I’ve read Men’s Health magazine for many years now and I became interested when I heard of the concept of “Eat this, not that,” and the books that were released. These books showed an easy way to avoid eating half a day’s worth of calories in one sitting when eating at a restaurant. However, I have someissues when that way of thinking is applied to the holidays.

First, let me quickly talk about the “Eat this, not that” books. They’re basically books that compare similar foods and informs you of the choice with less calories.

The comparison of calories opened my eyes to the kind of stuff I put into my body. A Big Mac has over 200 calories less than a Whopper? It’s still not great since 540 calories is still pretty bad for a sandwich in a meal. I found out through further investigation that a Whopper Jr. with no cheese and no mayo is only 290 calories. Also, a small order of Burger King fries is 340 calories, about 50 calories more than the special made Whopper Jr. So eating two Whopper Jr.’s with no cheese and no mayo with a diet Coke is “healthier” than a small Whopper Jr. meal.

Of course, the smarter idea would be to make a healthier lunch or break out a Lean Cuisine, but that is not always practical, and there’s only so many times one can stomach Subway sandwiches. The same goes for breakfast.

How the hell can an Egg McMuffin be 170 calories less than a plain bagel with cream cheese? These books can have some boggling facts about food. I can’t even look at Chili’s the same way again.

One plate can have almost a thousand calories more than the other. That’s crazy, bro. That’s crazy.

However, the issue I have with the idea is that it should be followed throughout the holidays. I don’t think that would work, not because it’s impossible to follow, but maybe it shouldn’t be followed. Look, I know it’s important to watch what you eat and there’s an obesity epidemic, but I don’t think that cutting out traditional food is going to solve the problem. I saw a holiday edition of these books, which is understandably smaller than the other books and for some reason I can’t find a photo of it, but most people put on a few pounds during the Christmas season anyway.

I know Egg Nog is unhealthy, but I still drink it. I don’t drink it everyday and I only drink it in December. I’m not going to only drink Hot Chocolate and forgo Egg Nog. That’s crazy, bro.

I think the idea of New Year’s Resolutions came from some loser clown who overheard a conversation. Two people were probably talking about going to the gym after New Years in order to lose the added weight and the eavesdropper probably thought it was a year long plan for the New Year. Antisocial losers like that causes all kinds of problems.

Facebook is going to be the next big thing?

People are going to do what they’re going to do on the holidays and that includes drinking up a storm, eating all kinds of fatty comfort foods, and eat lots of sweets. As long as one doesn’t pig out the whole year and at least makes an attempt to ease on the fat intake, it’s okay to let go on the holidays. Aren’t these celebrations supposed to be about fun?

I think it is.

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1)   Needed a break from the daily posts.

I never did a Thanksgiving countdown before and I wanted to give it some justice. I could have easily posted a picture with a comment on most days, and I have seen other blogs do things like that. I don’t knock those blogs at all, but I wanted to do a little bit more. I wanted to post something that web surfers would actually want to read. I figured that a post around 500 words would be best for well-rounded articles. Sometimes I had to write and post them in one sitting, which include the time sucking tasks of searching and editing of pictures. Don’t get me wrong though because I’m certainly not complaining or whining about the task. I actually had fun with the posts but they can be draining. After my last post, I was a little bit sad that it was over, yet I was mentally exhausted. My word count for the month was at least over 10,000. I’m not used to writing so much.

2)   Hell bound Semester.

I just finished the first semester of my senior year in college and while the Major classes are usually winding down at that time, I took a senior seminar class in Philosophy. I had a full schedule which included another Philosophy class, the second Spanish course, and Piano I. I still don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I made the class schedule. Hell, I am not graduating with honors, so the senior seminar wasn’t even necessary.

Yes, there were many So-Crates jokes.

In addition, I suck at Spanish. I took the first class my freshman year and then waited until my senior year to take the second. Yeah, I know, stupid me. And as an elective, I took Piano I since I have a keyboard that is collecting dust. That was pretty fun since I did not know much of anything with pianos and now I can play and read several songs. As fun as learning piano is, it definitely takes discipline. I had to make sure I practiced at least an hour every day or else it would show that I slacked off when I played the exercise in front of the class every week. Pressure!

I’m coming for you, Yanni! Betta watch yo back!

