Lots of cookies from West of the Rockies

Vacation is defined as that place you go where you buy a lot of Giant Cookies but never have time to review them. After vacation is the time when you sit and weep, look for all your receipts, most of which you already gave away to your employer for reimbursement, and then write oodles of reviews and cram them all into one blog post. This is going to be a tour de cookie force, I'm just warning you in advance.

Peanut Butter Cookie from Peet's Coffee

Peet's Coffee Shop (which  may or may not be it's precise name) sat pretty in Portland, and one rainy morning, I skipped the keynote speech for my conference and went cookie shopping there and several other places. This cookie, in brief, was nothing really special. It had barely any flavor, wasn't too crunchy, but not too deliciously soft, and did not pass the crumble test. I can't begin to speculate at its value because of the missing receipt issue already mentioned, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this cookie again.

WOW Peanut butter cookie

This was the first cookie I picked up while on this vacation. After carrying it around with me from city to city in a suitcase, it was somewhat the worse for wear when I finally ate it upon my return. It had a better flavor than the last peanut butter cookie, but still wasn't anything to shout about, and its crumbliness was phenomenal.

Flower cookie

Another place at which I stopped on my infamous morning cookie run in Portland was Helen Bernhard Bakery. There was a tempting array of cookies in her case, and I purchased several of them, but only this flower was big enough to qualify for a Giant Cookie review. It was nice and soft, but the frosting was crunchy, for the perfect contrast. It also boasted a delightful buttery flavor that reminded me of cookie dough—and if you know how much I like cookie dough, you'll know that means it was good! If I had a complaint, I would say it was a  little too  crumbly.

Vanilla frosted cookie from Starlight Bakery

 At Pizza Schmizza (a popular Portland place), I saw a rack of cookies in tantalizing rainbow-colored wrappers, sitting on the takeout counter. I added two of them to my bill. One of them I gave away. The other one, I ate upon my arrival at home. This vanilla frosted cookie was it. It reminded me of nothing so much as those puffy frosted Lofthouse cookies that come in a 10-pack and are always getting brought to cookouts. The cookie itself was very soft, which I liked, and the frosting was sweet, but, like the Lofthouse cookies, it was nothing to get all excited over.

Cow Chip cookies

Spoiler alert: Of all the cookies I acquired in my travels, these were my favorites. And that's after I bought them on discount at a day old, and then didn't eat them til a week and a day later! These cookies were more crunchy than I'd usually like, but at the same time, they weren't a brittle kind of crunchy, but quite substantial. If I were to ever call a cookie "muscular," it would be this cookie. The flavor was superb, and the abundance of walnuts sprinkled liberally on top was perfect if you like walnuts, which I do. If ever you are in Seattle, I strongly encourage you to seek out this cookie establishment.

Smoothie King Chocolate Chip cookie

The chocolate chip cookie I purchased at Smoothie King had a decently soft and chewy texture, but it also had a weird sour aftertaste. In other words, it tasted like a health food. I guess I should have expected that of a cookie that I purchased at a health food venue. The label proudly proclaimed that this cookie lacked trans fat, cholesterol, dairy, or animal products of any kind. Show me a healthy cookie that I love more than a junky cookie, and I'll show you myself lying on the floor in shock. But for what it was, it was edible. If I were on a diet and all I could eat were Smoothie King cookies, I probably wouldn't complain.


I might complain about the price, though.  It cost something like 2.2¢ per gram, making it not the most affordable diet staple.

The Bottom Line:
Taste: 2 stars
Texture: 4 stars
Price: 2 stars

The Status Update

In case you were wondering, my last post about falling in love the natural way wasn't just wishful thinking. It was actually happening. And now it is done happening and I am officially a girlfriend again.

Phew. It only took 3 months this time. And while I pretty much broke with all personal tradition and actually enjoyed being single for those 3 months, I enjoy being attached much more.

I enjoy it so much, in fact, that I would rather see him than eat cookies! That's how you know it's serious.

That's also my explanation for why my blogging has been a little sparse as of late—but I do have at least one Giant Cookie Review coming up for you soon.

Macaroni and Cheese from the Maryland Smokehouse

When your coworkers all want to go to get barbecue for lunch one day, and you're a picky vegetarian, you groan and hope they serve macaroni and cheese.

