I briefly mentioned last week that my friends Kevin and Lizzy sent me a box of fruit from Miami and I went into fruitiac arrest right there at my dining room table. It was actually the first time I used #blessed without an iota of facetiousness.

Literally every single fruit in that box was something that had never once graced my filthy lips. And I knew this because I didn’t recognize anything. Thank god they packed along a brochure from the fruit stand Robert Is Here, which is now my favorite place ever and I can’t wait to go to Florida.

Of course, Henry was in a “rush” to get back to work (I just like to put random words in quotes, OK? It makes my finger tattoos tingle) so he claimed he didn’t have time to cut anything for me. Luckily, one of those small beige balls was slightly ajar, so I swept it away into the kitchen and started ripping it open with my bare hands, until Henry finally sighed and confiscated it. He cut the rest with a knife and packed it away into one of my plastic fruitainers (a container for fruit, duh) like a good father getting his child’s school lunch ready.

According to my brochure, what I had so savagely opened in the style of caveperson was a sapodilla and I rejoiced because Kevin is always BRAGGING on Facebook about how he’s sucking back sapodilla MILKSHAKES, no big deal, and I get all jealous because what is a sapodilla, I have no idea but I want it.

The description in the brochure says that a sapodilla tastes like a pear with brown sugar. I am here to confirm that it tastes like a pear with brown sugar, how is that possible?! It was also a little bit reminiscent of root beer candy, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!? The texture itself is a little bit grainy, definitely pear-like. I wish I had some in my mouth right now. (I wouldn’t share this with anyone, FYI.)

In my haste to devour all of the sapodillas, I never got around to ramming my phone up into their grills, so please enjoy a stock photo that I procured from the Internet. I can’t wait until Henry plants sapodilla seeds in our tropical climate backyard biodome that he doesn’t know I’ve enrolled him in college to learn to build. And then he can peruse his beloved Pinterest for candied sapodilla and Kevin & Lizzy’s sapodilla milk shakes and sapodilla-on-the-cob and sapodilla lampshades. Sapodilla moustache rides?

Sapodilla chevron mason jars suspended from sapodilla pallets! Don’t forget to put a motherfucking bird on it.

Get on that, Henry.

When I came home from work that night, I made Henry cut another fruit for me, the lone yellow guy up there. At first, I was confusing it for the mamey sapote because I am apparently dumb at matching. (Never mind the other day when I bragged about being excelsior at it; just call me Mary.)

(Because I’m contrary. God, go read a fucking nursery rhyme once in awhile.)

OK, so how can I describe this fruit to you without grossing you out….it’s like sticking a spoon in a yeasty vagi—OK WRONG, WRONG. Let me try again. The texture is custard-like and squash-y, not your typical pulp-y fruit innards. Do not be afraid of it. There is no squirting of juices to ruin your clothes (I know I’m not the only one that winds up walking around with fruit-jizz splotches on my shirts after wrestling with an orange). It’s soft and velvety, and even though it stinks of raw pumpkin, once you move past that, it is the most gentle sensation upon your buds, and I liked to imagine that when Robert Smith wrote the line “the strangest twist upon your lips” it was while watching some broad slowly masticate the shit out of a canistel, which is what this fruit is, and not a mamey sapote. Now that I’ve made you read 18 sentences wondering WTF fruit this is. I write good, y’all.

The flavor of the canistel isn’t in-your-face sweet like fruits that you average Americans are accustomed to, but it’s more of an egg custard. So there were times that I was spooning it into my maw where I would get a little skeeved out, remembering that I wasn’t eating some kind of exotic cheesecake, but the actual entrails of a fruit right out of its skin. It kind of made me feel like a savage. AND I KIND OF LIKED IT.

It had a very interesting moist:dry ratio and made me think fondly of Thanksgiving because now I want this shit in a pie shell.

Texture Freaks: This one might just tickle your gag reflex.

Next up was the weird eggplant ball and the oblong cactus-thing. I determined these to be a star apple and guanabana, respectively. Coincidentally, my friend Eve had just recommended the guanabana to me a few weeks ago! I like having fruit friends. I mean, literal humans that also enjoy the sweet spoils of nature, not actually friends that are made of fruit.

(Although in 9th grade, I did have a friend that was an orange. His name was Marcus Aurelius and my asshole mom threw him away because he was starting to rot.)

Henry blew out a harried sigh when I shouted, “WAIT! I need to take a picture” right as he was about to start hacking away at the star apple with that big knife in the background. (Don’t tell Henry, but sometimes, even though I’m not supposed to be handling sharp objects, I carry that knife with me around the house because I watch way too much shows like The Following and read too many home invasion news reports and yeah, I’ll probably wind up accidentally slicing through my femoral artery and then Henry will come home to find Marcy lapping up the pooling blood around my dead body. And then she probably will live forever after that.)

(Don’t be a bitch, Marcy.)

I know, this inside of the guanabana is pretty gross; all glazed-over and white like the inside of an earthworm. (I think? It’s been awhile since that day I vomited in high school Biology.) It’s impossible to do anything with either of the above two fruit other than just spoon it into a bowl and go for it. Nicer boyfriends may have picked the seeds out first, but Henry told me to just spit them out. :(

He put both fruits together in a container, and by the time I was ready to eat it at work, they had kind of melded together into one gross lump of mash. Visually unappetizing (if I posted a photo of what it looks like right now on my desk at work, it would be the worst promotion ever), but each was delicious in its own right. Let’s talk about that.

The description of the guanabana says it tastes like pineapple cotton candy. How can this be possible, I do not know, but it’s pretty accurate. The pulp was firmer and wetter than the canistel, and reminded me of the cherimoya. Perhaps they are cousins. The guanabana had a mild tropical bite to it, not unlike that of the pineapple, but much less tangy and juicy. And it’s true: the lingering flavor at the back of my throat reminded me of cotton candy! (However, I can’t say that I would have naturally picked up on that on my own. Reading the description beforehand might have swayed my opinion—-like when Henry watches Fox News.)

I really expected this white piece of mangled flesh to be the winner here, but the star apple (or caimito, if you’re trying to be fancy) blew me away.

My favorite cake at Bethel Bakery is this almond majesty full of the softest raspberry buttercream frosting that I have ever suckled. It’s so regal-tasting that I always upgrade regular old birthday cakes so that they’re inseminated with raspberry splendor. The star apple—somehow, someway—reminds me of that fucking buttercream. The texture is thick and mostly smooth with a slightly grainy consistency that mocks sugar granules. It has subtle raspberry notes and a gentle saccharine tongue-hug that makes you remember that nature has its own sweetener. And I’m not talking about God’s ejaculate. (OR AM I.)

However, eating either of these fruits probably looks hideous to innocent bystanders. Especially when I’m orally chucking seeds into a spitoon. Today, I mixed in blueberries in an attempt to offset the general visage of eyeball paste and mashed-up road kill kidney. It didn’t work.

Babe. <3

Aaaaand, typing that while I’m still sitting here eating it was really dumb. This would have been fine a month ago when I was a casual bulimic for a few days.

Yesterday, I attempted to wield my knife-guardian and began hacking into the remaining beige ball in the box. I thought it was another sapodilla, which are soft and Erin-friendly as far as cutting goes. But instead, I made it less than an inch before the knife encountered the hugest pit I’ve ever seen in a fruit. So I had to wait for Henry to come home and finish the job.

In the meantime, I was unable to locate this big-pitted bastard on the brochure so I had the genius idea to EMAIL ROBERT IS HERE. I attached the below picture and made sure to also tell them that sapodillas are the best fruit in the whole universe.

Within a few minutes, Employee Tracey emailed me back!!

OMG ME AND ROBERT ARE FRUIT BROS!!! I started screaming and fanning myself, totally fruit fan-girling, while Henry sat there and glared at me in his typical Henry fashion. Sorry you find joy in nothing, old man.

Anyway, the mamey apple tasted like an apricot, indeed. Just more exotic, and more like a dried apricot, even though it didn’t have a dehydrated texture. I let Wendy try a piece and now she’s mad at me for making her like fruit that she won’t be able to get at the grocery store here. Welcome to my world, Wendy. :(

There was one last fruit that Henry cut for me yesterday, and he RUINED IT because it wasn’t ready. (It’s that football-looking thing in the first picture.) The insides were really tough and it kind of looked like a cantolope, and it had the most amazing stench. I kept shoving a piece up Henry’s nose.

