Size Matters

The bagel place by my office is crazy good. My co-worker Courtney and I go every Friday for what we've deemed "Bagel Fridays" because for two people who work at a creative agency, we couldn't come up with a more creative name. Hey whatever, it's straightforward. There are 2 sizes of bagels at this place. Regular bagels and what they call mini-bagels, which are actually what used to be considered normal sized bagels. What I remember from my childhood as mini-bagels would probably be called infinitesimal bagels there. The bagels are huge. Enormous. Behemothic.

Everything is now skewed based on this new size assessment. So when I was in Hoboken at my friend Katie's apartment this weekend and we had bagels, they looked tiny. What is this!? Where are my giant bagels? These things are like kid toys. I guess it's like hooking up with Black guys and then going back to Jews. I mean, not that I'd know. I meant, I suppose it's like that. Pure conjecture.

Hungry Hungry Hippo

Recently, my team decided to try and compress all of our meetings into a couple of hours in the morning to enable us to use the rest of the day to get work done at our desks. In theory, this sounded amazing. However, in practice, I sit at my desk all day watching the minutes drag by while eating everything in sight. It’s not even lunch time and I’ve already had oatmeal and a granola bar, drank a liter of water hoping it would fill me up, and started dreaming about what I can cram in my craw for lunch.

My thoughts of food don’t end at lunch. I am also unashamedly thinking about how badly I want to eat a pound of pasta with clam sauce for dinner. This may seem random and/or excessive, but know that I did exactly that a couple weeks ago (and then subsequently had the worst stomach ache). Regardless, it was an "I'm alive" moment. Forget jumping out of planes or riding motorcycles, I want a Cinnabon or a big ole grilled cheese sandwich. Extra cheesey pizza or that ginormous croissant that the coffee cart man sells that looks like a giant crab. Jelly Beans. Bagels. Sour cream. Frosting. Double stuf Oreos. And no I am not pregnant.

Kate Moss once said "nothing tastes as good as being skinny." I beg to differ. Being skinny is the hardest thing I've ever done precisely because everything that helps you stay skinny tastes like shit. Additionally, if you’ve ever seen the exercise equivalent estimate for certain foods, you would never eat again. To burn off that donut, you practically have to do 12 hours of housework, a triathalon, or swim 3,000 laps. It’s a daily losing battle that I have been losing badly lately. Short of having my mouth permanently wired shut, I will need to figure something else out since I have another 6 hours of sitting here, and getting up to go to the bathroom every 1/2 hour just to have something to do... Isn’t working.

Finish Your Cookie Young Lady

I never liked vegetables much as a kid. Only recently did I embrace the idea of salad as a viable source of deliciousness. And still to this day, when I go get lunch, I daydream about the bagels and wonder why salad can’t taste like that instead. So as you can imagine, if I had to be a vegetarian even for a day, I’d probably starve. Vegan... Let’s not even go there.

One of my coworkers is a vegan and I always feel bad for her when we get cupcakes for someone’s birthday or cater lunch. She can’t eat anything because she’s a vegan. Nothing about that sounds remotely awesome to me. As another of my coworkers once famously said, If we’re not supposed to eat them, God wouldn’t have made animals out of meat. Sound logic.

However, one fateful day I picked up a cookie at the local deli without looking at the label. It was pretty damn tasty, so when I realized that the label said 100% VEGAN, I was initially shocked. Thrown off a bit, but won over by the unique taste, I proceeded to eat this cookie frequently. Blindly I assumed that vegan meant healthy and never bothered to wonder how many calories it contained or what was actually in the cookie. Until today.

Mr. Cookie has 400, yes you read that right 400 calories. Considering it’s not made of anything that comes from animals, how is that even possible? Speaking of that, WTF is even in this cookie? It obviously can’t contain butter, eggs, or real chocolate chips because those are animal products. Isn't butter and chocolate chips why cookies have so much fat and calories? How many calories could be in flour or baking soda?? So I glanced at the ingredient list. Vegan zero trans fat margarine? Vegan chocolate chips? Egg substitute? These are completely crazy ingredients. What the heck is a vegan chocolate chip?? This cookie is almost as ridiculous as Tofurkey...

Martha Stewart I am Not

The thought crossed my mind today to bake something for Meredith's 30th birthday celebration tomorrow evening. A person only turns 30 once and I know when I turn 30, I will probably want to die... so anything I can do, like bring my cooking to help the process along, being that I'm such a good friend and all. I looked at a bunch of recipes and immediately realized (to my horror, yet not surprise), that I have just about nothing on the list of required ingredients in my apartment, besides salt.

Ingredients:

• 48 HERSHEY'S KISSES Brand Milk Chocolates I will have no problem buying this
  
• 1/2 cup shortening Whatening?
  
• 3/4 cup REESE'S Creamy Peanut Butter My PB is like months old, scary
  
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar Nope
  
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar Def, nope
  
• 1 egg Again, no
  
• 2 tablespoons milk Still no
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Nada
  
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour Not a chance
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda Can't use the odor absorber kind?
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt YESSSSSSSS!! I have this!!
  

Holy crap I am a frat boy. A frat boy with diet orange soda and diet nestea instead of beer. Is it still thoughtful to make the cookies that came in a tube? Please say yes...

I guess I just really wish I had two mouths

To say that no planning goes into the Road Trips I suppose is a bit of a stretch. I researched cool cities to stop or attractions on the route. This year the stops were Hilton Head Island, SC and Brunswick, GA and the Golden Isles. Of course, because of the car debacle and the fact that Jesus wasn’t born until the 25th, Hilton Head was not meant to be. I am fairly confident it will still be there for me to visit another time, so I wasn’t that upset. We did however decide to check out the working lighthouse I found in St. Simons Island, GA. Apparently you can climb to the top of this puppy, which is 104 ft in altitude... Up a narrow and windy staircase. So, we did. Me with my 4 inch heeled boots, claustrophobia and the fact that I fully forgot to bring any deodorant on this road trip. Once at the top, after my harrowing climb, we attempted to take photos of the 3 of us and Jay bobbled my camera and almost dropped it 104 ft to its doom which would have gone over superbly with my father considering the camera is 4 days old and my camera ruining track record. Luckily, he recovered in time to have not been the next thing to take a flight off of the lighthouse.

And he lived on to consume the “grande meal” at Taco Bell. The one people probably order for a family of 4. The best thing about going on vacation with Jay, is that no matter how badly I pig out, he will ALWAYS eat more than me. Therefore I don’t have to feel badly about myself as I stuff my craw with 3 soft tacos. I can look over, see him double fisting his 10 tacos, and almost not want to go into the bathroom and throw up. Almost.

Who Knew?

Currently there is a GIANT cannoli in my office's kitchen that I'm telling everyone was sent to us by the cast of Jersey Shore. Who even knew something this amazing existed? F cookie cakes, this thing is the situation right here.