Whole Lotta Problems

An FDA inspector visited a Whole Foods plant in Massachusetts.
Here are the findings, as recorded in a letter from the FDA to the company:

On February 10, 2016, you were mixing ready to eat pesto pasta directly under an area in the Assembly Room where condensate from ceiling joints was dripping onto the surface below.
On February 16, 2016, you were storing an uncovered rack of ready to eat mushroom quesadilla in the same area of the Assembly Room where condensate from ceiling joints was dripping onto the surface below.
On February 10, 2016, your employee transported uncovered ready to eat vegetables through a doorway, from the Veg Prep Room into the Prepared Veg Cooler. A significant amount of condensate had formed above the doorway and was dripping onto the surface below.
On February 10, 2016, your employee was cutting chives and beets on a work surface directly underneath a leaking condensate drainage pipe in the Veg Prep Room.
On February 16, 2016, you were holding uncovered ready to eat egg salad in large white barrels that were placed in an area below the condenser. Condensate was observed to be dripping at a rate of approximately once per second from the condenser fan bolts in the K8/K9 Room.
On February 16, 2016, your employee transported uncovered ready to eat couscous through an area in the K8/K9 Room where condensate was dripping from an area around the condenser fan bolts at a rate of approximately once per second.
On February 10, 16, & 18, 2016, you were holding ready to eat vegetables, utensils such as cutting boards, mandolins, stainless colanders and yellow plastic totes in close proximity to hand a washing station in the Veg Prep Room. The hand washing station does not have splash guards and is foot operated releasing water from the faucets with significant pressure causing water to splash outside the sink while employees were observed washing soiled hands. Water splashed onto covered and uncovered ready to eat vegetables, utensils and food containers.
On February 16, 2016, your employee measured the strength of peracetic acid from the faucet in the Veg Prep Room with an (b)(4) Peracetic Acid test strip that indicated its strength over 160 ppm (maximum level on the test strip). This concentration exceeds the maximum level recommended by the (b)(4) product information sheet and the maximum level allowed under 21 CFR Part 173.315(a) (5) for use of peracetic acid for surface treatment and soaking and rinsing of vegetables.
On February 16, 2016, your employee was performing multiple tasks in the Pre-Pack Room including filling and weighing ready to eat egg salad in retail packs. The employee was observed cleaning and directly contacting work surfaces and then packaging and handling exposed product without hand washing or changing gloves in between tasks.
On February 16, 2016, your employee in the Bulk-Pack Room was observed assembling bulk cartons while also packaging exposed ready to eat quinoa cakes without hand washing or changing gloves in between tasks.
On February 16, 2016, your employee in the Pre-Pack Room was spraying (b)(4) quaternary ammonium based sanitizer to clean work surfaces while another employee in close proximity was packaging exposed ready to eat mesculin salad. This resulted in the sanitizer being sprayed onto an open colander of salad leafy greens.
On February 16, 2016, your employee’s unprotected upper sleeves were frequently touching ready to eat leafy salad greens as leafy salad greens were packaged into retail packs in the Pre-Pack Room.

So a lot of it is about a drippy air conditioner, and most of it is minor, but I admire the detail. Here's a government employee working hard for the people.

Get Out of My Dreams

Last night I got home late and didn't eat a proper dinner. I had Fritos and some spicy dip.
That night I dreamed I was at an amusement park and I got separated from my family so I walked around with TON and Lowercase E. And Lowercase E was complaining about the humidity.

The Wall Street Journal explains why this happens:

Everybody dreams, though many recall their dormant fantasies better than others. Some report that their subconscious stirrings appear to be more vivid after a spicy meal. Science is a long way from understanding all the nuances of the resting brain, but one expert, Emmanuel Mignot, director of the Stanford University Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, explains how a pad thai dinner might seem to bring on nightmares.

Dreams have two functions, Dr. Mignot says. One is to relax the most primitive part of the brain. “When you are in REM sleep,” he says, “you cool down and are essentially paralyzed, and the lower part of your brain is almost switched off.” While that’s happening, the second purpose of dreaming kicks in: the cortex, which controls higher-order executive function, switches into overdrive. “Dreaming fires your brain in random ways, forcing it to create unexpected connections that you wouldn’t logically make while you are awake,” he says. This is part of what makes humans smarter and more creative than other species.

