Category: Food & Drink

Who is Geoffrey Esper? 5 things to know about the Nathan’s Hot Dog contest newest favorite

Everything you want to know about Geoff Esper as he chows down on hot dogs

If you’re just tuning into the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog contest and wondering why all the talk is about Geoff Esper and not Joey Chestnut, you’ve come to the right place.

For starters, Chestnut is not in this year’s competition. The competitive eating star and Major League Eating started beefing (sorry, not sorry) over Chestnut’s sponsorship with Impossible Foods to promote a plant-based hot dog. Understandably, that was not going to fly in an all-beef wiener contest.

With Chestnut out of this year’s competition, that made Esper the clear favorite to win at most sportsbooks.

Which brings us back to our original question: Who is Geoff Esper?

Let’s get you caught up with these five facts.

1. Geoff Esper is a 49-year-old school teacher

Teacher by day, competitive eater also by day.

Esper, who hails from Oxford, Massachusetts teaches electronics at Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School in Charlton about 60 miles west of Boston.

2. Esper holds 19 Major League Eating record

The list of Esper’s accomplishments is certainly impressive — among other adjectives.

Some of his records just don’t even seem possible:

  • 32.25 4oz egg roles in 8 minutes
  • 17.75 Bagels with Cream Cheese in 8 minutes
  • 281 Hooters Wings in 10 minutes
  • 23.75 lbs Strawberry Shortcake in 8 minutes
  • 9.75 pounds of SPAM (from the can) in 8 minutes

We absolutely cannot advise anyone try to beat these numbers at home.

3. Esper finished second to Chestnut at the Nathan’s contest in 2023

It’s a bummer we won’t get to see these two go head-to-head again this Fourth of July. While Chestnut finished with 62, Esper ate 49 hot dogs and buns.

The race for second place may actually have been more exciting last year than Chestnut’s sprint for first. Second and fourth place were separated by just four hot dogs.

4. Esper’s personal best for hot dogs is 51

Will Esper set a new personal record this week? If not, will 51 be enough to win the famed Coney Island contest?

5. Esper has three preferred beverages when competing

Esper told Food Challenge News in February 2023 that his preference is Blue Powerade, Crystal Light Fruit Punch or warm water, but it depends on the type of food he’s eating.

How to make a Bomb Pop cocktail for a red, white and blue July 4th

Red, white and blue? That means cherry, lime and, uh, blue. With or without a little vodka.

Day drinking for a special occasion? Awesome. Day drinking to celebrate the birth of your nation? That’s practically your civic duty.

July 4 is more than a holiday meant to traumatize dogs with hours of traumatic sky booms. It’s a day to celebrate and focus on the things that make America great. What better way to do that than hang out with other folks who hate the monarchy and drink themed cocktails?

This year, the biggest trend is the Bomb Pop, a simple cocktail that doesn’t taste quite like the popsicle that inspired but looks like patriotic bunting when done correctly. It’s a four-step process that takes a little more effort to craft than your typical cookout drink, but one that will absolutely stand out among a sea of light beers and hard seltzers.

So let’s make something pretty, and boozy, to celebrate our nation’s independence. First, your ingredients:

You’ll need:

  • Lemonade or limeade. Limeade will get you closer to replicating an actual Bomb Pop flavor, but is more difficult to find.
  • Grenadine or Maraschino cherry syrup.
  • Blue Gatorade/Powerade or even just blue food coloring.
  • Vodka (I used Beattie’s strawberry vodka because it’s very good and also the only thing I had left after a weekend of bloody Marys. Regular vodka? Totally fine. Want to skip it for a virgin cocktail? Hell yeah. Want to swap it out for gin to revel in that lime flavor? Also great)
  • A Bomb Pop for garnish.

Fill a glass with ice and fill the first third with your grenadine or cherry syrup. Then, combine your limeade with vodka; I use a 50/50 mix that gives you four total ounces.

Now comes the tricky part. Pour that slowly over an overturned spoon so it sits on top of the red cherry juice rather than mixes with it. It’ll look something like this only, you know, better if you’re not trying to pour AND take a picture at the same time.

Next, repeat the process with your blue. I used Powerade because it’s cheap and perfectly captures that nebulous “blue” flavor we all know and love. You can use food coloring mixed with lemon/limeade or vodka if you prefer.

