recipes

Thankgiving Reflection: That Time I Ran An Illegal Baking Service

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Guys, I don’t mean I sold pot. But I did intend to sell my wares to those who were using pot.

It was years ago, and an entrepreneurial friend of mine came up with the idea to start a late-night dessert delivery service and asked me if I wanted to help. I said sure. (Okay, fine, I totally wanted to date him and thought this was my chance. Whatever, get off my back). The idea was to bake desserts at his apartment, then be available to deliver them to Williamsburg-ers from 10pm-3am. (I really don’t need you to tell me how dumb this was, I knew it then. I know it now). Not only is it illegal to sell food made in a non-commercial kitchens, why I thought delivering desserts to strangers at 3am would be a great way to start a successful bakery business with zero knowledge of baking from scratch is beyond me. Maybe I didn’t watch enough “Shark Tank.”

We came up with some recipes – half we Google’d, some I’m pretty sure we winged (oatmeal-flax-chocolate-chia cookies? Again…Williamsburg. I don’t know), and one recipe we definitely stole from someone who said they’d bake for us, then bailed after one night realizing how non-profitable this was. I think we had 6 menu items total. This required us to bake pretty much every-other night (we might have been illegal, but dammit, if we weren’t fresh), then stay up all night holding the burner phone we bought as the business line. My astute business partner also paid $200 for promotional cards that we handed out in the afternoons, trying to drum up business. (I DID have a job during this time, by the way, which makes this whole charade even more ridiculous). I think we called it “Foodie Call” or something equally pun-y and derivative. Again…knocking it out of the park.

I think the business (and I use this term loosely) only ran for a month before we called it quits. We probably only made 10 deliveries the whole time, I didn’t even make more than $20, let alone get a boyfriend out of it. Total waste.

As it happened, Thanksgiving fell right after our shoddy business closed it’s apartment door, but I was ready to show off my “new found baking mastery” to my family. I’m the youngest child, and obviously the slightly-forgetful-doesn’t-really-contribute-much sibling. Well…I was about to show them! We made a plan that the night before Thanksgiving, my sister would make dinner, and I – the baker! – would do dessert. Even though I really hadn’t improved much during my stint as an Underground Dessert Pusher, I thought I was a regular Dominique Ansel (“The Cronut Guy” for you non-bakers), so I decided to make the most convoluted dessert I had sort-of learned to make, but by no stretch of the imagination perfected: a Peanut-Butter-Banana Chocolate cake with Peanut Butter frosting. I sent my parents the list of ingredients I needed, which was an obscene list that included semi-sweet chocolate chips, unsweetened chocolate chunks, and god-knows what else, but my sister told me it cost like $60 to get everything. Whatever, Mom, this cake was going to be SO worth it!!

I spent about an hour and a half in the kitchen whipping up the cake batter, melting the chocolate, prepping the frosting, and making a huge mess. But don’t worry, family-who-looks-terrified, I’m your newly grown up daughter and I’m going to blow your socks off so hard you’re going to offer to send to me culinary school, so it’s going to be SO worth it!

Well, you see, the thing was, I never figured out how to bake banana chunks INTO the cake without them becoming rock hard…but I figured that would magically work itself out. But then there was also the small detail that I could never remember if I was supposed to add baking soda or baking powder. I think I used baking soda. Although I don’t know. Who can remember such things. Again…lessons very much not  learned.

I put the batter in the oven and kept yapping about how good this huge cake was going to be. About 15 minutes in, I go to peek at my cake and see how she was doing. The following happened in slow motion: I turn on the oven light. I look in. The cake is bubbling up like a goddam active volcano. Huge dollops of my precious cake that was supposed to prove years of worthlessness wrong were just plopping onto the bottom of the oven. The cake on the bottom of the oven was beginning to smoke and burn. the cake was still bubbling over. My cake was ruined. I tried to think of how I could save this cake, but then it started to really smell. I walked over to my dad and said: “I think I fucked it up.”

I still don’t remember which was the wrong one, but I THINK the baking soda was wrong. I think that’s what makes it explode. Or I was supposed to use both? I don’t know, I have never tried to bake that fucking cake again because it was totally scarring to have to tell my family – as a 22-year old ADULT – that I messed the cake up and the majority of that $60 worth of ingredients now had to be scraped and burned off the oven floor.

I think what made me the most upset wasn’t that I screwed it up and there would be no dessert/redeeming of myself. It’s that my family didn’t seem at all surprised that the cake literally blew up in my face. Why did I tell you this story as I prep to go home for Thanksgiving again this year? I guess the lesson I learned that year was…if you’ve never been the one to help in the kitchen, don’t start now. Don’t try to impress anyone. Just offer to roll up those Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and call it a day. Holidays aren’t for showing your parents how much you’ve grown. They are for you to revert to your 14-year old self and whine all weekend, then try and sneak out after your parents fall asleep so you can meet your friends, get drunk, and spy on the loser who still works at the local Pick N’ Save.

