The Blog I Never Use

So, I'm very good at most things in the kitchen. I cook well and I bake very well. I've even won awards for my pumpkin pies (okay, so it was at church, but I did win first place over more than 20 other bakers). I've rarely had any trouble with a recipe unless there was an unusual factor involved (like having to cook for more than a dozen people), I even have a good rate of success with delicate and exotic recipes and some of my best creations were adaptations I made of an existing recipe on a whim.

So, what I'm saying is, I am usually a good baker. I enjoy it and I'm good at it. Tonight, however, my baking skills might be compared to the skill of Colin Farrell at remaining celibate, or Kevin Federline at singing, or Kermit the Frog at commitment; in other words, I burned the cookies.

As if that were not embarrising enough, I ruined the Rice Krispies® Squares, which I believe, needs an apostrophe after the ess on Krispies®, since they are composed of Rice Krispies® and always contain more than one. To be perfectly honest, I didn't understand the instructions until after I ruined them. The box said to "melt the butter and marshmallows:" Done. "Mix in the Rice Krispies®," I can do that, or I thought so until I got to the line, "until well coated."

Now, let's do the math: the recipe calls for 40 marshmallows and one LARGE box of Rice Krispies®. The 40 marshmallows create about two cups of marshmallow gunk. Two cups of marshmallow gunk will hold approximately three quarters of a box together, if you really work hard and don't care about the taste. If you want it to taste good, two cups of marshmallow gunk is enough to hold about a dozen individual Rice Krispies® together (I think that this might be my first exaggeration in this entry). So, as you can see, if one follows the recipe on the box, one will get just what I got, a lump of loosely adhered and almost completely unsweetened Rice Krispies® "treats." That, my friends, is NOT treatastic.

One happy note: I've rekindled a love of mine. I learned to love burned cookies when my mom would spend the day baking cookies for my cousin, Todd, who used to visit frequently. Todd was very picky about his cookies, so mom would bake several batches until she got one just right. While some of those rejected batches were perfectly good and would be doled out as dessert, some of them, on rare occasion (I remember two instances), were the victim of an unpredictable oven's whims. These victimized cookies were then made available to the child population of the house to consume as they wished.

Gina, always a character of refined taste and of too much pride to stoop to eating the seconds (when she could procure the cookies of highest quality through bargaining, theft, or subterfuge) would leave the burned cookies to me, after removing the portion of older sibling tax that was her due, and which consisted of any cookies which escaped enough damage to have edible portions, would allow me to eat the largest portion of the remaining cookies (and would additionally allow me to hand over any "good" cookies that might come my way).

[I believe I shall let the previous paragraph/ sentence run-on as it wishes, for the sake of the fans, from whom I receive many encouragements in this regard]

Because of this method of cookie distribution, I became accustomed to the burned cookies. I cannot even say that this happened over time, for it seemed that I loved these extra- crispy rejects from the beginning. I loved their dark and sultry flavor, the crunch as I bit down on them, even the smell of sugar exposed to heat greater than its want. Because those were always chocolate chip cookies, I thought it was only their sinister appeal that drove me to distraction (yes, I, who regularly refuses dessert, I, who would rather bake dessert than eat it, I, who eats ice cream more often as a social lubricant than for enjoyment), but such was not the case. I just ate half- a- dozen burned gingerbread cookies, and was compelled to drink three glasses of milk (to which I have an allergy, and to the lactose of which I am intolerant) in the process.

I am sick (and my physical condition will soon match the condition of my disease, due to the milk).

// posted by Unknown @ 12:23 AM