This coming semester should be a piece of cake since I finished my Majors and now have to take BullShizzle classes. Still, with all the bad choices I made for myself when it comes to college workload, I’m surprised I don’t have a drug or alcohol problem. I’ll have a beer once in a while to take off the edge but it’s obvious I don’t think ahead when making choices. I mean, I did decide to do a Thanksgiving countdown with an insane amount of course work due.

Finally, I’ve been following other blogs that have Christmas themed posts, messing with my new Nintendo 3DS, and reading books. I slowed down drastically with Television because of my school business and have to catch up on Christmas classics. Talk to you later.

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Also, about halfway through, I started wondering if this countdown was an over saturation of Thanksgiving. Was this too much Thanksgiving? It’s hard for me to tell because that’s all you think about when working on daily posts about one subject. It was hard work, but I’m sad it’s over. If anything, the countdown let me celebrate one of my most favorite holidays and I feel like I gave it props while everyone else is roasting chestnuts and counting down the days till Christmas.

The daily posting also got me used to writing all the time. I’m not too worried about writing that Philosophy paper I mentioned above and I will probably post more regularly than ever. Maybe I can learn to schedule better than writing at 3am Thanksgiving morning.

I can’t help it though. I’ve been busy all day and I will be busy the whole day on Thanksgiving. I’ll be leaving my home at 2pm with my family to visit the in-laws in Montclair, NJ. It’s about 45 minutes from where I’m at but you know how the traffic will be.

Well, might as well break out the baked macaroni.

It’s possible that we could arrive at our destination at 4pm, which is when guests are expected. Then there’s a chance that we could be there up to five hours, just BS’ing and whatever, and it also depends on how much I drink and how long I have to wait until I’m under the limit.

It’s funny though because my wife and I are used to making our own Thanksgiving dinner. We get a free turkey at the local supermarket cause we spend enough money there in October and November to reach the smallest amount required for the turkey deal. So, we’re going to the in-laws today and then we’re cooking our own meal on Friday. It may sound crazy to some, but that’s what we’ve done the last few years and it’s totally worth it. Not one, but two Thanksgivings. Sweet.

If they didn’t have those turkey sales, I would probably be inclined to buy a crossbow and stalk my neighborhood streets for some birds. No, I’m not looking for pidgins. My neighborhood happens to have wild turkeys running around. They’re mostly by the nearby hospital, but they wander off. I’ve seen then right on my block several times.

Pic taken with my phone.

They can be a real pest too. They get in front of traffic and stand there like a turkey in headlights. You can’t just kill them either. You would need a hunting license (which the city won’t give) to catch them. It wouldn’t matter if you were starving or anything like that.

I don’t hate the birds. They’re kinda cool to see, especially if they’re walking with their babies. The problem is that no one curbs their reproducing. There can be a lot of them at times. Some dude got arrested for trapping some even though they kept damaging his property. That blows.

The authorities should take at least some of the turkeys for food. There are a lot of broke families in New York City who may not have a proper Thanksgiving. Imagine that. No turkey or stuffing while everyone else is eating it (mostly). I’ve always had a Thanksgiving and not having one must be the worst. This is one of the reasons why I always check out food charities around this time of year. It may seem silly to some, but I think it’s terrible not to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving because you can’t, not because you won’t. There are charities everywhere and there’s one in NYC called FeedingNYC. These people wake up early to get to the packing area at 6am on Thanksgiving to set up boxes of food to deliver around the city.

These people are hardcore. They work 13 hours on Thanksgiving for free and finish at 7pm. Although it is a nice gesture, I doubt I’ll do that. But you could always give to their cause or to a similar local food charity. Help give others something to be thankful for.

I’m a busy person on Thanksgiving, but I know there are others who don’t do anything on the holiday cause they have nothing to do. It’s widely known that suicides rise during the holidays. If I had no one, I would volunteer to help deliver food on Thanksgiving because helping others is a good feeling and they all seem like cool people.

One last point; I hit a milestone recently during the countdown. November 13th was the second anniversary of this blog here. I was so busy with many things that I forgot to acknowledge the date. I didn’t really have anything planned and truthfully, I didn’t post that many updates. Still, I believe my writing has improved ten fold since I started this, and I wanted to give tributes to certain subjects along the way (which I have).