“I KNOW! OK! IT SMELLS GOOD!” he kept screaming at me while swatting away my hand. I’m just trying to make moments with him, you know? Memories to include in our never-to-be-written vows.

But he was supposed to wait until the fruit was much softer and the skin was wrinkled, and after that it was supposed to taste like STRAWBERRY PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE because it’s a mamey sapote you guys! It’s what I originally thought the canistel was! Henry’s lucky I didn’t take the knife from him and [withheld so it cannot be used as future evidence].

But don’t worry. I’m now a registered user over at the Robert Was Here website, so: one mamey sapote coming right up!

[A million thank yous to Kevin & Lizzy for broadening my fruit horizons. When we visit—and we will!—, please take me to Robert Is Here so I can get him to autograph my brochure!)

This is kind of a weird Throwback Thursday for me because I’m not actually reposting anything, but finally posting something for the first time that has been mildewing in my drafts folder for almost a year.

Last April 15th, I went to a vegetarian dinner thingie with Janna, Kara and Chris. Usually, I would get around to writing about it within a week. But that happened to be the same day as the Boston Marathon bombing. And it just didn’t feel right to be all, “Yay, this is what I did several hours after a devastating situation rocked the nation!” I was so caught up in reading and watching everything I could about it for the next several weeks, obsessing over the whole boat situation (SERIOUSLY THAT WAS ALL SO FISHY TO ME) that I just quit caring about this dumb blog entry.

Does that make sense?

And then so much time passed that I started to forget a lot of what I wanted to say, and I lost the menu so then I was forgetting what I had even eaten. But I don’t like leaving things unfinished, so I went back and tried to fill in the blanks to the best of my ability.

It’s not that I’m some sort of epicurious, wannabe gourmand or even some pretentious food blogger who uses the words “epicurious” and “gourmand” (too many sex analogies), but ever since I attended one of Pittsburgh chef Kevin Sousa’s vegetarian dinners at Alchemy in 2007, that tattooed food whisperer has been on my radar.

Chef Kevin’s newest venture, Harvard and Highland, presents a vegetarian table once a month and seats only eight people.

At the same table.

JUST LIKE THE AMISH.

I really liked the intimacy of this, though I still chose a seat on the end, forcing Janna to sit next to a strange lady. However, I wasn’t interested in what the other two couples were talking about (running, running, running, marathons, running). That is, not until I overheard an older woman at the opposite end of the table talking about dragonfruit and it was all DUMBO EARS: ACTIVATE. Usually my skin burns at the mere idea of small talk, but I had to interject. I just had to, because that very day, do you know what I ate? FIRE DRAGON. You guys, it’s dragonfruit that is bright fuschia and utterly amazing. It’s like art fruit. So I had to tell the rest of the table this and they were like, “Ok” followed by a silent but implied “who cares?” and then the token Pan Asian at our table started bragging about all the exotic fruit he grew up on since his parents are from Thailand or somewhere else that I can’t locate on a map, and he went on to talk about durian while I quietly vomited in my mouth at the thought of that horrid fruit, and he was all, “But you can’t find that anywhere in the States” and I was like, “OMG you ignorant fruit fan, yes you can” and automatically counted off at least three places in Pittsburgh alone.

Except this part of the conversation happened inside my head because I hated that guy and didn’t want to waste my breath on him.

This was my least favorite. It was too salty. But it came with a flower, so I ate that.

To my delight, our plates were paired with craft cocktails instead of disgusting beer like the last vegetarian thing I went to. Every single cocktail was amazing and because of them, I forgot everything I wanted to write by the time I staggered back to Janna’s car. If I were a real food blogger, I’d have brought my dichtophone and notepad (and inflated sense of entitlement) with me.

Since Kara is pregnant, she only allowed herself petite sips of each cocktail and then Chris got to chug the rest of hers on top of his own. Lucky son of a bitch.

Men — find a way to make your semen taste like this creamy puddle of molten feta and you will have to knock people off your jocks all day long.

OMG I think this was the breakfast plate? It had fake egg things (nettle scramble, whatever the fuck) and some kind of French toast impersonator and more foam stuff because that must be really fun for Kevin to make so he just puts flavorful foam on everything. (Kind of like how I put wonky eyes on all of my paintings.) We all basically ate this in the fashion of having our wrists tied behind our backs.

Halfway through the night, I realized that the Durian Dick was friends (or maybe just in his own mind) with Chef Sousa and kept hinting around about wanting to go pick mushrooms with him or something and I wished I had a durian or two and the sock of a giant. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

(If you don’t, I mean that I wanted to fill the giant’s sock with the durians and beat the smugness out of him. But now you ruined it.)

And Kevin himself served every goddamn plate to Mrs. Durian Dick. Every single time! I kept hoping that the waitstaff would switch it up and maybe we would each get our turn with Kevin, but no. He catered specifically to her every time and that is how I know they’re having an affair.

A pond of molten Christ on wood, with mushrooms and stuff on top. It was such a religious experience that my tongue was involuntarily spelling out the rosary. Janna didn’t eat all of hers because it didn’t come with preservatives.

I was trying to get a photo of my chef crush but JANNA moved her stupid head. GOD, JANNA.

Ahhhhhh desssssert! It was stuff that tasted amazing in a truncated Mason jar! And there were more flowers to eat! It was paired with some creamy (the theme of the night, obvi) sarsparilla drink that I will be requesting by the jugfull if I ever go back.

The loud lady at the end of the table (next to Durian Dick) had a vegan version of the dessert and asked EVERYONE BUT ME AND CHRIS if they wanted a taste. Everyone said no and I actually really did want to taste it but I’m too proud to beg. (Sorry, TLC.)

Beverage aftermath.

After dinner, we all kind of sat around waiting for the go-ahead to leave and everyone seemed OK with continuing the strange act of Conversing with Strangers, but I wasn’t interested. I was becoming increasingly annoyed and anxious, because I lack the social wherewithal to successfully survive an evening of eating food and, as my friend Alyson would say, “expelling air” with people I do not know.

However, we didn’t eat until 9PM and I had gone there straight from dumb work, plus I’m on a diet and subsisting on leaves and carrots for the most part, so I was pretty irritable and ready to masticate the FU-HAHAHAHA-UCK out of some meatless spreads.

Or I’m just a people-hating asshole. Take your pick.

My favorite part of the night was how they filled us up with liquor and then made us walk down a dangerously steep staircase afterward. Surprisingly, there were no casualities.

What is an acceptable way to show a chef that you are in total appreciation and awe of the edible gifts he bestowed upon you that evening? Because I’m not above asking him to autograph my tongue.

The worst part about my work schedule is that I never get to eat a single meal with my family during the week. I absolutely hate it. And the worst part about eating healthy is that I never get to eat a fucking French fry.

I absolutely FUCKING hate that. So sometimes a weekend diner trip is a must. Except when I decide that I want to go somewhere different and then we drive around aimlessly looking for something that’s not closed on a Sunday.

Seriously, restaurants that are closed on Sundays can go suck God’s dick. Which is probably what they want to be doing anyway.

Assholes.

But then Urban Spoon directed us to Bob’s Diner in Carnegie. And I know you must be thinking that it was either realllllly good or phenomenally abysmal if I’m devoting a whole blog post to it. But it was neither. Just decent, really. It’s just that I became obsessed with Bob.

Henry kept saying, “I doubt that’s Bob. I REALLY doubt that’s Bob. IT’S NOT BOB OK?!” Why was he so passionate about it not being Bob? WHAT DOES HE KNOW ABOUT BOB?!

OMG HE WAS CLEARLY IN THE SERVICE WITH HIM!!

That’s the only explanation.

Meanwhile, our waitress was obsessed with my coat.

“Oh I just love this. It reminds me of a sofa. What do they call that? BROCADE!” she cried while literally STROKING MY ARM UP AND DOWN like it was a golden tapestry-swaddled elephant penis.

She was really into us for about 90 seconds but as soon as I slipped out of my coat, she dropped us like a bunch of jizz-stained brocade sofa cushions.

The rest of the time there was OK. I mostly fixated on the whole Is It Bob? quandary.

“WHERE IS HE?” I would hoarsely hiss to Henry, who would mumble things like “I don’t know. In his office. Dead. THAT’S NOT BOB.”

“Mommy, is that Bob?”

