Dear Cheesecake Factory, please stop pretending we're bffls

Thanks again for the buy-one-get-one and free slice coupons for after Valentine's day, and also for the free pumpkin pecan samples (easily the best, non-overwhelming cheesecake ever on your premises), but no thank you for pretending you've got me all figured out with a five question, four choice quiz.

In any case, I couldn't help taking it: all of you know I have a semi-addiction to online quizzes. I no longer post them on my blog, but I do tell people that I'm strawberry Pocky and vanilla bean Frappuchino from time to time.

My response: "Heidi, you are Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple. The incredible mix of qualities that makes you so appreciated is nothing short of miraculous, just like this cheesecake. A lot goes into this flavor, all delicious. This mouth-watering mosaic is comprised of our 'Original' cheesecake swirled with caramel...(insert gratuitous descriptions of sugary elements here). Just like you, it's an awe-inspiring combination of ingredients - not soon forgotten!"

Wow, I could totally make a singles ad for myself with this info. But let's deconstruct, piece by piece:

• Who the heck is Adam? Why am I his?
• I am "miraculous." This cheesecake is "miraculous." The virgin birth is "miraculous," which leads me to think that the Cheesecake Factory's description is semi-blasphemous.
• "A lot goes into this flavor" - thanks for acknowledging hard work? I'll give them credit for that...
• "Mouth-watering mosaic" - this sounds like my college application, minus the "mouth-watering." That would be a creepy thing to write in my admissions essay. But not in a singles ad, which I've already hinted (see? hint) this is.
  
• Why is Original in quotation marks? Is it because Original means regular cheesecake? Or is it somehow actually original? JUST LIKE ME?
• Similar to the first sentence, the "awe-inspiring combination," reminds me that I have n redeeming qualities, where n is greater than one and is the number of dates you should take me on. Whew.
  
• Not soon forgotten. Screams "take me on a second date." How does that work if I'm in the possessive pronoun framework of some guy I don't know?

I decided to do two other quizzes reflecting the personalities of my friends M and L (male and female, respectively), since I thought I could fill in their answers fairly accurately.

"M, you are Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cookie Dough. Those who know you appreciate your ability to have fun and when to get serious. That's why you'll appreciate being paired with this flavor - it's multi-faceted, just like you. This memorable dessert pairs three fun favorites...What a seriously fun creation!"

• First of all, choco-pb cookie dough sounds intense. The only cookie dough I ate was chocolate chip, and I was always paranoid about eggs so I got the prepared stuff.
• This is no longer a dating quiz; this is about finding your favorite lab partner for the next year.
  
• At least "multi-faceted" sounds like "mosaic."
• "Memorable" appears again!
• And ohmygosh. Did they just use the phrase "seriously fun" in a failed attempt of oxymoronism? Because I think I just regressed to seventh grade.

"L, you are 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cake Cheesecake. You know what it means to be wonderfully layered, which is why this cheesecake is your perfect match. Commemorating a special occasion is always a joy, and like a night out with you, this cheesecake is reason to celebrate. Four layers...bring huge smiles - especially when shared with you!"

• More dating advice: "I love celebrating with you because you're the reason to celebrate," "I love sharing cheesecake with you because you're both so wonderfully layered."
• I can definitely see this cheesecake as a giant celebration: "Honey, I'm buying you 30th Anniversary Cheesecake on our three month anniversary after I divorced that hag."

One thread brought all of these together: I had indicated a similar personality on all the quizzes, and it gave us "mosaic," "multifaceted" and "layered." While I definitely got the better end of the deal ("miraculous" = trump card), it was time to see if a series of vastly different replies would yield a even better - or funnier - result.

Time to check out a blockmate or two.

"A, you are Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake. You share a match with a truly elegant flavor. The smoothest of all our cheesecakes, its sophisticated French sensibilities shine through in every slice. There's only one word that describes you both - magnifique!"

Whew, so it's not one slice fits all - but now I know that A is a smooth operator.

My Bad Taste

The first and foremost example of this are my penchant for Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

Well, all Cheetos too.

My roommate claims that eating a snack with that much visible powder on it (like caked up makeup!) is inherently wrong, but they're just so addictive, especially when studying

...and I haven't even had to turn in my first problem set yet.

This. Is. Amazing. And so much better than Turducken.

The NYT reports on the Bacon Explosion, a roll of bacon-sausage formed by making a bacon lattice that holds groundup sausage.

