Sunday afternoon, we decided to try a semi-new cupcake specialty shop called CoCo’s. Now, keeping in mind that I reside in Pittsburgh (which, for those of you who are unaware, is not exactly a mecca for cupcake couture), I did not hold my hopes so high and loose that they’d soar away through the atmosphere, taking with them a little part of my heart and childlike wonder. Rather, I kept them ground level, tied to a fire hydrant. Because again, this is Pittsburgh. We have tried our illustrious city’s  other OMG-Look-We-Bake-Gourmet-Cups-Of-Cake called Dozen two or three times, and while their selection of frosting is creative and worth the inflation, the cake part is always dry and reminiscent of a school cafeteria dessert tray at 3pm. The last time Henry brought some home, one went missing; I later found it moonlighting as a saliva sucker at a dentist’s office. But their cupcakes are well-portioned. Dry, but bigger than your dominatrix’s fist!

“Maybe CoCo’s will be better,” I hoped, urging Henry not to give up after he made the twenty-eighth wrong turn (Professional Driver, who now?

). When Henry frowned beneath his bristing ‘stache, I added, “The website says that they use FINE INGREDIENTS.” But really, I knew deep down that this here CoCo would have had to swim across to the Amazon and pluck vanilla beans from the one and only Jack’s stalk and then have Jesus Christ bleed out in her sack of cocoa for it to mean much to Henry.

After road raging upon a poor old man from Wisconsin (you’d be a bad driver too if you had a cheese curd trampoline sealing your anus), Henry found a parking spot. I stayed in the car with Chooch, who chanted, “Cupcake. Cupcake. Cupcake. Pee asshole cupcake? Mommy asshole cupcake? What song is this?” over and over. Several minutes later, Henry was plopping a non-descript paper bag in my lap and growled, “There’s $10 worth of cupcakes.”

I peered inside the bag and at first saw nothing. Then, after some efficient maneuvering of tissue paper, I saw them. Four tiny pucks of ganache. I pulled one out. It felt dense and I was angry that the ganache ran over the paper cup. Mama doesn’t like messes. Immediately, my fingers were attacked by melting chocolate and I began sweating.

Chooch and I took a bite simultaneously. Now, Chooch’s barely three-years-old palate is about as refined as that of an ass-licking dog; he eats food off the floor.  So when he breathed, “Oh, it’s so good!” and, in tandem, I said, “Um, ew,” Henry took my word over Chooch’s. And then Chooch promptly started choking because these sons of bitches were drier than a nun’s snatch. You know how sometimes you’re eating corn bread, maybe it’s a day old, maybe you got it out of the dumpster behind that Mexican restaurant, because look, the economy is affecting us all, OK??? And now say you’re eating this cornbread like it’s fucking Manna from heaven and you just survived the motherfucking Apocalypse. You are eating the FUCK out of this shitty, rock-hard, stale as shit corn bread and then, uh-oh, you’re choking like the first time you drank up that trannie’s bitter sex jam.

Then now you know what it’s like to eat a CoCo’s cupcake. And believe me, you would be begging for a Dixie cup of that sex jam to wash it down.

NOW! To be fair, because I always like  to be fair, perhaps they were getting ready to close and Henry bought the last four cupcakes that would generally be used as pigeon chow, hobo deterrent, mother-in-law killing devices. Maybe they were too caught up in their collective “Holy Shit, Superbowl!!” fingerbanging session that they left the cupcakes in the oven too long.

I do not know. But I can tell you that there was no difference in my very scientific moisture-reading in the vanilla as opposed to the chocolate.

The ganache? It was decent. The little fondant shape thingie that was plopped atop each crown like a Crayola-happy turd? Probably that was meant to be a sweet touch.

It made me think of Play-Doh.

Here is Henry’s review:

“What the hell? It’s like, sucking all the saliva out of my mouth. Oh fuck, is Chooch choking? Oh shit, I’M choking! This chocolate one tastes like the other ones — yucky.” [I just included that because I don’t thnk Henry has ever said “yucky” before.] “Wait, I know what these taste like. Stale Tasty Cakes! These are nothing more than overpriced, out of date Tasty Cakes.” But without all the fluffy white, processed guts. You know, the best part.

And from there, he was on a warpath, a warpath lined with delicate cups of cake and dollops of fluffy frosting made by angel kisses and vintage porn. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe this place is succeeding. You know what? I’m going to bake my own cupcakes and I’ll only charge $2.00 for them. $2.50 for these dry-ass cupcakes…” and he mumbled like that the whole way home, in that strange recipe-speak that I never did quite understand but I imagine it’s how Alton Brown and Bobby Flay talk during poker games.

I want him to call his cupcake shack Hank’s Dirty ManCakes. We’ll make it look like a miniature truck stop, and each cupcake will have bushy moustaches and be named after ’70s porn stars. And then on Sundays he will serve soup as well, so I can finally have my fucking souperie.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue my search for the best cupcake in the universe. If I was iCarly, I would give a shout out on my webcast and all my little teenage viewers would fucking trip over themselves to send me boxes of their local favorites. And then perhaps someone would even send me a smorgasbord of those famous Sprinkles cupcakes, at which point I will understand how Katie Holmes finds the will to stay married to Tom Cruise.  But I am not a Nickelodeon teen sensation, so I must seek other means. Such as, bundling Janna in a parka and sending her off through the tundra to bring me samples herself. I will even give her a little water bottle.

