A new bottle of nail polish. Fresh sheets. A bold ink pen.
These are just a few of the little things that make me happy. Of course, someone already outdid me and created a whole Tumblr about the Little Things that make the world a better place. Obviously, many of the sentiments revolve around food. Here are the best little moments in the life of an eater.
7. Herr’s Ripples. Period.
Poor Padma & Co. could barely make up their minds in this squeaker of a Top Chef All-Stars finale. The judges insisted that both of our finalists were deserving of the TCAS crown, but of course only one of them could take it home. We talk with the chef-testant who topped all the other All-Stars, after the jump.
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Look how beautiful and pink that drink is. It’s just gorgeous. I wanted this calcium-filled liquid to taste as good as it looked. But I think I took it one dairy too far.
Like most weekday breakfasts, this one started simply: a blender, yogurt and frozen strawberries. But I barely had any yogurt left so I reopened the fridge. What else could I throw in this? I spied milk. Of course, milk lends itself perfectly to smoothies. Problem is, well, there are two problems. One, I hate milk and don’t like a lot of it in anything I consume. And two, there wasn’t that much milk left and I wanted to save it for my boyfriend’s cereal. I added a splash, but my smoothie begged for more ingredients. So there it was. The final dairy left in my fridge that I thought was somewhat suitable for drinking: cottage cheese.
Clearly, I was wrong. Cottage cheese consumed the entire smoothie, even covering that signature yogurt tang. I gagged to swallow the pink liquid down my throat.
So let this be a warning: keep your smoothies to a two dairy minimum.
Homework sucks. Call it burn-out from sixteen years of school. Call it A.D.D.
Nevertheless, I admit to munching on high-sugar kid’s cereal for something to do and wonder: we really ate this for breakfast when we were kids?? No wonder we begged for it, crying and screaming in the grocery store aisles–this shit is freakin’ candy. The cinnamon sugar is coating my fingers and my laptop keyboard.
Wendell, Bob, and Quello (WTF?), the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers, certainly did know how to market sugar to children. Like giving candy to a baby…literally. And how noble of them to use “less sugar” than “other kids’ cereals.” There were cereals with more sugar??
Bob and Quello were fired somewhere along the way, and Wendell has been left to grace the box alone. And now, to entice the kids during modern, less-than-stellar Saturday morning cartoonage, the crazy cinnamon sugar squares just eat each other and burp. Nice.
What was your favorite high-sugar kids’ cereal? You know, the one that made you bounce off the walls in school and then crash around 10 AM. You know, the one that was partially responsible for your A.D.D…
Unlike gansie, I’m a serious lover of cereal. Like gansie, I’m also a pretty big fan of beer. Unfortunately, societal norms prevent me from pouring beer over my breakfast cereal. But I still haven’t given up on finding a way to unite these two favored food groups of mine. So I was pretty intrigued when I stumbled upon this post over at Accidental Hedonist:
I’ve either been reading way too much beer research of late, or there has to be a workable beer recipe found in the cereal aisle of your local grocery store.
In perusing the ingredient list of a box of Grape Nuts cereal, I read the following:
Whole grain wheat flour, wheat flour, malted barley flour, salt, dried yeast, soy lecithin
So, am I crazy, or is there a basic beer ingredient list in here?
Beer from cereal? Is it really possible? Because if so, I may have found my new calling in life: home-brewing batches of rice krispies beer, cinnamon toast crunch beer, and fruit loops beer.
Let’s hear from all you amateur brewers. Is cereal-brew the wave of the future? Or a sad bachelor’s pipe dream? And what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever tossed in a home brew?
(Photo: Slightlynorth)
Keep eating those clown cupcakes, and you’ll turn into a clown.
We’re a pretty loose group here at Endless Simmer. Although I’ve yet to visit the corporate headquarters in New York, I hear it’s pretty swanky. Hot and cold running microbrews from the bathroom faucets, life-size voodoo dolls of dozens of celebrity chefs skewered with huge Renaissance Fair lances, and a giant chocolate fountain that rises up three stories into the atrium above the lobby. I wonder why they haven’t invited me to see it yet.
Oh well, it’ll keep. It’s just a thrill and an honor to be a member of the team and do my part for the ball club.
Anyway, for the most part I think I’ve managed to maintain the Cupcake Rampage gold standards so far: didactic journalism, spotlighting mature flavors for sophisticated palates, and trying to explain as much why something happens as how it’s supposed to happen. After last week, however, I may have hit the wall. It wasn’t the new directions I was taking my writing, or the tangle of coming up with something pretty and practical every week, or even the dilemma of what do to with all those goddamn cupcakes.
No, gentle readers; I was done in by frosting.
Last week’s Aztec xocolatl cupcakes were a byproduct of another five dozen cupcakes I baked as a favor to a friend and her party for the neighborhood kids. (My first paid gig!) Now, even though it might sound nightmarish, making fifty-plus cupcakes really isn’t that big a deal, even if they’re different styles and flavors; you just get into assembly-line mode and crank them out. Making a different kind of frosting to go with each kind of cupcake, however, now that’s a pain in the ass. The worst kind of crash is a sugar crash, and nothing has more sugar than homemade frosting.
So you see, I needed something simple this week. Nothing terribly fancy or high-maintenance or with too many ingredients, but still something that encapsulated the essence of Endless Simmer: a little class, a little flash, a little trash. Since going vegan I’ve kind of left my trashy food tendencies behind, but just because something is vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for you. (Hel-lo, vegan cupcakes? It’s still a cupcake!) So, what’s classier than a vegan cupcake, flashier than a new cupcake tree, (thanks, Diana!) and trashier than the tops of said cupcakes adorned with the unnatural accouterments of American breakfast cereal? Nothing, I says! Nothing!
Just whip up a batch of your favorite cupcake batter (I made gluten-free vanilla, because I’m still working on my GF skillz) and sprinkle on your favorite brand of sugarbombs before chucking them in the oven. I used Cocoa Puffs, Trix, (gluten-free!) and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Airy, crunchy cereal works best because they don’t sink; marshmallows tend to melt and make the cupcake all gross. (Extra trash points!) Once they’re baked, the cereal is also going to be in direct contact with the cupcake itself, so the topping will start to get soft after a few hours.
What’s that you say? Oh, you don’t think breakfast cereal is trashy enough, do you? No matter how much high fructose corn syrup it’s been soaked in, how nutritionally deficient it may be, how laden with GMOs, artificial colorings, and hidden sodium it is? Well then, let’s just go back downstairs into the lab and see if we can’t find something a little more…disturbing for you, shall we?
Stare into the face of horror after the jump, if you dare…
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