What will YOU get the kids of ???? for 3 Kings Day? Every little bit helps. Thanks!https://t.co/82nTQMkBRn
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 27, 2017
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The Midwestern state university I attended offered chocolate cheese — it tasted like extremely rich fudge, appropriate for a state where tourists were called “fudgies” — so I shouldn’t have been surprised that 2017 gave us cheese tea. Per the Washington Post:
… You are thinking: Those are two words that do not go together. Cheese! In tea! But we’re not talking Humboldt Fog or Camembert here. The cheese used in cheese tea is usually a cream cheese — sometimes sweet, sometimes salty — combined with condensed milk. It forms a tall, frothy head at the top of the beverage, sort of like whipped cream in a frappuccino. The teas are often matcha, oolong, jasmine and black, and you can customize them with fruits and other flavor infusions. They’re kind of like bubble tea, which has made its way into mall food courts across America.
Shops in Taiwan and China are both credited for starting the cheese tea fad, and some Chinese cheese tea shops command queues 75 people long. It spread to Singapore, Hong Kong and other large Asian cities before it came to New York and California via the bubble tea chain Happy Lemon, and Little Fluffy Head, a Los Angeles shop that specializes in the beverage, among others. Some shops are even starting to riff on the ingredients, like a place in San Francisco that uses Mascarpone and Meyer lemon. The trend has also made its way to England, where people care deeply about their tea and are feeling very threatened…
The Spousal Unit, who’s become an Upton Tea fanatic (thanks Cole), loves extremely sweet dairy-heavy drinks. (You can tell he’s from a pure Cow People bloodline, because every doctor who’s asked about his diet is astonished at his excellent cholesterol levels.) Gonna have to introduce him to this one…
Apart from food fads, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week / year?
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
?BillinGlendaleCA
Cheese tea? No, just no.
R-Jud
UK-based expat here. I just posted that “cheese tea” thing on my FB. Immediate English and British outrage. I am going to learn several new variations on “Fuck that noise” today, so thanks. :-)
Amir Khalid
Cheese? The only thing I ever want in my tea is hot water, maybe honey or lemon if I have a sore throat.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
I’ve had the killer cold since Christmas. Basically spent the rest of the week sleeping in my armchair or taking twice daily naps. I thought I was feeling a bit better, until cheese tea.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: You sound like a rational person, Amir. I usually have tea with honey when I have a cold.
@satby: The cheese tea just eliminated any hunger that I had, the cold will probably be over in a day or two, the coughing will persist for a few weeks. I had “the cold” the first week of the month.
Schlemazel
Cheese that tastes like caramel? That is probably Gjetost. The Norwegians make it by heating the whey in a vat and letting the sugars caramelize. I love it! A little salty and tangy with a hint of sweetness, it is dense but melty. I particularly like it slightly melted on toast as a breakfast. It is unlike any cheese I have ever had
OzarkHillbilly
Cheese tea? I’ll pass. In fact I’ll pass on tea all together.
danielx
@satby:
Maybe it’s one of those things like lutefisk, enjoyed by serious fans only.
Anne Laurie
@Schlemazel:
The Norwegian-American Spousal Unit loves Gjetost, which I’d never heard of before I met him. Only reason we don’t always have some in the frig is that he’s convinced it’s too high-calorie for daily snacking. (Same reason he drinks his morning tea with half-and-half instead of condensed milk.)
danielx
@rikyrah:
Good morning…..it’s 18 degrees and we are expecting snow.
Betty Cracker
It sounds weird, but I would give this “cheese tea” thing a try. I must have Cow People genes too because I subsist on bacon and cheddar and have low cholesterol levels.
satby
@danielx: 12° here, and snowing again.
Might be time for another nap…
danielx
@satby:
Always a good thing.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Major Major Major Major
Good god.
MomSense
@satby:
Ugh. Sounds like you have the same cold I had. It hangs on for a long time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Huh? And a fine morning, eh afternoon to you.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: It’s like “The Fruitcake” there’s only one and it gets passed around. I had it the first week of the month.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I am soooo envious. I look at the word bacon and my cholesterol goes up.
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Ha! That’s a perfect comparison.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: the tea.
@Betty Cracker: I would try it too though.
rikyrah
Cheese tea?
No thanks ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: Where?
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: This is the AGE OF TRUMP. Anything is possible. Cheese tea, anyone? I mean who the hell thinks up these atrocities? And why?
Betty Cracker
I’ve still got that lousy cold the rest of youse have had. It sucks! I sound like QE2’s poor doomed father in “The Crown,” wheezing and horking up bits of lung. Ugh! And I can’t look after my olds because I don’t want THEM to get sick(er).
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden:
The Taiwanese, apparently.
Because it was there.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: My son shared it with me. I guess we should have locked him in the guest room for the week and passed chicken soup to him under the door until it was time for him to fly back to SoCal on Christmas Eve.
