Roses are Red, Forced Romance is Dead

Not my photo. My plates aren't as pretty.

Valentine’s Day is over. Again.

It’s just so predictable. As soon as the December holidays are over — with the last present tucked away only to see the light of day at your next garage sale — we fast-forward to the next big calendar event. Every year, we go from Santa to romance quicker than you can say "failed New Year’s resolution."

Before you know it, it’ll be summer and time for dozens of articles about perfecting your fake tan and how to make patriotic jello shots. Then articles and listicles about surviving the holidays with your family and what to buy for the uncle who weirds you out. Then back to impossible resolutions before St. Valentine rocks up again on his heart-shaped box of chocolate, regular as clockwork and pointless as Cupid’s fig leaf.

Let’s face it. The idea that we need a day to tell our loved ones that we love them is increasingly redundant. Romantic relationships are already revered 365 days a year. With every pop song, every film, every show, every day, every hour, and every heartbeat, we’re constantly bombarded with messages that tell us to be in a couple or face the alternative. PERISH ALONE. The cliché is entrenched and unavoidable.

The entire holiday — if you can even call it that — is built on commercialism. "Buy her these lovely flowers!" translates to: "She'll think you don't love her…she'll think you want to ask out her sister if you don't purchase these ridiculously overpriced plants that will soon die, therefore subconsciously reminding you both your relationship is doomed to the same fate."

Aw honey, you shouldn't have!

Not only does this kind of thinking reinforce so many things women have been trying to overcome as they (we) redefine our roles in society and begin to discard the traditional relationship model of self-worth being defined by respective love lives (or lack thereof), thus diminishing women to a one-dimensional personality that mirrors a Hallmark rom-com, but it also disparages men since they are also reduced to traditional gender roles.

I know plenty of men who would be elated to receive a bouquet of flowers or perhaps a heart-shaped box of chocolates, but that kind of more “effeminate” gift-giving is never depicted in traditional Valentine’s Day…propaganda. But times are changing! And we’re entering what is hopefully a new era of acceptance and doing what you want because that’s who you are, not because you feel compelled to in fear of societal repercussions.

So all of this isn't to say I'm bitter and hate love. I don't. I just prefer my romance to come from a place of meaning. Not because of some obligation.

Time to get off my soapbox of cynicism and bake some Truthful Conversation Hearts!

I stole the above photo from the interwebs — specifically Humble Pie Baking Blog. Great blog 10/10 recommend — because hers turned out way prettier than mine did. Nevertheless, I personally prefer my version of cynical and Anti-V Day messages for my cookies. It's hard to choose who will receive which heart with options such as Oedipus Complx, Pre-nup, Daddy Issues, Angst, Don't Call, Table 4 One, Die in a Fire, Bite Me, Move On, and Not Me It’s U.

It’s not love that’s in the air. It’s freshly baked cookies.   

Recipe Here

The Horror! The Horror... of O'Twinkers

So, I’m doing pretty okay. Well, I’m in the midst of a clichéd, pre-quarter-life crisis, but other than that everything is great. It’s not the typical college panic where you can just drown your tears, bad grades, and hookup regrets in your ridiculously expensive and fruity drink. It’s more like a constant feeling of existential angst and dread that never goes away no matter what you do kind of thing. But, on the bright side, it’s not all the time. It only flares up when I’m awake. And sometimes when I dream.

So, I just fill my days with my inner monologue of melodramatic nonsense (basically this blog) while mindlessly scrolling through food blogs and food-related Facebook posts until my thumb gets numb. Look out, major first-world problems. I might get a waterproof case for my phone, so I can curl up on the floor of my shower. Just to change things up a little.

Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Every once in a while some new food product will break through the clutter and bask in the shining light of newness. Foodies everywhere will either rejoice and build a shrine — AVOCADOS — or complain about how it will give us cancer or “Something something, hipster, yoga, animal rights, fat Americans.”  

Just last week there was an article on how to make homemade “O’Twinkers”. What’s an O’Twinkers you ask? It’s a massive gut bomb. It's a descent into a true Heart of Darkness. To make this thing, you assault an innocent Twinky (I actually hate Twinkies, so not entirely innocent) by shoving a regular Snickers bar inside of it, basically taking its fake-pastry virginity. Then you continue to man-handle it until the Snickers is fully inside of the Twinky.

