Batter Blaster

A while ago, Michele brought home a can of Batter Blaster that one of her spinning buddies gave her.


Obviously, Michele wanted nothing to do with this, but I, obviously, was intrigued.

Not only is it pancake batter in a can, it’s organic. A strange overlap of the organic hippy mindset with the geek cool packing mindset. We aren’t organic fanatics, especially after reading the Omnivore’s Dilemma. But it was nice to find a product with no corn products at all in it.

I was able to talk Michele into helping me test out the Batter Blaster. Usually the girls help, but when we did this, they were in China with their Grandparents.

The nozzle tends to make a star pattern of the batter on the griddle. There is pretty good control on how much batter comes out. You could easily draw pictures or letters with the can and make special pancakes.
I made a short video of the cooking process.

I edited a bit because watching pancakes slowly cook is a bit dull.

We did find that this batter was a bit more heat sensitive than the usual powder mix. Maybe cooking on a skillet instead of a griddle across two burners would be better. I wasn’t going to question Michele’s cooking method. After 14 years of marriage, I know better.

The real question is how did they taste. Not bad, but not great. The flavor was good and and I ate them all up. The texture is the issue. Being in the can, I don’t think the batter can rise when being cooked enough. The pancakes were a bit rubbery. I like a light, fluffy pancake. If you like the fluffy style, the lack of rise will be an issue.
These pancakes would be perfect for pigs in the blanket. Mmm, sausages…
Overall, it’s not something we’ll be buying again. If you are a pancake fanatic, you need to try it. It’s neat the first time your try it, but I think powder mixes makes better pancakes and are worth the extra effort. I do think it’s perfect for camping though.

The Pirates Suite at the Disneyland Hotel

Last Friday was my daughter Mira’s birthday, so my wife reserved us a suite at the Disneyland Hotel for the celebration. We got lucky, and they upgraded us to the Pirates Suite. Not the Dream Suite, but pretty damn cool. I was completely blown away by the room.
For a couple years, I’ve been making videos of my hotel rooms, so this was no different. Here’s a short video of the suite.


There are a bunch of pictures of the Suite in this Flickr Set.
Of course, we had a great time inside Disneyland. Here are two videos of us riding the Matterhorn. Do you hear enough little girls squeals for your yearly quota?

Matterhorn Ride 1 at Disneyland from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.


Matterhorn Ride 2 at Disneyland from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.

Mint Chocolate M&Ms Premiums

Earlier this year, I wrote about Mint Crisp M&Ms. Now there are Mint Chocolate M&Ms Premium.


Michele and I were at target when I spied this. Obviously, I picked it up.

Inside the curvy box is a bag of the M&M Premiums. The bag is nice because it is reclosable. More bags of candies should have this feature.

The candies themselves have a sparkly exterior. Inside the candy is mainly white mint with a thin layer of chocolate. Unlike a regular M&M, the shell is not crispy candy. The shell is just decoration. If heated, I’m sure that these M&Ms would melt in your hand.
The taste is good. Mainly mint with a little chocolate. The striking thing is the lack of candy shell that you find on the regular M&Ms. It definitely feels like something is missing when the M&Ms is so smooth.
Well worth the money, these Premium M&Ms are tasty. I would like a version with a shell, but it won’t stop me from eating these.

Two books about Number Two

I recently read two books that have to do with poop. Strange as it may sound, I found them both informative and well written.
Brown Acres: An Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers – Anna Sklar
Brown Acres is a history of the sewer system in Los Angeles. That may not seem interesting at first glance, but following the story is much more adventurous than you might imagine. Nepotism, cronyism and just plain stinginess were responsible for a long series of bad decisions in Los Angeles leading to recurring problems of sewage flooding into the streets and backing up into toilets.
Ms. Sklar has done her research and goes into appropriate detail on the history. Understanding the technology used to move human waste around was enlightening. The idea that we used to dump raw sewage into the ocean is simply astounding. Also, I was surprised to see that voters of the past were as short sighted as today’s voters when it comes to investment in public health issues. Repeatedly, the public rejected spending money to solve the sewage problems. Not until the sewage literally flowed in the streets did the money get approved to put in better sewer systems.
Today, Los Angeles has a world class sanitation system in place, but I found the path to this point well worth the read.
My only criticism would be a request for more diagrams of the sewer system over time to help keep track of all the changes and sewer paths.
What’s Your Poo Telling You? – Anish Sheth and Josh Richman
I first heard about this book on an episode of Internet Superstar, where one of the authors spoke about it with Martin Sargent. It sounded interesting, but not interesting enough to search it out. Recently, I was out with my wife Michele for dinner when I saw the book.