And then this happened:

Waitress 1: “I just found out a good friend of mine died.”
Waitress 2: “Oh no! How?”
Waitress 1: “Herpes.”
Waitress 2: “Showoff.”

Sometimes I hear what I want to, but I swear to god this really seemed accurate.

Henry was irritated because I ordered cole slaw after he did. He hates it when we both enjoy the same sides.

Bob’s might not have been much to write home about (though I clearly did) but I must say: their fries are the GOOD KIND! I would go back just for the fries. And obviously to unlock the mystery of Bob and Henry and the porno they filmed in 1983.

It turned out to be A Really Good Thing that Henry was able to go to Cleveland with us after all, otherwise you’d have to address our Christmas card to:

Erin & Chooch

A Snowdrift

Cleveland, OH

Whatever Zip Code

In other words, it started snowing almost as soon as we crossed the Ohio state line, but what else is new when we go to Ohio between the months of November and April? And then of course we hit rush hour, so by the time we made it Cleveland Heights, we didn’t have as much time as I had hoped before the Never Shout Never show started.

Henry had to deal with aquiring quarters for the parking garage meter and told us to just go on without him. Literally, all Chooch and I had to do was cross the street and walk straight into Big Fun. It seemed like for sure something we could without Henry’s supervision, and there was even a handy crosswalk right there too.

But for some reason, right as we stepped onto the curb after a victorious street-crossing session, Chooch was figeting with his coat and said, “Help me.” He didn’t cry it out, he wasn’t waving a white flag, he just simply said the words, “help me.” At that precise moment, a middle-aged woman was walking by and before I had a chance to ask Chooch what he needed help with, the woman stopped dead in her tracks and in a voice rife with concern, she asked Chooch if he was OK.

He just looked at her without saying anything, because, ew, stranger. So I answered for him and said he was fine.

“ARE YOU SURE?” she persisted, searching his face for some sign of an amber alert.

We both nervously mumbled “yes” and started to walk past her.

“Are you going in there?” she asked, gesturing toward the awesome Cleveland toy store, Big Fun.

I nodded and she said, “Here, let me get that” and cut us off so that she could open the door for us, which I guess was nice, but I was really paranoid at this point. And then she followed us inside far enough to make sure we safe, I guess, before retreating.

I still have no idea what Chooch needed help with, and he was too distracted by Simpsons memorabilia at that point to tell me. Then it occurred to me that Chooch and I probably look like lost, shivering foreigners when we’re out in the cold on our own, so props to that lady for her concern, I guess.

After buying some Secret Santa goods at Big Fun, we walked down the street to Tommy’s for dinner. I can’t believe how many times I’ve been on that street in Cleveland, killing time before shows at the Grog Shop, and have never once bothered to step inside this seemingly unassuming restaurant. But then one day awhile back, Henry was all, “Hey did you know that there’s a vegetarian place right by the Grog Shop?” They serve meat-things there too, but the vegetarian selections are staggering. There aren’t many places where I can eat a grilled tempeh sandwich while Chooch and Henry nosh on cow.

A few minutes after I ordered a sandwich named after my Catholic School Mom-Nemesis’s daughter and vowed to savor every last bite, I casually looked over  to me left and saw the Concerned Passerby, sitting alone at a table against a wall, totally staring me down. I quickly whipped my head back around and tried to avoid ever looking that direction again for the rest of my life, but of course my eyes kept accidentally roaming, because that’s what they do, accidentally make creepy eye contact with strangers. And without fail, my roaming eyes were rewarded with reciprocal stares every fucking time, why was she staring at me-he-he-he!?!?!?!??!

But then my Catholic School Mom Nemesis’s Daughter was placed before me and my eyes were too busy staring at that loaded motherfucker each time it was rhythmically raised up to my gnashing maw, so I forgot about Concerned Passerby for awhile.

“This is definitely in the top 5 sandwiches I’ve ever eaten,” I moaned to Henry.

“What are the other 4?” he asked.

“Nothing you made,” I retorted.

And then Concerned Passerby slammed her hand down on the table and cried out urgently, “YOU DROPPED SOMETHING!” My heart began to race, thinking I was being set up for a mugging, but her heads-up was directed toward the family at the table next to us. I watched the dad jump up in panic and retrieve something from the floor, but it must have been something not very great because he didn’t seem very concerned at all when he plunked the mystery object back down on the table. I’m going to go out on a limb here and wager that it was a crayon.

But then it made sense. She was just an aggressive good samaritan who thought she was doing good things, not raising blood pressures. And she was also clearly a little mentally-challenged, so that explains why she was so drawn to me and Chooch.

I won’t lie though, I did check my coat pockets after that to make sure her outburst wasn’t a diversion to pickpocket the Icebreaker Sours in my pocket. They were still there.

My compact is missing though.

Let’s pretend for a moment that Henry goes by “Hank” so that I can call this year’s autumnal feast “Hanksgiving” without anyone asking me why.

There was only one reason I wanted to host Hanksgiving this year, and no, it wasn’t because I wanted to drive Henry to a stress-induced heart attack. I just wanted to put together a nice, memorable evening for Chooch, Corey, Janna, Laura and Mike because let’s face it: holidays just aren’t what they used to be. Especially if you don’t have any or much family in town. But that’s no reason to surrender to seasonal misery!

I have such a love/hate relationship with Thanksgiving. I loved it as a kid because hello: time off from school! Food! Parades! But what I didn’t like was suffering through whatever family feud was playing out at the moment, someone was always giving someone the silent treatment, my grandma was always taking passive aggressive jabs at me. And then some years we would go to my dad’s parents’ house and that was always uncomfortable. I wasn’t really close with any of them, and my dad was always losing his patience with his mom. It was just awkward.

But they did have that electric organ I loved to play…and Grandma Kelly’s homemade buckeyes….OK, maybe those Thanksgivings weren’t too bad.

And then as an adult, after my parents divorced, my mom would kind of try to put together nice Thanksgivings for us, but there was always that underlying bitterness and creepy facade of normalcy. Like you just expected the walls to crumble in. I would typically end up leaving in tears and then going home to drink Maniscevitz “wine” alone. That’s not what I want for Chooch! I want him to grow up with good feelings associated with holidays.

And even though I told everyone it would be a casual affair, I still wanted to make it pretty. We even used real plates as opposed to the paper fare we slopped food upon the last time we hosted Hanksgiving (back when we were still calling it THANKSgiving like the rest of you weirdos).

Corey was even surprised when he found out I used real flowers on the table, and not fake ones, haha.

REAL.

Chooch was clearly stoked! He gets really hyper and excited when he knows people are coming over, and he unfortunately got too crazy and ended up pissing off Laura immediately after she arrived. I’m still not sure what happened, but hey, what’s a holiday without tears? Made it seem that much more “down home.”

He just wants to entertain, you guys. That’s all.

We ran out of chairs so I conveniently used my wheelchair to sit at the head of the table. “Are you sitting in a wheelchair?!” Corey asked in disgust as he sat down to eat. “I hate you. In the best possible way.” My dream, in case you’re new here, is to buy a house and then have Henry build a dining room table out of pallets or old disgusting doors and then have all old wheelchairs as the seats.

REAL FLOWERS, OMG. This is what I did while Henry slaved away over various food-things in the kitchen: made things look nice to distract from the rest of our shitty shanty. Although, to be honest, we’ve been slowly sprucing things up as best as we can muster in a place we don’t own. And it’s been nearly a week and the house is still clean! At least the rooms that we can’t hide behind closed doors, anyway. My bedroom still looks like a dorm room.

I sliced that cheese!! And placed the deviled eggs accordingly! I was really excited for Hanksgiving, obviously. I used to love hosting parties when I was younger and the house was nicer and I WAS SINGLE. But you know, things change.

Henry made this cheese! I bought him a DIY cheese kit because I buy him things that I will benefit from. That cheese was some good shit, too. Even though Laura looked horrified when I told her it was homemade. :( Whatever, it made me feel like a legit hostess.

Speaking of Laura and homemade and cheese, Mike brought some sort of amazing creamed corn side dish that was loaded, and I mean LOADED, with cheese. I wanted to swim in it while “accidentally” forgetting to close my mouth.

 This is normal at our house.

Here is Janna, probably scolding me for something. Speaking of Janna, she brought these sweet potatoes that were absolutely drunk off bourbon. Holy shit, were they good.

