Ghettogiving

This year I went to my first "Ghetto-giving," which was either the second or third one that has happened with the group of people up here. It's really a pretty simple idea- it's like ghetto thanksgiving. Everyone gets together and eats at a huge table, but you eat only non-Thanksgiving food. I guess the first one was held in a fairly ghetto area (incidentally, right down the road from where I live now), but the idea of it being ghetto Thanksgiving (food-wise) works well too. With the exception of a few dishes (namely SPAGHETTIOS- really?), it wasn't very ghetto though- a solid amount of time was spent making food, and most of it was disgustingly horrible for you and pretty damn tasty. 

I made a gold fever pizza. Yup, a pizza with gold fever wings (from the 99, if you're crazy/thin enough to not know), tons of gold fever wing sauce and cheese, topped off with blue cheese for dipping. It was glorious- WAY better than even I had hoped for. 

Cover a Boboli with a ton of chicken and sauce.

Cover with cheese.

Cook until it looks like this.

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good

Other highlights included Rich's cinnabon rolls filled with bacon:

prep stage

Al's honey BBQ and gold fever wing rangoons, pictured next to Jesse's sloppy joe, which I didn't eat:

Here's the hideous looking deliciousness he was putting in those rangoons:

Holly made a lasagna that was at least 8 pounds:

And Josh made the most disgusting mac and cheese I've ever seen/eaten/heard. He said he almost threw up when he was stirring in the 1 and a half boxes of velveeta cheese- the sound of the enormous masses of cheese coagulating onto pasta was so sickeningly gooey and heart stopping that he just couldn't take it. He also put maple bacon in it and covered it in crunchy onion ring thingies. I honestly didn't love the maple flavor in my absurd amounts of cheese, but it at least got points for being different. And the cheese, oh lord. If ever there was an example of "too much." Brutal.

I think Josh's face here nicely illustrates the feeling we all had at Ghettogiving. It was just eating, eating and more eating:

I think the total list reads something like: gold fever wings pizza, gold fever wings rangoons, honey BBQ rangoons, lasagna, mac and cheese, spaghettios, sloppy joes, bologna and cheese sandwiches, 7 layer dip and chips, bbq chicken nachos, some weird french toast casserole, bacon cinnabon rolls, oreo balls covered in chocolate, some weird chocolate/pretzel concoction, ecto cooler, and probably 10 other things I'm not remembering. 

Then we watched UFC. It was a solid night. 

As I get older, I realize more and more the importance of friends and not only creating traditions and yearly parties, but of having get-togethers that serve as our own weird version of normal holidays. My favorite of these, Thanxmas, is coming up next week for its 9th year. I hope Ghettogiving becomes a yearly tradition and something can look forward to. I didn't know some of these people, I only kind of know others, but generally this was solid friends getting together for a night of fun and laughs. It's becoming harder and harder to make nights like these happen, so I'm happy to welcome Ghettogiving into my life. I strongly recommend doing something like this to anyone reading this blog that wasn't at this party. Make something weird- try to show up everyone else. Get together, eat a ton. I guarantee good times.

currently listening to: Coldplay- "Mylo Xyloto"

Dover Pizza Fest

A few weeks ago, I went to something I was very excited about and completely lived up to my expectations: something called PIZZA FEST. My other blog will probably have a post on this too, but I figured I should throw it on here for anyone reading this. 

What is a pizza fest? It's exactly what you'd think: 10 or so of the local pizza places rent tables, you pay 10 bucks to get in, and you can sample as much pizza as you want. It was incredible. It was at the children's museum, so the decorations and what we were walking through was certainly interesting. What really surprised me was how packed the place was. Who knew so many people were pigs?

Rich killing a slice

yes, we wore stickers to try and promote the blog

The highlight of my plate here was a chacon pizza, which was bbq chicken and bacon on a pizza, stacked so thick it was like a solid glob of goodness. The sauce was a little weird, but still, damn good. It was interesting to see how some places really stepped it up and made really complicated, thick pizzas with weird combinations, and others just had very basic stuff or very blah versions of their pizza. La Festa, which received an incredible and semi-graphic post on fatguyfoodblog wimped out hard- their pizza was super thin with no topping. I don't understand why any pizza place would wimp out like that- this was their showcase to have hundreds of people try their pizza for the first time. Why not go crazy? 

Highlights included the chacon, another really busy bbq chicken with onions and bacon, a general Tso pizza (not good, but interesting), a weird blueberry dessert one, and 2 other dessert ones that were fantastic (and I wish I remembered where they came from)- apple pie and some sort of weird concoction that was like magic cookie bars on pizza. I think just the fact that it was sliced like a pizza and called a pizza made it technically a pizza, but at the same time, it was really just dessert on dough. And it ruled.

