dunkin' donuts: no longer delish

like any good geek, i loves me a good cup pot of coffee (always decaf, though -- my motor runs best on unleaded). as documented on my old myspace blog a few years back, i have a "thing" for dunkin' donuts coffee (that's a rachael ray poster to the right, adorning my local dd earlier this spring). imagine my cautious optimism when my dd closed for remodeling a few months over the summer. it was like a season-ending cliffhanger: would the coffee still be as good? would all my favorite counter girls return? would i finally get to see what an egg white flatbread looked like?

well, i'm hear to tell ya that my new local dd has sunk into the fast food corporate mire. gone are the days when i could drive up to the window, look the dd worker in the eye, order my coffee, and have them whip it up in front of me on the spot. now, i have to order in the back of the building into one of those annoying speakers, drive around, pay one girl while another unseen person (hiding somewhere inside the bowels of the newly remodeled store as to avoid the customers' wrath, obviously) makes my coffee. sure, it tastes the same (albeit suspiciously assembly line-like), but all the ambience is gone. the interior of the store is worse. don't ask.

then there's the price. i truly didn't expect the price of coffee to stay the same given the extensive overhaul of the store, but get this: i used to order one large and one medium decaf iced coffee (one for now, one for later or tomorrow) and paid what i thought was a reasonable $3.28. it's mostly water, for crying out loud. the new price? a whopping $4.56. yikes. an increase of fifty or even seventy-five cents i could've understood, but $1.28? no way!

drastic times call for drastic measures.

i've experimented with iced coffee recipes in the past and now, in my hour of need, i've finally concocted a recipe that is every bit as good as dd's decaffed iced...and best of all, it's ridiculously cheap in comparison! here's the 411:

webchyk's dd iced coffee recipe (makes 1 very large drink or two smaller ones)

• two level tablespoons and one teaspoon of folger's instant decaf coffee (you may substitute 4 maxwell house's decaf coffee singles -- simply steep them in the hot water for several minutes. i like the folger's 'cause it's faster. as you will see, this isn't as much coffee as you might think: the instant and singles individual coffee measurement of one teaspoon/bag is for six ounces of water, not eight. i'm using standard eight ounce measurements. and of course you may adjust the amount of coffee for your taste. i find these amounts closest to what my local dd's iced coffee tastes like. if you don't wanna use decaf, try regular and let us know what it's like. thanks!)
  
• 1.5 cups hot water (i have a 1200 watt microwave -- i nuke the water for 1 minute and it's perfect. you don't want it too hot, just hot enough to dissolve/steep the coffee.)
  
• 1 cup cold water
  
• ice (i use about a dozen cubes)
  
• splenda, sugar, cream, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spices, whatever you'd like to add to your iced coffee...or not.
  
• a very large plastic -- not glass -- glass (check your dollar store. they usually have four 32 ounce plastic coca-cola go glasses for $1. perfect if you want to take your coffee with you because you can simply throw away the cup and it'll still be cheaper than dd.)

place your instant coffee (and sweetener, if you're using it) into your glass. add the hot water and stir. add the cold water and stir. and cream and other coffee accoutrements if you're using them, and stir. add ice. stir some more and then let the ice melt for a few minutes. this will not only chill your coffee but further dilute it to its perfect yummo goodnees. enjoy!

if you really wanna have fun: add eveything except the ice cubes to a blender. whip it a bit. add about six ice cubes. blend well. pour over more ice.

if you try it, post here and let me know what you think.

how to solve america's "financial crisis"

i'm terrible at math. i do know how to balance my checkbook, though. one financial fact remains constant, regardless of your checkbook balancing abilities: if you don't spend more than you have your checkbook will balance (eventually!), and you won't bounce checks and need to borrow money to make ends meet. that financial fact is lost on corporate america when it comes to their dysfunctional business dealings with citizens. and worse yet, government has become corporate america's enabler, looking for a way to bail out wall street when they've made bad business decisions, mostly by loaning americans more money than they should have.

many americans are at fault, too. if you're making $60,000 a year (for argument's sake), why in the world do you need a $500,000 home? is it any wonder checkbooks aren't balancing on either side of this issue?

of course, i am oversimplifying this. i'm not alan greenspan or even suze orman. but being the simple person i am, i've come up with a simple solution: the u.s. population is currently a little more than 300 million. instead of spending $700 BILLION bailing out wall street, just give each and every citizen a one-time, tax free "economic stimulus payment" (esp) of $1 million.

do you really want that $500,000 home? now you can pay off the mortgage! ridiculous balances on credit cards? gone! no medical insurance? now you can afford it! do you have student loan debt or fret over tuition for your kids? no more worries!

we could take it one step further and designate that half a million from this esp goes directly into an ira, leaving each citizen with a cool half million to spend. either way, talk about stimulating the economy!

once your cool mil (or half mil) is gone, you're out of luck. if you get yourself into financial trouble you'll have to find your way out. and there won't be anymore economic stimulus payments for oh, let's say, 50 years, so spend and invest wisely.

you get the idea. as with most issues, with a little creative thinking and less bipartisanship and one-upsmanship from our political leaders, it could work. they'd have to make a drastic change in their mindset and put citizens rather than corporate america first, which admittedly is a more difficult issue to solve than this "financial crisis." but hey, i'm willing to give them a few weeks to sort it out -- i think i can afford to wait that long!

chili cook off

here are a few pix from the weekend before last, when i attended the chili cook off at christian klay winery in chalk hill, pa. i just used my cell cam, so forgive the poor quality. first, the mountains were hazy on the way up (left), but it later turned out to be a beautiful day. after the chili cook off (unmemorable, except for some GREAT nachos from the chef from nemacolin woodlands), i stopped by ohiopyle then drove past fallingwater. i laugh everytime i see the fire hydrant in front of the fallingwater sign (right). frank lloyd wright, take that!

one final comment: sharon klay, founder of christian klay winery -- she looks a bit like spidey's aunt mae, don't ya think?

r.i.p. paul newman