I wish I had some right now.

Mike’s first tofurky! He was already sliding some onto his plate before he found out what it was. You can see how excited he was! EAT IT! EAT IT!

Corey gives hanks for tofurky. Can I also just say that this is only the third time in my life I have been BLESSED enough to have tofurky on (T)hanksgiving?? Henry usually “forgets” to buy it, and one year he bought it but then “forgot” to cook it. One of the only Thanksgivings I had it was at my mom’s house. Henry made it at home and we brought it with us and I was ridiculed mercilessly by my aunts to the point that I almost didn’t eat it. It was traumatizing! My mom kept making puking noises everytime I cut into it.

Even from a non-vegetarian standpoint, I genuinely like tofurky! That shit they stuff it with is the bomb.

I think that might have been the first time I called something the bomb. Better than “all that and a bag of chips,” I guess.

Not pictured: persimmon pudding. Oh for Christ’s sake, who has four desserts for eight people? So ridiculous. Shout out to Sandy for the cake hook-up!

Chooch ate approximately nothing. Sadly, his older brothers were unable to make it, because they could have shown him how to eat a Hanksgiving dinner.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I would consider the first official Hanksgiving a success. THANK YOU, HENRY. Maybe next year he will finally let me invite some vagabonds. Perhaps by then we’ll have more wheelchairs.

Pee Wee’s ass wants to wish you all a Happy Hanksgiving.

This morning, Henry woke up and resumed all the cooking that he started last night. Meanwhile, I’m catching up on the X Factor (OMG those stupid dancers they insist on using have got to go!!

) but it’s really hard to hear over Henry and his persistent mixing of foods in the kitchen. God.

I think only three people are coming over tonight but we have enough food for probably three dozen.

WE EVEN MADE HOMEMADE CHEESE! (We=Henry. I got bored and took a bath instead.

)

This used to be my least favorite holiday but I’m really starting to like it. Happy Tofurkey Day!!!

As Thanksgiving gets closer, I’ve been feeling a little less depressed and MAYBE even slightly excited. We spent most of the week getting some things together for our version of Thanksgiving (Hanksgiving) and keeping busy has been extremely helpful. We’ve only ever hosted one holiday dinner at our house (with the exception of the Xmas Eve soiree we did last year) and that was all the way back in 2008! I can’t believe we waited so long to try it again. I couldn’t remember if it was a success or not, so I went searching through my blog archives the other night and after reading it, I still can’t tell if it was a success. But Henry apparently burnt himself, so I’ll take that as a win.

It’s not Throwback Thursday or anything, but we can just pretend that Memory Monday is a thing so that I can repost this 2008 Thanksgiving tale. The format of the original post is all wonky and I can’t fix it. So sorry. Mayeb after you read it, you can leave a comment and tell me what your favorite Thanksgiving side dish is, because we haven’t finalized our menu yet and that’s just what Henry needs is MORE OPTIONS.

******

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, you should know that 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.

It would sppear that Henry is in the middle of saying an intense delivery of grace, but really he’s just acclimating to his newfound seated position after standing in the kitchen all day long.

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.

I know I’m supposed to be on this stupid diet or whatever, and I swear to god that I’m mostly good about it, but sometimes my sweet tooth prevails. And it can get pretty scary when I try to fight it, so I just basically throw my arms up and concede.

It’s fine when it’s only one “bad” thing per weekend, but this past weekend I really went hog wild. I couldn’t help it. Sometimes you just have to have your fucking cake, you know?

It all started on Friday when I went to lunch with some of my bosses and co-workers. We went to a new-ish pizza place called Proper, except that by calling it a “pizza place” gives the impression that it’s some ordinary bullshit Domino’s. It’s not. They use all kinds of fancy, fresh ingredients and their seasonal menu stopped me dead.

First of all, they had a Harvest Pizza, which had a pumpkin puree sauce, squash, nutmeg, globs of some sort of wonderful homemade cheese that I forget, and sausage which I ordered without. But this is not the point of this post. The point is that also on the seasonal menu was a QUINCE AND PERSIMMON COBBLER, are you fucking kidding me. You guys know that persimmons are basically my favorite fruit other than apples, right? Well, now you know.

I didn’t order it for two reasons:

1. I didn’t want to be That Person who ordered dessert when no one else did, because I wasn’t with a group of people I was all that comfortable with, and I also wasn’t paying for myself. (That probably would have been most people’s go-ahead to order dessert, but I have a Guilt Complex, OK?)
2. One of our bosses ordered two flights of beer so we all could have one without getting too hammered, and I was fortuitous enough to choose an apricot wheat that didn’t activate my gag reflex! In other words, I was able to drink all of my beer and felt pretty full.

Alas, I went back to work with no persimmon cobbler stuffed inside myself. And I pretty much spent the rest of the day thinking about it. And also that night. And then the next day, too. I feared that this could be a repeat performance of the Waffle-copia Letdown. I just can’t go through that again. Not so soon.

And that is how Henry got suckered into driving downtown Saturday evening and grabbing thsi sacred and seasonal cobbler to go. And then he proceeded to get stuck in Pitt football traffic on his way home, which I would normally laugh about except that MY HOUSE MADE VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM WAS MELTING.

GODDAMNIT.

It was still so fucking good though. I have only ever eaten persimmons fresh and on their own, never baked alongside quince and sweet crumbly things! Mother lord, I can’t wait for Henry to perfect this recipe. I don’t give a shit that this picture looks like a pile of dirty albino vomit. I just wanted to eat the fucking thing.

***

On Sunday, I had plans to go to the grand opening of French patisserie Gaby et Jules with Corey and Janna. This classy joint has technically been open since August, but they celebrated their grand opening all weekend long and the reason I really wanted to go was because I saw “free samples!” And I am a sucker for the free shit.

However, it was rainy and miserable all day on Sunday, and I was starting to feel those initial twinges of Sickness. I almost bailed on Corey and Janna, but goddamn am I glad I didn’t!

So excited for French shit!

I learned that “et” means “and” in French and that diets can GTFO when it comes to patisseries et macarons. It was a really cultural day on so many levels.

When we walked in, I was prepared to be treated like your basic Walmart Shopper looking for Twinkies and Ding Dongs. But instead, the people behind the counter were super friendly! God, I can’t believe Janna judged them on their accents. She was so sure they were going to be dicks!

(That’s how it happened, right Janna?)

HATS!! Gaby et Jules’ Instagram account really had me hyped for hats.

After a nice lady plied us with samples of their new Noel collection (so delicious and out of my pay grade), we proceeded to stand in everyone’s way and act like complete dessert dunces. It was so overwhelming! And that was before I even turned my attention toward the macarons.

Luckily, everyone was very helpful and jovially answered us when we jabbed our grubby fingers at things like mute hitchhikers. A very proper Frenchman even offered us more samples and when I said we had already been given some, he laughed and thrust the small paper cups toward us once more. “Bonjour! Have another! Oui Oui!”

I don’t know. It went something like that, anyway.

I ended up buying one patisserie each for myself and Chooch, plus a white chocolate basil macaron and a pumpkin macaron just for my own piggy mouth.

The woman who administered our first round of samples was the one who rang me up and she broke character long enough to tell me that she likes my purse. (Ha ha, Chooch! IN YOUR FACE!) It was like being in a haunted house and having Jason Voorhees lift up his hockey mask to tell you that he likes your Nickelback hoodie. Seemed weird.

I mean, she could have at least said “le purse.”

Once the three of us were sufficiently patisseried, we went to a coffee shop across the street so we could indulge like True French. This was actually Janna’s first good suggestion in approximately eight years, so I have to hand it to her. I was prepared to just eat my purchases with my hands in Janna’s backseat.

Corey’s lemon boob. It was delightful! I will probably get this the next time I’m there, because I love when things are lemon.

We each ordered a different holiday specialty latte. My soy pumpkin was great but I wish I had went with plain coffee to offset the sweetness of my French spread.

Corey Instagramming his glistening lemon boob, croissant and passion fruit macaron.

Janna got a rasberry cylinder and a caramel cylinder. She saved the caramel one for later but I can attest that the raspberry one was really great! Perhaps she can tell my two readers what the caramel thing was like in a comment. Go on, Janna.

