Mango Blech

I believe I've stated my opinions on fruit, but just in case you've missed it there is one overriding rule to which I hold dearly: fruit has no business being in, or anywhere near, cookies. I would broaden that rule to encompass all baked goods, if not for the total deliciousness of cherry tarts, banana bread, and pizza.

Pizza, you ask? Yes, pizza.

Tomatoes are fruit. Pizza sauce is made out of tomatoes. Pizza is a delicious baked bread with pizza sauce spread liberally on top of it. Therefore, pizza is little more than a baked good with fruit on it, very much like cherry tarts, only covered with gooey cheese and enhanced by the addition of pepperoni and mushrooms. End of argument.

The primary violator of the no-fruit-in-cookies rule is the raisin. I enjoy raisins as much as the next man, but they are best when performing solo. A handful of raisins scraped off the cardboard walls of those tiny red boxes makes for a tasty treat. Heck, you can even mix them with nuts and M&Ms to create a handy dandy trail mix. I ate plenty of that this weekend on the long drive to and from Disney World. Nothing wrong at all with trail mix. But trail mix isn't baked, is it?

The raisin's worst offense is when it pretends to be a chocolate chip. You know what I'm talking about. You're at a party, perusing the dessert buffet, and you spot a tray of chocolate chip cookies. You realize the mistake you've made in cookie identification only after you've chomped off a chunk the size of your fist. What should have been chocolaty goodness is instead a slimy smear of baked raisin goo, and you're left with two options: (1) keep chewing and politely finish what you started; (2) drop to your knees, gag like you're dying and spit it out on the carpet.

I would not fault any of you for choosing Option #2.

Some people think you can skirt around the no-fruit-in-cookies rule by making a cookie that tastes like fruit rather than baking actual fruit bits into the cookie. The Girl Scouts are guilty of this trick with their Lemonades. I realize the Lemonade contains no lemony chunks or chewy shards of candied lemon rind, but that's just part of their evil plot.

To make matters worse, this year the Girl Scouts unveiled a new violation of the rule by rolling out the Mango Creme.

Mango...

I have never in my life experienced a desire to taste a mango-flavored cookie, and I have no intention of allowing a harassing gang of badged hooligans to pressure me into to trying this new abomination.

Described as "crunchy vanilla and coconut cookies with a mango-flavored creme filling," the Girl Scouts add insult to injury with their everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. Coconut, fruit and crunchy? Each of those factors on its own is enough to ruin a cookie. Throw them all together with vanilla and all you end up with is a shameful waste of some perfectly good vanilla. In the next few weeks, when the Girl Scouts start hawking their wares at storefronts and malls across America, I will protest the Lemonade and the Mango Creme.

But I won't protest all their cookies. Homemade chocolate silk ice cream is so much better with crunched up Peanut Butter Patties mixed in. Too bad My Lovely Wife doesn't like bits of cookie in her ice cream.

Some people have way too many rules about food...



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Eat the Stupid Cookie Dough

Why wouldn't you eat cookie dough?

Crunchy crystals of undissolved sugar in a creamy batter of raw flour and egg, seasoned with a touch of vanilla and a pinch of salt, a liberal portion of semi-sweet chocolate morsels swimming at all depths in the magical concoction. Forget licking the bowl, if I could I'd wear it like a hat and let the delectable contents run slowly toward my mouth over the course of the day.

But there are some who warn against such behavior, not just because it gets your hair all sticky, but because of the remote threat of being sickened by E coli. I'm sick and tired of hearing about E coli. It's on unwashed lettuce, it's in undercooked hamburger, they find it in groundwater, kids catch it from goats at the petting zoo... Enough, already!

If E coli is out to get me, it's got many more creative methods at its disposal than lurking on my spatula or attaching itself to a chocolate chip. Let E Coli take its chances. I'll swallow it whole and chase it down with Imodium.

And, I'm just making assumptions here, I have to think that the quantity of cookie dough consumed might also have something to do with the problem of people getting sick. Cookie dough, like Pretzel M&Ms, should be classified a hazardous material and the government should require a special permit or licence to handle it. Simply being in the presence of this unstable substance is enough to drive the common sense straight out of the minds of the most balanced individuals.

Being a lifelong cookie dough connoisseur, I've learned from firsthand experience that I can't plunk my fat ass down in the kitchen and eat an entire tube of the stuff like a ravenous beast attacking a summer sausage. Too much of a good thing, as they say. Moderation is key to enjoying any good cookie dough.

And a note to parents: stop telling kids the raw eggs in the batter will make them sick. Rocky Balboa drank raw eggs for breakfast and we never saw him puking on the streets of Philadelphia or ducking into a public restroom because he was about to blow out his shorts. Nuff said.

So, this holiday season when the mixing bowls come out of storage and even the least talented bakers break out traditional recipes so tried and true there's no way to screw them up, do yourself a favor and dig your fingers in up to the third row of knuckles and tear away a fistful of heaven.

Just make sure the chocolate chips have already joined the party.




© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Don't Trust That Cookie!

"New and rewarding opportunities will soon develop for you."

That fortune came out of a cookie during a meal at one of our local Chinese buffets. If you haven't yet eaten at a Chinese buffet in rural North Carolina, it's an interesting experience.

As a child in New York, I recall being deathly afraid of the exotic selections served at the Chinese restaurant to which my parents would take us every now and then. It was a special treat for them. It usually turned into a night of "I'm Still Hungry" for me. My solution was to order wonton soup and egg rolls, the Happy Meal of Asian cuisine, then scarf down cookies and ice cream when we got home.

My sons have adopted a similar tactic. Their meal at the Chinese buffet includes wonton soup (broth only), "chicken on a stick," and that classic Chinese dish known to most of us as fried mozzarella sticks. I learned years ago that China is the real birthplace of pasta, but I had no idea Farm Rich was based in Hong Kong.

Anyway, back to the fortune cookie.

I had just launched this blog, and was seriously considering an attempt at writing the novel I had always dreamed of writing, so the fortune seemed timely. For several days, it helped inspire in me the notion of becoming a successful writer, maybe even achieving the ultimate goal of making enough money to be a full-time writer and quit the day job.

Time, however, can be cruel to dreams. As dust settled over the rectangular scrap of paper resting atop the laptop on my desk, it seemed as though I had foolishly allowed myself to be suckered in. No riches presented themselves. No books -- magnificently conceived and self-edited -- came flying from my fingertips. The abominable cookie lied!

Or did it? Maybe I misunderstood.

Yup, I'm pretty sure I did. Search for the verb in the fortune and you'll see what I mean.

"Develop."

New and rewarding opportunities will soon "develop" for you. They won't be handed across like a present, or awarded like a diploma. Just as when you plant a new flowerbed, the development begins the moment the plants are in the ground, but the flowerbed itself doesn't mature for another few years, if ever.

So that's where I am. I'm in the development stage, which began right around the time I ate that cookie. The blog is going strong, the first draft of the novel is nearly complete, and I've been able to experiment with self-publishing thanks to the blog. I'd have to say things are developing nicely.

Pretty smart cookie!




© 2011 Mark Feggeler