Crouching shopper, hidden cookies: Keebler's Cheesecake Middles

I don't have photographic evidence (lack of foresight on my part) of its existence, nor does it even exist on the Keebler Web site, but rest assured, there are cookies on the shelf at my grocer that have cheesecake-flavored soft centers and fudge drizzled over. They're in the Fudge Shoppe range of cookies and they're called Cheesecake Middles. I got the dark chocolate graham flavored ones, stuck them in the fridge (I eat my cheesecake cold, so I figured the cookies should be cold too) and promptly devoured them.

I'll be getting more, and I'll get around to photographing them so you know what to look for, but keep your eyes peeled for them at your favorite food retailers in the meantime.

BIGGER THAN BIG BABY JESUS! A Wu-Beatles mash-up

It took me about 20 seconds of listening to the first track of this remix-tape, "Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers," before I realized I needed to download it and spread the joy as far as I could.

This isn't like some other Beatles-rap mashes, where the Beatles tracks are almost unchanged under the voice tracks from the rappers: Rather, Tom Caruana at Tea Sea Records crafted wholecloth hip-hop beats out of Beatles tracks, adding boom-bap drums where needed, and let the Shaolin Masters work flow over the top.

I don't know what else to tell you: It works. If you're not interested, there's not much else I could say to get you to grab this free mixtape. So go register for free at Tea Sea Records and grab this thing. If you want to.

Yankee Candle sucks: Why "retire" so many candles?

At Christmas, a close friend who knows my love for good-smelling soy candles got me a Yankee Candle I'd never heard of: It's called Beanswax Beat Around the Bushel. When warmed, the soft, natural, nontoxic wax gives off SUCH a lovely and satisfying scent of green leaves, grass, bark and fresh apples. I still have it and use it fairly regularly, but just now I took a spin around the Internet to see if I could find more and found that this scent, like so many before it, has fallen victim to Yankee's interminably stupid scent rotation schedule.

Will it ever be back? Faithful ATR readers may remember my love for grass-scented candles was kindled by a small Yankee Candle that was discontinued before I ever even lit the wick. Thankfully I can report other candle makers and scent peddlers have picked up the grass/greenery torch and carried on, but really, what is the deal with Yankee Candle? I guess they run a successful company so it's not like everyone feels the way I do, but let the record show I've never actually purchased a Yankee Candle with my own money. And due to the constant disappointment they dish out with their strange policies, I imagine that trend will continue.

And real pain for my sham friends: Barefoot makes a good, cheap bubbly

I'm not a sparkling wine/champagne fan. Well, I wasn't until a couple weeks ago, when I tried Barefoot's affordable, crisp, refreshing and satisfyingly sweet Moscato Spumante sparkling wine. For less than $10, (as little as $6 at my local grocers) you get a full bottle of tasty bubbly that isn't overly "buttery" or sticky like many of the others I've tried (Korbel, other grocery store brands, mostly Brut). It's a great way to celebrate the highs of life without getting weighed down in the tummy (and lighter in the wallet).

Apertif sodas: My new thing?

This weekend my lady introduced me to the strange and compelling world of bitter digestive sodas by giving me a bottle of San Pellegrino's non-alcoholic bitter soda Sanbitter. Apparently it's crafted to emulate the flavor of an Italian liquor called Campari with some soda water, and it comes in tiny 3.5 oz. bottles. At first I thought nothing in a bottle that small would be satisfying, but I think I was proven wrong.

The very first hit on the tip of the tongue is akin to sweet mint tea, and upon a swirl in the mouth it picks up some interesting floral flavors. It doesn't bring the bitter until it's gone; then a hearty grapefruit-like bitterness floods in and eradicates any other aftertastes on the palate. I like bitter things (like 90-plus-percent cacao chocolate, for instance), so take that into account when measuring your tastes against mine, but this little bottle lasted me quite a while. Each sip was refreshing and interesting and even seemed to enhance the flavor of a cookie I had with it.

So I'm going to be exploring this exciting new world of apertif and digestif sodas (and liquors, sure) over the next few months. Hit me at atrecommends@gmail.com with any suggestions you may have.

