Stopping Belly Blabber and Starting Something New

I've decided to stop updating Belly Blabber and focus on a new project that I've been wanting to do. Please visit my new blog if you have the time. It can be accessed through the link below. Thanks!

Gotsta Haves It (http://gotstahavesit.tumblr.com/)

Thanksgiving Showdown

Class have been drawing to a close and things have been getting busy, so It's been a while since I've posted something. I'll try and catch up with some things I noted over the past few weeks as soon as I can. To start things off, here's quick look at what was on my Thanksgiving menu this year.


To start the day, I popped open my cans of foie gras and duck rillette. I had bought these on a goose/duck farm when I was in France this summer and had been saving them for a special occasion. I also tried to keep it simple since I had a whole dinner to worry about as well. I served them with melba toast and topped the rillette with some cornichons. Everything was great - rich, fatty, and very ducky...



I've heard so much about Turducken (a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey) that I needed to try it just once. Combining all those meats into one could only lead to ultimate poultry bliss. Being in New York though, Turduckens weren't available at your local grocery store. Luckily, I had found CajunGrocer.com, which sells and ships frozen Turduckens directly to your door. The website was featured on Food Network and the Wall Street Journal. Turduckens they have come in two sizes of pure awesomeness - 15 lbs and 4 lbs (this one is just a turkey breast with duck and chicken meat stuffed inside). Of course, we got the 15 lbs bird(s).


After 7 hours of cooking, the bird was ready and we were ready to eat. The skin had an amazing brown color to it and was extremely savory. The meat was very tasty, but I'm not sure if I really would classify it as a giant improvement over normal roast turkey. At least I can say I've had it and next year I can just go back to normal turkey to make things easier. Other menu items included a sausage dressing (seen above), truffle mashed potatoes and green beans with country ham. Overall, a very satisfying meal with a mountain of leftovers (just as it should be).



For dessert, the easy way out would have been to just buy a pumpkin pie. This year I tried to challenge myself to make everything (from scratch too). Also, I thought why have pumpkin pie when you can have pumpkin cheesecake. The recipe I used was a variation of a Paula Deen recipe (found here) in that I substituted the graham cracker crust for a crust made with ginger cookies (see my earlier post on ginger cookies for the recipe). This by far I think was the star of the night. The filling came out creamy and light; the crust was sweet and crispy. It was a great dessert full of fall flavors (if I do say so myself) and a perfect way to end a great meal.

The Evolution of Coke

I stumbled across this image on Buzzfeed showing the history of the Coke bottle. I just thought that it was really interesting to see how the bottle shapes and Coke logos have changed throughout the years. As you can see, the first Coke bottle doesn't even have any of the signature Coke red on it.

The History of Coke Bottles (Buzzfeed)

Deep Fried Fish Still Alive

This is just crazy. Apparently in China, they can deep fry a fish and serve it all while keeping it alive and kicking. In the video, the person repeatedly pokes the fish with his chopsticks to show that it is still alive. He then proceeds to take a couple of bites from the fish's body. I'm no vegetarian or advocate for animal rights, but I don't know if I could ever bring myself to eat something like this.

Top Ads of the Decade

AdWeekMedia has released their top choices for best commercials of the decade. Nominees include iconic spots like the Nike "Freestyle" and the Budweiser "Wassup" ads. Part of the Best of the 2000s feature, AdWeekMedia will be selecting the best marketing, advertising and media performances over the last ten years. While the winners will be announced in December still, you can go vote for your favorite commercial (as well as a slew of other categories) at Bestofthe2000s.com.

Naturally, some of the nominees include commercials from some of the biggest names in the food industry - Coke, Pepsi, Skittles, Cadbury and so on. From the list, I've chosen my own personal top 3 food and beverage related ads (funny though that all my choices ended up being for beverages). What do you guys think? Is there another food-realted ad nominated that deserves to be in the top 3 or are there any other food-related ads that you think got snubbed from the list of nominations?





As an honorable mention, I wanted to include this Coke ad in the top 3 but I figured that I stick to one ad per advertiser. Just goes to show how awesome some of the Coke ads were these past ten years.


See all nominees for Commercial of the Decade (Non-Superbowl) here.
See all nominees for Superbowl Spot of the Decade here.