It gets worse. You take the monstrosity and you deep fry it. Then, once it has cooled, you stick Oreos on top and you deep fry that sucker AGAIN. Now that your Franken-food is complete, you can eat it and die from the bajillion calories and fat that will immediately clog your arteries.  

People. PEOPLE. With great power, comes great responsibility. Or something. Another comic book reference. I dunno. Not the point. What shocked me is the amount of people who couldn’t wait to make the damn thing. This is proof that we are moving closer from actual, functioning, human beings to Wall-E style stacks of meat. It will be a moment of importance when the AI we created finally return to Earth to comb through the ashes of our civilization. Or when aliens come "visit" to feast on our obese bodies, and all we can do is just try to roll away.

'Merica

* For those who are concerned about my mental health after reading this post, I would like to assure you that I am fine. My constant, unending, internal monologue simply does this all day: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Breaking Bacon

We’re done with bacon, right? Finally? Everything’s been wrapped and infused and topped and garnished. Every animal worth eating has had it rammed into all of its available orifices. Every product has been flavored or scented. We made perfumes and floss and personal lubricant.  There are shirts and socks and ties. Knick-knacks and Christmas ornaments in striped, wavy shapes. It’s finally over, right? The douchey, uninteresting posers have lost interest? Are we moving on to the avocado now? Avocados and toast? Kale? Cauliflower? Because those need to end too.

It’s about time for bacon’s demise to happen. Talk about overstaying your welcome. And I’ll come right out and say it because I'm not scared of the fiends.

Bacon — it’s not THAT great.

Seriously. It’s good. It’s not meme good. Have a couple slices on your burger. Pair it with some eggs. Wrap a scallop. Crumble it into your salad. Pull it out of your cargo shorts and eat it like jerky. But then move the freak on. It’s just food. It’s not a lifestyle. No matter how much you want it to be.

*Insert weird bacon dessert name here* 

*Insert long complicated recipe here* 

*Insert heart attack and funeral here*

*Insert me not caring enough to actually link or post anything here*

If I Knew Raising Parents Was This Hard, I Never Would Have Done It

Aside from the amount of times my parents don’t get a pop-culture reference, they’re pretty cool alright. I mean they consistently find the most inopportune time to interrupt a movie to ask annoying questions like: “What’s happening,” “What did she say,” “I’m tired. How much longer,” and “Didn’t he play the son of that woman in the movie with George Clooney?” But I love them regardless, and I will usually answer their questions with only a tinge of annoyance in my voice.

However, there are usually only two things that make me want to trade them in for different models:

When they repeatedly ask me the exact same questions about my career path…because answering just once isn’t painful enough.

And when I take them to new restaurants in hopes of getting them to try — with “try” being the operative word here — new foods. They tend to wrinkle their noses before the plate even touches the table. I promise them it will be good. I plead with them to a least give it a try. They sigh and warily say, "Okay." They move the food haphazardly around while eyeing it with distrust. I watch with hopeful eyes as forks travel to their mouths. Then, ending in an anti-climatic moment akin to Y2K, they stop mid-bite and put down their forks. "It's just too weird," they say. They then proceed to try to order sandwiches in a dim sum restaurant. 

Parental Unit 2.0, where you at?

It's the Great Pumpkin Spice, Charlie Brown

I spent the better part of middle school fantasizing about my life as a musical. An appropriately directed breeze would blow my hair attractively at all times, sassy back up dancers would materialize on command, and I’d sing a punchy duet with the cute guy across the lunchroom à la High School Musical. Our hit first single: “We go together like Swirled Cheesecake Pumpkin Brownies.” It's clunky but highly addictive.

Maybe I watched too many Disney Channel Original Movies or too many dramatic movies with a sad soundtrack that plays as the main character looks out a rainy window. Whenever I left an ad critique and returned home to start over, my reaction was to always sing the Backstreet Boys: “Oh my God, we’re back again.” When my friend tells me she wants the stereotypical romance, I break into Penatonix “Can't Sleep Love,” which might be okay if I could resist attempting to imitate every member of the a cappella group. And when I took my first bite of these Pumpkin Swirl Brownies? “At laaaaaaaaaaaast my love has come along.”