The first list of 2010 of 2009's top albums

Every year I list my top albums in early to mid December, and almost every year a late release makes me go back and assess where it fits in the lineup. So this year I decided to hold off until 2009 was FULLY over to give my list of the year's best music. Thus, the best however-many-albums-I-could-think-of for 2009 in descending order:

25. Marsha Ambrosius - Yours Truly\
In a year that seemed chock full of somewhat disappointing (to me) releases from female vocalists, Marsha Ambrosius released a hell of a "mixtape" album that helped me regain some faith in the future of R&B.

24. MSTRKRFT - Fist of God\
Not every track is a homerun, but the ones that are absolutely melt faces. Listen to the John Legend track "Heartbreaker" and try not to booty dance right where you sit. It's impossible.

23. Lady GaGa - The Fame Monster\
Far too short to be a real contender for BEST album of the year, but I'm in the camp of music fans who believe GaGa is good for music in general. "Bad Romance" may be one of the best track ones of the decade, though.

22. Greg Street & Glasses Malone - 2010\
DJ Greg Street of Atlanta put together a mixtape of his favorite Dr. Dre beats and got underrated Cash Money rapper Glasses Malone from Watts, Calif., to rhyme over them. If that sounds like a good idea to you, rest assured, your instinct is correct.

21. Trackstar the DJ - Keep On: The Influence of the Last Poets\
A masterfully mixed compendium of Afrocentric spoken word and the hip-hop and other music it inspired. If you've never heard the Last Poets do their thing, this is a fantastic (and free) introduction to their exciting, thought-provoking and just plain provocative art.

20. Blaq Poet - Tha Blaqprint\
Blaq Poet is a fine rapper, really a skillful lyricist, but the reason this album is even here is that legendary producer DJ Premier shifted his beatmaking efforts into high gear again, and that alone is worth the price of admission. To wit, the album comes with a second CD of just the instrumentals.

19. Hollyweerd - Candy 4 Kleptos\
What would happen if Parliament Funkadelic had a vinyl baby with Goodie Mob? I think Hollyweerd answers that question. They really need to get an official release out.

18. Finale - Pipe Dream and a Promise\
Though Finale is from Detroit, his funky beat selection and swaggerish flow hearkens back to the busy, bustling Motown-era Motor City more than the current, gritty, decaying Detroit. This was one of the more quietly consistent and enjoyable hip-hop albums in 2009.

17.ODB - Message to the Other Side\
It's easy to forget in the midst of all the arrests, drug charges, jail time and everything else that Ol Dirty Bastard was basically a music and drama nerd. The dude may have been all kinds of crazy and thuggish in various ways, but his ear for beats was impeccable, he loved to sing on his tracks before that kind of thing was common, and his rhymes always had an entertaining and melodic cadence to them. This mixtape/album/DVD brings all that flooding back to the forefront, and it's an excellent reminder of why ODB was so beloved in the rap community.

16. Pill - 4075 The Refill\
Pill has a sound steeped in the stutter-step Southern style of his Atlanta home, and for those who care about this sort of thing, Pill is about as thoro as it gets, Adamsville, Fort City, the Pink Block. His home couldn't be any more gutter and his music reflects that. Plus he turned the world on to the phrase "goin' ham," which means to go crazy; to wreak mayhem and chaos; to lose one's mind. He got the Internet goin' ham.

15. Flaming Lips - Embryonic\
If the Flaming Lips at their most weird are too weird for you, you may like "Embryonic." If Flaming Lips at their most accessible and radio-friendly reek too strongly of sell-out, you may like "Embryonic." Might this become the seminal, definitive Flaming Lips album? I admit I'm not a big enough Flaming Lips fan to tell you for sure (they're too weird for me).

14. DOOM - Born Like This\
The newly minted DOOM (formerly Metalface Doom, among other monikers) drops a disturbed and delightful collection of songs featuring a title track crafted around a section of a Charles Bukowski poem. If that doesn't get your freak flag flying, I don't know what will.

13. AC Newman - Get Guilty\
My favorite member of the New Pornographers (and possibly one of my favorite ginger-haired frontmen of all time along with Spoon's Britt Daniel, who's really more of a strawberry blond) puts out his follow-up to one of the best pop albums of all time, "The Slow Wonder," and although "Get Guilty" isn't as instantly captivating as its predecessor, it's a grower.