I got the L’Orient, not to be confused with L’Oreal, which I had been salivating over since the first time I saw this glorious green creation on their website. I LOVE pistachio-flavored things and if that’s an option, I will usually pick it every time. Especially if it’s gelato. Sorry that these pictures are so banged up but do you really think I was about to sit in a coffee shop and food-style when this log of L’Orient could be in my mouth? No. It’s amazing I had the restraint to take a picture at all.

That chocolate thing up there was for Chooch. First he told me to bring him back a cupcake but when I was like, “French people don’t care about cupcakes” he said, “I don’t know. Chocolate, then.” Just chocolate. I took my task seriously and made sure that I chose the thing that had the most kinds of chocolate. Henry took Chooch to the zoo that morning so I needed to compete with that.

After Corey, Janna and I succeeded in putting ourselves in a sugar coma, we deemed the day a win and vowed to turn “Frenching up our palates” into a habit. Crepes are definitely on the agenda.

A door that has nothing to do with French foodstuffs.

Chooch and Henry were on the loose when I got home, so I took some time to get Chooch’s Le Royal Chocolat plated and ready to be presented to him on bended knee. And of course he turned his nose up at it.

“BUT THAT IS A REAL GOLD FLAKE ON TOP!” I cried, and that was enough to make him backtrack and give it a whirl.

This is his “I’ll tell you if it’s any good” face. He declared it delicious, or course. I mean, its entire consistency is chocolate, how bad can it really be? I strong-armed him for a taste and I can hereby attest that it was DIVINE. And not in a John Waters sense.

Then Henry was all, “Wah, let me have some too” and we shouldn’t have given him ANY since he acted like he’s better than a French bakery when I asked him if he wanted anything. What a l’douchebag.

To summarize: Gaby et Jules needs to open a second shop in my backyard. The landlord just sent some inbreds to weedwhack our mini-rainforest back there, so there’s plenty of room!

One of the Caribou Coffee joints was recently turned into a Peet’s Coffee. This wasn’t anything that neither concerned nor enticed me, but I had the misfortune of finding out one day when I went to get coffee at Caribou and instead arrived at a gutted storefront.

“It’s going to be a Peet’s Coffee,” the cashier at the nearby TCBY told me when I went inside and started asking her semi-hostile questions about where in the fuck Caribou went. “It’s supposed to be really good.”

I didn’t give a fuck. I needed an iced latte super fucking bad that day and had to stay in the area so I wound up drinking WENDY’S COFFEE OH THE HORROR.

(“Wendy’s” as in the fast food chain, not my friend Wendy, although I’ve never had that Wendy’s coffee so maybe it sucks, too.)

Then a month passed and I forgot about it because there are tons of other coffee options near my house so what do I care about this Peet’s/Caribou drama. Until one day KAITLIN texted me and was all, “FYI there’s a new coffee place called Peet’s and they have MAPLE LATTES.”

You guys. Maple lattes. Motherfucking maple lattes you guys! The first time I had maple coffee was last June when we were visiting our friend Alyson in New Hampshire and it was fucking splendid. Just so goddamn wonderful! (If you hate coffee or maple or both then skip the rest of this post I guess? I know Henry probably will.) And then in Salem, MA I had an iced maple latte and strongly considered becoming a Masshole just so I could drink that shit everyday because it was like autumn’s elixir, I can’t even describe it. It’s like when you imprint with a werewolf and your mom wants to know what that’s like, and how do you explain it? It’s fucking fantastic, like some real life Adam & Eve bullshit. Totally a personal thing so people should just mind their own goddamn business.

What happens between a girl and her iced maple latte is not my story to tell.

The grand opening for Peet’s was last Monday, but they were actually already open. So I decided mid-morning last Sunday that I needed to go and get myself mapled before I exploded.

First I checked Peet’s website just to make sure this elusive beast really was available. It was, and it said “NEW!!” beneath it, so I took that as a Good Sign. And then the store itself was dripping in Maple Latte advertisements. But when I ordered it, I was told that they were DONE FOR THE SEASON. Is this a joke? Does the Alamo paper their walls with pictures of a basement? NO. (They don’t, right? I’ve never actually been to the Alamo.) Anyway, instead of blowing my top, I went with my second choice: pumpkin spice. BUT I WAS TOLD THEY WERE ALL OUT OF PUMPKIN SPICE.

Sorry guys, I lied to you. I didn’t actually go to Peet’s at all. I sent Henry on my behalf.  I just wanted to see what it would feel like to write about actually doing something for myself.

I’ll tell you what I DID do though, I bitched about it on the Peet’s Facebook page and some Peet’s rep named DON apologized to me. He feels confident that I will enjoy their new holiday flavors, but that’s assuming I (Henry) will ever go back!

And then on Halloween morning, my brother Corey and I went to Waffles, INCaffeinated for some spooky breakfast haps. It was the first time eating there for both of us and we were really excited to go apeshit on some morning desserts. I spent all this time stressing over the menu until Corey pointed out the smaller menu of waffle add-ons, so then my head seriously was about to pop-off because I don’t handle multiple options very well.
It also had the Waffle of the Month at the bottom.

October’s waffle was the Waffle-copia. It was a sweet potato waffle (SWEET POTATO WAFFLE) with a fresh apple and fig compote (FIGS!!!!!! FUCKING FIGS!!!!!!!) and then I briefly also saw something about pumpkin, too but I didn’t need to read anymore. This was what I was going to smash  my face into that morning, pie eating contest-style. Ask my brother how stoked I was. Seriously, ask him!!

Does this look like the Waffle-copia? No? BECAUSE IT’S NOT. It’s the Mega Berry, which is what I had to disgustedly order after ELI THE WORST WAITER began to write down my order, only to pause and laugh, “Oh wait, we’re all out of the monthly special.”

I waited for him to walk away before assassinating his character in ways that could probably land me with a lawsuit, but I WAS MAD. Corey was like, “Who gives a fuck, they had my Funky Monkey, and that’s all I care about.” But I couldn’t stop mouthing off about Eli every time he walked away from our table after refilling our coffee. We’d both say thanks but then I would tack on a “FOR NOTHING!!!” after he retreated. I have impeccable aim when it comes to shooting the messenger.

Yeah, my Mega Berry waffle was good, blah blah blah. And, as Corey kept marveling over, the prices were pretty good too. BUT THE FIGS! THE FIIIIIGS!!!!!

ELI THE LIFE RUINER kept coming over to ask us how our waffles were and I just kept mumbling, “It’s good” but then when he’d retreat, I’d growl “No thanks to you.”

Before we left, some Waffle Man approached our table to ask us about our experience. He had a slight accent, so I think he might have been the proprietor (I like to read about restaurants before I go, and I remembered that the Man Responsible for the Waffles had some weird name, so that must have been him because I’m a really good profiler). Corey and I both said it was great (and it really was, EXCEPT FOR ELI THE WORST WAITER EVER). I’m not a big complainer–no really, I’m not!–so I started to think of ways I could word my Waffle-Copia complaint without sounding like some entitled Yelp reviewer.

“So….was today the last day for the waffle of the month?” I carefully prefaced my cloaked complaint.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I was actually just drawing up some ideas for next month’s special,” he said, flashing his Waffle Blueprint Notebook at me. And then: “Oh my god, your face, it looks so sad!” he exclaimed with genuine concern.

Apparently, my face had fallen into an automatic Dog-Eyed Pout without me even realizing, THAT IS HOW SAD I WAS. “It’s OK,” I lied. “I just REALLY WANTED THE WAFFLE-COPIA.”

And so the Waffle Foreigner explained to me that due to certain logistics (like having to order 50-pound bags of figs), they try to run out the waffle of the month during the last week so that they’re not stuck with a bunch of product that can’t be used for the next month. And I pretended to be understanding of that, and assured him that the Mega Berry was a fine replacement (I mean, it was good, but it was no Waffle-Copia).

He mentioned my sad face again and even said it was the saddest face ever, but look — I can’t get my facial muscles to lie for me, OK? ELI RUINED MY LIFE!!!!! So, to make him feel better, I blurted out, “And the prices here are really good!” like I’m suddenly a senior citizen out for breakfast with the Pittsburgh chapter of the Regis Philbin Fan Club.

“We try to stay competitive,” Waffle Man responded to my awkward sentence.

On that note, Corey and I decided it was time to leave. ELI THE WORST WAITER IN THE WORLD was standing near the door.

“Have a great day, guys!” he cheerfully called out.

