Cookout, a College Students Best Friend

Lets switch topics for a quick minute.  Don't worry, we will get back to bacon soon, but I wanna talk about Cookout.  Well, more specifically, Cookout Milkshakes.

Cookout Milkshakes are just possibly the greatest thing ever invented.  They are good no matter what time you get it.  Which means even at 2 am on a Friday night, whoever is sober can drive all the drunk people to Cookout, order some milkshakes and some hush puppies, get the drunks home and they will be totally happy.

  Also, there are 40 different individual flavors and you can combine flavors.  This means no matter who is ordering a milkshake will find something they like.

Not only are the milkshakes good, the rest of their food is good too.  Their sweet tea is awesome but I'm a caramel Oreo milkshake kind of person.

Waking Up To The Smell Of Bacon

I have just learned about what might be the coolest thing ever invented... the Wake'n Bacon alarm clock.  That's right, you read that correctly.  They have made an alarm clock that will wake you up with the smell of bacon.  Apparently this is in the beginning phases and it's not mass produced yet, but I'm still excited. 

The Wake'n Bacon Alarm Clock.

The way this works is you put slices of frozen bacon into the alarm clock before you go to sleep.  Then 10 minutes before your alarm goes off, the bacon starts cooking.  When your alarm goes off, not only are you awoken to the smell of bacon, you have freshly cooked bacon right next to you.  It's a win-win situation. 

Bacon from 3 hours behind

I will soon be blogging from three hours behind most of my readers.  I know that's weird to think about but I will be on the West Coast in beautiful Brea, Cali.  This will be my first time out of the East Coast time zone (let alone to California) it makes me wonder, does the West Coast love bacon as much as the East Coast?  I am determined to find out the answer this week.

I just realized, if they don't appreciate bacon properly, I'm not sure if I can ever come back here.  I love bacon! I mean, I'm writing a whole blog about it for heavens sake! I wonder if they have different flavors than we do. We, meaning the East Coast... using the royal we of course.  You know how we have maple bacon and flavors like that?  What if they have weird flavor and I don't like it?!?!

That crazy girl sitting in the airport laughing at herself.

HAHA the thought of me NOT liking bacon is laughable.  Thank goodness I didn't laugh at myself in the airport right now.  I would have gotten some funny looks.  You think about it, some college girl wearing sweatpants and a spirit jersey, sitting at an airport gate, on her laptop...laughing at herself. You would be giving me funny looks.
They probably wouldn't let me on the plane.  And they would probably ask me to leave because they would think I'm crazy.  

Breakfast Waffle Tacos?

Taco Bell is planning to start serving breakfast in a few weeks.  They have been testing this idea at a number of Taco Bells across the country and finally decided to take this nation wide.

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about this whole thing.  Taco Bell around here is the place all the drunk people want to and the place all the sober people know how to get to.  So, the whole idea of them serving breakfast is interesting.

If they serve breakfast during the late night too, I think it will be much better than just serving it in the morning.  When you think about it, McDonalds serves breakfast and their normal menu during their late night.  I love the fact I can go to McDonalds and get a cheese burger and a hash brown at 3am.  It's probably the greatest thing ever.

I guess we will all have to wait to see what happens after Taco Bell starts this whole breakfast thing.  For more information about what Taco Bell plans on serving, check out eater.com. 

Bacon Bowls

Most people have seen the commercial for Bacon Bowls.  The actual name of the new product is Perfect Bacon Bowl.  For those of you who haven't seen the really annoying commercial, you aren't missing much.  Along with bacon bowls, during the commercial, they claim it also makes bread bowls, but we only really care about the bacon.

Perfect Bacon Bowl Ad

What most people don't realize is that you can make bacon bowls at home, without buying the set of two bacon bowls for $10.00 (plus processing and handling for an extra $7.95).

 "BUT WAIT, we will also include a set of two more Perfect Bacon™ Bowls - you just pay a reduced $4.95 P&H! Plus, we will include a bonus Recipe Guide ABSOLUTELY FREE!"  Taken straight from the Perfect Bacon Bowl website, you can almost hear the salesman yelling at you (personally I hear Billy Mays).

You don't need the Perfect Bacon Bowl to make bacon bowls at home.  All you need is your favorite bacon and a muffin pan.  Step-by-step directions with pictures can be found here.

You really don't need any new kitchen gadgets, you just need imagination and maybe Google. 

Superbowl of Food

As the big game approaches, people who are hosting a Superbowl party are frantically trying to pick what food they will make. Personally, I have always made dark chocolate brownies and cookies.  We always went to a family-friends house and they made pulled pork, potato salad, chips and of course mac and cheese.  Recently though, I have noticed a new growing tradition of creating a stadium out of food for the Superbowl. In 2012, for the Giants and Patriots game, the Huffington Post posted the 11 Amazing/ Disgusting Stadium Snacks.  I had no idea people were taking hours and hours building these massive creations that are just going to get eaten.  Some of these are smaller with rice crispy treats as the walls and chip-dip as the field, while others have massive walls of deli meat and cold cut sandwiches.  Some even get so detailed they put advertising in the stadium and players on the field. What Superbowl snack are you most looking forward to?  Comment below and share your favorite recipe or snack for the big game. 

My Secret Mentor(s)

As somebody who is not an avid reader of any kind really, I don't really have a favorite author.  I know that sounds really weird having a journalism major who doesn't like reading, but here I am.  It's not that I don't like reading, I just can never find anything I really enjoy reading. For me to sit down and read something of any real length, it has to grab my attention and keep it.  I know you are thinking right now, "That's what all writers have to do", but with me it's on a different level. Even now, just trying to write this blog post, I am getting distracted by everything. I hate the fact that everything distracts me.  I guess that means when I write things they should be able to keep anybodies attention because they were written to keep my attention so, that works out pretty well actually. So I guess what I am saying is that I like all authors who can grab my attention and keep it for the entire article.  When I send an article to my sisters on Facebook or to my Dad in an email, it grabbed my attention. In a way then, everybody is my secret mentor... Any author that has gotten my attention and kept it, has inspired me to write like them.  I like the authors that can get the point across when it's news related or when it's not news related, they have lots of details. One good example that I check quite often is fire station websites. I know that sounds kind of weird but it keeps my attention.  One of the sites I check almost everyday is the Kentland Volunteer Fire Department 33 website.  I have a really close friend that is a firefighter there and I like to keep an eye on the big fires they have (plus I love Murphy, the "Station Chief").

Murphy, "Station Chief" of Kentland 33 

Even though you have to know their lingo a little, for example they say, "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta" as sides of the building.  Alpha or A-side is normally the side that is facing the street or the side that the apparatus (or truck) is parked on.  Bravo is the right side of the building, Charlie is the back and Delta is the only side left. Also, they say first due, 2nd due, and 3rd due, this just means when the call goes out, dispatch might call for one fire truck (1st due) then if the fire is big enough or they need a different kind of truck they call for another truck (2nd due). It's really when the trucks arrive so it could also be when the call goes out to each engine.  So the 3rd engine called would be the 3rd due.  All of the trucks are named so Tower 33 is the ladder truck (see the Apparatus tab for all the info of each rig).  These are more like blog posts but it tells you what happened and gets all the information to you that you need to know.  I kind of went off on a tangent but, I think I got my point across.  If it can keep my attention, then I like the author.  So I don't have a favorite author, I like them all.