Fortunately, the Maryland Smokehouse (a new independent restaurant, which always warrants special consideration) does (I might add, though, that their only veggie side dish is roasted zucchini and squash, which is gross).

I ordered it. It was soft and gooey, and had real cheese shreds on top, which is always a plus!

On the minus side, there was pepper in it, and you all know how I feel about pepper. This time it was black pepper, which is less offensive.

On the whole, I was not disappointed by this less-bland-than-my-usual-fare macaroni and cheese, though I probably will not go out of my way to order it again. I rate it one happy noodle.

Reading Between and the Lines

It has been a long time since I ranted about some grammatical thing that irks me, so I hope you can finally cease your waiting and rest easy with this new post on prepositions and their symbolic stand-ins.

What is a preposition, you're asking? Well, if you're asking, you've probably come to the wrong place, but all you really need to know is that the following words are prepositions: "from," "between," and "to."

You probably know already that these particular prepositions travel in predictable pairs—from Point A to Point B, or between Point A and Point C.

You don't need Li'l Language Lady to tell you which word to pair with another.

But when you start using symbols instead of words, all your sense  seems to vanish (excuse me; when I say "you," I am referring not actually to you, but a hypothetical person who is certainly not you!)

It is generally accepted that the en dash ( – ) is the character of choice when separating two numbers to indicate a range, and that the en dash used in this context reads aloud as "to." So when you put "March 3 – March 8" on your calendar, you know you really mean "March 3 to March 8." Easy peasy, right?

Then why, pray tell, do people write things like, "Registration will be open between March 3 – March 8." ? Why, when it clearly would be read as the nonsensical "between March 3 to March 8."

Am I being too harsh? Does the en dash have an alternate meaning as the word "and"?

And did you understand the clever jumble of wordplay I did in the title of this post, which makes slightly more sense if you think of en dashes as "the lines?"

Falling in Love the Natural Way

Well, I've been single (more or less, but we won't go into that) for about 3 months now, and that means I've had plenty of time to think about falling in love.

I frequently list falling in love as one of my favorite pastimes, being one of the few benefits of being single. You are free to fall in love as often as you want, with no consequences except maybe some lack of sleep and/or productivity.

I'll admit I haven't been doing nearly as much falling in love as I would like, but that doesn't mean I can't pretend to be an expert on it! And what I am going to posit, with my superior knowledge backing me, is there are good ways of falling in love, and there are bad ways.

The bad way goes something like this. You meet online, already hoping you might have found your perfect match. You make a few snap judgments of each other, mostly based on photos, statistics, and writing style. If you haven't rejected each other within the first 10 seconds, you may exchange messages, wherein you try to wheedle facts and dealbreakers out of the other party. If you haven't yet found fault with each other, you meet in person. At this point, you may conclude that the other party is uglier than his/her pictures indicated, or that you can't stand the other's voice, or that his/her B.O. is just too overwhelming. If by some miracle, you still haven't been frightened off, you have the go-ahead to fall in love.

The bad way of approaching romance is a subtractive process, in which you start with lofty ideals and whittle them down to the point where you've either given up entirely or done the dreaded "settling."

The good way, on the other hand, starts with no expectations. You meet in a neutral environment, without even giving a thought to the notion that you may one day be in love. You don't have any romantic interest in each other. You may even find the other a little intimidating, or annoying, or unattractive. You go about your daily business, getting to know each other slowly over a period of weeks or months. You gradually learn each other's good traits and bad traits. You become friends. You learn even more of each other's good traits. At some point, you realize you have a genuine crush on the other, and the things you originally found intimidating, annoying, or unattractive, have transformed in your mind to – yes! – more good traits. But you don't let on. You continue going about your daily business, savoring every tiny interaction to your secret delight. You may continue like this for more weeks or more months, until, perhaps, the other disappears from your life, no harm, no foul. But perhaps, instead, one of you will one day make a move. And then, well, you've already fallen in love! After all that waiting, it's like Christmas!

The good way of falling in love is additive (addictive, too), starting with almost nothing and building up, good thing on top of good thing. It's not contrived, like online dating. It just sort of happens. And things that just sort of happen always feel more right, to me, than things I've struggled to achieve.