Once that’s carefully poured, it’ll look like this:

OK, now we’re talking. Toss in that Bomb Pop garnish and you’ve got red, white and blue on red, white and blue.

How’s it taste? Well, weird if you drink it according to layer, obviously. But mixing the contents gives you a sweet, slightly tart cocktail that’s at least a little bit too much but certainly looks cool. You probably won’t want more than one, but if you’re mixing these up without the booze it’s an easy win for any kids at your cookout.

Here’s what Joey Chestnut is doing on July 4th instead of the 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

Joey Chestnut will be busy eating hot dogs on July 4 — just not in Coney Island.

As you found out recently, Joey Chestnut won’t be in the 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, even though he’s technically not banned. And in the future, we’re getting Chestnut vs. Takeru Kobayashi, which will be neat.

But if you’re wondering what Chestnut will be up to on July 4, it doesn’t sound like he’ll be watching the event he’s not participating in.

Instead, he’ll be off to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, where he’ll do a 5-minute hot dog eating contest against soldiers, per the Associated Press and Chestnut himself on X (formerly Twitter). And Chestnut is getting Impossible Foods — his sponsorship deal with them is what caused the Nathan’s absence in the first place — involved:

Now you know!

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Snack of the Week: S’Noods fill a snack pasta void I didn’t even know existed

S’Noods have nothing to do with the desktop game of shooting faces at faces but are pretty good regardless.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. Sometimes, that includes food, too.

I didn’t know snack noodles existed. Sure, I’d absent mindedly crunched through some dry angel hair while impatiently waiting for water to boil, but I never considered pasta as an actual snack instead of a meal (or side). Chef Lauryn Bodden felt differently, filling this void with S’Noods, a Kickstarter-ed snack born from a Netflix competition.

S’Noods’ labeling promises “Everyone’s favorite noodle chips.” This is not a claim I can test but I guess I can believe. It’s also probably everyone’s least favorite since I cannot name a single competitor in the field.

Fortunately, they come in interesting flavors and are moderately healthy snacks. Not quite as healthy as their 80 calorie per serving size suggests because that 21 gram serving size is roughly 70 percent of a recommended handful of Cheez-Its or chips, but still not bad. Of course, that doesn’t matter if they don’t taste good.

So let’s see how they taste.

Spicy Miso Ramen: A-

I’m starting off with a little spice. The Italian inspired S’Noods sound great, but I’m in the mood for heat. Opening the bag unleashes a wave of appealing Asian scents. A little dried mushroom, some garlic and a little… well, I guess they smell sort like old school Tato Chips or those take-home T.G.I. Friday’s potato skins.

The ramen background here is unmistakable. You start off with a light sweetness that quickly gives way to the sharp spice and soy sauce flavor dusted on each crisp. The flavor is unique and complex, which leaves you feeling like you’re getting more from the bad than your standard snack.

The flavor is full bodied and authentic to the label. The only real downside is, well, it’s noodles. Each crisp is pretty small to begin with and getting stuck in the bag means there are plenty of crumb sized pieces to sort through.

That might be a benefit if you’re looking to snack responsibly, as the gap time between bites will give your brain plenty of time to catch those “I’M FULL” signals from your stomach. But if you’re hungry, it’ll be tough to resist the temptation to jam handfuls of these noodles into your face like a knockoff Cookie Monster.

Cavatappi Carbonara: B

These look more like I’d expect from snack noodles; a corkscrew of carbs. The light dusting of cheese on top makes it look like some budding Top Chef contestant got real weird with a bag of Pirate’s Booty. The smell isn’t especially cheesy, but there’s some pepper spice and a hint of wet pasta underneath.

The first few bites are fine, if a little bland. There’s something inherently cardboard-y about a starch-heavy snack. Since there’s a lot of surface area wound into each noodle it’s easy to get some unseasoned bites. At that point you’re eating plain pasta, which is fine but unexciting.

This leads to uneven flavors across the bag. When you get a S’Nood that’s heavily coated you wind up with heavy salt, pepper and garlic. Get the right mix and you wind up with something approaching a nice Italian dish; savory and filling. But you don’t get that consistently, which is kind of a bummer.

Rigatoni Basil Pomodoro: A

This is pretty much what I expected when I heard “snack noodles.” Tubes of ziti coated in tomato and cheese. These smell great; a little like pasta, a little like discontinued snacks of old.

