mix master: snow witch brownies

When I hear the word "mix," I think, sweet, just add water. Maybe an egg. Nearly-instant gratification. Not so with Fat Witch Bakery's Snow Witch brownies. When I whipped up these babies, the preparation process entailed directions like "constant stirring" and "cool before adding." Yes, they were quite delicious and rich, though these butter- and white chocolate-packed sweets will be a sometimes treatsies if I hope to reach my goal of avoiding angioplasty before age 30.

sow good

This past weekend was one of historic firsts. Yes, there was the whole Obama thing, but it was also my first visit to the mecca of international culinary wonders and medical supplies that is Rodman's. Among the myriad random and delicious items I procured was hunk of marzipan fashioned into the shape of a pig. The marzipan pig, or marzipig, if you will, posed a bit of a dilemma to me as a vegetarian. But after careful consideration, I was able to separate form from substance and hack into the tasty little squealer. As the great A.C. Slater would say, "Oink oink, baby."

yes-we-can-taloupe

If you had champagne on election night and Change cookies on Inauguration Day, how do you celebrate the second (i.e. the oops, my bad) swearing in of President Obama? With an artfully carved melon from Whole Foods, natch. Produce=progress.

hot steaming bowls of hope

This was the mob-like scene in front of Ben's Chili Bowl on Inauguration eve. Mayhaps the patriotic revelers wanted to step inside a place where Obama had eaten. Or maybe they were just hungover.

cookies we can believe in

On the eve of the eve of Inauguration Day, we did what any patriots would do. We went to the concert on the mall and we celebrated #44 with a commemorative sweetsie (i.e. "Change" cookie). The cookie itself was a bit stale, a marked contrast to expectations for Obama's presidency. Could the cookie be a reflection on the adminstration-to-be? I have the audacity to hope not.

save the sweetsies

I came upon this sign on the sidewalk Saturday morning, i.e. the day after Halloween. It made me ache for the poor children who had to learn a hard lesson that day: even though you hold up your end of the bargain by dressing up foolishly and compromise your integrity by begging for candy door to door, sometimes life will let you down. Sigh. In happier news, Brach's candy corn is half off, though this means that it's the last of the bunch until next year. It's been a great ride.

the old man and the sauce

Today at the grocery store I came upon a product that caused me a great deal of distress: Ernest Hemingway Marinades. (Though technically not a sweetsies, this is a topic too important to ignore.) Initially I was furious: How dare they slap the face of the greatest writer in history on some cheesy, sodium-filled supermarket sauce? And it's not even like the proceeds are going to some camp for sick children. However, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I bet that after a long day of hunting wild boar in Africa, there's nothing that pissed off Hemingway more than lacking the perfect seasoning for his kill (or a fifth of whiskey). Somewhere at a bullfight in heaven, he's smiling.