price to pay for sugary childhood memories.
It does get a point for value- it used water and nothing else and yielded nine medium-sized pancakes, but when that value roundhouse kicks your health and dental insurance plan in the stomach, you begin to realize that your money would be better spent hiring a psychiatrist to unbox your childhood instead of pancakes. But on the plus side, #fuckyeahrainbowpancakes!
Seriously, don't do it.

blk. water

"I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed." -Charlie Brown

And now, the deep, deep funk sets in. As if you put on a pair of magic glasses, what was once a merry nip in the air is now just freaking cold. The cheerful Salvation Army ringers are now just haranguing you, and the capacity you had to inhale all manner of toothpicked appetizers, cookies, and roast meats is now reflected in your time spent hovering over the treadmill. Christmas is over.
But there's more to come. I mean, hell, today is Boxing Day, which is just perfect if you waited until the day after Christmas to get a deal on a gift for your hired help. The Treaty of Pressburg was signed today in 1805. Put down that spiked egg nog, you have a lot to look forward to. Also, I'm pretty sure that's curdling, so don't drink it. Why is today an awesome day? Aside from the strangely hush-hush day off for federal employees, which you can thank the Uniform Monday Act for, I'm talking about blk water, the latest and greatest libation straight from New Jersey spelled like a Bjork single. That's right, start laughing. Intentionally black water developed in New Jersey.
This water received a great deal of hype at the Fancy Food Show, not the least of which was the hushed claim that it had powers to heal the elderly and boasted its connections with the "stars" of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, which wins the prize for the worst marketing conjunction ever. Lawsuits ensued. Oh, and something something fulvic acid. That's what makes it black in color, and of course, by fulvic acid I clearly mean something gross in the sewage. Seriously, The Simpsons had it right when they intoned the sagacious and useful piece of advice- "if it's brown, drink it down. If it's black, send it back." Send back blk, because it's gimmicky and gross. Who really needs black water? I mean, aside from the elusive and coveted 14-year old Hot Topic clad demographic, this seems kind of silly for a rational adult to drink. It's useless in cocktails, as nobody really puts water in them, and on its own, it has a harsh, mineral-heavy flavor with a salty aftertaste.
This just goes against most of my principles of what I should put in my mouth, and at this point in my life, I've practically developed a leather-bound rulebook for them. I don't need water that touts itself as sexy and fascinating, especially when said water also calls itself a Free Radical Scavenger, which is a fancy term for an antioxidant in real life, but in my head, is a two person, one cello lo-fi band with guest singer Zooey Deschanel and a hit single called "Eminently Yours (Tom Cruise/Marilyn Monroe)" Drinking this makes me more thirsty and I just don't see the novelty in weakly colored murky water. I'll stick to the clear stuff and enjoy my "regular" dark side, the one that listens to the occasional Sting single and casually Facebook stalks people from summer camp.

Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccino

I could never be single. Or for that matter, social in a setting free of appointments and rules. Sitting in a Starbucks, thumbing through a used copy of Carr's "What Is History?" I am reminded of this fact again and again while watching students mill in and yak to each other over Macbooks and organic breakfast salads. But I haven't come here to people-watch or ogle. The last Starbucks I frequented had a successful suit against me for that. (Starbucks vs. Foodette, "Please let me touch your macchiato! I want mine super creamed!" Undisclosed out-of-court settlement.) So, at this location I remain, and am sipping the dregs of a drink best forgotten.

The new Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccino takes a greasy, translucent page from the mystical tomes of Taco Bell, as it combines ingredients and concepts Starbucks has already introduced in a last-ditch attempt to catch on to the quicksilver salted caramel trend before it secedes to a greater force (Mocha. Frappuccino. Salted Caramel. Pretension.) and combines them into one drink. However much I love salted caramel, I really couldn't get behind this flavor. It was the expensive equivalent of having a few odds and ends leftover in the fridge and mixing them together for a full, yet unpotable concoction.