Check out the article here, which contains how-to-make instructions and photos, if my confusing summary didn't help.

It's time for a chorus of "Sweet Caroline": "So good! (so good)..."

Besides the Obama-themed...

....chocolate (tactless) and the cocaine (probably illegal), Jones Soda Co., company of all hip-yuppie overpriced soda trends (though quite tasty), has released "Orange (You Glad for Change)."

But you probably expected that already.

Trader Joe's is a cult.

Exam week should not mean random food, says the girl who just tooled through gorgonzola crackers and candy cane Joe-Joe's (sandwich cookies). Oh wait -- those are classy.

Well, questionably so.

I trudged through the six to eight (we'll find out exactly how many) inches of snow today, taking photos with my blockmate and getting mistaken for tourists lurking near John Harvard. Snow was nice, not too icy, or too wet - I call it sugar snow - that is, until the Boston snowplows made it into slurpy brown slush.

After about an hour walking up and down Mass Ave and Mem Drive on our bro-date, we finally hit up Trader Joe's to prove we had done something substantive, other than full memory cards, drained camera batteries, and untouched study guides. I had realized that Sunday afternoon would make for a crowded Trader Joe's, but not this crowded - I mean, c'mon, it's snowing, guys. Admittedly, we didn't follow these standards and we walked a full mile to TJ's; my clogs were filled with snow and my socks were so soaked that I discreetly slipped my shoes off at church.

After some lurking, in which we realized intersession was for eating out and not for frozen food, M and I decided to get snacks for our exams. I hovered near chips and salsa, but ultimately decided on M's recommendation of blue cheese toasted crisps, which, according to the package, had "notes of gorgonzola." My review: At $1.99, same price as CVS sour cream and onion snack crackers. Better texture, definitely greater quantity of crackers, crispier and not buttery. Initially, it tasted remarkably similar to the CVS sour creamers, but then the gorgonzola note (should I say blue note?) kicked in, and then I remembered that I only tolerate blue cheese, not wholeheartedly embrace it as a member of the crumbly cheese family. So the best choice, considering health and taste, between the chips and salsa, sour creamers, and gorgonzola crisps, would have probably been the salsa.

I also got the last box of Candy Canes Joe-Joe's. Now I realize this is probably neurotic in a Woody Allen type of way, but I just didn't understand why I had to pay full price for them, given that they're technically Christmas fare, and probably stocked from at least a month ago (they always restock regular Joe-Joe's, or at least I like to think so). Also, they have higher caloric content than regular Joe-Joe's, and thanks to the candy cane pieces, have the thickness of a Double Stuf Oreo (which are a little bit too thick and cream for me, but at least guarantee I eat fewer Oreos). But thanks to M's "give yourself a guilty pleasure, you just finished your stats final," plus the fact that my roommate and I downed the last box within three days and that the next time we'd be eating them, it'd be nearly 2010, I figured I'd take it anyway. Wow, blockmates, way to be enablers and co-rationalizers.

The line for the register took about twenty minutes - longer than the shopping itself. M and I split up (divide and conquer, baby) into two different lines: I was trapped behind the quintessential ex-hippie-turned-literature-grad-student-roommate-pair (well, I think one silent roomie was biochem, actually) who had a cartful of goods to scan through. I would soon realize that the reason there were two of them was because Biochem would watch the cashier scan and bag the goods while Lit kept bringing more and more food to the counter, which made my wait exponentially long.

That Lit was a cultie. She really was. She talked to the people at neighboring registers, she nearly hugged the cashier, she lilted up and down the Trader Joe aisles, all without the aid of Two-Buck Chucks. It was fine, and I was glad for her, but honestly, I really wanted her to get out of the way so that I could sludge another mile to church in my drowning clogs five minutes earlier. My two items to your sixty-one (I counted, I had time)? Yeah, bring it babe.

I'm a terrible person.

But then she redeemed herself, as she shimmied up to the register and slammed down two plastic containers. She announced - as if she were Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia! - "these are the best things in the world." She tilted the container to the man at the next register (now that I begin to think of it, was this entire energetic routine a ploy to hit on him?). I craned my head to see what the blue label said, but I didn't need to, since she continued: "Sea salt brownies. These...(dramatic pause) are like: yum. I know they sound freaky but when you open them, they are heavenly."