If you’re a sound sleeper, you likely won’t recall your dreams, anyway. “Most people who remember their dreams have relatively poor sleep,” says Dr. Mignot. “They wake up frequently, so they have fragmented dream states, which allows them to remember more about the dream.”

No food has been shown to increase the vividness of dreams, the psychiatrist and behavioral scientist explains. During the night, people go in and out of the dream state numerous times. Various studies have shown that by eating certain proteins, like turkey, you will have more dreams. And some amino acids can increase the amount of REM sleep, when intense dreaming typically takes place.

While there is a lot of literature showing that eating big meals makes people sleepy, there are no studies that Dr. Mignot knows of that prove that spicy foods in particular induce nightmares or outlandish dreams. However, he notes, chicken tikka or too much sriracha could possibly be a culprit for some people. “Spicy foods increase your body temperature, so they may make you sleep less well—and as a consequence, your dreams may be more conscious,” he says. That doesn’t mean that you’ll dream more vividly or have more nightmares, he adds, but remembering them clearly may feel like the same experience.

Many types of foods—not just spicy ones—might have an impact on dreams because the gut and the digestive process are so complex, the sleep expert says. “Amino acids in food, for example, can be metabolized in the body into active brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine,” the professor of sleep medicine says. “They can enhance anxiety or pleasure, and that might affect your dreams.” But your grandma’s piquant meatballs have never actually been proven to give anyone nightmares (indigestion notwithstanding).

For people who often jolt awake from disturbing dreams, Dr. Mignot recommends keeping a food journal to see if there are any particular foods that might be triggering nightmares or shorter sleep cycles. He has his narcoleptic patients sometimes keep diaries to try and determine if specific foods make their dreams more ghoulish. “But I’ve found that the size of the meal is more important,” he says. And can any food create happy dreams? The doctor has doubts: “Unfortunately there is no food that I know of that can make you have funnier, more vivid dreams.”

This definitely makes sense because I am a very deep sleeper and I very seldom remember my dreams at all. Maybe the spicy food and heartburn wake me up, or keep me from getting into a deep sleep, and therefore I'm just more like to remember a weird dream after eating spicy food.

I Haven't Been to Red Lobster in a While

Red Lobster says it's seen an increase in sales since the release of Beyonce's new song "Formation."
Here's why:



For the hearing impaired, the lyrics go like this:

"When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster
When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster."

Red Lobster said sales surged 33 percent on Sunday, compared with last year’s Super Bowl Sunday.
“It’s clear that Beyoncé has helped create some Red Lobster fans,” Red Lobster’s chief, Kim Lopdrup, said in a statement.

My Popcorn Odyssey

I recently went on a popcorn odyssey, four days and nights of eating popcorn in 4 different places in 3 different states, and I documented the entire thing to share with you guys.

Day 1:
Popcorn from Target for Game 1 of the NLDS.

Day 2:
Popcorn from AMC Theaters for Hotel Transylvania 2. The movie was actually pretty cute and funny. The boys loved it.
The popcorn was also good. And we get the refillable size so we chow down before the movie starts, and refill. Then we refill again after the movie and take home. On this night I enjoyed it with Game 2 of the NLDS.

Day 3:
Popcorn from Sesame Place. With the same bucket we've been using for years, and our season passes, refills are only $2.22. And I can eat the entire bucket in the time it takes the kids to wait on line and ride one ride.

Day 4:
Popcorn from CitiField.
Behind section 125 there is a stand that sells popcorn in a Mets helmet with unlimited refills for $12. It is the best food value at CitiField. I bought and ate one helmet-full myself when I sat down. Then during the introductions I ran to get #2. I sent Poop On Me for refill #3 at which point even I was sick of eating popcorn.

What's The Universe Saying With This One?

By now, most of you know that I get dinner at work every night. We have a rotation of 10 or 15 restaurants. I almost always get the same thing every time we order from a particular restaurant.

But last night I decided to switch it up and order the chicken under a brick.

It was pretty good, if a little small.

I know I have never ordered this meal before. I've never talked about it before. I'm pretty sure I'd never even heard about chicken being prepared this way.

A few hours later I decided to watch the new episode of Four Courses with JB Smoove.