There were also a ton of auctions with a lot of surprisingly decent deals, but most people didn't care about that. We were there for the pizza. 

The highlight of the night was this:

This is called the "wicked dirty hippy" pizza, from Smiley's. I know of Smiley's as a very ghetto beer store that has a ton of beer selection (and make your own 6 pack set up) that "also has food." My opinion has changed, as this pizza is not only an evil concoction of garbage, but was actually delicious. Looking at this picture now, I'm shocked I haven't gotten a full one yet. It consisted of: chicken tenders, cheese sauce, french fries, bacon, ranch, and extra cheese. It was glorious in every way.  

We also got to vote for our favorites, and I'm pretty sure this won something. 

If you hear of anything like this, and you like pizza (if you don't, I don't like you), GO. I want to go to more, so if anyone reading this knows about any other events like this happening where they live, let me know. 

Deerfield Fair

Fall=fairs=fatguys eating food.

We assembled a big group of people and hit up the Deerfield Fair for the second year in a row (at least for me) to wander around, stare at weirdos, eat garbage, and generally have a good time. Sadly, we were stuck in pretty bad weather- cold, rainy and muggy/foggy. Luckily though, it mostly just misted and lightly rained instead of fully opening up. So, it could have been worse. We did however, only wander around the food/animal side and never even saw the section with rides and games. The Deerfield Fair is enormous, and you really have to do a lot of wandering to see everything. But then again, why would we leave the section with all of the food?

Before everyone was even inside, Al made a beeline to a hotdog stand. I matched him by getting some crappy square fair pizza, which totally hit the spot. We then set to wandering so everyone could get what they wanted.

The highlight of the fair was the freshly made cider donuts. Not only were these the best deal of the fair (a dozen for like 6 bucks, a half dozen for 4), but they were also the best food there. I remembered loving them last year, but they stepped it up this year and I swear they were even better. I split a dozen with a few people and ended up with 4 and a cold apple cider- an absolutely heavenly match. 

Johnny came all the way from New York to eat these donuts. And Rich got high off of them.

Here's a picture of Josh eating a dogbowl of fries that I'm sure he'll be psyched I put up:

Here's Al getting really intense while eating a gigantic donut:

The fair is a special place where you can see a lot of weird stuff you wouldn't normally see together, with people somehow incredibly interested in all of it- like a guy carving wood into tables:

LIVE PERFORMANCE!

a clearly completely insane man pretending to be a robot while horrifying robot monkeys played carnival music,

I seriously feared for my life

cows, 

Paul Vachon, "The Butcher."

????????????????

Dog and Cat Breed Shirts,

sooo wanted all of these

stars and birdhouses made out of license plates,

creepy carnies,

Oh wait, sorry, that's Al in his new 6 dollar plastic cowboy hat. 

shockingly enormous pumpkins,

and straw pumpkin people.

I thought these were cute and kind of funny, especially the guy on the end whose head was falling off or the half cow. I liked the creations and thought it was neat that little kids had created these cool guys. That is, until I saw this one:

This is a nightmare. Seriously, what the hell is that?! Who is that lady? What did she paint? Why does she have a crow on her head and a meat mustache? AHHHHHHH

We also got to watch a wicked sweet cover band, which I don't think I'd seen at a fair yet. 

Look at the guy on the left's hat! And the drummer's glasses! Amazing.

They said "I think everyone can help us with this one" or something, and I was certain "Freebird" was coming on next. I was close though- they played "Sweet Home Alabama." They probably didn't have the skills to play Freebird. Or the desire to play a 10 minute solo-filled epic to 30 people standing in the rain. Either one of those, I guess. 

The last thing I ate (other than a deep fried oreo that made me even more sick) was funnel cake, which, after a piece of pizza, 3 donuts, and sub par fried dough, was a bad idea. I ordered it extra crispy, and they also apparently made it extra thick. This was about as far as I got before I felt too sick to eat anything else. Damn you fair food. 

mmmmmmmmmmm

On the way out, we dared Jesse to jump in this spa. He said he would. We got up to 70 bucks before he chickened out, saying that the guy running the place wasn't cool with him doing it. Sure Jesse, that's why you didn't do it.