As of this point, I don’t see any reason to end the blog. I don’t have a large amount of readers but I get at least over 30 views a post. That means at least a few people find what I write interesting. Another weird thing I didn’t expect was the emotional attachment for the blog that slowly grew over time. Even if no one was reading this, I would miss doing this and would probably be upset. I probably would get better at Call of Duty, but I think there’s more freedom writing to my blog.

So, this is the end to the Thanksgiving countdown. I don’t know if I’ll do it again next year cause it can be hard to find a month’s worth of things to write about for one holiday. I’ll let the comments decide for me. Let me know if the countdown was Good, Meh, or “don’t quit your day job.”

I had fun.

Happy Thanksgiving. Eat up and be safe.

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It’s Pumpkin Spice Country Crock butter. I’ve gained a taste for Pumpkin Spice because of Starbucks and their flavored lattes. I buy them up as soon as they appear in stores and when I saw this butter in the supermarket, I knew that I had to have it.

To be fair, there’s is not anything on the packaging that mentions Thanksgiving at all, however I usually equate Autumn to October and November, and November is all about the turkey stuff. I also needed an excuse to see how pumpkin spice and butter tasted together. I never had bi butter before.

The texture of the butter is slightly firmer and maybe even a little bit dryer than regular butter. It would slightly crack when I stuck the butter knife into it so I can make a spread on my toast.

The butter looks kinda funny because it looks like I’m trying to eat toast with mustard. There are tiny brown specks in it, similar to pumpkin spice drinks and the like.

The result? Not bad at all. I really thought it was going to be one of those products that you eat maybe three times and then toss it in the trash because it’s too much, but they found a decent balance. I may be able to actually finish the tub. Now I’m off to put “eat toast with mustard” on my to-do list out of curiosity.

I got one more thing to cover since I never tried it before and this was definitely Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies! Really, it’s just sugar cookies, but I love what Pillsbury did here. The Dough Boy is decked out in Pilgrim gear, complete with the hat, there’s turkeys on the actual cookies, and it’s in an orange box. What’s not to like?

I’ve never seen these cookies before, and I don’t understand why. I looked at the back of the box and there’s different designs made specifically for different holidays.

There’s Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, etc. Hell, there’s even cookies for Back to School. I guess something to ease the pain.

After I opened the box, I lined up the cookies and I couldn’t help noticing how small they were. I don’t cook much cookies but I expected something bigger than this.

 Two inch diameter cookies. Yea…

So I popped them into the oven real quick and the cookies did get a little bigger, which was cool. I’m thinking they are probably for young children, and they were pretty good. I guess it’s hard to mess up sugar cookies.

So it was an easy make and there were a lot of cookies. I would say both products are a win, especially the pumpkin spice. I’d like to say that I’ll review more Thanksgiving products, but the countdown ends tomorrow! What am I gonna do now?

I guess party.

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What could make Thanksgiving morning better for a teenage guy in the 90′s? Beavis and Butthead of course. Although I did not know about this special at the time, I would have definitely woken up early to watch it if I knew it was coming on. I was probably hanging out late and sleeping in at that time. Nowadays I stay in most of the time and usually wake up early. Responsibility sucks.

The special aired on MTV on November 27, 1997 during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The premise of the show is basically Beavis, Butthead, and Kurt Loder covering the Thanksgiving parade that runs through Times Square while sharing thoughts about the holiday. As you can imagine, some unique perspectives for turkey day were shared.

Kurt Loder: Hey hey, don’t just stand there guys. Interview someone!
Butt-head: Uh, we could interview their butts.

Truthfully though I think the special was made mostly to plug the final episode of Beavis and Butthead, which aired the next night. It was mentioned several times throughout the show. I remember that there was major buzz on the last show which supposedly had Beavis and Butthead die.

Also, I could be wrong but their balloon may have also been used to promote the “final” episode. Yeah, MTV had a balloon made up of Beavis and Butthead. The balloon wasn’t actually part of the parade, MTV anchored a balloon of them onto the top of their building. I really don’t know how I never found out about this until recently.

Where the hell was I??

Those who are into their humor will find the jokes in this special funny. Beavis and Butthead constantly make jokes about Loder for most of the episode. It is a good dynamic for such different personalities to host a show. It definitely keeps this special from drying out(no pun intended).