They hold that line on first bite. These S’Noods do a great job of recreating that pasta sauce flavor on top of a lightly seasoned base. The basil stands out, for sure, but you also get the acidic tang of tomato sauce and the soft, calming influence of cheese to round out a very satisfying bite.

There’s a lot going on here, but all within a solid balance. You’re also getting a little salt, some pepper, some garlic. This all amounts to something that feels like more than a regular snack. It also feels most filling than the other two varieties, though that could just be the way I’m feeling. It does suffer a bit from a bit of uneven seasoning like the cavatappi, but ultimately; hell yeah.

These taste great.

Gin of the Week: Hendrick’s Grand Cabaret is a sloppy gin that makes a cleeeaaaan cocktail

A proper dose of stone fruit makes a pretty gin and tonic.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

No one’s going to confuse Hendrick’s newest brand extension with its classic gin. The latest arrival from the company’s Cabinet of Curiosities is Grand Cabaret, a spirit Hendrick’s labels as an extravagant “fruity gin.”

That in itself isn’t unusual; search “fruit gin” and you’ll get plenty of hits. But there’s a certain stuffiness that seems to follow the larger ginmakers. You don’t see much in the way of sweet varietals from guys like Beefeater or Bombay or Tanqueray. They’re here for classic cocktails and happy to stay in their lane.

That’s made the Cabinet of Curiosities a satisfying detour. Hendrick’s hit this column a year ago with its Flora Adora spinoff, That blend brought extra botanicals into the mix, but aside from some lingering peach didn’t dive all the way into fruit flavors.

Grand Cabaret does.

This blend leans heavily into stone fruits — anything with a pit, really — in order to throw the clock back to what rich folks were drinking in the 1700s because the water could kill them. The goal is a lighter gin with a solid boozy payload — 43.4 percent alcohol by volume — capable of adding depth to simple cocktails.

Let’s see if it works.

with Betty Buzz tonic: B+

The summer months are upon us. That means its prime gin and tonic time, and that’s how I’m going to judge Grand Cabaret. I’ll be mixing it with Betty Buzz tonic water, a premium mixer from Blake Lively’s brand.

The tonic itself is fizzy, sweet and a little sharp. There’s enough citric acid in there to cover if you don’t have a lime. I do, but I want to give this a try on its own first before mitigating any flaws or strengths with more citrus.

Grand Cabaret smells light and floral. There isn’t much here to tell you it isn’t a traditional gin, aside from maybe a feathery touch on the juniper and more of a fruity, herbal bent.

The first sip shows off the stone fruit promised on the label. This is plum and cherry and much sweeter than you’d expect from a typical gin. There’s plenty of berry in there as well, giving you the feeling you were eating a gin-based popsicle. This was already a summer spirit to begin with, but Hendrick’s super charged that by making a fruit-forward booze you can easily turn into a very drinkable two-step cocktail.

There is a little bit of a concern with that. The dryness inherent to gin gets washed away by that fructose finish. You wind up with something a bit sloppy on your lips.

But anyone who wants a standard gin experience can always stick to the regular Hendrick’s (or a hundred other varieties. Hendrick’s is great but my personal preference is The Botanist). I can appreciate the work the brand put in here and the restraint to keep this from being a fully fledged fruit gin and instead just one that leans into the berries and herbs that make it unique.

with Betty Buzz tonic and a lime: A

Oohhhhhh yeah. That’s the balance. The sweet sloppiness of the stone fruit in this gin gets cleaned up by the sharp citrus. That fixes just about every minor problem I had with the drink and really takes it to another level.

The lime also brings out the depth of the fruit in the Grand Cabaret, giving you that plum and cherry much more clearly. The taste lingers long after it clears your lips, not in a weak aftertaste way but as a full-bodied reminder that you’re drinking something different. That cherry is light and flavorful throughout, and while it’s clear you’re drinking gin I can honestly say I’ve never had a gin and tonic like this.

I’m gonna be crushing these all summer. Take the extra step and slice yourself a lime. Hot damn.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?

This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Hendrick’s Grand Cabaret over a cold can of Hamm’s?

Absolutely. Especially if I have a lime available.

Free Kroger ice cream? How to download the coupon for June 20, the 2024 summer solstice

Here’s how to get free ice cream from Kroger!

Yes, you heard right! You can get free ice cream from Kroger on June 20, 2024, as long as you live in one of the states in which the deal is valid.