Oh boy, what should I review next.

For my friend Jessa, who appreciates Craig Owens as much as me!

In other lame areas of my life, I had the first game night of 2009 on Sunday but have been too lazy to write about it. Blogging is becoming a chore again. All I want to do is listen to music, write stories and skin missionaries. Drink some wine after that’s all done. You know, the usual.

I think my goal for 2009 is to make crepes filled with rich delicacies of the world. Then I will open a creperie and I will dress the windows with crepe draperies. I’ll have a specialty crepe called The Janna, which will have boot straps strategically folded in.  Another goal for 2009 is to learn how to make crepes in the first place.

Also for 2009, I would like to stop typing without my contacts in.

My friend Francesco had everyone ask him questions about 2008, and I’m going to ask everyone the one I asked him because I like it when you people tell me shit:

You have one day from 2008 to relive, maybe it’s because you want the chance to do it differently, or because it was just so good that you want to live it all over again. What day would you choose and why?

And I will tell you my answer, because you know I’m just screaming on the inside to talk about more about myself, tralala:

2008 wasn’t too horrible for me so I wouldn’t want to really change any of it. Even the parts that found me crying and puking out my guts in a cemetery? Those parts went on to become better days. So I would want to relive my favorite day of 2008 and there are two that are impossible for me to choose between so I guess if suddenly it were possible to make this question a reality and go back in time, I’d have to flip a fucking coin and then also I would want to go and have sex with Moses and see if that would make it in the Bible. And then after that, I would go thieve some bitches in Constantinople so next time I had to flip a fucking coin, I’d least have something cooler than a goddamn quarter.

Anyway, I’d pick either Warped Tour in July (obv.) or the Westmoreland County Fair in August which I can’t explain, but that was a fun fucking evening. For me, anyway. Henry notsomuch. Last summer was just really rad.

OK YOUR TURN DO IT NOW GO.

I had been looking forward to this dinner for a few weeks; I hoped Janna wouldn’t ruin it. Because I’m a good cattle herder, Kara, Janna and I arrived promptly at the Bigelow Grille at 8:40pm where we were then told by the stiff-lipped host that the 6:00 seating hadn’t ended and we’d have to busy ourselves some other way for the next twenty minutes. I wanted to get naked and set things on fire, but that was vetoed. So instead, we went outside where I was lectured ad nauseum about smoking by Kara and then we all complained about our shoes and wondered if the cute girl duo standing nearby were on a date. After that grew tiring, we sat in large chairs in the lobby with a wide table separating Janna and me from Kara. It was nice to have some distance for awhile. Then of course Janna had to pee.

Finally, it was 9 so we took another stab at being seated but were shooed away again like flea-infested pound puppies.

Other people began arriving for the 9:00pm seating, so a few of us congregated in a small foyer outside of the Grille. I stood too close to the outside door, triggering the sensor to repeatedly engage the opening mechanism. Every 60 seconds there would be a loud whoosh followed by a blast of air. I maintained my stance until someone from another group politely wondered out loud, “Wow, I wonder if someone is standing too close to the door. That’s awfully annoying.”

Behind Janna, there was a small-framed man with a loose blazer hanging over his bones like a death shroud. His hair was forked in thick clumps; he had a sharp, thin nose and a lipless mouth jammed with serrated teeth. I was intrigued by this man and his close-set eyes and the way his eyebrows disappeared into the creases of his forehead when he dryly said to his companion that the hallway we stood in “smells just like the hotel in Tokyo!” I wanted to have his picture in the worst way.

By 9:15, the other diners had cleared out so we pushed our way into the restaurant. That asshole host was doing a fine job ignoring us as he went down his stupid reservation list and called names of people who weren’t even there, instead of saying, “Hi, and your name is—?” A woman next to us asked him just that and he tersely answered that there were people seated at the bar as well, but then the logicality of her suggestion must have found a small brain cell to seep into, because he acquiesced and asked me for my name. He waved his pencil up and down the list until he spotted me.

“Oh yes, I already called you and you weren’t here. Follow me.”

I did not appreciate the snideness of his tone. We weren’t there because he kept telling us to leave! We were right on the other side of the door; he could see us from his stupid hosting station! I hated him. Imagine how thrilled I was when I found out he was doing double duty as a server, too.

That asshole. The host/server, not Janna. Oh alright, Janna too.

In other words, if Beer ran for president and won, I’d move to Canada.

Scott from the East End Brewing Company came out from the kitchen and welcomed everyone for coming, and recited a bunch of Really Important Things that I could not hear because the cacophony from the bar was blowing out the drum of my left ear; Kara and Janna appeared enrapt though which made me wonder if it was really important at all. The waitstaff burst through the kitchen doors again, and slid little plates piled with cheese castles under our noses. Scott said that the chef, Kevin Sousa, would be out momentarily to give us an explanation of the Amuse bouche and the first course.

“That means don’t eat it yet,” I hissed at Janna, who rolled her eyes and visibly bristled. Wouldn’t it be fun if Janna had feathers? I’d ruffle them all the time.