Butthead: Yeah, Loder. Don’t try to get all touchy-feely with us. Just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean we’re gonna don any gay apparel. Uh huh huh!

The jokes come fast and constant as any other B&B episode. I don’t want to write too much because I’ll spoil any jokes if you decide you want to see it for yourself. I found out that this special can be found in the special features of the Beavis and Butt-head – The Mike Judge Collection, Vol. 1 DVD. However, I did find the streaming video online and you can click the picture below to watch it. Ain’t I a nice guy?

Click to watch this Thanksgiving special.

Oh, just a heads up. This year, the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special will air this Thanksgiving night on ABC. It will be followed by another Peanuts special about the first Thanksgiving. However, on Fox, there will be an Ice Age special at the same time and then a totally different Peanuts special will air right after. So, at about 8:30pm EST, there will be two different Peanuts specials airing on two different networks at the same time. I don’t recall hearing about anything like that before. I’ll simply DVR all the shows and watch them later. I’ll probably be at my in-laws at that time anyway.

I can’t find Garfield’s Thanksgiving Special airing anywhere, but you can watch in on YouTube here. Definitely one of my favorites. Enjoy.

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Huh, what? I just came to this fake realization that people have actually died because of these sales. Yet, it has become a yearly tradition to go crazy in stores. I admit that I have participated in the madness before and may try a quick attempt at the local Target once the clock hits midnight on Thanksgiving night/Friday morning. I really want a Nintendo 3DS and I can get one for $30 off. However, I won’t try it if the scene looks too dangerous.

Can you blame me when there’s this kind of preparation?

Black Friday is where retailers open stores longer to gain more sales. Many stores are “in the red” meaning they haven’t made a profit yet and going “in the black” is finally turning a profit for the year. There are no racial overtones like some people believe or anything like that. It was used in Philadelphia as a description of a day with heavy traffic from travelers headed back home. Eventually the use of the term changed to retailer sales.

I remember waking up early to get to a 5am sale at Gamestop to look for a Wii. This was when the console was rather new and in heavy demand. My wife and went for nothing because they were all out. I went to McDonalds for a breakfast and returned home to sleep, grumbling for most of the way on how much of a time waster that was.

However, retailers have stepped it up lately. This Friday, Target will open at midnight, which is kind of creeping into the Thanksgiving holiday. Can’t the retailers give shoppers a break? Toys R Us is even worse. They’re opening their stores at 10pm on Thanksgiving night. Forget hanging out with the family or things like that, we have some shopping to take care of.

Charge!

Now this is where I think it’s starting to get crazy. How about the poor people who work in these stores? Imagine if you’re an employee at Toys R Us and you have to work on Thanksgiving. I hope they don’t, but if that is the case, the employees go home, enjoy a few hours with family and food, and then have to go back to the store for the Black Friday insanity for several more hours. Christ almighty! I really hope they get hazard pay for the sacrifice they’re making.

Poor employees have to deal with this crowd.

I have to admit though, they do have good sales, which is why it gets so crowded. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get my 3DS on Black Friday, but I’ll give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll give Cyber Monday a try. Cyber Monday is the following Monday where a shopper can find good deals online. If you decide to try for some stores on Black Friday, I wish you luck.

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“Here comes Santa, Frosty! Tell the Who’s to get the clock tower working!”

The main street setting is what people think of when they think of small town Christmas celebrations. You see Christmas cards with this kind of town art all the time. Even Andy Farmer staged a Norman Rockwell town setting in order to sell his farm house in the movie, “Funny Farm.”

 Sheep Balls!

Most people in America have seen a Norman Rockwell painting without realizing it. They were popular because they were good. In the past, much entertainment came from reading, not the internet or television. Can you imagine? What a backward time that was. I wanted to use this blog post to share some Thanksgiving paintings created by Rockwell many years ago.

Freedom from want.

This has to be one of Mr. Rockwell’s most famous paintings and is an iconic image of Thanksgiving. It was part of a World War II Freedom series and shows that even in the face of global opposition, Americans were still blessed. He does this by showing that an idealized Thanksgiving. A Thanksgiving blessed by having awesome giant turkeys.

Cousin Reginald Catches the Thanksgiving Turkey

This painting displays “Cousin Reginald” trying to catch a turkey for their Thanksgiving day feast. I’ll never know why they sent such a nerdy child to catch this behemoth turkey. It must be their effort to toughen up soft-looking Reginald, and they didn’t have to worry about child protection agencies back then, so that’s a bonus.