You Don't Want to See How the Sausage is Made

Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch loves Skittles. His nickname is Beast Mode. (That's for the lady Poopheads). Oh and I guess I should also mention the Seahawks are the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks introduced a Beast Mode burger, which came with a bag of Skittles, on the side.
But that just wasn't good enough for one butcher in Seattle. He decided to just dump an entire bag of Skittles into the sausage.



It might not be so bad if Skittles still had lime instead of that awful green apple.

I'd Love a Chocolate Sundae

You can't have a blog called the Poop and the logical organic nickname the Poop and expect not to get stories about Poop e-mailed to you. Nails and Master Bates and perhaps others flagged me to this Taiwanese restaurant in the LA-area called The Magic Restroom Cafe, complete with a toilet theme.

You sit on toilets

The food is served in dishes resembling toilet bowls

There are showerheads and urinals decorating the place

And the food has shit themed names like "black poop" (chocolate sundae), "smells-like-poop" (braised pork over rice), and "constipation" (zha jiang mian).

A New Reason to Visit Mama Poop

Staten Island just got a little more enticing. A new Buffalo Wild Wings opened on Richmond Avenue right near the location of the old Staten Island Hotel. It's not really visible from the street, but it's in a plaza behind Applebee's and next to Waldbaum's I think.
I will have to make my first official visit there soon. And then continue on Richmond Avenue and head to Ralph's. Sounds like a pretty good day. Hope I have the chance to do it soon.
Apparently, I'm not the only one excited about it because when it opened, strategically during the NCAA Tournament, it set a record for first week sales.

Great Seats Hey Buddy?

For years I have always laughed at those people who sit behind home plate at a baseball game and flinch when a ball is fouled back into the screen in front of them. Every time, they do it, and every time I laugh. I don't have that right anymore.
I was given incredible seats to Wednesday's Penguins-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. But before I get to the game, let me first explain the food.
Along with our tickets we were allowed to eat at the exclusive 1879 Club. A recent addition as part of the Garden's renovations, the 1879 Club only has 100 members. It was a very nice room with a few table and a buffet in the corner.

Here's what I ate: some kind of penne with chicken, a cashew chicken spring roll, a Jean Georges crab cake, broccoli and fries. On my second trip I got a burger.



The food was good, but not great. The pasta was excellent, the burger was just delicious, but the crab cake was disappointing. Lots of crab meat, but maybe too much seasoning, not sure, but it was just ok.

Dessert was great however. Brownies and cookies.



So we sat down there for a while, there were only a handful of other people in there with us, but decided to go check out the other club, the less exclusive club, the Delta Sky360 Club.
This place was awesome. It was a little bit like a Bar Mitzvah cocktail hour, stations with great food along the wall, but no place to sit.

There was a sushi station, and a fried chicken station (which I didn't try even though it was buttermilk-battered). A carving station with filet mignon. And shrimp cocktail with jumbo shrimp, which in this case was not an oxymoron. These fuckers were huge. Unfortunately I had already eaten a full meal before we even got up there so I only had a 2 shrimp. But don't worry, because it was so close, we went back in the first intermission and I had 4 more, plus some steak.



That was the best part of this club, the location. You're on the same level as the ice, and there were parts of the club where you could see out to ice to watch the players warming up. So everyone came back during the first intermission (for more steak and shrimp) and then it was dessert during the second intermission (cream puffs, cupcakes and Ben & Jerry's ice cream bars).

The food in the Delta club was better, the location was much better, but it was much nicer in the 1879 club and we didn't have to deal with the rest of the riff-raff.

On the way out of the Delta Club to the ice, there was a huge table of popcorn, over 200 boxes. Believe it or not, I only had 2. I feel like I let everyone down, but there was so much other better food to eat.



Now on to the game, our seats were ridiculous. They weren't in a section, no one was behind us. We were in 3 of 8 or 10 chairs set up right alongside the ice. My nose was less than 6 inches from the glass, closer than if I were watching on TV. And that's where the flinching came. The first time someone was checked into the boards right in front of us, it seemed like they were going to land in our laps. The guy next to us had his phone on the ledge and at one point it got knocked off onto the floor. This picture was taken without zoom.



After a while we got used to the players crashing into our boards, and the puck being fired our way, and we mostly stopped flinching, but the seats were so close we really were part of the action. We were in the corner, to Henrik Lundquist's left (in the 1st and 3rd periods that night).