Crappy weather, I felt sick afterwards, and it cost a billion dollars, but I love the Deerfield Fair. Can't wait for next year. 

currently listening to: Limp Bizkit- Gold Cobra (seriously)

Trip to Mass

The day after the Saco River trip, I headed to Mass to see some old coworkers, hang out with my old roommates, and have some more horrible nights of sleep. Every time I visit Mass, I stay at my old place for its ease, comfort (extra room with a futon, I still have a key) and because it's nice to see my old roommates. However, every time I go, I pretty much just go elsewhere and show up super late and see them for 5 minutes. So this time, the trip was largely just to spend time with them, so it was much needed and nice.

Monday though, I went straight to Uno's for trivia night, which is an excellent excuse to spend several hours hanging out with people I used to work with and never see anymore. I hadn't been there or seen any of them since Shawn's last day. I made sure he came, and we both answered 1 question each for trivia (mine sadly was about the Jersey Shore) but otherwise were worthless. It was a good time and I stayed in the parking lot talking to Shawn until 3:30 as the mall turned off all of the lights on us. I stayed out there until 4 once with Dan, but otherwise, this was the longest I've done that. We talked a lot and it was awesome to spend time with someone I never see anymore. I've had a lot of deep conversations in that mall parking lot...

I showed up at 4am at my old house and walked into the extra room only to discover that it was completely covered in stuff- it looked like someone had moved in that morning. Nobody had cleaned or moved anything in preparation for me showing up. I guess that's the kind of stuff you run into when you show up and basically sneak in at 4 in the morning. I stood there in silence, debating on just sleeping on the couch and getting woken up at 7, sleeping in my car, sleeping in the basement floor, driving home, or just being the jerk that moves everything around to accommodate my show-up-at-4-like-a-piece-of-crap self. I decided on that latter, and somehow managed to clean everything and go to bed without anyone hearing me, which was quite the feat considering how silent that house can be. I then sent a text to Katherine, warning/apologizing to her that I was in there. 4 seconds after I sent it, I heard her walking to the door. She had to get up super early anyway, and I woke her up, so she just got up. SO, me sneaking around for 20 minutes to the point of freezing still in the doorway and holding position for a minute while I waited for stopped snoring to resume was completely pointless. We had a VERY awkward conversation as she tried to find work clothes while I lay there in my underwear trying to pretend it wasn't extremely awkward. "Hey, haven't seen you in awhile.... So... what's new?"

The next day, I went right back to Apple to meet Sean for some beef. We went to our old favorite, Londi's, and brought Allocca, Alicia, and my old other-admin, Marie, who had never eaten a beef before, and stupidly ordered a super. Watching her be terrified of a sandwich was pretty funny. She just transferred to another store, which I would qualify as opting for a life more awesome. I don't know if you read this Marie, but I'm proud of you.

Alicia will probably hate me for posting this picture of her loving this beef, but she probably won't hate me as much as Sean apparently hates me in this picture. Look at the fury! He really takes his beef seriously.

It was nice going to the store and seeing a bunch of old coworkers, especially on a slow day where they could actually talk to me. The true highlight though, was seeing the amazing work the Burlington Mall continues to do on the elevators there. We always joked that the one right by the store was always being worked on to the point where they probably shouldn't even bother with it anymore. Well, this is how it looked on my visit:

And here's how the other one at the other end looked:

yea, it's not there. Nice work Burlington Mall! At least Spike's Hot Dogs finally opened. Oh wait...

I snagged a sweet pic of Horn Pond in Woburn:

and then headed out to Nick's birthday party in Allston. Nick is a friend of Parola (one of my old roommates), and I went knowing that I would know Nick, Parola, Tobin, and their other movie friend, John. There were probably 15-20 other people there, and I can proudly say that other than a few quick lines here and there, I didn't speak to a single one of them. Not even the person sitting next to me. Hooray for being social! I was part of a 635 dollar bill. Insane. It was actually a very fun time of good food, drinks, and laughs.

Some really drunk guy, John, Le Tobin

Nick: hard to believe this moron's sister is actually pretty hot

I got a sweet picture of a camper-pick up truck, and heard a rat fall 15 feet onto the hood of a car, then saw it scurrying off. Gotta love Allston.

Oh, and this is somehow how I looked for the entire 4 hours we were there. I think it's a good look.