12. Snoop Dogg - Malice in Wonderland\
A surprisingly focused and tuneful effort from the hip-hop legend-turned TV star/youth football coach. I'm glad to see Snoop still has tricks up his sleeve that help us forget the more dud-tastic entries in his catalogue. "Doggy-Fizzle Televizzle" shouldn't have been cancelled. Just sayin'.

11. Stat Quo - Status Report\
Atlanta brings us a pretty wide range of rap talent, from Outkast to Soulja Boy, from Goodie Mob to Shawty Lo, but Stat Quo, in my view, may be the most consistently good, consistently thoughtful, consistently entertaining rap act from the city. He should be way more popular than he is.

10. Wale - Attention Deficit\
Wale's brilliant blending of D.C./Baltimore Go-Go beats and sounds with his breathless lyrical cadence makes for some seriously catchy stuff. This is the album, but all of his mixtape efforts from the last year have comparable displays of skill and irrepressible rhythms.

9. Ian Kamau - September 9 Mixtape\
Ian is a reedy-voiced "conscious" rapper/poet from Toronto, which is definitely NOT a formula for mainstream success. But great googily-moogily does this two-part free mixtape deliver the goods. If you don't like his voice, that may be a deterrent, but if you like his voice, his beat selection, lyricism and subject matter are all masterful.

8. Them Crooked Vultures\
A supergroup that somehow perfectly combines the signature sounds of its representative artists. The legendary John Paul Jones brings the rambling, complex Led Zeppelin groove, Josh Homme seems compelled to one-up his senior rockmeister with mathematically advanced time signatures and some of the most "technically challenging" material of his career, and the top Foo Fighter, Dave Grohl, adds his high-octane and high-fun percussive style to every track. If you're a fan of hard rock music, this should be on your shelf/iPod/Zune/etc.

7. HISD - The District\
The Hueston Independent Spit District is like what would happen if you took Jurassic 5 and Tribe Called Quest and smashed them together in a particle accelerator deep under the scorched soils of Houston. It's funny, it's poignant, it's inspiring and, most importantly, the beats knock.

6. Skyzoo - The Salvation\
My favorite rapper is Nas, and even though Sky's style is almost nothing like Mr. Jones', I keep thinking Skyzoo could be the next Nas: Unbelievable storytelling skills, a flow that never seems to waver and a NYC pedigree.

5. The-Dream - Love Vs. Money\
This was the album where I realized R&B can be saved. Auto-tune or no, radio play or no, dirty lyrics or no, as long as people like The-Dream are making music and having fun doing it, I think we'll be OK.

4. Rashid Hadee - 808s & Hadee\
Kanye's "808s & Heartbreak" was an unabashedly slapdash album; it was a response to several things going on in music and in Kanye's own life. That any of the tracks are even good speaks to Kanye's musical talents, but the album does SOUND slapped together and inconsistent. Enter fellow Chicagoan Rashid Hadee, who chose Kanye's lovelorn opus as the first experiment in his "Chopped Not Screwed" mixtape series. Picking each "808s" track down to its elemental essence, he builds it back up in his own image with shuddering, earth-shaking, powerful mastery. It bares no real resemblance to the original work, but it arguably transcends it. And best of all, it's a free download.

3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix\
The Parisian power-pop trio adds just a pinch of this-n-that to the recipe that made them worldbeaters. If it ain't broke, it don't need much fixin', and that's precisely the notion Phoenix apparently operated under in making "Wolfgang."

2. 14KT - Nowalataz LP\
A mindful homage to J Dilla's "Donuts" that somehow manages to nearly match the original's exuberant excellence. Instrumental hip-hop in its highest form.

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest\
This was the album where Grizzly Bear realized they'd make a really great Doo-Wop/Barbershop quartet, but neither of those things are really in style in 2009, so they added some of their patented ethereal sounds and subject matter and put out an album that frankly kicks their prior effort, "Yellow House," to the curb and back ... and "Yellow House" is a great album.