There was a man my family and I met in Europe when I was eleven. His name was John and he taught me one of the most important life lessons that I know of even to this day, the tenor of which your God, church, college, or the blind sage that lives behind the dumpster in the park could never comprehend matching. This nugget of knowledge has pulled me from the claws of destruction and devastation more times that I’m comfortable admitting.

I might have never eaten Spaghetti O’s again had I not known that secret.

Using my advanced math and reasoning skills, I can brilliantly deduce that if a dish is centered around cheese, I know I’ll enjoy it. And I did. I wished it was larger, though. I hoped Janna wouldn’t eat all of hers so I could swipe it like an orphan with a porridge-allergy, but that was wishful thinking.

An interesting thing to note is that the Kvass Bread Beer was the only beer I was able to completely down. Probably because I like bread. However, it took me all the way into the second course to do so, after collecting two other glasses of beer. I was pleased to be the only diner with an ale armada.

Kara and Janna knocked back their beers like the booze floozies they are. I hoped they wouldn’t detract from the sophisticated and, how you say, refined example I was trying hard to set, by sitting upright and spreading a napkin out on my thighs, which were not slung open like those of a benched baseball player, I swear. Maybe once or twice, but I caught myself.

One
Lobster Roll : lobster mushroom, corn, tomatoes, citrus coriander bloom, huitalacoche-tofu mayo, avocado
Smoked Porter

Kara had been freaking out over this course for awhile, ever since a friend of hers outed the lobster mushrooms. [Note from Kara: “I just want to add that it wasnt the lobster mushroom that kept me from eating that roll, it was the fact that huitalacoche is DISEASE INFESTED CORN. “] I wasn’t deterred by the fact that it was really a parasitic mold, and I’ll tell you why: it tasted delicious. [Note from me: AND SO WAS THE INFESTED CORN.]

Janna and Kara didn’t finish theirs. Janna claims she felt intimidated by so many non-regional ingredients piled onto the roll, but I think she was just trying to score points with Kara by proving her solidarity in parasitic mold-hate.

Their palates are pathetic.

The smoked porter was disgusting. I thought I heard a man at a nearby table liken it to the taste of a burning house, and he was not wrong. Janna guzzled hers right down, though, and then she and Kara started talking about gluten which was outrageously dull.

Two
Cucumber Gazpacho : cucumber sorbet, pickled lemon zest
East End Witte

When Chef Sousa mentioned that the cucumber gazpacho would include ‘jicama,’ Janna belted out a very serious, “Ooh.” I jerked back a little and wondered if Janna had some secret life of which I was unaware. “What, do you really like jicama or something?” I asked suspiciously. “I don’t know,” she answered. “It just sounds nice.” It’s a potato, asshole.

While the soup was served in an interesting asymmetrical bowl that would probably inspire a boner from the interior decorator from Beetlejuice, I did not likey. Probably because I don’t like regular gazpacho either. The only time soup should be cold is when it’s made from ice cream. Pretty though, isn’t it?

The chef’s right hand man, Jimmy, walked by right as I announced to being a failure for not liking beer and convinced me to eat that there yellow flower which was a cucumber blossom and not half-bad.

I was initially excited to try the beverage because I mistakenly read it as “East End Wine,” but no, it was beer.

Vegetarian Sushi : cantaloupe roe, porcini sashimi, tempeh “tamago”
wasabi fondue, vanilla soy, crispy pickled ginger
Fat Gary Nut Brown Ale

Something amazing happened during this course. Continuing my role as a trouper, I took a delicate sip of the Fat Gary Nut Brown Ale. I wanted to at least try every beer. I was paying for it, after all. My lips followed their instincts and immediately puckered. My taste buds, however, were like, “Yo, hold the phone. This shit’s kind of not so bad.” I took another tentative swig and deduced that this was no fluke — Fat Gary and his nuts were definitely agreeing with me. I excitedly announced to my dining partners that I was in love with this beer. “I’ll meet you at the altar,” I thought as I took another sip.

Unfortunately, after sip 4.5(b), he proved himself to be just as bitter and deceitful and displeasing as all those other assholes, so we broke up.

The course, though, was delightful. Janna didn’t know what wasabi was so I laughed at her small-town farm girl ignorance and considered chucking some standard food fare at her, something she would recognize. What could I throw at her that she’d recognize…? Oh, I know: an apple.

The cantaloupe roe was the most amazing thing and of course I couldn’t hear how Chef Sousa made it, thanks to all the white noise radiating from the bar. Kara tried unsuccessfully to explain it to me. Something about cantaloupe and compression and then dwarves waved voodoo wands over it and they magically shrunk to look like the spitting image of roe.

Somewhere near the end of the course, I wound up with Janna’s tempeh. The more the merrier has always been my belly’s motto.

All pickled ginger should be served up crispy. When I buy out Food Network, this will be so.

Oh hello, new favorite course! If this was a person, I’d have killed it and stuffed it and put it on pedestal in my bedroom, where I could shower it with love (hey, sexual innuendo!) every day.

Even Kara said, “If you can get Henry to learn how to make this for the next game night, I’ll suck his balls inside out.” (Stop blushing, Henry. No one would ever like you that much.) I was a little tweaked that Janna and Kara had three full globs of creme fraiche panna cotta on their plate, while my third one was MELTED. Rip off.

