Jess a Few Reviews =)

Hello again people of the blogosphere,

This entry will be a list of items that I've recently purchased in the last few months.This time around they're all food products, but in the future I may document non-food items as well.

Daiya Brand Havarti style Wedge- Jalapeno Garlic

Cost: $3.59-4.00 in my local market area

This photo is from Trueindigo's wordpress 'Bacon is not a herb'.' I think I was being lazy for this entry =) http://nobacon.wordpress.com/tag/vegan-cheese/

My brother Jonathan of the canary files first talked to me about Daiya cheese a few years ago and I did go and pick up a pack of their shreds a handful of times, but I wasn't a huge fan. It was fine if I did something like vegan burritos mixed in with the other vegetables and rice, but I didn't care for it too much by itself because it was a bit oily to me. When I saw these Daiya Wedges at the store, I was a bit reluctant to try them, but when I saw them on sale, I thought I would give one a try. I chose the Havarti style because it's one that I hadn't seen replicated before, although I wasn't sure about the Jalapeno Garlic part, not because I don't like spicy foods, but because I wanted to try the Havarti as a stand alone flavor. This wedge is awesome. When it's nearly room temperature you can almost spread it like a Boursin. One way I really enjoyed eating this was cooking it with some raw red onions, some baby kale salad, organic raw sunflower seeds and then eating it in some homemade Injera bread.

I've also used the wedge to top a  homemade foccacia style flat bread with red onions and homemade za'atar spice. Another variation that I did was topping a homemade rosemary crisp bread with sauteed baby bella mushrooms with sauteed baby kale, dotted with some of the wedge and baked until melty. Deliciousness. 

The wedges as well as the shredded Daiya Cheese freeze well. If you see them on sale ( I found them on manager's special for only $2.59 a piece!); I would go ahead and stock up on them. They are quite handy for some quick meals. 

To learn more about Daiya, please visit the following link:

  http://www.daiyafoods.com/

Alive and Radiant Brand ChocKalet Chips

Cost: $4.99 at my local food shop

I had no qualms about eating this whatsoever. I love Kale and I love Dark Chocolate. This stuff is soooo goood. Rawliciouness! The texture reminds me of a cross between  homemade dark chocolate corn flake clusters and those German chocolate bars that have a variety of grains and nuts in them. 

I was usually satisfied with one or two pieces of the Kale Krunch because it's definitely something that you should savor and not eat mindlessly just like all food and drink for that matter =)

To learn more about Alive and Radiant Products, please visit the following link:

 http://shop.kaiafoods.com/

Nature's Path Organic- 

Love Crunch- Premium Organic Granola, Dark Chocolate, Red berries, coconut and flax

Cost: $6.99  at Costco for the 26.4 oz Bag (a bargain!)

This is awesome on so many different levels. First of all, it tastes spectacular and also because it gives back the purchase price equivalent, not only in cash, but also in organic food to the Bite4Bite Food bank. The story of its creation is actually very sweet (pun intended). It was created by some of the employees for their wedding. The guests loved it so much; that they urged them to make it a regular product line.  The name is highly appropriate =)

Be warned this granola is extremely delicious; so I would recommend pouring out a single serving, instead of just reaching your hand into the bag. You also have to remember that this is granola so it's dense in calories and even though they are the good fats and fiber; you should still eat it in moderation =)

To learn more about Nature's Path Organic Products, please visit the following link:

http://us.naturespath.com/

Well, that's all for this first installment of 'Jess a few reviews.'

If you do try or have already tried any of the aforementioned reviewed items; please do let me know what your thoughts were about them and leave me a comment!

Wishing you all health and happiness!

Love,

Jessica

Modern Day Nonsense 3

Happy New Year to Everybody!

Hopefully, your January has been going well so far and you're enjoying this new year.

I have a few entries on the back-burner and some of them will be published before next month.

In the meantime, here is another installment of my series: Modern Day Nonsense

The Disuse of Brain Power and Perils of Technology

People don't take the time to actual think, they prefer to rely on Google instead of using their brain power.

I know that sometimes people genuinely don't have a clue about anything, but for the most part people just tend to be lazy. When I am trying to remember something and it doesn't immediately come to mind; I go through a process of association. I think about items, places, people, moments adjacently related to the information that I'm trying to find. I like a mind puzzle; so it's not a nuisance to me; to go through those steps. I realize that not everybody will agree with me on this, but to those people I would just ask them to give it a few tries and then get back to me.

I grew up during the early digital days; when computers were being introduced to student life, it wasn't a given. Not everybody had computers at home or the latest tech. I remember when they were first teaching us about a new concept called electronic mail. I remember using 'webcrawler', for the first time to search something, creating one of my first web pages, the love affair with whatever was brand new.

 I can recall when a friend was so intent on getting a pager (her mother was really against it). It was truly ridiculous because she did not need a pager at all and to make it even more ridiculous, she shared it with another girl. They had some time schedule as to when they would have the pager. It's still true, the only people who use pagers are doctors and drug dealers and these girls were neither (we already knew who those ones were, they didn't bother to go incognito about it). I still remember what the pager looked like, it was red and had the Tasmanian Devil on it. Utter nonsense.