We had a pretty good time with him as it was, went to the Seattle Aquarium, had lunch at the Pike Brewery, saw the new Star Wars release, picked up a nice salmon at the Pike Place Market where they throw the fish, stuffed it and baked it and had a supper party. On Christmas Eve I had the start of a sore throat and yes, I ran around in the snow like an idiot. I can’t sleep because I can’t stop coughing unless I prop myself in a sitting position and even then it’s hard to fall asleep.
Right now I’m a bit loopy from the cough medicine.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: No to the cheese tea, but scrambled eggs with bacon and Cheddar is the bomb.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: The mere thought of it makes me a bit queasy. Why do the Taiwanese hate me so?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: I used the target daytime and nighttime sever cold stuff(their version of nyquil and dayquil), mainly the nighttime one and Mucenex DM Max for the cough. Plus lots of tea with honey(very important) and sleep.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: Trump.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Here’s my picture of your rock. What are the chances we took a picture of the same rock almost 25 years apart?
Jerry
Hey, I grew up calling out-of-towners, “fudgies.” I grew up in a real shithole kind of in-between Traverse City and Petoskey. If you ever went skiing at Schuss Mountain, then you know the crap ass town I grew up in.
But I ain’t never heard of chocolate cheese.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
It sucks. At least you don’t have to deal with -14 temps and a strong wind off the ocean. Old time Mainers have some colorful expressions for cold but most of them wouldn’t even be appreciated by Jackals.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I can’t believe they used to not have plexiglass!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: We went into the Egyptian wing from the wrong side and exited by the Rosetta Stone, turned a corner and there it was. Probably had to put plexiglass over it cause the damn kids!
bystander
@Schlemazel: They serve Gjetost on buttered black bread, too. For some reason, it gets my gag reflex going as crazy as it does with lutefisk. Without salmon and bloedkake I’d starve in Norway.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: It was a simpler time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: So true, people didn’t carry phones about with themselves all the time.
ETA: And if a person appeared to be talking to themselves, they were probably crazy.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think I’ll send a delegation to the Target to get me some of those. We have a bottle of NyQuil but I’m a little afraid of it. Tends to knock me out more than I like. The Mucinex might help since it’s the goop running down the back of my throat that’s making me cough.
bystander
Speaking of food fads, we had dinner at Lydia Bastianich’s New York restaurant Felidia the other night. The pasta special was chocolate pappardelle with home made burrata, IIRC. Stuck with the cod with a side of salt cod whipped with potatoes. That restaurant never disappoints.
I’m so old I remember seeing the Pieta for the first time by walking in to the Vatican and walking right up to see the work from what seemed like mere inches. It was a few years later when the moron smashed it with a bat.
bystander
@opiejeanne: Zinc lozenges genuinely give me the placebo effect I need, if you haven’t tried them.
Major Major Major Major
@bystander: that would be a fun ad campaign. “With the placebo effect your body craves!”
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I like having the phones.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: I bet they do! I spent a Christmas in Rangely, Maine once. I’ve never been that cold before or since.
opiejeanne
@bystander: I read about the traditional foods of Iceland when we were on a long layover and decided not to take a cab into town for fish guts supreme, and while I’m sure they have pizza and Thai food or something in Reykjavik, the cafeteria in the airport had excellent food, including locally caught seafood all at decent prices considering we were in an airport.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I like mine as well, and damn the pictures are really good. I could do without folk talking loudly to themselves or driving while holding the phone(usually in a late model luxury car*).
*Don’t these cars have Bluetooth, my 8 yo Prius does?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: having a camera with me everywhere is pretty cool! And the world’s knowledge at my fingertips, and a game to collect cartoon cats.
opiejeanne
@bystander: I think those were popular when I was in HS, or maybe it was just zinc lotion for acne. I can’t remember now. I’ve stopped coughing now but my nose is stuffed up. I’m sleep-deprived and generally a mess so maybe this is the worst day and I’ll be better tomorrow.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Agree. I think all new cars have Bluetooth.
@Major Major Major Major: And Balloon Juice.
Seriously , the tech is amazing. Especially the speed of development.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: The coldest I ever remember being was at the Mt. Pinos Alpine Base when I was 8 or 9, fortunately it was much nicer on my trip up there earlier this month.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Oooh! I don’t know that game, but the phone is awesome when you need to win an argument with some idiot, and the photographs I can take with this 6s are amazing. mr opiejeanne has the next 6s and he can take even more amazing shots, but the technology is wasted on him. I don’t understand how a good engineer can be such a luddite. I think it’s just mulish stubbornness.
ETA: See there? I’m talking smack about my wonderful husband just two days after our 48th anniversary. I’m getting cranky, so I must be getting better.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I swear, diving around town, new luxury cars do not seem to come equipped with bluetooth or turn signals.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I don’t. Now people who don’t know me think they can talk to me anytime they want to.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re own fault for having friends.
I’ve turned off my ringer for everyone except a select few.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Most of the most recent photos I’ve posted on Flickr were taken with my new Note8(not the pictures of downtown LA that I put up in the past couple of days though, they were taken with my regular camera).