“You too!” Corey and I replied, but then as the door shut behind me, I added, “ASSHOLE.”

So, I guess the point to this story is that I don’t get over disappointment very easily. And if you’re a waiter, I WILL PROJECT MY DISAPPOINTMENT ONTO YOU. Fuck you, Eli.

[ED.NOTE: Waffles INC really was great and though it pains me to admit it, Eli was a good waiter. But if they don’t bring the Waffle-Copia back next October, they can all rot. APPLES! FIGS! SWEET POTATO! PUMPKIN! You might as well just call it the Erin’s Orgasm. I’m not so sure Peet’s will get a second chance, though. That asshole Don could have at least offered me a coupon!]

Hey, Blog. Remember how two weekends ago I wrote on your skin about how I was going to do a pie pop-baking practice run? And you didn’t tell me I was being ridiculous?

Well, fuck you.

In my head, it seemed like such a great idea! So smart and sensible. Henry will take on the regular-sized pies for the upcoming pie party, and I will undertake the legion of tiny pies on sticks that, also in my head, seemed like they would be so darling to bake. I even looked at a lot of pictures on various food blogs and every single one of them screamed ERIN PROOF! One blogger even said, “Hi, my 8-year-old niece made these, they are THAT EASY.”

And that’s what I needed to know. That idiot children could accomplish this feat and wind up with an edible disc on a tiny pie-rod. So two weekends ago, I mentally prepared myself for lots of flour inhalation and…other baking stuff.

But first, I needed to go to the asian market to see if they had persimmon, because I have been deadset on Henry baking me the most sumptuous pie out of that shit for months now. Persimmon is my jam. I’m sorry to all of the apples out there, but I have to say that persimmon is my favorite fruit of all time.

Too bad it’s so elusive.

If anyplace would have it, it would be the asian market though. And of course, they didn’t. (They did have the best goddamn kiwis I’ve ever masticated this side of Fruit Mastication Street, though. I think they were Golden Kiwi? What a joy for my tongue.

I decided when we were checking out that Henry and I should inquire about persimmons, which turned out to be a huge mistake because the young Asian girl in her lens-less black frames and Abercrombie hoodie started laughing. I mean, this bitch had her head thrown back in laughter. This was legit laughter. This was the laughter reserved for stupid crackers, that’s exactly what kind of fucking laughter this was.

“Oh no, hahaha, no no no! There no persimmon in September! Hahahaha! That winter fruit! Hahahahaha!” And other shoppers were craning their necks to see what was going on up at check out (I’m sure they figured it involved a fat caucasion fruit-retard) and I pretty much wanted to fork my fingers and spear her eyeballs Labryinth-style through her stupid hipster glasses that she doesn’t even need!

Friends, don’t make the same mistake I made. There are no persimmon in September. Don’t even bother asking, unless you enjoy being laughed out of the Alamo, OK?

So, I guess no persimmon pie at the pie party, my persimmony pie party peeps.

Totally defeated, we went and got ice cream, I got totally sick from spray paint fumes, and then finally I decided I better try that baking thing before the weekend was officially over. Except that there was a Penguins pre-season game on that evening.

“I’ll just do it during intermission,” I said to Henry. “Get everything ready for me.”

Henry had already gone to the regular people grocery store earlier that evening and bought all of the pie supplies, plus cookie cutters and lollipop sticks. Henry then cleared off the dining room table, rolled out the flour, washed the cookie cutters, prepared various pie fillings in some bowls, and made the egg wash. Then it was the first intermission and I had to actually do foody things which turned out to be so terrible, I can’t even find the words, it’s like my brain is literally sending death threats to my fingers to prevent them from typing out the brutal memory of last Sunday evening.

“Are you kidding me?” Henry sighed during one of his supervisional trips to the dining room table.

“This is so hard!” I wailed. “And booooring!”

“Did you actually read the recipe, or did you just look at the pictures?” And when I didn’t answer right away, he spat, “That’s what I thought.”

And then I tried to get all fancy, which is not something a baking invalid like myself should EVER TRY TO DO, by doing one of those crisscross crust thingies that disgusting grandmas do to their cherry pies so hobos will want to stick their dicks inside once they see how moist and pus-like the innards are. A little bit of a sultry, seductive pie peepshow never killed anyone. (Just maybe stained some already dirty weeners.)

Give me Sculptey and I will crosshatch the shit out of it. Construction paper? Sure, I got this. I was even pretty diligent back in the day at making potholders by criss-crossing stretchy things on a small metal loom.

But give me pie crust and I am all thumbs. And not just normal people thumbs, but medical malady thumbs. Maybe even some monkey thumbs are up in there, too, and everything I try to hold just collapses into me. I also apparently forget what “criss-cross” looks like and this is what happens:

And then something happened, a lightbulb went off, a burning pie pop sent smoke signals to my brain, something happened: I realized that I just really, truly, absolutely dislike baking. Like with my entire being. I hate it. It makes me feel tired, angry and pretty much like my whole world is ending. So why keep trying? Discovering I’m actually a baking phenom is pretty likely never to happen. I just honestly do not enjoy it! It’s actual mental pain for me and I get bored immediately after I start. And it wasn’t very fun (or tasty) eating uncooked pie crust, but I kept doing it just because Henry kept telling me to stop. It was just a real bad time, you guys, like taking a tour of Snooki’s gynecological history. Like being trapped in a car with someone you can’t stand, except the car is a table and the person you can’t stand is Henry amidst a pile of crappy ingredients.

(Looks like Henry’s To Do list for the pie party has just grown exponentially!)

Finally, after hearing enough of my bitching and moaning and general dramatics (so out of character), Henry released me from the confines of baking and things went back to normal: me leaning forward on the couch screaming at the TV while Henry calls out from the kitchen for the score of the hockey game.

Ah, normalcy.

I’m so glad we got up bright and early on a Sunday morning to eat a sad hotel breakfast. But sometimes sad hotel breakfasts are a must because the money you save can often equal A REALLY AWESOME PRESENT for you later on. (Spoiler alert: this never happened. Thanks, Tight Wad Hank.)

Really. This dumb bitch. What grade are you even in, like, 4th? Save the weird spandex ensemble for when you’re 16 working the street, REALLY. She’ll probably be in all of the other street walkers way too! I was about to queue up Ludicris’s seminal hit “Move Bitch” and hold it up to her face while screaming “GET OUT DA WAY.” Bitch was hovering over the toaster like your basic hobo trying to keep warm.

Maybe I wanted a fucking bagel, you don’t know! YOU WEREN’T THERE.

(I didn’t really want a bagel. But mayhaps I’d have wanted to peruse my stale options.)

And then I went over to get some orange juice but some motherfucker in a polo beat me there. He poured himself some orange juice and then was all,” Hey buddy, you want some OJ too?” and then poured some for Chooch. So I held out my cup too, blatantly, and Polo Dick put the pitcher back and walked away.

I was so offended and proceeded to complain about this back at the table.

“He probably didn’t know that you’re not an adult,” Henry mumbled around a hearty mouthful of disgusting biscuits and congealed gravy. Hhhhhrrrrk.

Then we lounged around the Fireside Inn’s kidney-shaped pool after a quick trip to Target because we can’t go more than a week without going to Target.

Later, we picked up Alyson from her house and she gave us some suggestions for New England-y things to do. One was to have lunch at Parker’s Maple Barn, which sounded fine by me because I like maple, barns and Parkers. The drive to Parker’s from Alyson’s house was quite scenic and became more and more rural the longer we drove. Parker’s seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but Alyson warned us that it usually drew a large crowd from neighboring Massachusetts.

However, we were greeted with a sparsely-populated restaurant and I was extremely happy about this because crowded restaurants make me anxious! I already decided on the way there that I was going to get a grilled cheese, because I’m on vacation and I haven’t had a grilled cheese since right before I started Weight Watchers, in December. Do you know how much this pains me? Grilled cheeses are my favorite foods ever! And I’m glad I chose Parker’s to break my grilled cheese abstinance, because it was delightful! The bread can make or break a grilled cheese, and the whole grain bread that I selected was so whole and grainy!

I also got a side of maple baked beans and maple coffee. WHAT. Maple coffee is fucking incredible and I’m kicking myself for not buying a bag in the gift shop. And you know, since we skimped on breakfast, we could have “afforded” it. Shit, I’m the worst shopper ever.