This was the worst beer. Even Janna flinched a little, and it inspired a hearty “Whoa, buddy!” from Kara, who promptly fondled her freshly-sprouted chest hair. Before the waiters came to relieve me of my growing beer collection, I mistakenly took a giant quaff of the barley beer, thinking I had grabbed my water. Janna said I made the funniest face she’s ever seen, so we’ll take her word for it because:

a) People are typically unable to see their own faces without the aid of a reflective surface

and

b) Janna has to see her own funny face every day, so assuming this is her basis of comparison, it must have been pretty hysterical.

Then I just sat there, not knowing what to do with it. I was absolutely dreading having to swallow that vile wetness coagualting with my saliva—it might as well have been Satan’s own post-asparagus-banquet-urine and seminal fluid cocktail, with a nice sprig of Athlete foot as a garnish.

I swallowed; I’m a whore.

Intermezzo
Fresh hop instant slushy, dried hop vapor
Pedal Pale Ale
(i.e. the part where all the palate cleansing goes down. I hoped they had a horse scrubber for Janna’s tongue.)

The wait staff slowly circled around the dining room, pausing to perspire dried hop vapor out of big plastic pillows and into our faces. I thought I would hate it — you know, because of the beer thing and all — but it was really delightfully refreshing. They dragged it on for a long time though and with nothing to stuff into my mouth, I was growing bored. Where’s a ball gag when you need one?

I didn’t get any salvageable photos of this because the batteries in my camera died so I had to rely on my shitty Razr. I still haven’t really gotten over it.

Kara was starting to act weird from all the vapor, like she was on stage with a televangelist and being cured of herpes. When she started talking about wanting to invent hop perfume, I tuned her out. But she became my friend again moments later when I was frantic to learn about the second part of the Intermezzo as the waiters began placing beakers of orange juice on our tables, and she was the only one paying attention when Chef Sousa explained it.

According to my notes: paint gun —-> tea made of hops ——> liquid nitrogen.

So there, now you can try to figure it out.

The beakers contained orange juice, honey and cardamom which was to be poured over top of a frozen scoop of the paint-gunned hop tea, the creation of which still plagues my mind.

Another person who missed the explanation was Janna, who was en route to her fifty-third potty field trip. While she was gone one of those times, Kara and I were having an intense discourse about the kinds of girls we would go for if we were gay (I use “if” loosely). So when Janna came back, I posed the question for her, then sat back and watched as the temperature rose in her face. She of course assumed I was being an asshole for asking her and put up a defensive wall. I had to remind her that I was being Sophisticated Dinner Erin (read: nice) but she still wouldn’t answer.

Anyway, the tea was served in a glass which spilled forth fog and vapors. We then poured the orange juice over top and mashed it all around, turning it into the most delicious slushie ever and if 7-11 won’t add this to their refreshment repertoire, then look for my very own chain of convenience stores coming soon. I mean seriously, what a refreshing ade on a hot summer’s day when you’re on your way to work or picking up the kids from school or going in for liver surgery.

But don’t take my word for it! Here’s what other people were saying:

“Those assholes at that other table think this is grapefruit juice.” — Kara V.
“This is good. This is cool.” — Janna H.

In fact, Janna’s tone was so dramatically reassuring that it made me feel like she was my mom whom I just walked in on with a transsexual’s wang in her mouth and a cotton candy-wrapped broom stick in her ass. “What? This is good. This is cool. This is natural!”

Who knew that hops shit could be turned into such a delicious confection.

This was also around the time that we learned the contents of the cooler which sat on the floor next to a table of seven obnoxious businessmen. We hoped it was a head, but really it was home made beer that they wanted to ply the East End beer guy with.

Six
Watermelon Salad : melon with pickled rind, French breakfast radish, noble sour, mint, feta, pine nuts, watermelon bubbles
Russian Sourdough

Coming off of my hop-high, I hoped I would enjoy this here Russian Sourdough, because I like sourdough bread and while I’ve never actually had a Russian, I hear good things about them all the time. I took one sip and never really tried again after that. The whole process was getting kind of old. If it makes my lips draw back like an old lady without dentures, then I probably shouldn’t drink it.

The salad was great, though! I don’t know what was up with that watermelon foam, but it was fun to play with and didn’t taste half bad, either. I’ve always been one to hold internal parades for the pine nut/feta combo, but now that I’ve had it atop a juicy wedge of watermelon, a ticker tape trifecta was born. In fact, I think this weekend I’m going to see about making a watermelon sandwich on SOURDOUGH with some pine nuts and feta and whatever that shit-streak is in the picture, because in spite of it’s fecal appearance, it was really quite delicate on my tongue.

Kara ate a radish and exclaimed, “Oh wow, that is one hot radish!” Wanting to form my own opinion, I tasted one for myself and Jesus Christ is she a fucking liar. There were no palate pyrotechnics a-happenin’ in my mouth.
 