The Rangers put on an offensive explosion, winning 6-1 against the Penguins who had just had their 15-game winning streak snapped. Most of their goals came at the other end of the ice, which was a little hard to see because we were at ice level, and looking through a maze of bodies. But all in all these were the best seats one could possibly have to a sporting event. Courtside at a Knicks game, or right behind home plate in the first row for the Mets would be equal, but not better.

JLeary and I even made it into a couple of action shots from Getty Images that were posted on espn.com.





In both those shots Papa Poop is blocked, but I swear he was there too.



And if that's not enough proof, who else would have taken a picture like this.



Here's a couple more game shots I took.







Now the problem is, how do I possibly go to another sporting event ever in my life and enjoy it. No free food, no front row seats, no luxury accommodations. The Final Four is going to be a big letdown.

I Knew This Instinctively

Doyle Brunson is one of the greatest poker players of all-time and he mostly does it on instinct. He almost always makes the mathematically correct move, without ever hardly considering the mathematics of the situation. One math whiz player conjectures that Doyle naturally came upon the best strategy without thinking about it, and his years of experience confirmed it. That's what happened to me.
The folks at Business Insider decided to compare how much filling was inside a burrito compared to a burrito bowl. And they found out what I instinctively stumbled upon, there is more food in a burrito bowl, for the same price.



71% more food. So business insider suggests you order a burrito bowl with the tortilla on the side. I suggest you listen to me when it comes to food-related matters.

She Knew I Was Going to Write This

As I have mentioned to many of you, the best perk of my new job is free dinner every night. A menu is sent at about 2. The final order is placed at 3:30 and dinner arrives at 5:30. Every day I send Mrs. Poop the menu and if it's something good she says "I hate you" and sometimes offers suggestions. Normally I e-mail her right away with my choices, but one day I was busy and hadn't even had a chance to look at the menu.

A few minutes before 3 she e-mailed:

"What are you getting?"

I responded "I haven’t looked yet, very busy I was hoping you would tell me."

But when I realized it was already past the deadline I looked at the menu and quickly fired off my order:

"Chops special burger French fries"

And then Mrs. Poop replied:

"There's a yummy looking mushroom burger with turkey bacon and provolone. Chops special burger i think it's called. Doesn't come with anything. Can order a side of fries for $3. No desserts for you unless you like baklava. You were supposed to have your order in 10 minutes ago!!"

And that is why we are soulmates.

Worst. Restaurant Review. Ever!

Celebrity chef Guy Fieri opened a new restaurant. The New York Times reviewer Pete Wells did not like it. What ensued was one of the worst reviews in restaurant history.

"Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret — a lunch-only sandwich of chopped soy-glazed pork with coleslaw and cucumbers — called a Roasted Pork Bahn Mi, when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson?"

As you can see, Guy Fieri and Emily Dickinson don't look alike at all.

"Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?"

Why is the watermelon margarita blue? That doesn't make sense.

"How did nachos, one of the hardest dishes in the American canon to mess up, turn out so deeply unlovable? Why augment tortilla chips with fried lasagna noodles that taste like nothing except oil? Why not bury those chips under a properly hot and filling layer of melted cheese and jalapeños instead of dribbling them with thin needles of pepperoni and cold gray clots of ground turkey?"

"Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?"

"And when we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?"

"Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?"

If you want to read the entire epic takedown of this restaurant here is the full New York Times review of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar.

But consider this: I don't think this is going to hurt the restaurant's business. The likely clientele of this establishment, budget tourists and families with children, probably have far less discerning tastes than a New York Times food critic. And there are few other affordable and appropriate food options for them in Times Square. I'm sure the Olive Garden would have gotten a similarly dreadful review from the New York Times, but the one in Times Square is packed. More importantly though, this could foment an entire new kind of tourism, people going there just to see how bad it is. Like a food version of a train crash. Our team has even discussed having our annual holiday lunch there, just to see how it is. If we do, I will let you know.

The Breast Yogurt in New Jersey

A new location for the frozen yogurt chain "Cups" opened in our neighborhood. Mrs. Poop immediately noticed that the name, coupled with the picture of the yogurt in the logo might call to mind breasts.

