#22 - Red Bull

It was the decade when...

we wanted our beverages to be as methamphetamine-like as possible.

Pop Quiz:

1) Red Bull tastes like...

a) sweet and acidic seltzer water.
b) if Mountain Dew could spoil...
c) something an astronaut would drink.
d) alkaline battery acid.

2) Consuming Red Bull with spirits...

a) gets you intoxicated faster.
b) makes you forget your name.
c) will end with you naked and pregnant.
d) habiba fopmsf sdfksaf....

3) Taurine, Red Bull's most potent ingredient,...

a) is a chemical found in human bile.
b) can be extracted from bull testicles.
c) has never been scientifically proven to increase energy.
d) will eat through steel like Alien blood.

4) Red Bull's secret ingredient is...

a) civet coffee extract.
b) bergamot oil.
c) cocaine.
d) kryptonite.

5) The Red Bull logo is...

a) a lighting bolt.
b) a costumed superhero.
c) two large bulls charing head to head.
d) a picture of Henry Spencer from Eraserhead.

6) Red Bull, is, in the end...

a) a passing fad.
b) the best new drink since Tang!
c) legalized crank.
d) ZOOM!!!!!!!


Answer Key:
1-d; 2-a,b,c,d; 3-a,b,c; 4- c (Oh yes!); 5- c; 6- c,d

You AUGHT to remember...

#75 - Pinkberry

It was the decade when...

We couldn't stop eating sour ice cream.


Pinkberry fact sheet:

(The following are incontrovertibly true facts about the uber-trendy frozen yogurt chain known as "Pinkberry.")

Pinkberry yogurt is neither pink nor berry flavored.

Pinkberry yogurt tastes like, well...if you had walked into a frozen yogurt store 15 years ago and had been served Pinkberry you would have spit it back in your cup and asked for a refund because your ice cream was sour; that's what it tastes like.

Pinkberry's amazing contribution to world cuisine is that it sells itself as yogurt that tastes like yogurt.

Pinkberry is not yogurt.

Pinkberry, when confronted with the embarrassing fact that their yogurt wasn't yogurt, renamed the product "chilly bliss."

Pinkberry serves its yogurt-esque product in stores that look like the interior of the space station in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Pinkberry has convinced people it's good for them.

Pinkberry has a celebrity clientele, and where Leo DiCaprio dines, so dines the nation.

Pinkberry only tastes good when you load it up with toppings, like big ass blackberries or Cap'n Crunch, which, of course, costs you more money.

Pinkberry's main competitor, Red Mango, serves yogurt that is neither red nor mango flavored.

Pinkberry is almost totally unknown to people outside New York and Los Angeles thereby letting these urbanites feel cooler about their overpriced dessert decisions.

Pinkberry serves a coffee flavor that tastes like a latte made with rancid cream.

Pinkberry is so addictive its nickname is Crackberry.

Pinkberry only serves one flavor at a time, so don't even ASK for a swirl!

Pinkberry is a special kind of delicious; even rats like it.

You AUGHT to remember.

#86-Whole Foods and Trader Joe's

It was the decade when...

Supermarkets were so passé!

A dimly lit interior. An aging hippie with greasy ponytailed hair sits behind the register reading the latest issue of High Times. The aisles are replete with all the carob chips and high fiber cereals one can eat. Milling about, an aging lesbian couple (bearing a striking resemblance to Annie Liebowitz and Susan Sontag in ill-fitting denim and Birkenstocks) parse over various granola brands. Folk music or (better yet) a live acoustic guitar player provide the musical accompaniment.

Such was the mise-en-scene of the American Natural and Organic Food Store before the 21st century; before entrepreneurs realized that big money was waiting to be made on people's fetish for all things "natural" and "organic." And before consumers, that is, white upper-middle class consumers, realized that shopping at "regular" grocery stores was as gauche as choosing Taco Bell over Chipotle. It was the era that the anti-grocery store grocery store cleaned house.