If you're not familiar with the grainy, wet texture of the Frap, which somehow manages to feel loose and semi-solid in the mouth all at once, nothing I can say will intrigue you enough to purchase it. It's a Dairy Queen frozen hot chocolate in nicer packaging and an amicably flavored February slush storm, only more bitter and possibly colder. This particular flavor had 2/5ths of its namesake sitting dumbly on top of the drink, swirled on the surface and chilling into a semi-viscous caramel that tasted fairly average, lacking depth. Standard caramel topping with no burnt or buttery nuances. The kind you put on ice cream. The salt penetrated the deep waters of the drink, giving the bitter mocha an even more bitter, tangy flavor and losing all sweetness in the process.

The last tenth of the drink was different, albeit different in a hellish fashion. The caramel had finally seeped through and mixed in with the rest of the drink, the heavier, sauce-laden section separating the lighter, blended part into layers. All of a sudden, what was unpleasantly neutered in flavor was quickly radiating with sugar. The resulting texture was now slimy and gritty, and lacked any of the smoothness in flavor that I typically expect in a Frappuccino. And while I agree that any drink can be improved with a gut-busting squirt of whipped cream, any additional sugar would have made this virtually inedible. Seeing as I loved the coconut mocha, Frap, which tasted like a liquified Almond Joy, I was surprised that this flavor passed the test market. I'm not sure which candy bar this tastes like. Maybe partially masticated Bit-O-Honey marinated in a jar of lye. This flavor is awkward incarnate, in any case.

Teo's Hot Dogs, Pittsfield, MA

I cannot stress how much I wanted to love Teo's. With the 28 glowing Yelp reviews, the praise from Roadfood, and the promises reeking of nostalgia and meat sauce, I figured that spending $15 on gas for a three hour trip wasn't the worst I could do. And with photos like this, how could I not check it out? The frosted glass and wood-grained paper plates only added to my building gusto.
On the surface, it looked like a greasy, offbeat dive bar with wonderful local hot dogs. Teo's is located in a neighborhood in the middle of the Berkshires similar to the one my mother grew up in, a blue-collar industrial town largely dominated by factories and farms. Drawn to such places and their respective eateries, I was immediately entranced by the comfortable, dank atmosphere of Teo's with its grimy stained glass windows, lingering decades-old cigarette stench, and lottery machines in the corners of each dining room. This is a restaurant with obvious regulars. They sit at the bar and watch TV while eating their hot dogs, presumably on break from the local factory.
I ordered a classic combination per the recommendations of the internet- two hot dogs with everything, everything being meat sauce, mustard, and onions, and a root beer. I paid my $4.50 and sat down at a table. Waitresses brought steaming plates of hot dogs over to other patrons, and I waited. Ten minutes later, I noticed the waitress beckoning me from the corner of my eye, shouting, "Two everything. Two everything." I came over and received a sad, greasy paper bag with two hot dogs crammed in wax paper and thrown in. When I told her that I wanted to eat in, she merely shoved the bag at me and raised her eyebrows. She was done helping, that much was true.
The hot dogs are around four inches long, hence my ordering two, and are gently nestled in New England-style hot dog buns about an inch longer than their contents. All the better to hold you with, my dear. The buns weren't so much steamed as they were saturated and rendered mushy and pasty with the seepage from the sauce and mustard, and the outsides were smeared with a lethal combination of the two. Now, I understand that the whole experience of a dive is swift and unglamorous service, but this was unacceptable. Raising the little sausage to my lips, I felt as though I was embarking on some terrible, 2 girls 1 cup inspired version of Fear Factor. And to be honest, I might not have been able to tell the difference had these just been given to me on a plate.
The fully erect hot dog, positively referred to as "snappy," seemed to be more in the realm of rubbery and turgid when I got it. The texture was purely Bubblicious, if Bubblicious came in a salty hot dog flavor. The casing was tough to rip through, so chewy that in the grip of my last bite, the hot dog gave up, squirted out the bun, and landed on the floor, leaving a dirty trail of condiments in its wake. Inside the casing is a chunky, beefy meat that tastes mainly of salt and fat. This hot dog is the epitome of the choking warning that every childhood and chain letter inevitably came with.
When ordering, I noticed a wide discrepancy of cooking levels on the hot dogs, ranging from pink and fleshy to burnt and crispy. I requested well-done and received undercooked. The insides were cool and tough, reminding me of my elementary school's reviled boiled hot dogs as a child, though even those were preferable to these little suckers. I was not only tired and hungry from the car ride, but baffled as well. The teaspoon of meat sauce slopped onto my hot dogs was also salty, and with the one-noted flavors of the entire thing, the dominant taste was the mustard, and a weak, watery one at that. I've had better service and quality from a Bronx-based White Castle in the middle of the night. Although my portion was small, I was glad I had not ordered more as the resulting two left a slimy feeling in my mouth and an ache in my stomach later on.