It may be counterproductive to set accidental love-falling as an goal, but I sincerely hope I'll keep it in mind the next time I'm tempted to rush things in my desperation to no longer be single.

Classic Mac from CapMac

 
City dwellers the country over seem to be in a happy frenzy over food trucks. They seem to think the food that comes out of these vehicles (also known as roach wagons, anyone ever heard that appetizing name?) is better than manna from heaven. Having never tasted manna, I'm not qualified to judge, but I'll take my meals out of a restaurant any day.

No standing out in line in the hot sun or freezing rain, and you get to eat off of reusable diningware instead of landfill-clogging disposables.

Nonetheless, while at the Cherry Blossom Festival on Saturday, I was obliged to taste the macaroni and cheese offerings of Cap Mac, a food truck that specializes in macaroni and cheese.

The only item on the menu that suited my meat-free diet was Classic Mac, so I got that. And within the first bite, I'd realized something sad. They had attempted to make their macaroni and cheese "fancy" by infusing it with spices or something, and I have to assume that they felt the spices were sufficient flavoring that they could forgo the world's best seasoning: good old fashioned salt.

As you can guess, I was not impressed. I checked their menu before posting this entry, and verified that indeed, they had put "pimento" into what might have been an otherwise good macaroni and cheese.

They had, however, topped it with broken Cheez-Its, which I thought was a nice touch.

Therefore, I rate this macaroni as follows:
One sad noodle for putting peppers in my go-to bland food.
Another sad noodle for not enough salt
One happy noodle for Cheez-Its!

White Chocolate Chunk Cookie from 4th Street Deli

The 4^th Street Deli in Fernandina Beach was where my mom and I stopped for lunch on our shopping trip the second day of our vacation. While there, I had a very good sandwich and picked up a very good looking Giant Cookie for later.

Well, it might have looked good, but its taste was another matter!

It was probably one of the airiest, crispiest, crumbliest giant cookies I have ever had the misfortune of buying. And to top that off, it didn’t really have any flavor.

I’m so disappointed, I can’t talk about it, so this will be a brief review.

The white chocolate chunks were its one saving grace, providing the same chewy, creamy sugar rush I’ve come to expect from white chocolate chunks.

It cost 1.67¢ a gram, which isn’t that great, either.

The Bottom Line:

Taste: 2 stars

Texture: 2 stars

Price: 3 stars

Chocolate Chip Cookie from Marché Burette

Within a few hours of arriving on Amelia Island, I had already discovered my first Giant Cookie.

It was hiding within the glass deli case at Marché Burette, the cafe and general store on Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort. Marché Burette, in addition to having some of the giantest cookies I'd ever laid eyes on, also had an excess of customers.

Our attempt to eat lunch there was solidly foiled, and so we vowed to come back later—perhaps to dine and most definitely to partake of a Giant Cookie. Maybe they would be less overcooked (as they appeared to be) the second time around.

Alas, they were not, and neither were they the third time, when we finally succeeded in having our lunch. They had just gotten over their lunch rush at 3 pm.

But this isn't a story of my dining adventures—no, it is a story of a Giant Cookie, and what a fine Giant Cookie it was!

As I mentioned before, it was big. Not content to be flat like normal Giant Cookies, this behemoth of a baked good rose proud like a mountain! Or at least a low hill.

Usually a Giant Cookie of such stocky proportions is rather on the tough side, and this one was no exception. Near its middle, it had a hint of chewy, but for the most part, I found it to be a hearty hunk of sweetness.

Not, mind you, that it was too crispy—most of the crunch came from the oats, which are a rarity in Giant Cookies that don't have raisins, so they were a welcome addition. But no, it didn't quite pass the Crumble Test.

The flavor — well, I don't remember the flavor, so it must have been unremarkable, but I did make note that the chocolate parts were yummalicious.

The price, though, that was a bit more memorable. Memorably good! Although I had to pay a whopping three dollars for a single cookie, I received 280 grams of the same, meaning it cost 1.07¢ a gram. Not too shabby.

The Bottom Line:
Taste: 3 stars
Texture: 3 stars
Price: 4 stars

A Travel Tale

Last week, I took my first ever solo drive to Florida, and I lived to tell about it. This is not a story about all the fun times I had in Florida (because it was a pretty uneventful trip) but rather, the ways that it was different from vacations past.