A Pilgrim’s Progress

This painting is funny. Apparently, a young pilgrim is stealing a turkey from Native Americans and they’re shooting arrows at her. While this was probably cute back then, painting this today would be a career-ender. Today’s culture is too politically correct to enjoy something like this. Even me, when I look at it, I kind of like it and yet I can’t help but put my hand to my mouth and say, “ooooooooo.”

Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes

This one was painted in the 1940′s and shows a soldier home from the war helping his mother peel potatoes. If the story of peeling potatoes in the military is true, he is probably schooling his mom by skinning those taters like a damn machine and laughing at her while she keeps getting razor cuts and bleeding on the potatoes. Lay off, dude.

Uncrating the Turkey

The title is self-explanatory. I like that this man, who reminds me of Don Draper, can dress sharp and still handle a dead turkey. Manliness for the win!

Thanksgiving is less than a week away. Got your turkey yet?

When I got in the area, there was some sort of small party event a few blocks away from the balloon blow-up, but I didn’t go in. We arrived in that part of the city a little later than I wanted to so we skipped it. It looked interesting but I didn’t hear anything about it before so we pressed on ahead.

As we got closer, we realized that the sidewalks were more crowded than usual. The closer we were, the tighter the crowd got. When I saw the metal barricades, I figured out that we were entering the waiting area to get into the blow-up area.  The crowd was massive! I think everyone in New York decided to go see the balloon blow-up. And why not? I saw advertisements for the event everywhere.

Holy S#*t, Dude!

The crowd moved slow and people were tight on each other. I made sure to take everything out of my outside pockets and put them inside my coat. It would be a field day for pickpocketers. However, as slow as the crowd was moving, it was moving faster than I thought it would. The barricade forced the crowd to turn and then we could see the balloons.

I know who’s leg that is.

So what’s really cool about this whole event is that you can see the actual parade balloons up close. They’re like…right there! Some of them are really big too. They’ll have nets all over them and weights so that they don’t fly away as they get bigger.

What’s a little depressing about them is that most of them are face down on the floor. It looks as if they’re sick or tripped and face planted. I know they’re only balloons, but I still take pity on them. Yeah, I’m a weirdo like that.

There was also workers there who were watching the balloons and would help keep the crowd moving if everyone stayed still for too long. There was even a guy who knew a lot about the balloons and would share information if asked.

Encyclopedia Brown, all grown up.

Again, the annoying part about this was the people. It was really tight and it seemed as if everyone was paranoid that people were going to skip them, so to prevent this, everyone would be basically on each other’s backs. It’s as if you want to make a turn in traffic but the cars purposely tailgate so that you can’t get in front of them, except this was annoying human traffic. Oh, and they had annoying kids that had no concept of manners. Some hoity-toity parents look at you as if you’re stupid for getting angry and go back to using their Canon DSLR cameras as point-and-click cameras. Ten years ago I would have gladly went to jail instead of putting up with that BS.

Don’t make me get ghetto up in here.

Other than the crowd nonsense, I had fun checking out the balloons. I don’t have much patience so the amount of people annoyed me. There were actually two sections where they were blowing up balloons, but after the first section, I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to deal with the crowd again. Would I do it again? Sure, in a few years. It’s something to do at least once so that it can be crossed off the bucket list. Give it a shot!

Tofurkey is a soy based meat substitute which is prepped specifically to emulate cooking a turkey. It is a tofu product that is larger than usually packaged in order to feed several people. My wife came up with the idea to try it and since we’re flirting with a partial vegetarian diet for health reasons, I agreed with her and picked up a tofurkey at the local Trader Joe’s.

Now, let me be clear: I’m not trying a Tofurkey on Thanksgiving. We bought it to try on an ordinary day. There’s no way in hell I will risk spoiling the holiday with trying something that could taste like crap. I could become a full-time vegetarian and I still would eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

I opened the box and there was a plastic bowl with liquid in it and a labeled softball inside. The liquid is actually gravy which is used in the cooking process. The softball is actually a big piece of tofu that is already prepped like a turkey. The directions on the side of the box were pretty straightforward and this looks like a good deal for $10.