Shopping at Whole Foods Market is an epicurean fantasy. The vegetables are gloriously fresh and beautifully labeled. The salad bar features all-American potato salad and exotic Indian curries, with all cuisines in-between. The environment is clean, spacious and tasteful. It is a modern bourgeois fantasy-land; fawning over the panoply of plenty, food shoppers assume a kind of existential import that justifies the extreme price-tag that is part and parcel with any trip down Whole Foods' check-out lane. This is expensive grub. Like, feed-Nairobi-for-a-week-off-the-cost-of-one-trip-expensive. But, there is the vague sense that buying such steeply priced produce is actually an investment in the environmental welfare of planet earth. The nebulous connection between organic food and environmental concern (a link necessitated by prosperous-liberal guilt) has been one of the major catalysts in the success of Whole Foods, even if the causal connection between a $3 apple and lower greenhouse gas emissions remains deductively elusive to most consumers. We like to take their word for it. Those who look closer may find a dark underbelly beneath all the the free-range squab and Manchego wedges but, for most, Whole Foods remains the nirvana of grocery shopping. But, like all wallet-shrinking activities, one, or at least most, can't indulge every day. For daily cheap foodstuffs that nonetheless fan the flames of our quasi-healthy, would-be ethical culinary aspirations, we travel to another popular organic food chain.

Though Trader Joe's opened it's first store in 1967, it was in the Aughts that Joe's reached total food-retail domination. Selling curiously affordable "natural" and "organic" food with nary a name brand in sight, Trader Joe's became the grocery store for people who wanted to shop at Whole Foods but couldn't afford to take out a second mortgage on their already devalued real estate. And what's really special about Joe's? The wine! 2 buck chuck made winos of us all (or at least me) and proved so popular even the New Yorker wrote a feature article about it. I mean, it's not good wine....but it's not bad either. And did I mention it's two-bucks? It is. It's two bucks. A bottle. A coke at a deli is $1.50. Get it? Two buck chuck is a miracle. That's Joe's secret weapon. Oh, and it's employees are really fuckable. So what that Joe's is now owned by a German discount grocery conglomerate? That shouldn't diminish the allure of Joe's as the organic, which is to say upscale, choice for the anti-corporate every-man, should it?

You AUGHT to remember...

#96-Rachael Ray

It was the decade when...


...we realized that cooking took no effort, skill, or time.