I'm no stranger to long drives. I make the 8-hour trek from College Park to Toledo Ohio 2 or 3 times a year. The Florida trip (to Jacksonville) increased my total time to 12 hours, but it used fewer roads and had no tolls, so overall, it was less stressful.

Arriving in Jacksonville at 7 pm, I was 1) starving and 2) ready to explore the city, get my vacation started with a bang! Unfortunately, it was a Sunday, so all the shops closed right before I got there. Kind of reminds me of my disappointing trip to Denver last year. I was forced to settle for carrying frozen yogurt back to my room and watching TV in bed.

The next day, in the few hours before I had to pick up my mom and her husband at the airport, I decided to really live it up and buy my breakfast at Walmart. On the way there, I achieved another first: I ran (that is, jogged slowly) all the way, which turned out to be a mile. I ran a mile! Marathons, here I come! My trip to Walmart involved crossing 3 freeway exits and a busy road, so I can also claim the distinction of having cheated death.

By that time, I was fairly certain I was getting another head cold (the third one since mid-February!). My nose was getting stuffier by the minute and my bones ached (some of that may have been from running in my less-than ergonomic shoes), and the first thing that I did upon arriving at our villa on the beach was burrow into a bed and nap for an hour and a half.

My memories of the next two days consist mostly of battling fatigue and struggling to breathe. Tragically, the only day during my vacation which I spent any significant amount of time on a beach, I was forced to bundle up in jeans and 3 layers of shirts. I did not so much as touch a wave the entire holiday.

By Thursday, I was pretty much back to my usual health, which means I have no more drama to add to this tale! I must report, however, that, as on most vacations, I found a great number of new Giant Cookies to add to my roster, so look forward to those reviews shortly!

Potbelly Sugar Cookie

My brother was in town this week, all the way from Podunk, Kansas (OK, technically it's Manhattan, but that makes it sound way too cool).

This meant I spent a lot of time out and about, finding Giant Cookies to review. I actually only found one, and it was just another variety from Potbelly, which I reviewed not too long ago. I don't usually go for sugar cookies, but this one looked pretty tempting, and anyway, it's been a whole 11 days since my last Giant Cookie review, so I had to get it!

This sugar cookie, like the last Potbelly cookie, was deliciously soft, bordering on gooey. In fact, being of the sugar variety without a lot of flavors or textures to make it interesting, this was its chief virtue, but that was really the only virtue it needed. It was delicious! (It did have coarse sugar on top, which added to its texture appeal.)

I forgot to note the price, and I had to eat the cookie on the run, so I was unable to weigh it before devouring it, but I will assume it was 1.25¢ a gram like the last one.

The Bottom Line:
Taste: 5 stars
Texture: 5 stars
Price: 3 stars

What I got

For some people, shopping is a chore: they do it when they must to acquire the stuff they need. For some people, shopping is a pleasure in itself: they do it to feel the joy of owning delightful new things. For me, shopping is a game of strategy, carefully planned out to minimize the resources spent while maximizing my reward. Today I had an especially successful shopping trip (I think I won) and I'd like to share it with you. 'Cause I know you're just as excited about what I got as I am.

I had to venture out to Lanham today to pick up some things someone was Freecycling. Normally I don't Freecycle out as far as Lanham, because it's a small hike (like 6 miles—quite a distance for someone who doesn't like to drive at all), but I got so excited about this offer that I didn't notice the zip code. Normally an offer like this one (two coats in good condition) would get snapped up in an instant, but I just happened to check my email about 10 minutes after it was posted—making me the one who did the snapping! And the coats are perfect! One of them is going to be the perfect "playing outside in winter" coat (I never do that, but maybe having a coat reserved for the purpose will encourage me), and the other is a stylish black fitted coat that will perfectly supplement my two grey coats which are often, respectively, too light and too long.

On my way home, I stopped at Target, because it had been entirely too long since I got a bag of Doritos (the last bag I tried to buy I ended up leaving at the checkout because it had a hole in it). And apparently I was lucky enough to shop the Doritos right in the middle of a design change! I used to collect packaging redesigns—I would actually clean the package as best I could and squirrel it away in a box along with a sample of the new design. But that didn't really appeal to my non-hoarder side, so I ditched the whole collection. I think I'll restart it here on my blog, right now, with the very last of the old-style Doritos bags. The new packaging boasts a new look and a claim of something like "even more nacho cheese flavor," so I can't wait to see if I notice the difference. Maybe they've also intensified the Cool Ranch flavor, which I like, but have always thought doesn't have enough flavoring relative to chip.