Going to Teo's, I felt pretty burnt, as I'd spent a good chunk of my day making the trip out and had been stiffed in the process. It was unfortunate to find that my money clearly wasn't as good as that of the regulars. In an establishment such as this, I know I'm not the top dog, but the real charm in going to a restaurant is knowing that and still being treated as though you go there every day. Unless you can receive that, why bother going? At least it beats The Suburban.
Note to Eastern CT readers: Last week, a significant part of my grandmother's property was broken into and trashed. I spent a good part of my childhood there and am greatly distressed. While I'd rather not reveal too much here, I'd love it if any locals could email me and give me any possible information they have on it to turn over to the police. Our family is quite upset and would appreciate any help.

Hershey's Air Delight Aerated Milk Chocolate

Okay, call my bullshit on this but I personally see aerated chocolate as the snake oil equivalent in the candy variety traveling medicine show. I mean, the very idea is roughly as useful as Scotch-flavored condoms. Hershey's put out an aerated chocolate bar with an asinine name to follow in the footsteps of their ever-exotic cousin, the Aero bar, and here is the result.

The USA seems to have abandoned the Twilight craze and swept itself up in the aerated chocolate bar fad. Completely untrue, but what Milton Hershey's non-existent grandkids and CEO's don't know is that the Aero bar does serve a functional purpose in the British world. After all, because we all know that British people are bad-toothed and batshit insane (Editor's note: Redacted the link to Foodette's ex's Facebook page. Also, wait. I am the fucking editor. This is awesome.) Aero simply plays on that bad dentistry history from the heyday of the Industrial Revolution by offering a softer, gentle, less snappy version of the chocolate we all knew and loved. It's a phenomenal way, much like whipped cream cheese and whipped candy bars, to stuff less product into the container and sell the very air you're whipping into it in the first place and overcharge the customer.

I'm quite sure you don't need too much of an explanation for this. This is a standard Hershey bar with a severely underdeveloped cocoa flavor. Yes, it's thicker to hold all the precious air and it has less squares because of that, but it's still the same crumbly, overly sweet, sugar throat burning creamy flavor that we all know and mildly tolerate. Does the air provide a sensation? Not really. If you chew it quickly, it crumbles off in small pieces that suggest that the bar is of a low quality until you remember that this was intentional. Each square is just a hair too large to comfortably fit in the mouth and suck on (LOL here) and the air isn't really distinguishable until the square eventually collapses in on itself and melts to regular, boring chocolate. I don't feel any airy, bubbly textures or specifically unique texture to this bar at all.

As a result of witchcraft, this bar is more expensive and less weighty than a Hershey bar. It's more of a pointless buy than the $19,000 Hammacher Schlemmer seven-person bike and is just a disappointment for all faux British wannabes and real British ex-pats. Just buy a regular Hershey bar, melt it, and fart in it before it sets. This is the American confectionery equivalent of Engrish. We cannot live up to the hype of the Aero bar. (Note: I love my British readers, by the way. I just hate the Air Delight more.)

Archer Farms Sea Salt Caramel and Almond Indulgent Granola Bites

Sea salted caramel is no longer a real oddity any more. Having broken free from the confines of high-end restaurants and microbistros, it is now popping up in recipes and the freezer section of many grocery stores. I figure it's only a matter of time before we see a McCaramel McFlurry with McSalt or a Dairy Queen Salted Caramel Blizzard.

