The season - Part I

*** Warning *** This post has little to do with junk food. But ‘tis the season.

My friend Rachel gave me a ride home from school last night, and we somehow stumbled upon the “Christmas conversation.” I hate Christmas. It’s true. I don’t like buying presents, I don’t like getting presents, I hate the anticipation of having the whole family together, and frankly, the food isn’t that great. I really really do not like Christmas.

I searched my soul last night, trying to find some redeeming qualities. Here they are. For one, I work in a big office building, and the building management provides breakfast one morning in December for all the tenants. Yes, I get excited about free breakfast. This made Rachel laugh hysterically. Second, I usually go to lunch one day with the eight other people in my office. It’s nice working in a small office, because we can do things like that. So we go to lunch, drink wine, eat good food, and talk politics and ridiculous things like that. That’s it. That’s my whole list.

“Don’t you like seeing your wife opening a gift you know she’ll love?” Rachel asked. Heather and I are terrible with secrets. She already knows what I’m getting her for her birthday in February. Plus, she doesn’t hide things well. Last year I found half of my presents in her closet sometime around Thanksgiving. On accident. “Don’t you like the Christmas tree and decorations?” We’ve never had a tree or decorations. We like to forget it’s Christmas. “Haven’t you at least had pine scented candles?” Nope. No candles. One time we had little Santa hats for the chihuahuas. That’s it.

Finally, Rachel gave in. “Don’t you at least like Thanksgiving?” Ummm……

Cake for breakfast part 3

I went to visit my parents this weekend. It was an early birthday sort of thing. We went shopping, I spent about 2 hours picking out a pair of shoes that is now in my car waiting to be returned, my brother and I drank several bottles of wine, and of course my mom and I baked a cake. Red velvet is my favorite. So we made the cake from a mix - it turned out quite delicious. But my mom always insists on doubling the recipe for the frosting.

I did everything I could to put as much frosting on that cake as possible. And it was fantastic. Two layers of cake with extra creamy cream cheese frosting piled on top. We ate it just after Sunday brunch - cake for breakfast!

And then we had an entire bowl of frosting left over. My mom put it in a tupperware container for me, and insisted that I take it home. When I got back to my house on Sunday night, I decided I should make some cupcakes, you know, just to have somewhere to put this frosting. I made 24 cupcakes (also red velvet) and frosted them. That tupperware container? Still mostly full. Quick. What to do!? I can't let this frosting go to waste!

Dog food

Have you ever had this stuff? Have you ever read such a preposterous recipe in your life?

• Ingredients:
  5 cups Chex cereal
  2 cups pretzel sticks, broken in half
  1/2 cup butter or margarine
  1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
  1 bag (11.5 oz) milk chocolate chips (2 cups)
  1 cup powdered sugar
  1 cup M&Ms
  
• Directions:
  1. Cover 2 cookie sheets with waxed paper. In very large bowl, mix cereal and pretzels.
  2. In medium microwavable bowl, microwave butter, peanut butter and chocolate chips uncovered on High 45 seconds; stir. Microwave 15 to 45 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Immediately pour over cereal mixture, stirring until evenly coated. Spread evenly on cookie sheets. Refrigerate uncovered about 20 minutes or until set.
  3. Break into bite-size pieces. Divide mixture evenly into 2 resealable 1-gallon food-storage plastic bags. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar to each bag. Seal and shake each bag until well coated. Add 1/2 cup M&Ms to each bag. Seal and gently shake each bag to mix. Store in sealed bags in refrigerator up to 4 weeks.

Well, it's delicious. I was scrounging around the kitchen last night, trying to find something, anything, to dip in my nutella. We had a box of Chex, and so I used that. I reminisced about my younger years, when I couldn't cook (still can't) but was able to throw together this delicious concoction, which I fondly referred to as dog food. I am in such a state now, wanting to make myself some dog food, but being too tied up with school and work. Must....have....dog food.

Groceries

I ate an apple for breakfast! It’s not a vegetable, but it’s green! Now, to be honest, it wasn’t a completely healthy meal, I did have a spoonful of nutella on part of it. Only part of it, of course, because…

I did everything I could to save the little fella. He was a good jar of nutella. He had been with me for several weeks, but all good things must come to an end. My jar of nutella is now empty.

And when the jar of nutella is empty, I know it’s time to go grocery shopping.

I love grocery shopping, actually. I think it started when I was young. We had to go grocery shopping every Sunday after mass (way to add insult to injury!). Me, my parents, my sister, and my two brothers. We kids were all given a handful of coupons, and we fanned out across the store, grabbing boxes of rice-a-roni and frozen vegetables. Well, it didn’t take this little sugar addict long to discover the candy aisle, and the plastic bags where you could put scoops of chocolate covered pretzels and peanuts.

I didn’t shoplift. I weighed the bag of candy like a good little girl. And then let my parents pay for an empty plastic bag when we checked out. But it made the grocery shopping experience worthwhile. And somehow my parents never noticed.

That girl

Today the enabler brought one of those round tins of danish butter cookies - you know, the ones you always get at Christmas? I counted. There were 40 cookies in the tin. (I counted because I didn't want to be that girl who ate all the cookies). Around lunchtime, the enabler commented that there were only 25 left. He swore he had only eaten 4, and he surmised that I must have eaten 10 and our other coworker must have eaten only 1. Ha! Our other coworker came by with 2 in his hand, and said he'd had at least 4 before then.

So, let's do the math. The enabler had 4 and the other coworker had 4, and 15 had been eaten. That leaves a meager 7 that I must have eaten. Frankly, I felt okay about that.