The next day, Nick came over and we all watched a sweet movie that isn't even out yet (love that internet) called Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It was pretty hilarious, and I'd recommend it to people who like horror spoofs (like Shaun of the Dead). The highlight of this night though, was that we got pizza from City Slickers Pizza in Somerville. I should probably be writing this on my other blog, but I'll say it here for now- this place makes some extremely unique pizza- they slow cook it (the pizza stays in the oven for 25 minutes) until the crust is crispy and kind of greasy, almost like the bread on a grilled cheese sandwich. Jake turned me onto it when it used to be called Urban Gourmet, on the night that I, oddly enough, first saw Shaun of the Dead. Urban Gourmet burned down and the original owner started City Slickers a block from where I lived in Somerville for 8 months. On the second to last night that I stayed there, I decided to really get to the bottom of the whole "what ever happened to Urban Gourmet" situation, and discovered that it had apparently been that close the entire time without me knowing. That hurt, especially considering that I used to drive 35 minutes each way to get this pizza when I lived in North Reading. It's awesome, and you should get it- get the buffalo chicken pizza, it's phenomenal.  

It was great to have another pizza/movie night in my old house. We didn't do this enough.

what the hell are we watching?

Oh, I also started playing with a slow shutter app on my phone while on this trip. Here's McManamon, Sean, and Tobin:

Mutant Gene, emo big chin, snake eyes/giant lip

and me:

I think this is actually an improvement

currently listening to: The Get Up Kids- There Are Rules

Rochester Fair

Fall is coming on strong, and that means it's time for fairs. I said I'd go to 4 this year, and it looks like this will be definitely happening. This was my first time going to the Rochester Fair, and it was pretty much as described- a pretty bland fair that you go to just to get some food and stare at weirdos. Well, let's be honest though, that's really the only reason I go to any fair, and the true mark of a good fair is more variety of food and sheer spectacle of the whole thing- the Deerfield Fair is the best simply because it's the biggest. So the Rochester Fair was OK. I was highly disappointed with the number of Juggalos I saw though (only like 3, and only 1 with facepaint). Maybe we went too late and their parents already picked them up, I don't know.

Rich and I parked at Dan's house and walked in after helping Dan convince his poor 4 year old son that the fair wasn't actually happening- the lights and ferris wheel he saw were merely just the fair officials testing equipment (don't worry, they went later). We immediately ran into Reinert and his family, and Rich immediately tore into some french fries. I got some "freshly squeezed lemonade" from the closest stand I saw that was prepared by a certain crackhead and tasted like lemon water with sand in it. Lesson: Don't get food from the closest place- go to the one with a crowd and lots of flashing lights.

We then found Jesse and Sarah and wandered around, taking in the sights I usually skip, like the "Rochester Fair Museum," the tent surrounding it featuring kids' art, quilts, prize winning vegetables and all the other glorious things nobody seems to care about (for good reason). We even paid 1 dollar to see the world's smallest horse (a young pony that was the saddest horse I've ever seen), a giant tortoise (which was, to be fair, a large tortoise, but it just sat there, miserable), and something else that was so sad and unexciting I don't even remember it. Poor animals. 

We even played this stupid game (way too much) which I've never played. Sarah won a bunch of quarters, but I think she fed them all right back in. Suckers!

Rich shot some stuff and lost.

I rocked some skeeball and actually made good on my half-assed promise/guess that I was "wicked good at skeeball" and won this sweet Yo Gabba Gabba guy, who lived in my sweatshirt for the rest of the fair, and some kid asked me if he could buy it on the way out. Of course I said no- I earned him. 

I love the worker guy behind me. YEA THAT'S RIGHT BUDDY, I WON. 210 BITCHES.

It was so gross going through the game halls though, with unexcited and miserable people just zombie-screaming at us to play, looking like all they wanted was some meth. For some reason, the prize this year was giant bananas or Winnie the Poohs with dreadlocks... No idea how that happened, and I forgot to get a picture. Oh well, I'll get one at the next fair I go to, as I'm sure they'll be there too.

Jesse made friends with this donkey, and fed him some banana italian ice.

I really liked this cow- it had a sweet pattern I've never seen on a cow before. And he looked EVIL.

Not much in the food department though- Rich and I got some 6 dollar strawberry lemonades that were damn good, I got a piece of "fair pizza," that was just the level of crap I was looking for and a piece of fried dough that was ok. Rich got a sausage and onion sandwich that was subpar, kettle corn that was fantastic, and these, which were incredibly disappointing:

This is apparently what deep fried kool-aid looks like. I'll save you the curiosity buy- don't get them. We imagined fried dough wrapped around pockets of delicious kool-aid but had no idea how that would work. It's pretty much just dough drenched in kool-aid that's fried. And it tastes like burned, sort of fruity bread. Gross. 

The fair was pretty much what I expected, and I got just enough sights and food to look forward to the much better Deerfield Fair and Sandwich Fair in October. But even if all three suck, I'll go next year- it's just something you do in the fall. 

currently listening to: Thursday- No Devolucion