I can't tell you how overjoyed I was to see this in a non-frozen form and from Target's store brand, Archer Farms, no less. We picked these up as a treat, noting their "indulgent" nature but persevering nonetheless. With 15 80 calorie bars in a box for a mere $2.49, their exoticism, calorie count, and value sure beat out Chewy, no?

No indeed! What we didn't count on was the weight and size of the bars- a hair thicker than a thumbdrive and possibly (scarily) more bland. When I first bit into one of these, I was taken aback at how chewy it was, almost nearing a stale texture. That's unfortunately just how it is. The flavor and waxy, overly saccharine mockolate coating was reminiscent of one of those giant, chewy protein bars, but in miniature. It was immensely disappointing. The flavor was sweet with no nuttiness, no salinity, no richness to speak of. Just sweet with a textural crunch from the almonds and a chewiness. And that was all the caramel we got! Strangely enough, all the ingredients are natural, yet are combined in such a way that they are absolutely flavorless.

This was really disappointing and strange to eat. Where did all the calories come from? And why is it so small? Pats of butter don't have this much caloric damage and this little flavor in their size. Quaker and Kashi have my business back, because this is one area Archer Farms' risky flavors just don't cut it in.

Heater Meals Plus Hearty Scrambled Eggs and Bacon

"Son, just give me all of the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, wait, I worry what you just heard was, "Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.” What I said was, “Give me ALL the bacon and eggs you have.” Do you understand?" -Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation

As soon as I opened this package, I immediately thought of Parks and Rec, our favorite television show, and one of its characters, Ron Swanson, a man whom I'm convinced was created for Swagger. He has a framed poster of bacon and eggs on his wall! I found it duly appropriate to review this while watching the latest episode.
The packaging is pretty badass. Minimal. It knows you want it. It did lack, to my crushing disappointment, the freeze-dried watermelon I salivated over on the package. Another time, Heater Meals. Another time.

The Heater Meals Plus contains all the things you need for camping or alien nuclear war raids, two activities I greatly despise. It has trail mix, an off-brand Lovin' Spoonful fruit cup, fruit punch, MOAR RAISINS, and the requisite bacon and eggs, one in a soft package, one in powdered form.

GAZE INTO THE GAPING MAW OF SIN, HUMAN.

The weaponry, er, heating device, sometimes sets off carbon monoxide detectors but does not contain carbon monoxide. Whew. It took about twenty minutes to cook the bacon and eggs inside the steaming, quivering container, during which time I witnessed the creation and scent of Hell itself and also could have prepared a dozen eggs and a pound of bacon. Seriously, though, Hell itself. The package, while cooking, releases gritty steam that reeks of sulfur. I may have heard demons laughing inside. But I persevered because I loves me some bacon.

The artillery. It said it would only take ten to fifteen minutes, but it took almost twice that and required a good deal of finagling to make sure the water didn't spill out of the bag and that the eggs and bacon heated evenly. If I was camping, I'd have just hunted and eaten a bear by now. While I was waiting, I snarfed down the trail mix. It was delicious and salty in all its components. A little raisin heavy, but it gave me the energy to focus on the rest of the meal instead of listlessly wandering off to Burger King in my bathrobe.More evidence of possible Satanic intervention. ZOMG, call Beatrice Sparks!

Unfortunately, not even the black magic of Red Devil hot sauce could save this meal. As you can see, something's not quite right. That something is the fact that I didn't adequately mash around the eggs pre-cooking. A justifiable hesitation, as I didn't want to accidentally risk the bag opening up and barfing liquified eggs all over the kitchen, nor did I care to fondle it for over thirty seconds before it bought me dinner. Er, breakfast. Thusly, the eggs alternated between clumpy and hard pieces and soft, liquidy custard bites. I pretended it was the yolk and cried into my plate softly.

The whole thing was a lukewarm mess, the bacon included. No amount of sauce or salt-free condiments could save those eggs, and the bacon was so far removed from pork it may have well been cat. Transparent, paper-thin slivers of smoke-flavored paper, they were. Jesus Christ. I eventually made it out of the trenches of creepy camping food and made myself a sandwich.