I have class tonight, so I just had a late lunch. I thought I'd grab 2 more cookies as a dessert. Well I'll be damned. There were only 11 left! Which means that someone has eaten more cookies than me. Frankly, it's unheard of. 29 cookies gone and I was only responsible for 7! Maybe I've lost my touch. But to make up for this, I did grab 2 more cookies and I dipped them in Nutella. I think all is back to normal in the world now.

A childhood lesson

I had poptarts for breakfast this morning. Sadly, they were of the unfrosted strawberry variety. I much prefer chocolate poptarts. Or s’mores or chocolate chip or chocolate fudge or chocolate vanilla cream or even brown sugar cinnamon. But all we had was unfrosted strawberry.

When I was little, we had poptarts pretty often, but we only got the fruit kinds. My mother made up for the healthiness of fruit poptarts by toasting them and putting butter on them. Have you ever heard of anyone putting butter on their poptarts? Well, that’s what my mother did for me. I honestly think this explains a lot about my eating habits as an adult.

Yes, we had poptarts often enough that, once I reached about 8 years old, I “fixed” my own poptarts in the morning. And did I mention I was also a curious child? Look, people, they’re serious when they say “don’t put shiny objects in the microwave.” I sincerely thought that it was one of those unnecessary precautions like “don’t ever get on an escalator with your shoes untied.” (Have you ever actually seen a kid with her shoelaces stuck in an escalator? I didn’t think so). But I assure you, it is not. One morning, I popped that tart into the microwave, shiny wrapper and all, and within three seconds, the microwave was filled with flames. I screamed, my mother grabbed tongs, the charred poptarts were thrown into the sink, and I was told one last time, “do not put shiny objects in the microwave.”

Lesson learned.

Triangle man

Anyone else listen to They Might Be Giants? Did you ever listen to the song Particle Man? How Person Man was hit on the head with a frying pan, lived his life in a garbage can? And how Triangle Man hates Person Man? I never understood what Triangle Man was (and probably still don't - but I'll proceed anyway).

Well, there's this guy I work with. He is the poster boy for metrosexuals. He works out, he eats well, and he dresses like a total homo. Whenever someone brings doughnuts or banana bread or cookies, he says he can't eat them because he's got to keep his figure. Then he motions his hands in a V, saying he has to keep his triangular figure - wide shoulders, thin waist, etc., etc.

He is Triangle Man.

He's mostly harmless. His anti-candy attitude doesn't hold a flame (flame! metrosexual! ha!) to my pure love of sugar. But lately, he and I have been on a ginger snap kick. I've had ginger snaps on my desk for the past two weeks, and he comes by every morning for two ginger snaps to have with his coffee. Well, he brought a box of 'snaps on Monday, and by Tuesday was complaining "you've got to get rid of these."

Well, I did it. The box arrived on Monday, and I finished it by Thursday. I did it. I finished the whole box.

Fish food

A brief update on the acorns that I blogged about earlier.

I didn't look very closely at the ingredients because I figured they would list things like chocolate and croutons.

Fish oil! Fish! Oil! Sardine and mackerel! Holy mackerel! They put fish in my candy!

I actually do like fish. But I have serious issues with mixing junk food and non-junk food. For instance, zucchini bread is simply not ok. It's either vegetable, or it's sweet. It can't be both. Carrot cake is also a great example. I'll eat carrot cake if there's enough cream cheese frosting to drown out the vegetable taste. But it's still not really ok.

There's a time and a place for fish. In my acorn candy is NOT the time or place for fish.

Clearly more than just candy

The enabler brought me another treat from the farmer's market today. Strange sweet crouton type things covered in milk chocolate. Of course, I tried the candy first, but then I began the routine inspection of the packaging.

You know, we Americans are really lazy when it comes to candy packaging and marketing. Snickers really satisfies? Boring. Reese’s packaging hasn’t changed since I was a kid. Very late 70s. What we lack, Japanese candymakers clearly have. I mean, what could this package possibly mean?

Let’s start first with just what these little candies are supposed to look like. Here is the front of the box and the bag from inside. There are lots of trees and little houses and birds. Another clue – there’s a monkey wearing a graduation cap on the back of the box (that should help). My guess is acorns, or perhaps pine cones. Any other guesses?

Here’s the insde of the box. What in the world is this? I gather it’s some kind of lottery using this guy’s face instead of sunshines and apples. He’s laughing, he’s crying, he’s got a really bad haircut and nothing but a head. I’d love to play this game. Apparently, I could win 1,000pg or something. I could drop out of school, cash in my acorn-bucks and live in the lap of luxury.

Sin

I’m a coffee addict, too. I just went to Starbuck’s to get a pound of decaf for a whiny coworker (no wonder he’s whiny!), and the manager told me that I’d get a free drink with the pound of coffee. I didn’t see any “free drink” signs, so I’m not sure what was the occasion, but I’m always up for a free drink. I stared at the menu board for a few minutes, and really really wanted the double chocolate chip frappuccino. But I thought I shouldn’t be greedy. I shouldn’t overdo it since this woman was obviously being very nice and generous by giving me a free drink in the first place. So I got an iced chai tea latte. Still yummy. Not so milkshakey.

Now, I know that Starbuck’s is out hunting down and destroying Mom and Pop (or Mom and Mom) coffee shops worldwide. I’ve been admonished by my lefter-leaning friends (yes! there are lefter-leaners out there) for supporting this corporate coffee empire. But I can’t help myself. It’s good. And you know what? Sometimes it’s free. Forgive me, goddess, but I love Starbuck’s.