It bears mentioning that as of press time, Jay Electronica and Just Blaze are in the lab putting the final touches on Act II or whatever exactly Jay is calling his first official LP. It's expected this year, but two Christmases ago I thought Jay was dropping an album, so I'm not sure what to think. When it happens, though, it will be the top album of whatever year it is released in (though Spoon may have something to say about that in 2010). It also bears mentioning that since it's technically been released as a single in 2009, "Exhibit C," available at the link above, is fairly easily the best song released in that year.

What I Drink: Palmer vs. Daly

I've enjoyed half iced tea, half lemonade drinks for quite some time. I'm not sure how golf great Arnold Palmer became the namesake for that drink, but it's a savvy move. And it might have been even more savvy for sportswriter Bill Simmons to add vodka and call it the John Daly (though he probably wasn't the first to do it, he was the most prominent to advertise it).

And I recommend both beverages, depending on the situation. And if you're buying the gigantic cans of Arizona-brand Arnold Palmer for 99 cents, get the Lite version, which is a little less calorie-laden, less sugary and just as tasty.

My inner fatty likes Long John Silvers fish tacos

The Long John Silvers Baja Fish Taco

As a landlubber, I've ALWAYS spurned seafood and fish and other stuff from under water. As I grew older, I hypothesized that the main reason for this was a lack of truly fresh seafood available here in Flyover America, and that if I'd been reared in Maine or Rhode Island or someplace, I'd chow down on clams and oysters without a second thought. Every now and again, though, I do try or retry seafood dishes that pique my interest to see if my tastes have changed. In many cases, my distaste for seafood remains, but in some significant ways, I've grown to appreciate some of the cuisine aquatic.

But nothing really prepared me for ever liking anything at Long John Silvers. When I was a kid, my sister and the rest of the family had no qualms about ordering their monstrously greasy and breaded shrimp, clams, whitefish and other sea creatures. When they chose LJS, I chose chicken planks and fries, which tasted suspiciously fishy anyway from the oil.

Flash forward a couple of decades, I've grown to love fish tacos. But again, being at least a thousand miles from property with frontage on either sea, they're a bit rare around here. I did have one at a local sit down restaurant (it was quite good) and I had a couple when I went out to Seattle in 2007 (they were quite good), but until I found out Long Johns was taking their own stab at the West coast fast-food fave, I'd not heard any movement on the fish taco reverse-manifest destiny front. And when I did hear about it, I shuddered a bit, remembering just how greasy the food is at those joints.

But then I thought, "who in the fast food realm could do it better?" McDonald's fish filet sandwiches taste like they were dunked in a toilet, and I haven't yet attempted the Arby's fish offerings. Does Burger King even have a fish sandwich? If it does, I don't want to partake. So if I'm going to get fast-food fish tacos, LJS is really the best shot I'm going to have in this area for a while.

So imagine my surprise when I found the price (99 cents each) AND the flavor to be quite agreeable indeed! Basically, they chunk an extra skinny battered fish plank into a soft tortilla with some lettuce and a bit of shredded cheese and a smattering of mayonnaise-based "Baja" sauce, which is heated up by what tastes like a run-of-the-mill cayenne pepper sauce. And two or three of them are quite filling, and even if they aren't, you still have at least another dollar in change from the $5 you paid with to buy MOAR FISH TACOS.

Photo courtesy of exLondoner at Flickr

Or, and this isn't nearly as highly recommended, you could drop $3 on a little box of what they call Lobster Bites. They are apparently morsels of tail meat from Langostino lobsters (whatever those are) breaded and fried in the customary LJS manner and served in an ADORABLE little box shaped like the tail section of a lobster. The price is kind of steep for the amount you get, but I don't deny they're extremely tasty. They're buttery and tender and have a very subtle briny flavor. As I ate them, I couldn't help but think of the episode of "Futurama" where the gang harvests a bunch of crispy nuggets from an alien world and sells them back on Earth as fast food, only to find out these "Popplers" are actually the larva form of a hostile and very moody alien race. I doubt the Lobster Bites will ever call you "mama," though.