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: They must come with privilege instead.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Was there snow there when you were so cold? It’s tall enough.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Heh, I think so.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Yes! Lots of snow.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: How is it? I’m enjoying my S8. I didn’t realize how much of an upgrade it would be. But the Note 8 is the best phone on the market IMHO.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Those photos of downtown the last couple of days are gorgeous.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Love it! It’s truly an amazing phone. Here’s a picture I took at the Huntington’s Chinese Garden last Saturday.
ETA: Madame has the S8, she didn’t want a bigger phone. She’s much happier with it than the S6 that she had.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Thanks, they’re several shots stitched together.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I just read that Mt Pinos can get a couple of meters of snow. We’ve had nearly that much at the cabin and it was fun until the novelty wore off. That was the first winter we owned the place, got five feet over two days. I love how quiet it gets when it’s snowing, probably because everyone with any sense is inside.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Sweet. Have you tried the iris scanner? I’m tempted but wary.
debbie
@Schlemazel:
OMG! Hippie cheese! We used to take it with us on hikes everywhere. I can’t believe how expensive and hard to find it’s become.
ETA: I’d never waste it by putting it in tea.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I miss the beautiful Japanese garden they had at the Huntington when I was a kid.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: The Alpine base station is at 8300′ so they get lots of snow up there. Fortunately for the kid and I, no snow when we were up there. Actually it was quite nice, warmer than we thought, mid 50’s(we expected low 40’s).
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I don’t have any friends, only lesser enemies.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: It’s still there, though the bridge is no longer painted.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne: The falling snow absorbs sound waves.
debbie
@opiejeanne:
Delsym cough syrup is the best cough ender I’ve ever found. It actually lasts 12 hours.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: So no one can here you scream(or your teeth chattering).
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: it’s called Neko Atsume
DanF
We were drinking cheese in black tea with a fruit candy in West Africa in the 90’s. The Chinese didn’t invent this -most likely the appropriated it as there were many Chinese aid workers and shop keepers in the region even back then. After making three rounds of tea using Chinese gun powder tea, a fourth was served mixing in Rie Vache (laughing cow) cheese -kind of a Brie like cheese, and a melted cough drop or candy. Disgusting? Yes. You bet. Never became a fan. The tea however was awesome.
Anne Laurie
@Jerry: Probably drove through your hometown, back in the 1970s/80s, on our trips between MSU (home of chocolate cheese!) and the Spousal Unit’s hometown outside TC.
(Back in those days, the chocolate cheese included walnuts, not peanuts. As is only right — who puts peanuts in what’s essentially fudge?)
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yay! but they should paint the bridge. It was painted glossy red back then and well, you know how kids are: we want our cherished places to stay the same forever. I’ve visited a lot of Japanese gardens (in the US) over the years and that one was the best of all.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Major Major Major Major:
I have a picture somewhere of one of my brothers and me sitting on one of the Stonehenge stones in the late 1950s.
Anne Laurie
@DanF:
Wow! But then, many African cultures were Cow People long before my Viking/Celtic ancestors took up the calling…
chris
@Steeplejack (phone): Yup, me too. Summer of 1970 and there weren’t more than 20 people there.
Gvg
@Betty Cracker: mucinex DM maximum (stronger dose) 12 hour. Also if the throat tickles from drippyness are the problem, I have found sleeping on my stomach with nose pointed down solves it at the cost of a sore back and neck. I only do it when the sleep deprivation gets bad, but it does work for me.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: I’m with you. I would probably try it at least once, out of sheer curiosity. After all, I have tried what a local coffee shop called “phat coffee”, which had a combo of butter and coconut oil as additivies instead of cream, and after the initial shock I liked it very well indeed!
Miss Bianca
@Jerry: No? I grew up in MI too – considerably south of Petoskey – and I enjoyed chocolate cheese in my youth. Haven’t had it in ever so long, and now of course I’m craving it!
Read an article yesterday that claimed that cheese had the same addictive qualities as drugs – something about the casein. So now we know, it’s official – CHEESE IS A DRUG, PEOPLE.
When do we get the “this is your brain on cheese” commercials? And what would they look like?
laura
@rikyrah: Good morning back atcha!
My love of cheese knows no bounds, and Humboldt Fog is delightfully tangy and goes great with pears. There’s a petite breakfast cheese from Rouge et Noir in the fridge that will be transferred into my belly with some dried apricots and fruit and nut crackers as soon as I can break the gravitational pull of this warm bed.
Jerry
@Miss Bianca:
Well, I should say, I don’t remember it. But then again, my hometown cut itself off from the rest of the world for some reason. Of all the beautiful little lakeside villages that dot the northern lower peninsula, I had to grow up in the one that didn’t match that description. However, thanks to the little airstrip just outside of town, we got lots of drugs. Lots. Of. Drugs. So, we had that going for us.