Uh, there's pretty much no question which would be worse

Rusty, confirm / deny the best bread pudding in the universe is at County Line?

Religion, God and Theology (proof there is no god if I ever saw it)
BBV
NVG

one of those is probably where I'll retire. You get a few years in a good forum and then it's off to the salt mines.

County Line is perhaps the one BBQ place in the austin area I've never been to. Best bread pudding I ever had was probably at one of Chef Paul Prudhomme's places in New Orleans. Actually that may have been one of the best meals of my life. I was drunk off my ass though.

New Orleans has this **** figured out. Imagine: you are standing in line to some fantastic restaurant, and the line is ****ing long, because that's how they roll. But the line goes in front of several bars, all of which will sell you drinks so by the time we get a table we're totally smashed. It was awesome. (This was on my honeymoon and we spent an awful lot of it drinking)

All you need for protein shakes is ice, ON double rich chocolate, and real strawberries. Blend and it's delicious every time. No sugar. No fancy play syndrome.

Tried strawberries once, they were absolutely disgusting mixed with chocolate protein. Don't ever deviate from bananas

Yeah wtf at strawberries with chocolate whey? Bananas ftw

Chocolate protein is universally not very tasty; just give me something vanilla-y that I can chug in 5 seconds and then I can get on with my day. Most chocolate 'tein has a sem-chemically aftertaste that's really unpleasant and quite noticeable imo.

I've currently been using Dymatize chocolate fudge since it's 27 bucks for 4.4 pounds if you keep signing up family members for Vitacost's 10 buck referral bonus, tastes pretty solid to me. Downright delicious if you can afford to add peanut butter, don't normally do it, but when I do, nom nom nom. The cheap Walmart brand chocolate on the other hand does blow

RE: Supplement Companies

A friend of mine graduated college, hungry for a job with a BS in Chemistry. Took the first one offered at some tiny supplement company. They wanted him to sign off on the contents of their supplements. Seemed super shady to him, like if they ever ran afoul of the FDA for misrepresenting their product (which they were almost certain to in his opinion if they were ever investigated) he'd be the fall guy. Obv declined and quit. Shortly thereafter he got a job at 3M. They probably found some other sap tho.

/brool story

Yeah, lots of companies are super shady and essentially plan to do whatever until FDA notices (which in the current climate is unlikely), then just shut the door and slink away if that every happens. FDA is currently understaffed as it is, as the bulk of the recent legislation that was passed (the not at all subtly named FDASIA bill) was chiefly aimed at forcing health sciences companies to get their international suppliers in control. In turn, this means that FDA is necessarily required to have more of an international presence as well, which stretches the budgets even further.

The long and the short of it is that companies in the supplement space, even the dumb ones, probably have some appreciation that FDA operates on a risk based approach, and unless your product is killing someone FDA is unlikely to notice. Another trick that I personally believe is unlikely to continue to be allowed is representing all of these supplements as foods as opposed to a drug -- many products should technically be listed as such as the marketing materials either non-obliquely allude to or flat out state all of the conditions that the product is supposed to treat, i.e. they are marketing it to diagnose or treat a condition or disease (even with the bull**** disclaimer at the end of the commercials), i.e. it needs to have some clinical trials to support the claims. Unless you rustle some jimmies at FDA (a la Enzyte or Cheerios), this is unlikely to get noticed in the current climate.

My personal guess is that this market will continue to operate wild west style for at least another 10 years, until FDA realizes that they can raise a lot more money by making these facilities pay registration fees, which will also enable them to track and (ultimately) control them in a more efficient manner. If I'm still in consulting when the hammer drops, I imagine remediating these issues for companies that wish to stay in business would have the potential to be quite lucrative.

I'm firmly in the sludge is meh camp. Glad I tried it though. In other news just had some chocolate peanut butter ice cream with fudge ripple and peanut butter bits. This home made ife cream kick my wife is on is pretty epic. Almost gave up on the rest of my life right then and there. Thiiiis close to death by nomzies.

Thankfully it's for an event at our house this weekend and I somehow stopped eating it bc then I'd not only be fat but have no friends too.

Kc I had two slices of pizza today. Ill still be under my calories with my macros on point. Whicked smaht?

Sludge with blueberries is pretty good.

I'm on record in the recipe thread. The entire concept of sludge is ****. I can't believe anyone would fall for it.

pizza is good. problem is if i get pizza, at least half a pizza is going down. so i never get pizza. my roommate wanted to get some chourico pizza last night. I'm like "bro. Fat. Cut."

Since cutting out my daily shake and lowering my protein a bit, I'm actually having trouble getting enough cals. I've had eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, chili, chicken, rice and a big bowl of chicken soup already today. 1850 cals or some ish.

and i'm def with crash on the sludge. i mean, i've put a scoop of whey in yogurt before. It's ok in a pinch. bfd.

I can't mow down chicken like you ppl (although tonight I had 1.5lbs easy), sludge is an awesome way to get 50+g protein on minimal cals. Strawberries > Raspberries >>> Blueberries >>>>> Nectarine = Peaches.

I don't eat bananas.

i'd rather just suck down 2 scoops of whey in water than sit their eating it like some mouth breather.

Or have two scoops of whey and supplement it with some greek yogurt and berries if eating real food is what I feel like that afternoon

Yes. Whey + water is the way to go. Lol sludge.

Whey + water confirmed

Barf. Life's too short for whey+water. Nasty. Also gave me headaches for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that I used chocolate flavors with water. I'm guessing different flavors will be better.

Water and whey is the foundation of my breakfast. Still fat tho.

Monte, there were more tears than expected, what's you address and I'll ship them to you.

Soulman gave me an ancient Norwegian Guacamole recipe that they stole from Mexico when they conquered them in the Norwegian Inquisition. I didn't make it as good as SM did, but everyone thought it was amazing. Today it's even better after the jalapeños that I added have married nicely.

With the guac I am drinking Dogfish Head's 90 minute IPA. It's very, very good. Coming it at 9% abv, it drinks much closer to a 7% abc beer with a very good balance of fruity hops and caramely malts

I'd like some fantasy literature recommendations. I prefer dark, violent stuff with limited magic. My scale of reference, with 10 being the pinnacle of the genre:

10: ASOIAF, First Law
9: Locke Lamora
8: Witcher series, Black Company (first few books)
7: Book of the New Sun (this deserves to be higher but is very challenging to read, maybe on par with Infinite Jest)
6: Riftwar Saga
4: Malazan series (on average - the quality is all over the place). Can't be bothered with this anymore.
3: Mistborn
2: Raymond Feist after ~2000
1: Shannara