We’ll get into that, but here’s what you need to know: for the first day of summer, Kroger is giving away a free pint of their store brand ice cream. If you live in California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, Nevada, Tennessee and Virginia, you can’t. Sorry if you’re reading this and live in those states.

If you don’t? Go to FreeKrogerIceCream.com and download the coupon. That’s it! And then enjoy on June 20!

Hangover Fixer of the Week: Liquid Death’s ‘Death Dust’ is hit-and-miss hydration

It’s Liquid Death, in powder form (and with bonus vitamins).

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Liquid Death has a certain vibe. Stupid names, good water.

Their flagship canned water has become a sensation on the backs of flavors like “Mango Chainsaw” and “Berry It Alive.” That led to an extension into the world of iced teas named “Grim Leafer” and “Armless Palmer.” The labels are bad, but the vibes are undeniably good. Liquid Death is now a billion dollar company with its sights set on mutilating thirst across the globe.

The company’s latest effort to sustain triple-digit growth is an extension into drink powder. A land previously ruled by Crystal Light has seen an influx of competitors bringing new flavors and the promise of body-boosting elements. Liquid Death’s “Death Dust” promises 300 milligrams of electrolytes and 200 milligrams of potassium — about half what you’d get in the same drink volume of Pedialyte — in a box that promises you’ll “rise from the dead.”

The box I received came with three flavors: Severed Lime, Convicted Melon and the aforementioned Mango Chainsaw. And while the vitamins inside may do nothing to fix the detached retinas I got from rolling my eyes just typing those names out, they should help my mornings feel a little brighter.

Let’s see how they are.

Severed Lime: B

The original? Pretty good, despite the very stupid name (endemic to all Deaths Liquid). The mix dissolves easily into a standard water bottle with a couple shakes. It comes out… almost blue?

It smells great; heavy citrus lime wafts off the top, even from the narrow opening of a water bottle. It tastes… like it’s got 300 milligrams of sodium in it. There’s a certain “SPORTS DRINK” feel to what’s happening here. It doesn’t taste bad, but it doesn’t taste like the canned version and that’s due to more than just the absence of bubbles.

That said, I like the idea of getting some electrolytes back. I’m drinking this in the middle of a Nutrl review, and while I could easily pound six of those in a night without thinking about it, I would feel like absolute garbage in the morning since I am an old man and my body currently sucks. This feels like the kind of replenishing timeout that will make me at least slightly functional tomorrow morning.

But that comes at a cost. You’re getting hard seltzer level lime, which is undeniable in its artificiality. It’s still easy to drink, but it feels like a Liquid Death knockoff despite its bonafides. Some real wish.com Liquid Death, if you will.

Mango Chainsaw: B-

It blends easily, imparting a well-hydrated urine color to your water. It smells, well, like a drink mix. I think that’s my problem here; I’m comparing this to the canned LD even though it can never be that.

And for a powdered drink, it’s fine. There’s no denying it tastes like a chewable vitamin, but the flavor is sweet and enjoyable. It’s not something you’d seek out, but in terms of hydration it’s an easy sell. If this prevents tomorrow’s hangover? It’s perfect. If not? It’s probably not worth it.

To its credit, it does bring some preventative hydration to the table after a long night of, uh, writing other drink reviews. It’s not as reliable as Roar when it comes to making your morning feel normal, but it’s better than regular water.

Convicted Melon: B+

Good god, these names. Liquid Death doesn’t tell you which melon was guilty of a violent crime here, but based on the color of the mix it’s watermelon that will no longer be able to vote. Or, maybe some purple melon? I dunno man, as someone with weak cones, colors are my Waterloo.

The taste itself is chuggable, pale watermelon. It’s sweet but not overpowering, making it easy to pound on a warm day when, say, you’ve been drinking a bunch of beer and want to minimize that hangover risk. You know, hypothetically.

That’s a place Liquid Death has always come through. Its heavy electrolyte load lends a slight salty taste to each of the powders, but those help hydrate against a steady stream of summer drinks. I came back to this in a water bottle loaded with ice in between a round of golf and it did have some reviving qualities on top of being the tastiest of the Death Dust mixes.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?

This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Death Dust over a cold can of Hamm’s?

Tough call here. I’d probably drink it between my third and fourth Hamm’s on a hot day of playing cornhole or sitting by a lake.