Actually, they didn't sound weird at all. Sea salt is good, and when you put it in chocolate it imparts a nice flavor that keeps the chocolate from being too rich. In general, salty things plus chocolate equals yummy. Like bacon. But anyways, I silently acknowledged her for a find, even though I had found my one chocolate-flavored item for the day and sure wasn't going to give up my spot in line after twenty minutes.

Before Lit and Biochem left, Lit leaned towards the cashier and stated flatly, "I should advertise for this place." I thought to myself, actually...maybe. Then I realized that Trader Joe's are filled with these types of people - myself included. They rely on word of mouth for their business: Two-Buck Chuck, which reviews indicate does not taste like more than two bucks (or three, if you're on the East Coast), was largely a publicity stunt. My mom goes to Trader Joe's because my sister raves about their flowers, and we craved their trail mixes before they even opened a location in Minnesota. My roommate tells me to get their chocolate covered almonds because our blockmate, who grew up around TJs her entire life, had some lying on top of her fridge freshman year. The sites I've linked you to above - the topmost site for Google searches containing those terms - are all TJ's fan sites. If TJ has a cult following, then it must be a cult.

Don't question my logic, kthx.

Red Mango vs. Pinkberry: another showdown

I've mentioned the plethora of froyo places that have popped up over the past two years. We've got the 'original,' Pinkberry, and then a whole bunch of local places including but not limited to Berryline (Boston), Mr. Yogato (Washington, DC - the owners are friends of Berryline and my friend Caroline worked there), and redcherry (Minneapolis - though it's part of a chain, it's still localized).

I've only mentioned Red Mango (um obvskis, they have a myspace page like woah. Also, note how redcherry looks like a ripoff of Red Mango) once, I believe, but it's the nearest competitor to Berryline. It started up in South Korea (in fact, the photo above was taken in South Korea last summer, more photos from that trip will be in a later post). Its North American head is a former investment banker who believes in the nutritional power of froyo. In any case, they face the same consumers, and this time in the Bay Area:

The giants of the tart "fro-yo" craze — Pinkberry and Red Mango — are opening across the street from each other at Santana Row and Valley Fair, the first stores in San Jose and among the first outside the Los Angeles and New York markets.

Having been to both malls, I can see that both stores might be trying to split the demographic. Santana Row is the "classy outdoor mall" with designer stores, while Valley Fair is your typical mall. But...Valley Fair's Red Mango owner is Yul Kwon, winner of Survivor. WIN. I say it again: FTW!111!1eleventy!

Other than that, two facts that I thought were pretty cool:

...the dairy delight, a 2.0 version of the soft-serve type of frozen yogurt introduced in the 1980s...

The article just had to mention 2.0 in a Silicon Valley local article, didn't it?

Also, I didn't realize that soft-serve froyo began in the 80s, though now that I think about it, it makes sense. Weird neon-colored flavors (cotton candy, I'm looking atcha) sputtering out of a soft serve machine? Also, Yumi Yogurt (San Mateo) has definitely got that kitschy decor goin' on (although my friend Jon, who lives there, commiserates with me on this) - but it is a lot cheaper than 2.0 yogurt.

Each company has Korean roots: Red Mango originated in South Korea but has a separate, American branch headed by Kim and based in Southern California. Pinkberry was founded in L.A. by two Korean-Americans, Shelly Hwang and Young Lee.

Froyo is an American thing - since Korean-American is American as well - but not necessarily the way we think about it. Awesome. Also, the yogurt thing makes sense, because during my childhood, I was one of many Asian kids to drink liquid yogurt (different from yogurt smoothies sold in American grocery stores, much thinner and non-fruit-specific-flavor: an actual drink).

The article also has a table for a side-by-side comparison, so I say definitely a showdown.

Breaking news: Crispy french toast...

...is going to be served once a month in the houses during brunch, starting this Sunday.

Yay for HUDS feedback (though I'm still waiting for them to bring those calorie cards back) and for the Winter Wonderland brunch.

You can also find out exactly when the crispy french toast will be making an appearance. I've mentioned this in a previous post, but CS 50, Harvard's introductory computer science class, requires students to make a final project - most students create a Facebook or iPhone application. Some of those projects involve email notifications when a certain HUDS menu item appears that day; HUDS Buddy and Crimson Dining are the two active ones I know of. If you're craving french toast, give 'em a try (my favorite HUDS foods: Greek pizza and that weird Mollie Katzen chicken).