Um, acoustic rap? Lushlife = illin

I don't have time to write about this at the moment, but Philly's Lushlife is a rapper and musician that I'm ASHAMED I didn't know about until like, earlier this month. His debut LP, "Cassette City," came out in June and, well, it's a contender for ATR album of the year. Until I get around to writing about that, though, check out these two "Lushlife/Redux" songs he did on YouTube: A guitar version/remix of CRU "Just Another Case" and a piano version/remix of Jay-Z "Dead Presidents." The skills amaze me.

DISCLAIMER: R-rated language in both these clips.

Frugal Gourmet Jr.: Spicy Mushroom and Cabbage Ramen

Hey, I know a lot of people got worn out on Ramen in college the way the Irish got worn out on rutabagas during the famine, but I didn't, because I didn't eat very much Ramen. By itself, the dime-a-pack noodles with the packet of salty flavoring never appealed to me much. But once I started figuring out good ways to doctor a bowl up in an inexpensive and easy fashion, I found myself rather enjoying the occasional bowl of cheap noodles.

For those of you reading this either in college or about to embark on a similarly spartan period of existence, consider this recipe the talisman from which you can spin off and find all sorts of ways to make your grocery dollars stretch way farther while not dying of boredom from the same two or three flavors of instant noodles that you find edible.

This is something I call Spicy Mushroom and Cabbage Ramen, and it can easily be adapted for ingredients you have on hand, but in order for it to approach takeout Chinese levels of goodness for a fraction of the price, I'm really going to have to insist you have some Sriracha (commonly referred to as "rooster sauce" around here) chili sauce, some soy sauce and an egg.

This serves one:
- 1 package of Maruchan Mushroom Ramen noodles
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon of Sriracha or equivalent spicy Asian sauce
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- handful of fresh cabbage (your choice what variety) chopped into thin, two-inch (or shorter for ease of face stuffing) strips
- finely chopped green or spring onion to taste

It helps if you have a tea kettle to boil water in, but even if you don't, get around a cup of water boiling somehow, whether kettle or saucepan or coffeemaker (it works in a pinch). I like to break the ramen noodle brick up into four quadrants to make it fit in my bowl better, but at any rate, get the dry noodles into whatever you plan on eating this out of while the water boils.

When the water is done boiling, pour it nice and slow over the noodles and into the bowl. I say around a cup because I don't know how big your bowl is or how brothy you like your noodles, so a cup or two will give you plenty to cover the noodles and get them cooking to your satisfaction.

Then pour in the mushroom flavoring and crack an egg in there too, and start stirring to 1. mix in the flavoring 2. break up the egg and let it cook in the hot water/coat the noodles/make the whole operation decidedly more savory and hearty and 3. expose the noodles to the boiling water on all faces. You'll notice fairly quickly that the noodles are softening and pulling apart in their crazy ramen way. Once everything is stirred/cooked to your satisfaction (shouldn't take more than a minute or so), add your soy sauce and spicy sauce and stir again. Then, at last, sprinkle your cabbage and your spring onions and whatever else you like (perhaps some little bits of precooked ham or pork or turkey or seafood? little tofu bits?) on top and revel in the wonderful flavor of a giant bowl of noodles that probably cost you 30 or 40 cents in total materials.

Sure the bottle of Sriracha is like $3 and the soy sauce will be another couple bucks, but those both last quite a while and aren't likely candidates to spoil in your fridge. And a head of cabbage is like 40 cents. And eggs are cheap and optional (if you're vegetarian perhaps you opt for fake egg mixture or some sort of soy-based situation) and last forever in the fridge too. And as you know, Ramen never goes bad. So worst-case scenario, $10 or so will get you enough ingredients to make a month's worth of this stuff. And a similar sized serving of something like this at a Chinese food joint would probably be at least a couple dollars, keep in mind.

And like I said, there are clearly other variants on this. I almost always incorporate an egg because I like the body it adds to the broth, but sour cream could work as well. How about some fresh-ground black pepper or sea salt? Fresh-grated ginger? This is the mushroom flavor and I've found chopping up little bits of button mushrooms into the mix is quite nice as well. Maybe you're a fan of bell peppers. Toss 'em in. The possibilities are endless, very affordable and most likely pretty tasty.