Ye Olde Doritos Bag

 At Target, I also picked up two boxes of hair color, on a whim, because they were marked down to $2.48 each. At the checkout, I received a 5$ gift card for having bought two boxes. Do the math on that one!

My next stop was the back alley of Mom's Organic Market, where they sometimes put out boxes of discarded produce for the riffraff to rifle. It makes the perfect diet for one's bunny (and occasionally oneself). I'd been there 3 times already in the last three days (including once when I traveled out of my way, on my bike, at night, through dark woods, hills, and puddles, in miserably cold weather) and came away empty-handed. This time I hit the jackpot. Not only were there boxes full of leafy greens (pretty standard fare) but there were also Roma tomatoes! Somebody's bunny is getting a treat tomorrow! I might even make a sandwich for myself—but nah, that would probably be too much effort. Funny how I will travel over hill and dale fruitlessly and repeatedly in search of free food for a rabbit, but I can't be bothered to take 5 minutes to make myself some lunch. Well, I guess we all have priorities.

Tonight, mine have been well satisfied, and I will go to bed happy.

Jimmy John's Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookie

Jimmy John's was kind enough to deliver this Giant Triple Chocolate Chunk cookie directly to my office's conference room on Tuesday, which surely helps make up for its price. Said price is $1.50, and said cookie is 85 grams, making the value 1.76¢ per gram, or, pretty bad.

The cookie itself was not quite so disappointing as its price. It came to me in three pieces, making me think it was going to be crunchy and prone to cracking. But it turned out to be nicely chewy, with just a bit of airy semi-crisp around the edges.

As far as flavor goes, it was pretty standard, except for a bonus feature: white chocolate chips! If you're aware of my white-chocolate-macadamia-nut cookie fetish, it probably doesn't surprise you that in my book, any cookie with white chocolate chips wins a few extra taste points. The only sad thing was there weren't very many of them.

The Bottom Line:
Taste: 4 stars
Texture: 4 stars
Price: 2 stars

How to get a girlfriend online

In my last significant entry on dating, back in 2010, I promised a description of some personas that men can try on when they really want to give the ladies a thrill. Well, after that, I got a little distracted by getting into a relationship, but now that I'm not in one, it's all coming back to me—the joys and delights of being on the market—and the wealth of charming fellows you meet while you're there!

For the benefit of those fellows, I have assembled the following guide to online dating. Gentlemen, I hope you're reading, because you're about to learn how to knock the socks off any lady who knows what's good for her! Just strap on one of these attractive personalities, time-tested by online love-seekers just like you, and you'll be on your way to the relationship of your dreams!

The Sad Stalker

Women like a good sob story—why else do you think we love The Notebook so much? So the next time you meet a woman, make it clear that you have no friends and that she is the best thing that has happened to you in your entire pitiful existence. Pitiful is key. If you present yourself to her like a lost puppy, her heart will overflow with maternal instincts and she will want to spend every moment of her life by your side, just so she can hear more endearing tales of how lonely you are.
      Call, text, and instant message her incessantly. She might not respond most of the time, but that's OK, because your diligence will just drive the message home that you have nothing valuable in your life except her. When you do reach her, here are a few conversational gambits you can try on for size:
      After the obligatory greetings are over, the lady might ask you what's up. This is a good time to respond with something like "Nothing. I hate Saturday evenings. I hate spending them alone :/" Upon hearing this, she will surely want to come running into your arms.
      Some days or weeks after your first and only meeting, it is also a wise idea to tell her how much you miss her. Because obviously that emotional bond you built over the shared viewing of an action movie is something that no amount of time and distance can sunder.

The Play Play Play Boy

For those of you to whom love is a 4-letter word and emotions make you angry, you might want to take a less attached approach. Try introducing yourself by way of an email message such as "SEX!!!!!!???" That should be fun.