Seven
Mahleb unbaked Brulee: chicory ice cream, almond black berry streusel
Blackstrap Stout

The waiters swooped in and dropped dessert spoons in front of everyone. Everyone but me. I was crippled for several seconds after this appalling exclusion, my spoonless fingers stiffened and curled back like talons. Kara diffused any impending tantrum-bombs by hailing down a rushing waitress and asking her to please bring me a spoon. The waitress smiled politely and when she returned (and I’m not kidding about this), she laid down the new spoon in front of me with a sweeping flourish, stood back upright and smiled cartoonishly. Essentially, she was mocking me for being the big fucking baby that I am, and it made me laugh that a complete stranger was acknowledging this. When she left, I whined, “Hey! It’s not the same kind as yours!” after I noticed that the spoon she gave me was a plain dinner spoon and not the fat, rounded kind which were made to be jammed into my ever-flapping mouth. Kara rolled her eyes and traded with me. She mumbled something about me and my sped spoon, to which I responded, “What’s that? I can’t quite hear you over top of this resplendent bonne bouche before me.”

Jimmy, Chef Sousa’s right hand man/Kara’s fantasy bedmate, came out and explained the origin of the ingredients and based on the oohs and aahs of everyone, I figured it must have pretty otherworldly. Of course, I only vaguely heard something about goats eating cherries and “dropping the pits” for the villagers to collect? And all of our desserts were supposed to be decked with a rare wild strawberry.

Two complaints re: rare strawberry :
1. Mine was yellowish green and not a pretty pink hue like Kara’s and Janna’s and, oh, everyone else’s.
2. Kara and Janna had two strawberries. I had ONE.

Bigelow Grille will be getting a hand-penned letter from one angry, neglected diner.

When I found out that the beer was made from brown sugar and molasses, I asked, “Ooh, do you think even I’ll like it?” Kara unconvincingly said, “You might,” and then exchanged doubtful smirks with Janna. (No, I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it. And apparently either did they, but their excuse was that they “just don’t like stout in general.” Oh OK.)

The chicory ice cream, though? Oh my god, I will only ever be coating my gullet with chicory ice cream. And to think all these years, I was settling for coffee flavored ice cream? Was I insane?! Even the streusal was better than most meals I’ve eaten in my twenty-eight years and I fought with the spoon to collect every last morsel. Every so often, I would have to protectively hug my plate with an arm, after noticing Janna and her furtively darting eyes. She had big plans, I’m sure, but she wasn’t getting any of my brulee. Eat your own, Two-Strawberry Bitch!

We all decided that we wanted to come back in an hour for another serving.

After everything was over and we all gave Chef Sousa a round of applause (and I really meant it, too! Plus, he was pretty hot), we let our bellies lead us down to the parking garage where I’m pretty sure I caught Janna pitching her belt into a urine-soaked corner.

The night before Thanksgiving, Henry stayed up until 2:00am, rifling through his grandma’s recipes like a normal man rifles through porn. I don’t know what he was looking for, considering that I procured an entire feast worth of gourmet recipes from this little thing I just heard about recently called the Internet. Of course Henry found something wrong with every selection: Too-expensive-ingredients (“That will cost more than the turkey!”). Lack of industrial kitchen. Not enough education completed to comprehend recipe wording.

In the end, he settled on:

• Smashed rutabaga with gingered pears
• Turnips gratin (hello new edible husband)
• Scalloped corn
• Meatless stuffing
• Mustard mashed potatoes (“OMG Tyler from the Food Network made them!”)
• Sweet potato pie

Oh, and that over-hyped turkey bullshit that everyone is always buzzing about.

My contribution to the day was taking Chooch to my dad’s house so that Henry could cook in the highest, most divine level of tranquility. Now, I only see my dad on holidays. Shame on me, sure, I know. But it’s awkward because our relationship was once more strained than the ab muscles of a man attempting to suck his own dick. Technically my step-dad, he legally adopted me when I was in the fourth grade. We engaged in non-stop battles of wits and psychological warfare for the entire duration of my teenaged years. Then he and my mom divorced and ironically, we now get along famously; and in an incredible twist, he was the only family member who talked to me while I was pregnant.

Corey, who was staying there while home from college, failed to tell him that Chooch and I were coming over, so my dad was genuinely shocked when he saw us on his doorstep. It was probably 75% of an act, but he seemed happy to see us and proceeded to dole out peanuts, JuJu Bees and cans of pop. He even gave me some Bagelfuls to take home, complete with single-serving packets of cream cheese. A trip to his house is always like a mini-grocery trip.

While he cooked, I made sure Chooch didn’t fall down the basement steps, eat paint chips, or break any of my dad’s classic car memorabilia, while Corey acted disinterested in our presence and my other brother Ryan napped on the couch. I got roped into sitting down for dinner with them, wherein my dad immediately picked a fight with Ryan, who evidently didn’t load his plate with enough food. “I told you not to eat all day!” my dad steamed, to which Ryan grunted, “Jesus Christ, Dad, I only ate some cashews!” My dad countered with a surly, “I saw the cheese you opened up in the fridge!” at which point Ryan hunkered down lower over his plate which seemed plenty decorated to me.

In an effort to break the ice, I chirped, “These mashed potatoes are really good, daddy!” He muttered that they were too runny, but really, anything tastes delicious when the butter ratio is 50/50.