Hello Everyone,this is Rachael Ray and welcome to Thirty Minute Meals.That's right.In just thirty minutes I'll cook a three course meal from scratch,ready to serve and eat.Today on the menu is cream of mushroom "stoup,"that's a cross between a soup and and stew but it's a lot more fun when you call it a"stoup."We also have authentic piping hot Pepperoni Pizza and Chocolate Chip ice cream.Ok,let's get started with the stoup,my cross between a soup and a stew,cause it's really more than a soup but not quite a stew so I call it a stoup.Did I say that already?Sometimes I repeat myself.This is a very hearty and thick stoup,more of an entréetizer-that's what you get when you have an entree size appetizer,but I think it's cuter to call it an entreetizer.I love thinking of these things.I love being cute.OK,so let's go to the pantry here and grab ourselves some salt and pepper and some EVOO,that's short for extra virgin olive oil.Start to heat your pot and add,I don't know,like a splash of EVOO,that's short for extra virgin olive oil to save time,and let that start to simmer,like this.Oh,I love the smell of EVOO,aka extra virgin olive oil but I think it saves time just to say"hey,grab some EVOO"instead of"hey,grab some extra virgin olive oil,"it just mmmm...smells like Italy,not that Italy smells that nice really.Last time I was in Naples all I could smell were the mangy dogs.I don't know why I am telling you this but I have to keep talking while this EVOO,good old extra virgin olive oil...only get the extra virgin kind by the way,simmers in the pan.I can't just you know,let it simmer in silence.So OK,now that it smells so good in here let's get really cooking.We are making Cream of Mushroom Stoup so for the next step we are going to add a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup to the pot.That's right.You are watching a cooking show where the host actually encourages you to use pre-made canned food.It's ok though.No worries.We are all about convenience here on 30 Minute Meals.In fact that is why people love me.I'm just like you.I mean, seriously.I'm just like you.I don't know what I am doing here.I don't know how to cook.I can't believe I actually pretend like I am a chef every single day.Why am I telling you this?Oh yes,JUST KEEP TALKING.And smiling.I have to keep smiling too.No matter what.Smile and talk.Smile and talk.And I got on Oprah doing this.OPRAH!She loves me.Well,that smells delicious,but this is a stoup remember,not just a soup,so we need a little more EVOO,that's my little acronym to save time instead of saying Extra Virgin Olive Oil every time.Also maybe,oh,a pinch or so of salt.Whatever works for you,you know.According to taste.I mean,I actually recommend that you ignore my recipe.You'll fare better on your own.But a pinch of salt works for me.I think.I've never actually made this before but I ran out of recipes.I hear this one is tasty though.I cry at night.No one knows that.You really think I'm this perky all the time?I'm dead inside.If I stop talking,I'll burst into tears.Why do all the gay men love me?Why do I love them?OH GOD!SMILE!I'm glad this show is only a half hour.When I talk for an hour straight it usually ends up costing me 250 bucks.Man,it smells good in here.Thank God for Campbell's,otherwise cooking stoup might actually require skill and effort.That's no fun.So our stoup is almost done.Let's do the pizza last and just work on the ice cream now.We'll just walk over here to the freezer and grab a bag of Chocolate Chips and some Breyers Vanilla Ice Cream.I like to put the ice cream in a bowl and then take the chips and pour them on the ice cream,like so.Then I just like to finish it up with a shot of delicious Extra Virgin Olive Oil or as I like to call it for short,EVOO.So,that's what I call my ten second chocolate chip ice cream.I'm getting my own talk show.Can you believe it?Really!Me.Talking.On my own talk show.And to think on the playground the kids used to say my voice sounded like a brillo pad.They used to ask me if I swallowed thumbtacks as a baby.And now I talk for a living.TALK TALK TALK.I love TALKING.Look at the time.We are almost done here.

The Doorbell Rings

Oh,my gravy!Finally!Oh,about that doorbell.I forgot to mention that you should order a pizza to be delivered before you start cooking.I just like to serve it as it is-warm and sliced-but for a extra bit of pizzaz I like to pour a lot of EVOO-which is now in the Oxford English Dictionary as the official abbreviation of Extra Virgin Olive Oil-on the pizza.So delicious.And there you have a 30 minute meal made and ready to eat in just 30 minutes.See you next time on 30 Minute Meals.YUM-O!

You AUGHT to remember.

# 100-Vitamin Water

It was the decade when...




...we realized that water sucked and needed Vitamins.


Do you like water? H20? Have you always had the nagging suspicion that water was, oh, a little DULL? Do you feel embarrassed at the gym to just fill your bottle with the crap from the tap? Is Gatorade too butch for you? If you have had any of these thoughts...fear not. The 21st Century has solved your conundrum! Now we have water....with sugar, I mean, with vitamins! Who said you needed to eat your greens? Take your daily supplement? Not when there is Sugar Wa..., I mean, Vitamin Water! For only, oh, 3000X the price of tap water you too can feel that unique sense of self-satisfaction that comes from spending an inordinate amount of money on something that all the yuppies at the squash court are drinking. We're not even carbonated. Fuck Carbonation. We Rock. And you need lots of sugar, I mean, vitamins. We know that reading a snarky but self-congratulatory mini-essay on the side of the bottle only adds to your sense of self worth. It not everyone after all who buys drinks that have BOTTLES worth reading. And with brands named after hip-hop stars, who wouldn't feel cool drinking our Sugar, I mean, Vitamin Water? So, forget Evian, toss your Gatorade to the side, and drink the drink that costs, I mean, makes you feel, like a million bucks...Sugar, I mean, Vitamin Water!

Paid for by The Coca-Cola Corporation.

You AUGHT To Remember.