Mr. Nice Guy

You know, there are a lot of jerks out there. Women should thank god you're not one of them. In fact, they should probably thank you, just for existing, because you would never lie to them, or screw them over, or hit them, or, for heaven's sake, be interesting. Not like all those other jerks. There used to be a whole blog dedicated to men like you, but unfortunately it seems to have closed down. That's OK. There's really only one thing you need to know about how to be a Nice Guy. Just compare yourself favorably to all the other jerks. Often.

The Great Conversationalist

One of the fundamentals of online dating is that you do a lot of online chatting. The nice thing about online chatting is when the conversation dries up, you don't have to apologize—you just move on with your day. Unless you are taking this persona for a spin. In that case, you will want to prove your conversational prowess by resuscitating the chat with one of your tried and true talking points. Such as a smiley face. Or maybe even the "stuck out tongue." If that doesn't work, try it again 10 minutes later. Surely your fascinating emoticons will eventually ignite some discourse. You might also try frequently starting chats with nothing to say but "hi how are u?" Girls love to see strings of this phrase, over and over and over again in their IM history, to remind them of how much they enjoy your conversations.

There. Four infallible roles you can play to ensure that girls will be crawling all over your online dating profile! You're welcome.

Giant macaroni and cheese

It is not often when I eat a macaroni and cheese that my first words are, "This is awful."

However, that's what sprang to my lips after my first few bites of Giant brand refrigerated macaroni and cheese dinner.

The cheese was too salty, too liquidy, and had that disturbing artificial taste that I associate unfavorably with Velveeta.

It did not caramelize nicely in the microwave as Stouffer's does, hence I was forced to eat what could best be described as "vaguely cheesy macaroni soup."

The only good thing about this macaroni was that the pittance I paid bought me an entire massive tray of meal, so I still have at least two servings left! Oh, wait, that's a bad thing.

One sad noodle for everything!

Your cup of joy is running over into my personal space.

For the fourth annual Bitter Valentine Blog, I would like to address a major societal problem facing our communities: Happiness. Specifically, public display of happiness in a relationship, which I shall henceforth abbreviate as PDHR. Much like how public displays of affection (also known as PDA), manifested in grody kissing sprees and touch sessions at inappropriate times and places, generally serve to make the onlooking citizenry physically ill, PDHR, while not necessarily physical in nature, is just as off-putting. Turns out this sentimental excess tends to occur almost exclusively on Facebook, which tempts me to run off on a tangent about how social media changes our social interactions, but that wouldn't be bitter enough. However, I shall present a few examples of how some lucky lovebirds employ PDHR to truly nauseating effect.

They write self-congratulatory Facebook posts, such as: "My husband/boyfriend/sugar pie/honeybunch took out the trash for me. Not only is he soooooooo inhumanly talented, he's so sweet and he's mine!" Yeah, I get that part of them wants to pay their significant other a compliment, but the other part apparently wants to drive me away into a nearby toilet.

Then they get the whole family into the action, with mothers-in-law-adding their helpful 2 cents, as in: "I'm so blessed to have you as my daughter!" No, not even my "daughter in law." The best PDHRers get straight to the biological impossibilities and start making up familial relationships that don't even exist.

They also like their public-facing photos to be of such subject matter as themselves kissing their significant other. Now I won't begrudge them an affectionate peck when they say hello or goodbye, but the eternal liplocks that grace a profile picture for the entire world to witness every time one updates one's status are just going to have to stop.

You might recall that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The operative word there is "pursuit." We're supposed to pursue happiness, not actually have it! So all you people in happy relationships, what's wrong with you!? Why are you displaying your unnatural bliss for all the world to see? Go ahead and be sullen and caustic like the rest of us for once.

On the plus side, PDHRers probably accomplish one thing no one else can do: They gross me out so much that I actually feel lucky to be single, because I'd be so ashamed if I ended up in a relationship that made me act like that!

If you enjoyed this pleasant diatribe, you will no doubt be delighted to partake in any number of my other Bitter Valentine Blogs, which are all listed here for your perusal. Happy V-Day!

2012: Valentinezilla
2011: Bad Romance
2010: What becomes of the broken hearts?

When it's over

It's February, the month of romance! And what better time than now to share the news that my boyfriend and I have broken up?

