Teh Flake!

Again, I must point out the truth The Chocolate Blog offers, this time about the Cadbury Flake:

Upon hearing the news that Cadbury are to launch Flake Dark next month, I immediately went out and bought a multi-pack (5) of the original Flakes. Call it my mini protest if you will.
I noted upon opening the multi-pack wrapping that the Flake was…smaller than usual. Please oh lord of all things cocoa let the reason be that multi-packs are meant to have smaller Flakes in them and not a. Cadbury have reduced the size of the Flake or b. I have grown so big that everything seems smaller these days.

Ignoring the smallness of the Flake I must say that they were it was as yummy as ever. (of course the other 4 remain in the pack for later) I put forward the same question as with Cadbury Chocolate Buttons, ’same chocolate, different taste/experience?’

Here’s the flakey history for you ‘The Cadbury Flake bar was originally launched in 1920. The concept of the Flake was discoved by a Cadbury employee who filled the chocolate moulds. Once the moulds were full, the excess chocolate used to spill over the edge and fold down in a stream of chocolate. Once this stream cooled, the Flake product was created as the texture had many thin layers of chocolate and was very crumbly and flakey!’

God bless that employee!!

As a kid in the 1980’s, I used to love to buy these things. They always crumbled in my fingers, living a pile of chocolate on a strategically placed candy bar wrapper. Being the glutton driven seven year old I was in Britain, not only did I suck up the chocolate dust, but licked the wrapper. Every. Damn. Time.

Cadbury Double Decker

I must quote the following, from the Chocolate Blog, for truth:

Double Deckers are one of those bars. We kind of ignore them when we choose our chocolate. But, when it actually occurs to us to buy one, we can’t understand why we left it so long. We binge on them for a couple of weeks and then leave them once again, to be ignored on the Sweet Shop shelf.

I guess the name is so apt in more ways than one. Just like the proverbial (double decker) bus; you wait for ages and none appear, then numerous ones arrive all at once.

The lower deck of this bar is crispy crunchy cereal and the upper deck is a chewy nougatine; all wrapped in milk chocolate.

If anything makes me nostalgic for the part of my childhood in the UK, it’s the mere thought of a Double Decker Bar. Cadbury has made incursions into the US sweets market, but as of late, it’s only been the large fruit-and-nut or other varieties of square segmented chocolate. So, the real treats, like the Double Decker, or The Flake, have largely remained in Great Britain, off limits to Americans.

Fallout Shelter

The one on the late Ambassador Hotel was kind of faded with age. This one’s a little rusty, but posted here for context.

Civil Defense Fallout Shelters

Scars/signs of the old Cold War are still around us, even though a new millenial generation — one born after the fall of the Soviet Union — is just now reaching the upper end of their teenage years. It’s a simple as a yellow and black sign, posting the classification “fallout shelter” on the sides of buildings. Basically, I’m going to start collecting photographs of these signs, partly because I highly doubt new structures will go up with them, now. As for the photo on the left of this post, that building has already met the wrecking ball in Asbury Park. It was the Ambassador Hotel. Slate.com, on another note, has a history of Cold War Civil Defense here.

Chips!

Of course, the Brits don’t do patatoes as good as the Dutch or the Belgians, but then again, Cod-and-chips, preferably doused in malt vinegar and stained with newsprint, is also something I’ve been craving as of late.

Also, from Flickr, under creative commons, with the photo taken by mellowfood.

Frites!

Creative Commons licensed photo found on Flikr, uploaded by Le Blagueur à Paris

Jeez I miss Frites

Americans, I’m sorry to say, are not the masters of the french fry. We may like to believe that we are, with all of our fast food chains, but if there’s one thing I really miss about the Benelux, it’s frites. As this guy attests, before relying this bit of history:

The Dutch, however, cannot take responsibility for inventing the fry. Neither can the French. That honor goes to the Belgians, where fries are cherished even more than they are in Holland. The fry culture in Belgium is similar to that of Holland—fries are everywhere, the thick slabs of potatoes are freshly fried and served in paper cones, and they are offered with a variety of toppings, the most popular being mayonnaise—but the Belgians have also developed a wide variety of specialized fries shops, called, in Belgium “frietkots” or “fritures”. These range from small stands, to sheds, busses and caravans, to shacks or quaint chalets.

It is only in the United States that the nomenclature of fried potatoes insinuates a French connection. In England they are called “chips,” in France “pommes frites” (which means, literally, “fried apples”), and in Belgium and Holland “patat” (not the word for potato, which is “aardappel”). The French fry has little to do with France other than the fact that it’s popularity spread to that country as quickly as it did to others. In fact, the French, like most of Europe, eyed the potato with suspicion until the last century or two.

Podcast Round Up 7/2

I may have been laid off by the warehouse job.  I went in friday, after the agency said to not come to work.  I went because I had a time sheet that needed to be turned in.  The place really was dead.  And the usual, full time order pickers were sweeping the floors, because even they had nothing to do.  Well, it’s annoying to not have paying work, but then again, it’s the nature of temp agencies, I guess.  Anyhow, here are some of the Podcasts for the week:

Drabblecast 28: The Hog Faced Man by Mark Fewell

I listened to a lot of Drabblecast this week.  This stuck out to me as one of the more memorable stories.  It’s kind of a ghost tale, but featuring the figure mentioned in the title.

Pod of Horror 45

Mark Justice interviews the editor of Leisure Books’ horror line.  No offense to the other guests, but this is a guy that commands attention, partly because he runs the biggest, longest running mass market paperback  lines, when it comes to Horror.  There’s a new book reviewer.  It was sad to hear Scott Bradley go, but then again, if he’s off to bigger and better things, more power to him.  Oh, and in the name of disclosure, my book is part of the prize package in the Tomb of Trivia.

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A few others to write about, but I’ll save them for later.

View From Central Park

One of the things I absolutely love about New Jersey is it’s proximity to New York City.  One of the thing that I hate about my annoying job/career situation is that I can never really afford to drive to MetroPark and take the train into the city as much as I would like.

Run Down Property By The Shore

One of the things about New Jersey, and I’ve likely said this elsewhere on this blog, is that you have pockets abandoned, run down space, even in well to do areas.  This old pool, for example, is in Ocean Grove.  To be fair, however, it’s in the corner nearest the Asbury Park boardwalk.