Etta James, you speak to my chocolate and pumpkin-loving soul. I wish I could give you a Cream Cheese Pumpkin Brownie to thank you.

A fudgy brownie batter swirled together with a pumpkin cheesecake batter, then baked to perfection, this dessert duo sings in beautiful harmony. It is second only to peanut butter and chocolate. But pumpkin, chocolate, and Autumn just go so well together. It’s the best of all Glee mashups, fused with a Beyoncé/Jay-Z chart-topper, smothered in every song Danny and Sandy sing together in Grease.

It's hard to justify doing anything fall related when it's 90 degrees out. A cold front came through last week and the weather decided fall had indeed arrived. So my inner White-Girl emerged from her cage where I try to keep her hidden for most of the year and decided she wanted pumpkin-spice everything. We talked it out and settled on these brownies. 

Recipe Here

Friendsgiving and Disastrous, Temperamental, Semi-Good, Very Unstable Cake

It looked like it was straight of a crime scene. Caramel sauce was smeared across multiple surfaces, including the stackable washer-dryer and the side of the fridge. It was starting to pool on the cake platter. Peanuts littered the floor. Icing adorned the cabinets. Chunks of cake lay haphazardly on the counters as if hacked away by a maniac. And I was on the floor, covered in a layer of flour and defeat.

In hindsight, I should have known this was going to end poorly.

Reason 1) I was attempting to make a cake I had never made before.

Reason 1.5) It was a 3-layer cake.

Reason 1.75) Anytime I have attempted in anything requiring 2 or more cake rounds in my shitty gas oven, it has utterly disastrous results.   

Reason 2) This cake was the dessert for our Friendsgiving and Murphy's Law exists.

Reason 3) I started to late and rushed things. This one is all on me. That morning I went to a Gem and Mineral Show (nerd?) and was expecting to be back around 12:00 or 12:30. This would give me plenty of time to bake this cake I’ve never attempted before, shower, and show up presentable at 6:00. Wrong. I left the show at 2:45.

Reason 4) My roommate and her fiancé also started late and the three of us were trying to cook/bake three dishes at once. As mentioned in a previous post, my kitchen is a 1.5 butt kitchen. Having three butts is just asking for it.

Reason 5) SOMETIMES THE BAKING GODS JUST LIKE TO MAKE YOUR SOUFFLÉS COLLAPSE, YOUR BREAD NOT RISE, YOUR FROSTING NOT SET, CAUSE YOUR CAKES TO FALL APART, AND BASICALLY POINT AND LAUGH AT YOUR MISERY LIKE SEVENTH GRADE BOYS.

So aside from running slightly behind, and having to redo my caramel sauce again because I burned it (caramel is a bitch), everything was going quasi-okay. The rounds seemed like they had all baked completely (WRONG), and all three came easily out of their pans. Disaster really struck when I tried stacking and frosting the layers. My fatal flaw was not shaving off the slightly domed tops because I was in a hurry. So they were unstable when I stacked them. Then the middle one formed a small crack which when the weight of the top layer was added, formed The Great Cake Divide.

I tried to trim off the domes and make them more even, but the cakes just crumbled. So I tried to frost as quickly as possibly. But my icing wasn't thick enough because the caramel sauce was too hot when I added it. Cracks became so deep not even cake botox could fill them.

With no other options, I finished my shitty crumb/top coat, poured my runny caramel sauce on top and sprinkled peanuts and prayed for the best.

The best did not come.

Fast-forward to my roommate and me trying to push this thing back together with spatulas, spoons and our minds. But this cake was not having it. At that point I was so distraught about my poor cake, I started to use my hands to push it back together. I manhandled that poor cake, but ultimately it could not be saved. It fell apart faster than Kim K’s first marriage.

After a minor freak out and my lovely roommate talking me off my ledge, we took the cake and chunk by chunk put it in a casserole dish, and covered it with whip cream, caramel drizzle and more peanuts.

Then I showed up 20 minutes late, looking semi-presentable with my Franken-cake, which surprisingly turned out to be a hit. Or people were so full of other good, properly presented food, that their tryptophan-soaked brains didn’t know how to comprehend what they were tasting. 

I'll take what I can get. 

Recipe Here