Corey and Ryan didn’t speak at all throughout the painful meal, and I’m sure they were just thrilled at how kind our dad was being to me. He even noticed my hair and enthused about its aesthetic merits for just a note longer than natural.

I love my dad, but I was glad that I had a legitimate reason to shirk my way out the front door. Tension, it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Dinner at my house was supposed to be at 7, so that those who had other dinners to attend (Janna, Corey and Blake) would be newly starved by the time they came over for seconds. However, Henry’s tardy ass didn’t serve shit up until EIGHT O’CLOCK and everyone was bored, angry, hungry. Look at those mugs on Janna and Corey. You’d think they were watching a slide presentation of Henry’s mom dusting her ceramic kitten collection, that’s how glazed with ennui they are.

Sensing that a revolt was on the rise, Henry served up deviled eggs for us to stuff our mouths with while he frantically finished cooking.

For some reason, Henry was really impressed with himself. He kept boasting that the eggs were deviled with STONE GROUND MUSTARD. I’m not even sure what that means. They tasted regular to me, like he could have squirted in a quick fart of French’s for all I know. Something weird clearly went on in my house while Chooch and I were at my dad’s, because no one gets THAT excited over deviled eggs.

Finally, the moment for feasting was upon us, and we all loaded our fancy paper plates with mounds of seasonal slop. Blake pretty much questioned everything aside from the turkey, which was easily recognizable (good job, Henry). I explained to him that I wanted to eschew the expected and serve new twists on tradition. “You mean, you wanted my dad to make things that even YOU can eat,” Blake corrected. And oh how we laughed. (As I silently wished for Blake to choke on a turkey bone.) (Just kidding, Blake.) (No really.)

As I tore into my plate, I realized Corey didn’t have a fork. “It’s OK,” he promised. “I don’t mind waiting. I’ll just have a roll.” He paused, considering that statement, before holding up his broken hand and adding with the slight hint of chagrin, “Though, even THAT is a challenge.” He should have been giving less lip and more thanks for the fact that he has a hand AT ALL.

Later, he momentarily lost his appetite when he mistook the really expensive paper napkins to say “Joyous Fetus” instead of the much less interesting “Joyous Fetes.” We all laughed, but I don’t think Henry understood what was going on because he probably doesn’t even know what “fetes” means.

We’re so classy that we used our best plastic serving bowls. Not even TUPPERWEAR. Just generic, microwave-ravaged plastic. And there’s the gravy that burnt Henry’s hand and thank God it did because I really enjoyed hearing him cry about it all night long. I thought his mom was going to rush him to the Veteran’s hospital. I could almost see Henry’s mind churning: “Remember what they taught you in the SERVICE, big guy. You will pull through this! YOU WERE IN THE AIR FORCE, GODDAMMIT.”

And then Henry’s mom called Janna a myriad of other J-names (Janet, Janice, Joanne) but never Janna, and swore she hated sweet potato pie before admitting that she had never had it. Now she’s had it and likes it, though I maintain that Henry’s version (apparently it was EMERIL’S RECIPE, what a fucking carving knife to my heart) tasted unlike any sweet potato pie I’ve ever had. Ever. Like, no semblance at all.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good for our first time hosting a holiday in my ridiculously small dining room. I know I had fun, and Blake and Henry’s mom seemed content. Janna basically looked like she had just finished watching a double feature of “Benji” and “Old Yeller,” and Corey just looked bored as usual. The shit Henry made was good, and even the gravy was vegetarian. I learned later that my mother translated Corey’s spot at my table into meaning that — oh my god — he’s on MY SIDE. And this is exactly why I was happy to do my own thing this Thanksgiving.

Last night, I yelled, “I can’t wait to have Christmas here too!” but Henry remained curiously silent.

EDIT: I WILL NEVER COPY AND PASTE AN ENTRY FROM WORD EVER AGAIN. FUCK.

I’m looking for awesome salads. I’ve been eating salads for lunch every single dingdong day since like, mother fucking piece of shit April, and I’m burnt out. BURNT THE FUCK OUT. I’m tired of alfalfa sprouts and garbanzo beans. The flax seed stays, though.

I need options. Something exotic, erotic and mind-bending. Something without meat products.

Tell me how you make your salads. Give me secret family recipes. Anything that involves vodka and porn is a plus.

Otherwise, I’ll fall back on cheese sandwiches and get all bloated.

Things I do not like in my salads:

• beets
• radishes
• onions (sometimes those purple fuckers are ok)
• tomatoes (unless they’re cut up all tiny)
• carrots, unless they’re as shredded as the jeans on the collective ass of 1980s heavy metal
• dressings that do not include oil and vinegar
• broccoli
• urine

I really like ingredients that are not only hard for Henry to procure, but also hard on his wallet. And then I’ll write up some reviews maybe and possibly become a salad expert and get to do some whoring on Food Network.

Christina is making me a grilled cheese made of bleu cheese and orange blossom honey because I found a recipe and told her I wanted it.

The Xiu Xiu show was like a religious experience, if the religion was Paganism goes to the Circus. I loved it.

Earlier I was wishing that there was a grilled cheese store across from my house instead of the stupid church that currently pollutes the lot, and it made me think about all the wonderfully caloric combinations there must be of such two simple ingredients: cheese and bread.