Thanks, Henry’s head, for ruining this picture.

Chooch is unfortunately still in that age bracket of hating restaurants because being in a restaurant means that we’re not out somewhere playing. So he was pretty much like, “I don’t know. Give me a pancake I guess.” And then proceeded to complain that it was bad-tasting but this was after he drowned it in a tub of (maple) syrup like an unwanted baby*, so maybe he’s just averse to syrup-sogged pancakes? MAYBE HE DOESN’T LIKE MAPLE?

*(Of course, I was sitting next to him so the rising levels of syrup became MY problem, and Henry yelled things across the table at my face, like, “TILT THE PLATE! OH FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, MOVE!” and then finally handled it himself, thank god.)

Henry asked Alyson questions about a lot of the ads on the placemat. I guess so when he moves to New Hampshire, he knows who to call when he’s ready to have his gutters drained.

I didn’t notice any ads for brothels, though. Sorry big guy.

My maple baked beans, which were very good but I could not finish them. I tried to pass them off on Henry, but he was already full from polishing off his BLT and fries and also Chooch’s syrup sponge.

Henry, deducing that there is “nothing wrong with these pancakes, boy!” I think Chooch even wrote about his dislike of Parker’s pancakes on one of the postcards he sent out. It tasted just like a pancake, I don’t get it!!

Alyson even got Henry to speak of the infamous Ted Nugent concert where he pushed over some broad in a wheelchair but now totally tries to deny it every time someone asks him! Usually if the topic is broached, he will shut down and peace out of the conversation, sometimes even going for hours without speaking. He HATES being asked about Ted Nugent and hates that I supposedly made it into “something more than it ever was.” (His words.) But Alyson asked him questions in a soothing voice which tricked him into answering! And by answering, I mean strumming his fingertips together and saying, “I don’t know, I can’t remember.” But he said it in pleasant tones and that is way different than how he responds to me!

She’s a real Henry whisperer. I wish I had studied this more intensely so that I can know how to trick him into thinking I’m genuinely imterested in his past. (I mean, I am genuinely interested, but for all the wrong reasons.)

Chooch was in such a hurry to get out of there, but had no problem loitering in the cat-laden gift shop while I bought postcards of Parker himself from the 1970s to send to people not aware of how maple-y New Hampshire is. Chooch, meanwhile, did not throw a tantrum or run through the store with a real ax like he did once in Tennessee two years ago.

I really enjoyed Parker’s and can see why it pulls in such a large touristy crowd. I would eat there a lot if I lived nearby (thus making Weight Watchers a real bust).

But that maple coffee…oh man. Even Andrea was like, “THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!” when I texted her about it, so that’s how I knew maple coffee was a thing that is probably enjoyed universally because she is usually like, “That sounds disgusting” when I tell her about all the things I ate and liked, like rambutan and Henry’s pride. (To be fair, I do enjoy weird flavors. I like to think it’s because I have such a sophisticated palate, but probably it’s more like something in there is broke.)

I bet if I told Andrea I drank maple coffee while sitting on a music box*, she would have had a different opinion, though.

*(Andrea is a music box racist.)

We hadn’t actually planned on going to Hampton Beach that day and no one had their bathing suits with them, but I remembered that Alyson mentioned in an email that going to this old-fashioned arcade on the beach could be a possibility of something to do, and that sounded like something fun to do on a 95-degree day while wearing black skinny jeans. So we drove about an hour while Alyson told us stories about the delivery drivers she encounters every day at work in Boston and Chooch was cracking up so bad, totally mesmerized by Alyson’s impressions of the Boston accent and begging her to tell us more. I’m going to venture to say Chooch was pretty smitten. (He likes older chicks!)

Henry von Standsalone. With purses.

When we first got to the beach, Alyson mentioned that her Pep used to bring her here a lot when she was a kid which really took it from “a beach” to something more special. One of the things Alyson and I first bonded over all those years ago on LiveJournal was our unwavering devotion to our grandfathers. I was really happy to get to see one of the places she spent time at as a kid. I know that I would much rather take out-of-town friends to Blue Flame rather than the more obvious Food Network-beloved Primantis, because Primantis doesn’t mean shit to me. And maybe Blue Flame doesn’t have a “claim to fame,” but it’s someplace that has special meaning to me and I like to share that with people. So I really loved when Alyson pointed out the place we needed to get fried dough and where we’d have to stop for salt water taffy and the best place to get t-shirts because her excitement was contagious!

There. I met my “sentimental” quota for the week.

That time Henry and another man caught crabs together on the beach. (It’s always a huge deal when we catch Henry chatting with other men in his demographic. There should be a National Geographic show about him.)

Chooch made friends with some boy who coincidentally is also from Pittsburgh.

And that boy had no fear touching crabs, that’s for sure. Me? I was like, “OMG DON’T TOUCCCCCHHHH IT EWWWWW IT’S GOING TO KILL US ALL!”

What a nice, peaceful afternoon, walking leisurely along the beach, not having anywhere we needed to be, and not being surrounded by assholes! There was literally no one who pissed me off at the beach! OMG I LOVE THE BEACH.

But I love the BOARDWALK even more!

(To be continued, of course.)

I pretty much eat fruit, Special K cereal and diet potato chips all week, so Saturdays are much-needed Weight Watchers splurge days. I try to make sure I still stuff in some activity in between carb-heavy Pamela’s breakfasts with Jeannie and afternoon ice cream cones. So I dragged Henry and Chooch out to walk infinite miles in the cemetery. Otherwise, I think my body would go into shock.

Chooch rode his scooter the whole time, and I am totally That Mom who screams, “OH MY GOD, CHOOCH SLOW DOWN! OH HENRY STOP HIM! HE’S GOING TO GET HIT BY A CAR!”

“He could be in a skate park and you would still think a car is going to hop the fence and hit him,” Henry sighed.

I can’t help it. I get Jello-legs just thinking about it. I wish Henry never bought him this scooter!!

Meanwhile, Henry got all butt-hurt when his desire to point out a chipmunk to us was received by giddy laughter and evil mocking. “OMG look Mommy! It’s a BIRD!” Chooch cried and we both doubled over in uncontrollable braying.

Henry stuffed his hands in his pockets and snapped, “I’M NOT SAYING ANYTHING ANYMORE. YOU TWO ASSHOLES CAN GO THRU LIFE KNOWING NOTHING.” Of course that made our giddiness straight jump the tracks and I can’t speak for Chooch, but the pee-drops were ready to fall.

Every time we go to Homewood Cemetery, Henry cranks up his “You Two Are Going to Fall Into the Pond” parental spiel. I know that the reality of this happening is very strong, but it still makes me so angry. How often do we just suddenly tumble into bodies of water, Henry!?

Chooch illustrates how someone might fall into a pond for real.

I could look at frogs all the livelong fucking day. I LOVE FROGS. Unfortunately, this leaves the door open for Henry to recite some of the National Geographic factoids he has crammed in his annoying egg head. God, go find a Boy Scout troop to lead into the woods or something. Seriously!

OH MY FUCKING GOD IT’S A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING BIRD FLYING IN THE CEMETERY! And Henry was still being all butthurt over the chipmunk so he bit his tongue but you could tell he was ready to shit his pants, that’s how badly he wanted to point out what kind of bird it was.

Oh shit, afterward, we went to get ice cream at Oh Yeah. I was all, “I’m going to get fig and pistachio because I am boring and that is all I ever get at Oh Yeah” but then I saw “lavender” on the add-on list and almost wrenched Henry’s dick off in my embellished excitement.

Thank god there were enough people ahead of me to give me ample time to coax my head into exploding because, Jesus Christ — WHAT WOULD GO BEST WITH LAVENDER?!

Chooch was not nearly as excited about the lavender as I was.

Who the fuck frowns in an ice cream shop??

Chooch wound up ordering chocolate ice cream with Kit Kats as his mix-in, while I wrung my hands in sweaty anticipation. Of course the guy who owns the place switched out with the other Professional Ice Cream Scooper just in time to heckle my flavor combo.

(I’m pretty sure he’s the owner and he is very intimidating in his cowboy hat and steely, flavor-judging eyes.)

“Oh, good choice!” he enthused, unknowingly giving me the green light to adopt the official I Just Impressed an Ice Cream Shop Owner!!! look of smugness for approximately the next 5 minutes. (OK, hour at least.)