It’s a small book, suitable for reading on the toliet, so I picked it up. Once I got home, I went to the obvious reading spot and began to read. Happily, it’s actually an informative book, explaining a lot about poo and why people encounter such a variety of poops. 95 small pages long, the book contains a ton of good, easily understandable info on poo.
After reading the book, I’m planning to make sure to eat a bit more fiber and drink a bit more water to be nice to my colon. If you see the book, pick it up, you won’t regret it.

Starbucks Doubleshot – Energy + Coffee

In the lobby of building I work in, there is a Starbucks Coffee. Earlier this week, I noticed a new item in the refrigerator.


Yes, it looks like a Doubleshot in a Monster sized can. With a bunch of ‘energy’ ingredients tossed in. Of course, I bought it and brought it home.

The drink is chock full of all kinds of stuff.
2000 mg maltodextrin – Maltodextrin is a type of sugar that digests slowly for a longer release into the bloodstream, meaning providing more energy over time
1800 mg taurine –
450mg of L-Carnitine – L-Carnitine hepls convert food into energy
180mg of Inositol – more commonly know as vitamin B8
325mg of Panax Ginseng – Ginseng is used widely in Asia as an energy booster
90mg of Guarana – the Brazilian seed packed with more caffeine than coffee beans
Also, vitamins B6 and B12 are thrown in as well to round out the B-complex.
The can is the equivalent of roughly 225 mg of caffiene.

I popped the can open and poured it out. The drink had the familiar mocha color. The can I picked up was Vanilla flavored. It was the only flavor they had.
After a big swig, I was happy to find that it didn’t have the bitterness I usually find in energy drinks. But it didn’t actually taste like coffee at all. It tasted like a melted vanilla shake. The sweetness wasn’t overpowering and you got the subtle mouthfeel of some milk, but overall it was fairly watery. It reminded me of the Java Monster I tried a while ago.
I hope the coffee flavor tastes more like coffee.
Realistically, even if I did like the coffee, I probably wouldn’t drink a can of this. There’s just too much caffeine for me. When I drink coffee, I rarely drink more than half a cup, meaning ~30 mg of caffeine. That’s enough to rev me up a bit. If I drank 225 mg of caffeine, I’d probably spend an hour in the bathroom and then not sleep for a couple days. I have friends that could probably drink one of these as a nightcap as they hopped into bed, but my tolerance is nowhere near theirs.

Cakester Followup

Due to interest, I looked deeper into the Cakesters from Nabisco.
I expected that nutritionally, both Nilla and Oreo flavors would be the same. When I took a look, I found a little difference.



I was surprised to see that the Oreo flavor had more calories than the Nilla flavor. 10 calories more per cake than the Nilla. After reviewing the ingredient, it must be the chocolate that’s in the Oreo Cakesters.

Someone mentioned about remixing the Nilla with the Oreo into a new Cakester. After sharpening my chef’s knife, I started to slice the Cakesters.

Due to my extreme cooking skills I was able to remix the Cakesters as you see. Unfortunately, it do not significantly improve the flavor. They were still soft and sweet, but nothing special.
The Cakesters are still selling 3 packages for $2 at Walgreens, making them exceeding cheap as experimental objects. Any other ideas?

Oreo & Nilla Cakesters

Cakester is not a new social community site for cupcake lovers.
Cakesters is a new kind junk food from Nabisco that tries to combine famous cookies with snack cakes.


Nilla Wafers and Oreo Cookies are some of the most iconic and classic cookies on the market. The Oreo Cookie has been around for almost one hundred years. Nilla Wafers are not quite as old, having originated in the 60s.

The cakesters look like little sandwiches. They are soft to the touch and about the size of a regular Oreo cookie.

The filling is creamy, quite a bit different than the traditional Oreo filling. The filling doesn’t taste bad, it just doesn’t taste like Oreo ‘stuff’.
The cakesters are chocolaty and vanillay and pretty good. But they don’t make the cookies they are based on. They taste like generic cupcakes in a new form. Oreos have a specific slightly sweet flavor instead of the cloyingly sweet flavor of the cakesters. Nilla Wafers have that thin, crisp layer of flavor on the top of the cookie which is completely missing in the cakester.
Overall, the cakesters are pretty good as junk food. They are soft and moist, and you get three good sized cakesters in a package. But if you are a cookie purist, stay away.