I have two favorite versions of the old school classic.

1. The Adult Grilled Cheese: No, it’s not filled with Astroglide and money shots, but I call it the adult grilled cheese because it’s a sophisticated take on the traditional kind, maybe not one for crude pallets.

Pumpernickle bread, havarti, and an artichoke heart.

It’s like, really good and shit.

2. The Jellied Cheese: People think I’m disgusting, but I’m telling you, this is REALLY FUCKING GOOD.

American cheese (or cheddar, swiss, cheese curd, whatever), bread and JELLY. I like raspberry jelly with American cheese, to be honest. It’s delicious.

What’s your special version? I need to broaden my horizons.

(In other kitchen news, I think today was the first time I made oatmeal the way it was intended.)

Internet,

What’s your preferred method of stripping the shell from a hard boiled egg? Because I just lost thirty minutes of my very important life, hunched over the garbage can with two dyed Easter eggs squealing under my grip.

By the time I finished, half of each egg came off with the shell, I have cuts under my nails, and my kitchen looks like a crime scene.

Also, there were tiny specks of shell hiding in my egg salad.

RUINED.

Last week, I bought a box of some deliciously exotic-sounding coconut pudding/custard bullshit in the foreign food aisle at Giant Eagle. It’s called tembleque, I think.  I spent the better part of a week asking Henry, "Did you make it yet? That coconut bullshit, did you make it? Are you gonna? When?"

This morning, he was out doing some electrical work for his BFF Randy (read: he was hoping to lose his asshole innocence but Randy is a homophobe for real). When the Henry is away, the Erin will play…with things she knows nothing about.

The directions seemed simple: they were divided into two steps. Simple. It doesn’t take long to get to two, I thought.

A few minutes ago, I withdrew the bright pink cereal bowl I chose for the mold. The contents were runny and sloshed around the edges with little movement from me.

"It didn’t WORK," I cried from the kitchen.

"Maybe the bowl is too big?" Henry attempted to hypothesize. "Maybe pour into several smaller —" but I was already leaving the kitchen, hands thrown overhead.

Moments later, as I was sitting in the living room reading a book, he asked, "How long did you let this boil?" I didn’t like how he was standing at the foot of my chaise, mouth all contorted into a familiar expression — the one right before he unleashes the smug sneer of triumph that I know all too well.

I shrugged. "I don’t know…I didn’t know I had to boil it. I had it in the sauce pan but I just mixed it and then poured."

Henry shook his head. "What is with you and directions? You throw them aside and just do. Did you even read the box? I know you know how to read."

"So it’s ruined?" To be honest, I had kind of been over it since an hour after I stowed it in the fridge, because it was taking so long to set. I didn’t consider the possibility that it was my fault; I imagined it was just a very high maintenance dessert packaged in a modest box. Like myself.

"You could probably freeze it," Henry suggested, but I was already thinking about the box of flan that I bought at the same time as the coconut fuck-up.

It’s still in the kitchen, stewing all non-perishably in its package, daring  me.

There are few things my child could do to make me want to disown him. I was willing to turn the other cheek when he flung a forkful of noodles ala ketchup at me in protest. That’s one of my favorite meals, my signature dish. Nothing beats a bowlful of al dente egg noodles drenched in a sauce of congealed and lukewarm ketchup.

It took some time, I won’t lie, but I healed. I moved on. I continue to enjoy ketchup’d noodles alone.

I didn’t think he would find a way to hurt  me more than he did that day. Until this morning. I slaved over slathering the perfect marriage of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff onto two slices of bread. I painstakingly cut the sandwich into tiny, bite-sized cubes, perfect for popping while enjoying an A.M. viewing of "Blue’s Clues."

I set the plate down in front of him. He grunted. I pushed it closer and he gave it some consideration. Then he grunted again and pushed the plate back at me. I tried to sneak a tiny morsel past his lips, in between chews of Goldfish. He crinkled his nose and his lips transformed into an iron barrier against unwanted edibles.

My asshole son doesn’t like Fluffernutters. I’ve been stabbed in the heart. Stabbed with a forkful of Fluffernutter hateration. How could he betray me like this? I’m running out of meal options for him, things that I’m capable of preparing and/or assembling, and if he keeps turning his nose up at my creations he’s going to be subsisting on crackers and Pringles every day until Henry comes home.

Maybe I can eventually get over this latest rejection. But if he doesn’t learn how to dance like the Jabbawockeez, I’m returning him to the hospital. Maybe I can exchange him for Lasik or get a voucher for an organ transplant. Or maybe they can just give me an organ if I’m in no immediate need of transplantation, to fashionably display outside of my body. "What? Is it my kidney brooch you’re admiring?"

Henry made me the perfect dinner. I’d like to think he’s attempting to make up for not delivering my forgotten sandwich to me last night, but I think it’s likely just a fluke that what he whipped up turned out so wonderful. It’s basically crumbled tofu decorated with roasted red peppers and mushrooms, followed by a finishing flourish of unknown spices and a bath of Heaven’s nectar. Oh, and cheese! How can a meal be called complete without a hearty coating of cheese? It looks like slop, but it tastes amazing. I’m a sucker for tofu. And cheese. And cheesy tofu.