I did some research for opinions on this product and most of them were positive. However, many commented that it was a little dry, so of course, out comes the brine!

It was a simple homemade brine with vegetable broth and some added seasonings. It was left in submerged for a half hour in order to get the full flavor. Next, some vegetables were cut up to roast with the tofu. Potatoes, onions and carrots were put in and then some extra seasonings were added on top. Tofu can be bland if you’re not careful.

Finally, the last step was to cover the tofurkey with the included gravy and wrap the whole thing with tin foil. The oven pan is then placed in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. I didn’t expect the Tofurkey to take so long (cause I wasn’t thinking), so while I waited, I prepped some turkey Stove Top, made rice in the cooker, and killed some zombies in Red Dead Redemption.

The time flew and the tofu was done before I knew it. I’m so glad I set a timer or else my home would’ve burned to the ground for a really stupid reason. If my home burned down for a Tofurkey, I could never live it down.

My wife cut it open while I took pictures. I was surprised cause I forgot that the tofurkey has stuffing inside it. It’s all good though cause I love me my Stove Top.

I had a strange feeling that an alien was gonna burst out

All in all, this wasn’t that bad. I did taste the slight standard tofu taste in it, but it also had a turkey flavor and it did feel like meat. My wife who is more used to vegetarian stuff claimed that she thought it totally tasted like turkey and it was good. If there ever was a weird situation where all the turkeys in the world died and we needed something similar to replace it, I could get used to Tofurkey. You never know if some weird Soylent Green situation happens, but I’d rather eat people than soy chips.

Enjoy!

I love to go to Starbucks. I don’t go because it’s the thing to do, but I love the taste of their coffee. Then there’s the frappachinos and specialty flavors that I love and look forward to. When autumn comes around, the pumpkin spice coffee flavor is available and when December is getting close, the gingerbread, peppermint, and eggnog flavors are devoured by many customers, including myself. However, about this same time last year I entered the local Starbucks and I saw something that caught my attention, and in a good way.

Yes! Starbucks released a special seasonal coffee flavor called Thanksgiving Blend. I’ve seen coffee bags for Christmas and other holidays but not for the November holiday. I quickly purchased it and enjoyed it. As the fall season came around this year, I hoped that the Thanksgiving blend would return and luckily for me, it did.

Now, the thought has crossed my mind that Starbucks manufactured this coffee specifically to exploit the holiday, but who cares. As long there’s something different with the coffee and not solely with packaging, it’s fine by me. They exploit it by selling this product, I exploit it by purchasing the product, and Thanksgiving awareness spreads with each bag sold; it’s win-win-win!

I also like this blend through the packaging. The person in marketing in charge of this product and I are like-minded. The shiny orange color is awesome and the light pattern of leaves and other plants really fits the autumn tone. Also, there is a silhouette of a turkey on the front of the bag, solidifying the idea of turkey and Thanksgiving being synonymous.

There is also writing on each side of the bag and both pieces are well written. Just look at the side of one bag here:

How awesome was that? That description is basically why I started this Thanksgiving countdown. The ideas stated in that piece is what I think of when I think of Thanksgiving. I should have just stole the statement and used it on my blog.

It also appears that the coffee was made to mesh well with traditional Thanksgiving dishes as well. Check out what the other side of the bag states:

It’s stating that the coffee flavor goes well with eating turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. That screams all kinds of awesome. Not only could you serve eggnog after the feast, but this coffee would be an excellent drink, especially since turkey makes you sleepy and you probably inhaled a pound of white meat earlier.

Even opening the bag lets you know that this coffee is something special. The aroma is stunning and you will probably be mistaken for a weirdo when you are constantly caught with your nose in the bag.

Sniff it up!

I use a french press because I think it makes the coffee taste better. I’m certainly not a coffee connoisseur by any means, but I think the taste is more rich and way less watery than a coffee drip just by trial and error from making coffee. Either that, or I’m just trying to justify spending $20 on a french press.

Makes damn good coffee (I think).

So how does it taste? Pretty damn good. It has a flavor that goes well after a big meal. I made some after a hearty dinner and it hit the spot. I also had it last year at Thanksgiving and it was really good. If you get the opportunity to have some, I’d recommend it.

Oh man, I just realized that you could probably order a cup of this stuff at Starbucks. Give it a shot next time and let me know what you think.