Meanwhile, Chooch dropped his ice cream cone before I even got mine, so when it was Henry’s turn to order, he sighed gravely and re-ordered Chooch’s ice cream. (And I’d like to take this time to point out that Chooch apparently tried to eat his ice cream off the floor and Henry had to scold him. Well, dude — when his father eats FUNNEL CAKE OFF THE PAVEMENT, what do you expect?)

So, looks like really only 2 of us were YAY SO STOKED!! for ice cream after that.

(Don’t cry too much for Henry, he got to finish Chooch’s cone.)

Fuck, that was a good ice cream cone.

We finished off the day of poor food choices by going out for Chinese. (My dinner was mostly steamed vegetables and fish, and I only ate 1/4 of it anyway, so I didn’t feel too gluttonous.)

“I hope my fortune says ‘You will receive 7000 cats’,” Chooch sighed dreamily.

It didn’t, thank god.

(This is definitely not a blog post about food trucks.)

The Union Project is an old church transformed into a community space full of yoga, dance and ceramics classes, and it can also be rented out for weddings, parties and Goth Blacklight Bingo nights. (Seriously, if anyone is interested in organizing this with me, get in touch.) It’s your basic Feel Good city establishment.

We have love for this place because it’s where Chooch’s recent ceramics classes were held. (And um, also where his old child psychologist’s office is. What? He snipped our cat’s ear with scissors when he was three and I needed to know he wasn’t going to be the next Ed Gein, OK?)

Anyway, the story is something like: once their floor was sloped and now it is flat, so the awesome people behind the Union Project threw a big party last Friday evening to commemorate this momentous occasion. And the ceramics cooperative decided to have a little exhibition in tandem with the party, so Chooch submitted one of his pieces: a ceramic monster pinch-pot bank.

He named it Dawn, you guys. Dawn! I almost died when I saw that! I’m so happy that my son is following in my footsteps of taking the smallest detail of Henry’s life and running it into the ground with endless punch lines.

The heart swells.

I took a half day under the pretense of “You guys, what kind of mom would I be if I missed my kid’s first art show?” But really, it was for the FOOD TRUCKS. I even worked out extra long that morning to prepare for the astronomical calorie count I was planning to rack up.

I was THIS excited for food trucks, too, Chooch.

While we waited for the food trucks to set up, we killed some time playing cornhole, which is how I learned I am exceptionally bad at cornhole.

Still waiting for the food trucks to get their shit together.

My friend Elizabeth showed up with her little girl Rachel and, like me, she was there for the food trucks, not Chooch’s ceramic talent. It’s amazing how excited people get just from the prospect of buying food from a mobile truck. Pgh Taco Truck was there, but I was most looking forward to Fukuda because I wanted some exotic street food. Turns out Fukuda did not opt to include anything vegetarian-friendly on their truncated traveling menu, instead parking their pork belly-palooza curbside. (I didn’t bother to ask if they could modify it either because I dislike speaking to strangers.)

Fukuda you, Fukuda.

My back-up plan would have been to get a vegetarian hot dog from Franktuary, but those motherfukudas were no shows.

So I ended up with a guacamole taco. I mean, a curried potato taco soused under a niagara of guacamole. It was only OK and so I pouted internally for the rest of the night. I did have a really satisfying apple rosemary popsicle though from some hippie urban farmer people. (Aren’t they all hippie urban farmer people in that part of town though? I think so. Nice people, though!

If you ask Chooch though, he had the best taco ever thrown together. I was just happy he was eating something that didn’t come out of a gas station. That kid couldn’t name one component of the food pyramid even if there was $100 on the line.

I blame Henry.

Later, after losing 87 quarts of sweat from running around in circles and pretending to be Ju-On, Chooch took approximately three bites of a peanut butter banana Nutella crepe that took Henry THIRTY MINUTES to order and procure because he is so fucking passive aggressive and let some assholes take his crepe. This was the second time in one week that he was the victim of a food-swiping! But you would have known that if he had lived up to his end of the bargain and blogged about his funnel cake fukuda-up at DelGrosso’s.

The crepe was OK (the savory ones looked like they were better), but the real props need to go out to the crepe booth’s name: Creped Crusaders.

Chooch mocked Rachel at one point and I made him apologize. I’m not sure if he followed through though, because he was intercepted by a couple with a dog on his way over to deliver his apology. And he is almost as obsessed with dogs as he is with cats, so he pretty much hung out with these strangers and their dog for what was left of the evening.

I’m not sure what ever happened with the art exhibit. Prizes were promised to be awarded, but anytime we went inside to check out what was going on, no one was around. It was too nice of an evening and every one wanted to be outside. This probably had nothing to do with the food trucks.

Nothing at all.

We bailed during the last hour because I wanted to go home and watch the hockey game like any good mom would. Sidney Crosby had a hat trick that night! Probably thinking of food trucks.

“Just stay in the car,” Henry barked when we pulled into the Oriental Market parking lot. “Please,” his bark turned into a whine.

Yeah right, and risk missing out on the expensive delicacies that Henry would be sure to pass over?

Chooch and I pushed and shoved our way into the store past Henry, who was rapidly aging right before our eyes. He was also muttering under his breath and I’m certain it probably wasn’t an apology for farting.

The very thing I saw? My elusive MANGOSTEEN, mothafuckas.

“I AM GETTING THIS!” I declared to the entire produce section, but no one paid me any mind because I’m sure crazy white bitches up in the Asian markets are a dime a dozen.

Ignoring us doesn’t actually make us go away, though. Sorry.

You could almost hear Henry’s forehead vein strumming along as he watched me toss a bushel of mangosteen balls into the basket at $9.69 a pound.

Unfortunately, the little market was wax jamboo-less by the time we rolled up, but I made sure to Google that shit and immediately add it to my Must Eat list.

I’m so glad that I decided to buy one of these aroemanis mangoes even though Henry said, “IT IS JUST A MANGO.” Because it tasted much better than a regular mango! Richer, creamier, more expensive.  (And NOT Asian, I’ll have you know. The sticker says that it’s a product of Mexico, what the fuck is THAT, you produce posers!?)

Henry tried to pull the same authority with the Fire Dragon.

“THAT’S JUST A DRAGONFRUIT PUT IT BACK!” Henry yelled. But if it was “just a dragonfruit,” then why did they also have dragonfruits for sale further down!? So I made him buy a Fire Dragon, too.

Chooch always picks out one package of cookies and then promptly makes puking sounds in the backseat of the car after tasting one.

This is Henry’s face after the young girl wearing oversized lensless eyeglasses rang up the small pile of produce and asked him to hand over something greater than thirty US Dollars. We didn’t speak for awhile, but he seemed to be in a little bit of a better mood once he went to Jo-Ann Fabrics. (Seriously, I can verify that Henry doesn’t actually have a vagina, but I can understand why you’d wonder.)

A little later that afternoon, Henry stormed into the family room with one lone eyeball-sliver thing on a plate and spat, “HERE. YOU BETTER PRAY YOU LIKE IT BECAUSE YOU’RE EATING THE WHOLE BAG.”

It was a small piece of mangosteen and maybe it’s the lore and mystique talking here, but it was pretty fucking fantastic. It was like a mild Sweet Tart, with the texture of an eyeball, but the closer I came to the seed, the more its consistency was creamy and buttery like an angel’s nipple—just like my beloved CHERIMOYA. So if you don’t like cherimoya, go fuck yourself. I mean, then you might not like mangosteen.

But it wasn’t as good as cherimoya. That’s still top dawg.

Thank god I bought the Fire Dragon because WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT AMAZING FUSCHIA HUE?! I was worried that it was going to deceive me, the same way that beets fool me with their vibrant chromatics. One of these days, I’m going to eat a beet like it.

I hope.

Henry could shove one of those into a ring and I’d say yes.

This is what the mangosteens look like in their protective casing. I think I should probably keep a bag on hand when I’m riding the trolley. I might need to use it. And by use it I mean forcefully swing it into the balls of a would-be rapist. Those motherfuckers.

I’m eating my 4PM fruit salad right now at work and it feels so good to be back in action, like I could do ANYTHING. There are also grapes, apples and tangerines in my fruit salad, but who cares.

If it’s slow at work tonight, I’m going to check to see if there are any Fruit Clubs on Meetup.com and if so, I’m going to join and be a complete fruit snob. You know, like I am with everything else in life.