Gobble, Gobble, underachievers!

That Time I Made Up The Worst Diet Ever, and Other Tips

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Growing up, I was always super skinny. My friends who had already started puberty sprouted hips and in their jealousy of my scrawny size 000 bod asked me if I was anorexic (which is basically the best compliment a girl could ask for. Unless she’s actually anorexic, then you probably don’t want people to notice you only eat Altoids). When I hit high school, I was still under 90 pounds. But since I played ice hockey, that became a disadvantage. Which sucked, because playing hockey was already a disadvantage socially. No one wants to take a girl who can kick your ass to Homecoming. And that’s even assuming there was a boy who didn’t think I was a les. Although, even if I wanted to go, I was away most weekends playing 4 games in 2 days and trying to pack on the pounds like a college wrestler trying to up his weight class. My mom force fed me things like peanut butter, avocados (it has good fat!) and beef stroganoff (yeah probably just regular, bad, fat) to try and bulk me up. I got a personal trainer to pack on muscle. It didn’t work. This also made me feel like one of those poor little Chinese kids who are sent away to mean, Communist trainers to become Olympians, only I couldn’t do the splits. And I don’t think those kids are allowed to eat.

That was until I started my Junior year, then I got the world’s tiniest boobs puberty could give someone, but then all that beef stroganoff started settling into my midsection and all of sudden I wasn’t being asked if I had an eating disorder anymore. I remember visiting NYC that summer with my family, and seeing photos of me and my little spare tire squeezed into my Old Navy t-shirts that were baggy the summer before. Then I saw all those skinny bitches walking around in designer clothes clip-clopping around me. So this is what low-esteem feels like. Shit. I refused to eat that night at dinner (I insisted “I wasn’t hungry.” Classic teenage move. In hindsight, I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t think of a more colorful excuse, like screaming “MEAT IS MURDER!” in the middle of the crowded restaurant…or claiming I wouldn’t eat until gays could marry). But then, obviously, I was ravenous by the time we walked back to our hotel room, so I made my dad buy me a Snickers bar for dinner. Which…was clearly much more nutritious than just ordering a fucking salad.

After accepting the fact that I did not posses the necessary willpower to pull off anorexia – nor did I have a good enough gag reflex to be bulimic – I searched for other get-skinny quick fixes, like all teenage girls do (and if you don’t cop to doing this, you’re either a dirty liar or your metabolism hasn’t slowed down yet, In which case, you can go fuck yourself).

I tried all-fruit, which only worked the day my mom went grocery shopping. By the next day, I’d eaten all the good fruit and I was back on real food. I tried all-liquid, South Beach, the Power Bar diet (which ended up being an “eat a PowerBar then a full meal 15 minutes later” diet).  All failed due to the previously aforementioned lack of willpower. So one day I came up with the “I can’t eat until I poop” diet. This was incredibly ill-conceived for two reasons. One, I went like four times a day. Two, it made no fucking sense to begin with. In case this needs further explanation or you want to steal my nonsense diet tips, it meant I would only eat after I produced a bowel movement. The logic here (and I use the term “logic” loosely) was that I had just made room in my body and expelled fat (I probably needed to take a nutrition class, because you generally do not poop pure fat). Clearly I saw zero results and adopted a weird eating schedule.

Years later and more diets later (I now consider myself a PescaVegan), I can tell you the best diet is having an undiagnosed colon problem. I started losing a ton of weight almost two years ago for no apparent reason. Which was amazing not only because I wasn’t trying, but I also had a 6-pack for the first time since that sad day I hit puberty and looked the best I’ve ever looked. Compliments and tight yoga pants galore! Shopping was so fun. It was like a movie montage where everything looks amazing and you’re asking the sales lady if they have anything smaller than a 0. This was the only time in my life I enjoyed those small, inconsistent European sizes H&M insists on making. These are the sizes that mean if you are a size small anywhere else, you’re an H&M 12 and then you slit your wrists.

After months of slowly dropping weight and finally having skinny thighs, I started feeling really sick. I went to a few different doctors and was eventually diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. And unfortunately, it got under control. And I put 15-lbs back on. I know, I know. Beauty comes from within. Unless you have a flat stomach, then who the fuck cares what’s not working inside (hint: proper nutritional absorption).

Whenever I think about this, I think about that part in “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” when Lisa Kudrow says “mono was the best diet ever.” Which…is true, because she was so skinny and pretty by the time Prom came around.

 

So I guess my advice to you, reader who wants to lose 20-lbs before you go home for holidays and run into hopefully fat people from high school…pray for a gastrointestinal issue and not seek medical attention. Maybe also give up dairy. That will at least cut down on the farting.