The Top 100 CCM Albums of All Time - Introduction

That's all I've got.  Just a title.  Well, perhaps a little more.  

I read about Burlap to Cashmere's debut album on someone's top something list and my local library didn't have it.  Sure, I could listen to it on UberTuber but I'm old skool and don't have a streaming service.  "Put that one in the ol' failing memory banks," I told myself.  But a week later I saw a physical CD for $1 at a thrift store.  Why not?

Now this entry isn't about Burlap to Cashmere.  I've only heard it once and I doubt it's going to scratch my sonic itch, but since it is two days away from 2021 it started me reviewing my creative output from (wretch) 2020 and what I might want to do in 2021.  To that end, I decided to make a top 52 list of albums from my CCM collection, one a week to keep me on task.

Except when I started reviewing my nerdy database and this here blog I realized that I had already kind of started it.  Whoops!  At this point in time I have 108 albums that rated a 9, 10, or 11 and I've already reviewed 28 of 'em.  In looking at the list I find myself asking "Where's this album?  Why did I rate that album a 9 and this one an 8?  What happened with my life?" and other things.  So the remaining 80 might get condensed, with a few others sprinkled in.  It will be a surprise for both of us, and if there's anything 2020 has taught us is that surprises are always a good thing.

The Great Pizza Adventure #3 - Hungry Howies

Despite it being around for years I've never had a pizza from Hungry Howie's so I was, well, excited isn't quite the word.  I mean, it's just pizza.  How about "I was hopefully curious"?

Ordering via online was pretty straightforward, except that once it seems to skip back and I had to reclick on the cart icon to finish my order.  The pie was ready in the stated 20 minutes and there was no problem with me getting the pizza despite me not wearing the required mask.  The employee, I should note, WAS wearing a mask and we were separated by a piece of virus-killing plexiglass, so all is right with the world.

My pizza of choice was the $7.99 ($8.63 with tax) single topping carry out special with half pepperoni and half sausage. And here it is!

13 pepperonies and 44 of what looks like burnt rat turds.  That exceeds the mediocre Dominoes.  It weighed in at 37 ounces and spanned a mighty 13.5 inches across, or 143 square inches of lunch.  The proof is below:

Hungry Howie's "thing" is their flavored crust topping.  I picked herbed garlic and it was indeed a nice addition... quite flavorful!  The cheese didn't seem cheap and there was plenty of it.  The meats had a mild flavor with a tiny extra ZING of flavor on the tail end of the sausage but neither were anything to text home about.  The crust without the seasoning was just okay.  It wasn't soggy or crispy, just seemingly there to hold the toppings.  And the sauce was in good proportions, although it gave me slight heartburn both on the day I bought the pizza and on the following day when I had the leftovers... but that's probably just because I'm staring 50 in the face.

Overall it was better than Dominoes but still a fairly average pizza.  It didn't have any kind of magic crack seasonings that had me pushing aside old people to reach for another piece. 

 

So how about those stats?

Weight: 37 oz

Diameter: 13.5" 

Cost: $8.63

Service:6

Crust:7 (would be a 5 but the ridge crust flavoring saved it)

Sauce:5

Toppings: 6 (quantity) + 4 (flavor) / 2 = 5

Value: 7 (23 cents per ounce) / 6.0 cents per square inch

                  Overall Score:6.2

                   Flavor Score: 5.3

At least I'm on the upswing with this pizza adventure!  Who knows what 2021 has in store?  Wait!  Er, after 2020 I'm not sure I want to know.

Note: I've seen coupons that would take this down to $6.99 plus tax, which would make it an amazing deal.  If I can overcome the heartburn dilemma I'll definitely patronize Hungry Howie's again.

 

Biscuits and Gravy Review : Wendys

After many years of internal recipe development and market testing Wendy's recently decided to get into the breakfast game.  AND biscuits and sausage gravy is on the menu!

Eventually I skeedaddled to the nearest Wendy's and said "GRUB ME UP!"

And they did.  Pricewise it was on par with Hardees, without the $1.99 Hardees coupon.  The biscuit was decent, about one point lower than Hardees.  The gravy was creamy and of a decent amount and there were actually nice sausage bits in there.  Flavorwise it was once again trailing Hardees by a point.  The biggest problem, though, was the tray.

Look at all that wasted gravy stuck in those crevices!  I was tempted to try to lick it out but it wasn't THAT good.  Based on this serving I'd definitely get this again... unless there was a Hardees nearby.

Which is what I did a few months later.  I was on the south end of town and needed a quick breakfast when I spied a Wendy's.  Alrighty then!  I was in luck!

Not.  So.  Quick.

The biscuit and gravy that I got this time was a completely different beast*.  This was a few months ago and I'm going from memory but I remember the gravy being thinner, there was barely any sausage and, I kid you not, the biscuits had a faint scent of cigarette smoke.  On a normal day I would have tossed them or gone back for my money but I was going to be doing a decent amount of physical labor that morning with no access to food... so I'm ashamed to say that I choked the whole mess down.

I live in a part of town that was developed in the early 1970s.  It's not well-to-do but it once was and it's decent and relatively safe.  The south end of town has a reputation of having problems so it's likely the Wendy's there can't get good help and yes, someone was probably smoking when they made my biscuits.  But last week I was on the west end of town which, while not as lah-tee-dah as the north end of town is still pretty ritzy and about twenty years ago was the hot spot of the city.  So when I found myself with time and hunger one morning I decided to give Wendy a chance to redeem herself.

 

This was much more like the Southtown Wendy's than the Georgetown Wendy's by my house.  The gravy was thin, the sausage sparse, and the biscuits... the biscuits were dense, flavorless sponges.  Well, there was a kind of odd aftertaste... This time I didn't finish even half of the serving even though there was no trace of cigarette smoke.  Lucky me!

Because of the inconsistent quality I don't think I can assign numbers to these.  I also don't think I'm going to risk getting breakfast at Wendy's, even at the one by my house.  Go ahead... compare the first and last pictures.  Do they look even remotely like they were made from the same recipe?

Oh Wendy... whatever did I do to you to deserve this?

* Sorry kids... no pictures of this one.