With the slogan "frozen yogurt, that's hot" and this picture accompanying the employment section of its website, I think there is no mistaking which cups they're really talking about it.

I'm Gonna Get One for the Car and Two for the Bathrooms

Disney is now selling air fresheners that will remind you of its theme parks. There's the scent of Mickey's waffle, the candy apple, the Mickey Mouse premium ice cream bar, and even the turkey legs.

Product Review: Bacon Sundae

A lot of fanfare surrounded the release of Burger King's bacon sundae. Someone at work bought about 8 of them for some reason and had an extra one, so I decided to try one.

The bacon is not hot (obviously) and it's a little chewy and a little soggy, so the three big pieces that come on top don't taste all that great. Once you get past that there's smaller pieces of bacon, like bacon bits but real bacon, mixed with the vanilla ice cream which tastes great. It's a unique combination of sweet and salty but it goes together pretty well. Once you eat the bacon, and there isn't that much bacon, you are just enjoying vanilla ice cream mixed with chocolate sauce at the bottom.





It tastes pretty good, and I would recommend trying it once. But after that you will probably never want to eat it again. You can have a better ice cream if you want ice cream, and you can have hot crispy bacon if you want bacon, so I really can't see eating this thing twice.

No Turkey Legs in Chicago

Taste of Chicago will not be the same this year. Tim McGivern has been providing turkey legs at Taste since 1981.
“Over the last couple of years, I’ve had health issues; my knee and spine are not good. My doctors more or less advised against it,” McGivern told the Chicago Tribune.
The same thing happened at Taste of Warsaw and there will be no ice cubes this year.

At least those hearty Chicagoans can enjoy these pictures of me eating turkey legs.

Pizza Night

One of my favorite meals Mrs. Poop makes is her homemade pizza. Even if she doesn't couple it with her dessert pizza, a decadent mix of chocolate chips for the sauce and M&Ms and marshmallows as the toppings. Anyway, for Mrs. Poop to make this special creation I often pick up the ingredients. And the kind folks at Whole Food assemble it so nicely for us, dough, sauce and shredded cheese all in neat packaging, all in one refrigerated area together. And only $9 or $10, not bad, especially by Whole Foods standards.



I have bought these things for Mrs. Poop at least three times. And every single time I placed the items on the counter the cashier has said the same thing: "pizza night?"
Now I know they are just being friendly, I know their jobs are tedious and I know they are told to interact with people but of course it's fuckin pizza night. I'm buying dough, tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella, do you think I'm making a fuckin amuse-bouche?

Now I'm in the Mood for Chipotle

The town of East Haven, Connecticut is grappling with tension between its Latino community and the police force, which has no Latino officers. But don't worry Mayor Joseph Maturo has a plan to reach out to the Latino community:



"I might have tacos when I go home, I'm not quite sure yet."

While this was obviously a distasteful and inflammatory thing to say I once again want to point out how ridiculous it is to call someone bigoted for merely suggesting a certain ethnic group likes to eat a certain type of food. That's why they're called ethnic foods.

It is not racist to say Mexican (not all Hispanics) people like to eat tacos.
It is not racist to say black people like collard greens and fried chicken.
It is not racist to Jewish people like matzo ball soup.

But this mayor is still a moron.

A Piece of My Childhood -- Gone

Golden's Deli, a staple for Staten Island Jews, has closed down.
Apparently the owners and the landlord couldn't agree on a lease arrangement. Golden's may reopen at some point in a new location.
But if not a lot of cool childhood memories will be gone:
I always loved the pickle bar
I liked sitting in the train/subway car, though it wasn't big enough to accommodate large parties
One time Mama Poop and Papa Poop played a trick on us, they told us we were going to dinner at Snedlog, and we had to figure out what it washttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
And of course, I will miss the mushroom barley soup, which came in third on my soup rankings



Story Suggested by BC

Legal Sea Food Ads

My favorite seafood joint, Legal Sea Food is out with a series of cheeky new ads. They start as faux-environmental ads with messages like "Save the Trout" but they end with "save the trout so we can grill that baby up real nice."
As an environmentalist, an animal lover, a food lover, someone who believes the natural order of the universe allows even requires animals to eat other animals, and an avowed smartass, I love the ad campaign.
But of course the PETA wackos are up in arms over it.