I choked on a mushroom, but went right back to eating without crying about it. That’s how good it is.

Henry’s going to make someone a good wife one day.

EDIT: Never mind. My molars just clamped down on something sandy, possibly metal shavings, like miniscule fragments of glass cracking under the weight of my jaw. I hate incidental crunch in my food. Mood-killer.

I did a really Big Girl thing today — I made my own dinner to take to work. It was a delightful entree consisting of two slices of fifty billion grain bread (jetted here directly from France; the cellophane bag promises that it’s straight from a hearty hearth and I believe it), one hearty slab of savory mozzarella, and a couple shreds (the slice kept ripping when I tried to peel it out of the deli bag) of the most ambrosial American cheese your tongue ever did molest. Picture all of this off-set by the tangiest helping of dijon-flavored soy-mayo ever to sink into those tiny pockets in bread.

It was then plated with lots of love and care in fine tupperware with a bright yellow banana to add some flair to the presentation.

When I finished, I took off my toppling chef’s hat and stood back to admire my work. I bet Bobby Flay does that too.

But halfway here I realized I left it on the dining room table. I keep texting and email Henry, begging him to bring it out to me, but he won’t reply. I was nice at first, but then I started in all caps (I WANT MY SANDWICH!) and now I’m threatening to hold the damn Girl Scout cookies I bought from one of the dayshit employees (FOR HENRY) hostage.

Collin, more Pro-Henry than ever, doesn’t seem to think Henry should risk his life driving my lost sandwich to me. Why, because it’s snowing a little?  "It’s just a sandwich," he chided. But it’s MY sandwich. I nearly gave myself callouses in its preparation. I might die if I don’t get to savor the amazing craftmanship that went into building that true artisan sandwich. I’m so upset that I’m chewing on my hair.

Why do I feel like Chooch is probably eating it right now?

Messy food. I hate it. I could never even fully embrace sloppy joes when I was growing up, and isn’t that like, the dream meal of youth? Any meal that requires a napkin the size of a tarp spells out tedium to me. Maybe if it were cubed into bite-sized morsels and someone wearing a tophat and tails spoonfed it to me, I’d have applauded happily like the children in the Mamwich commercials. Then we could call them lazy joes.

I hate the sensation of cookie dough between my fingers.

“Now’s the fun part, kids! Get your hands in there! Make a mess!” No thanks, please pass the latex gloves. I think maybe this is why I never got into pottery.

Tonight at work, we ordered out.

I put a lot of thought into it, as I generally do with everything in life, before settling on a half of an eggplant parmesan hoagie. In past experiences, these hoagies have not been kind to me. You have your rebellious slivers of egglant, slipping off the sandwich and landing in your lap with a greasy plop. You have your strings of melted cheese, pliant and elastic, snapping in half and busting you in the cheek like a broken rubber band. You have globs of marinara that wants desperately to be your new lipstick. You have pieces of bread, paste-like once it mingles with the saliva, becoming caps for your front teeth.

This time, I was prepared. My desk was equipped with a stockpile of napkins; I halved the hoagie; I took slow, small, and careful bites. With luck, I can finish my second half without appearing as though I just ate out a streetwalker with a can of tomato paste plugging her vagina.

Good morning. I made a creamy pear pie last night all by myself. (Except that Henry cut the pears because I’m not allowed to use knives.) Then Henry skulked around behind me like a member of the Kitchen Secret Service, making sure I didn’t set off any culinary equivalents of the a-bomb.

And it came out good! I’m a baker! I’ll be baking more pies today. Maybe not today, but soon. I’m making my own crust for the next one.

"So, basically, I can put anything I want in the middle of a pie?" I asked Henry.

Flipping through the circulars, he mumbled, "Yeah, pretty much. Wait, why?"

"Because now I’m thinking."

"That’s scary," he monotoned.

I can’t stop thinking about oranges and currants. And maple syrup.

When faced with the daunting decision of after dinner pie-choosing, I would always be swayed by the sweet familiarity of the apple persuasion (although I could be bribed by any coconut or banana creams on the menu). My eyes would dance right over the cherry pie, with its deep red filling making it look like the harlot at the desserterie.

I will admit that the few times I’ve had it, the glaze of the cherries serviced my tongue in more ways than any lover has ever accomplished, but it was always the tartness of the cherries themselves that sent me back into apple’s arms.

My aunt Sharon offered three pies for consumption on Thanksgiving: pumpkin, sweet potato, and a proud-looking cherry with a regal latticework crown. The tartness of the cherries pleased my buds this time.

Call it growing up, call it acquiring a new taste, but I call it being struck by cherry’s arrow. Fuck you apple, you boring slop of caramel-colored crap in a pan. I’m sticking with cherry and all it’s menstrual-hued beauty.

And you know who else can suck a dick? Pumpkin pie. I’m so fucking sick of pumpkin pie now that so many restaurants have unlocked it from its seasonal confines. When you can get pumpkin pie on a sweltering July evening, it kind of takes away its holiday magic. I’m riding the sweet potato jitney now. I still hate meringue.

Speaking of pies, today I’m going to be making my own special one for practice (Henry said I can!) because there’s a really fabulous-sounding one that I want to make for my guests at the upcoming Game Night. Quaking yet?