I recognize how times have changed when I see my niece or my tinier cousins fiddle with smart phones and tablets like second nature. Technology is wonderful, but if you are being honest; you'll admit that a lot of what is produced is useless crap. I don't think we need to do 20 things at once on our phone. How many 'As seen on TV' products actually work? Nobody needs to be plugged in 24/7. We can use technology, but we should use it wisely. 

The Atrophying of Language and its usage

Modern spelling and grammar is atrocious. If you are a part of social media; then you know which 5 in the English language are misused and abused the most. Yes, the infamous 'your', 'you're', 'there', 'their' and 'they're.' I can understand if it happened once while you typing quickly, but when I see it over and over again; it's not a mistake. I'm not here to give a grammar lesson; so I am not going to break down the differences for their separate uses. I know that the younger population is still reading books. As to what quality of books that they're actually reading; I'm not sure. I would hope that the generations that read the Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket series would know the difference. I don't know about those that read the Twilight Series, I can't say because I've never read a lick of them. A recent best seller was the 'Fifty Shades of blah-blah' which I know is not aimed for the young reader audience, but you know that some of those tiny folks can't wait to grow up; so they think that reading a mature book will make them cool etc. (Children, need to be children;  there is enough time for them to grow up!) I haven't read the series, but the few excerpts that I've seen people read are atrocious. I know that the reason that they're so popular is because it's about taboo S&M stuff, but the writing is just terrible. I can't look beyond that and it gives me the same grating feeling as when I've heard somebody conjugate incorrectly. The other day while I was browsing through channels; I came across a show about bartering and one of the guys on it was describing and item and said 'more rare.' It stopped me in my tracks and I actually said 'excuse me?' out loud. The correct description should have been 'rarer.' I can accept it when very young kids say 'gooder' instead of saying 'better', but when you're already well beyond your school days; you really don't have any more excuses. 

One of the things that I recently watched the prompted this section about language, was an episode of Scared Straight. It's basically a show where young kids who are reckless, out of control, desperately need a reality check get sent to jail, in the hopes of snapping them out of their delusion. I guess you can think of it as a boot camp where all those disrespectful kids on those trashy talk shows are sent; after the show has ended. Anyway, they had a segment where they wanted the kids to write letters to their parents, telling them how they've changed  and what they wanted for the future. This one girl's letter was really atrocious ( they actually didn't show it onscreen for very long, but I paused it because I wanted to see what she actually wrote). There was a time where your writing voice/word was different from your actually speaking voice/word. Nobody would actually write 'gonna', 'tryin' or 'I be' etc. The only times where you would use those in writing were to convey a dialect,regionalism or maybe in song lyrics. Reading her letter just made me sad and almost afraid for the future generations.

Abbreviations are getting to be ridiculous. I really don't care for abbreviations, the few that I do use are more practical, such as fwd, btw and seldom use brb. I used to use 'brb' quite a bit when I used to do a lot more chat and messenger. I won't even use the abbreviation for 'laugh out loud', (notice how I didn't even use it!) it's just annoying to me. I am aware that abbreviations are necessary and useful, but sometimes they are counterproductive especially if another person doesn't understand the acronym. Time is wasted in figuring out what they're actually trying to convey to you. I don't have disdain for '1337' because it has established lexicon and grammar and therefore can be claimed as a genuine language.

I know that language is dynamic and not static, but I really sigh sometimes when I hear mangled messes of words that are carelessly strung together.

Outright Rudeness and Disrespect

It's better to be strong and kind =)

Trolling in the comment sections is out of control. I am just disgusted with people when I read such sick negativity. People who do it, have nothing better to do with their time. It's such a pity to pour such energy into something bad when it could be used to do something good, something to better the world. I know for me, I will only comment on something; if I really have something to say, that has a point. I know that anonymity makes people feel like they have more power or like they are invincible, but it's still not an excuse to be a total jerk and a disappointment to humanity.

I don't know if it's worse or not when you see outright rudeness it in public. A long while back I was at take out restaurant with my father and one of my brothers waiting in line when a customer started yelling at the cashier because he didn't think that he should be charged for getting chicken instead of beef in his burrito or whatever. He kept on arguing with her that they shouldn't be charging him more; that it cost the same to raise chickens and cows or some bs. He went on ranting for a few minutes as the people behind him just stood there looking at their watches.  They cashier didn't relent (I'm amazed that he didn't ask to speak to the manager at this point) and he did pay whatever extra for his chicken instead of beef. He continued on saying something like 'You're going to feel stupid when you're thinking about it when you get home and realize I was right... balbhalbalhblahblhalbhalahlhblahblhalhabl.'

 Now, I get that you can disagree with something, but you don't have to get in people's faces to get your point across. He was being extremely rude to not just the cashier, but also to the rest of the people in the restaurant. I'm all about voicing your opinion (obviously =)), but there is a right and a wrong way to go about expressing it.




Have I turned from Jessica Ligaya to Jessica Rooney, yet? =p


Please feel free to leave your thoughts on these topics in the comments section below.


Love,
Jessica