Sorry. I know a lot of you liked him. I liked him. I still like him. He still likes me. Do we have irreconcilable differences? Perhaps. Will we give it another try? Maybe later. But right now we're respectively and officially single, which has given me a lot of time to mope in the darkness and think deep thoughts. I was going to save them for my annual Bitter Valentine's Blog, but I just couldn't keep silent any longer. Besides, I'm sure that I'll have come up with something magnificently bitter by the time the 14th rolls around.

So, here are some thoughts that have been floating around my tortured head lately, including some musings on my current situation as well as some more general aphorisms that deserve a place on anyone's quote wall.

For example, Isn't it funny how when your heart breaks, it's your eyes that hurt?

Hahaha, good one. In case you haven't guessed, I've been crying a lot. There was a point a week ago (fortunately I think I'm over that period) when I was so grief-stricken that I was haunted by sadness even when I wasn't thinking about it. I would wonder things like why my favorite foods didn't taste good, or why I was having so much trouble swallowing, and then I would remember. "Oh, my heart is broken."

When I'm not outright mourning, I'm overthinking things in bizarrely mathematical terms. A friend told me by instant message that I shouldn't be taking it so hard because "you > Rico." I appreciate that sentiment, but I think it still stands that "me < me + Rico." Unless Rico were a negative quantity, which is not the case. So I'm feeling somewhat...fractional.

I'm also wondering how you can quantify love. How good does a relationship have to be before it's "good enough?" On a scale of 1-10, I would rate my relationship with Rico about a 7—lacking in 3 sort of major ways. When I told my friends about some of the things I was unhappy about, they pretty much unanimously told me I needed to get out! But is it reasonable to ever expect a perfect 10? Looking at it arithmetically, there were 7 major good points going for us. Were those really not enough? I think I would have preferred to try to address the three problems we did have and maybe work our way up to a solid 8.5, rather than starting at 0 again and looking for someone new. Rico didn't seem to see it that way.

The hardest part about this situation may be that we are trying to stay friends. This means we keep seeing each other and I keep being reminded of how many things I like about him. When you see someone at a casual gathering, you only see the good things about them, not the things that drove you apart when you were alone. The other thing about it that's hard is that, in my experience, usually being "just friends"is the first step to not being friends at all. Part of me wishes that we could have just had a rabid, screaming fight, and left never to see each other again, simply to avoid the protracted, painful death of our relationship as we slowly grow apart. But the other part of me clings to the hope that we will succeed. It's happened before.

On the plus side, being suddenly single has done more for my social life than I ever imagined possible. I decided that I should make an effort to meet people in the real world this time around (as opposed to the online venues that are my usual date-getters), and consequently I've been going out and doing things and generally acting like a normal person! I might even be getting over my fear of parties! ...Well, let's not be too optimistic.

Chocolate Brownie Cookie from Potbelly

When I joined my coworkers for lunch at Potbelly last week, I bought a side salad, a milkshake, and a Giant Cookie. I like to impress my coworkers with my healthy eating.

The Giant Cookie (which I consumed later so as not to appear too piggish) was a delight to my taste buds, even though it had survived the trip back to the office and thence all around the city and thence back home somewhat the worse for wear.

The first bite was definitely my favorite part. It was so soft, almost gooey, and rich and chocolatey. I thought I would die by chocolate. After a few bites, though, the thrill had worn off and I thought that it was perhaps too rich! I never thought I'd say that about a food item. Maybe my tastebuds were just in overdrive that day.

In any case, I found the price of 1.25¢ per gram (that is, $1.25 altogether, for those of you who like to buy your cookies by the cookie rather than the gram) to be about standard.

The Bottom Line:
Taste: 4 stars
Texture: 4 stars
Price: 3 stars

There is no Zen in bicycle maintenance

It was a nice day outside, for January, so I decided I would get out there and work on my bike!

By "get out there," I mean bring the bike into the house. And by "work on" I mean distort beyond all recognition.

There are a number of things that aren't working perfectly on my bike—the rear brake rubs against the tire most of the time, I can't downshift into 5th gear without the aid of a miracle, only one side of the skirt guard is actually attached, and I have a rear rack that I've been meaning to install for months.

After reattaching the skirt guard with a twist tie and some jewelry wire in a fashion that would make any craftsman proud to not be me, failing to attach the rear rack due to my bolts being the wrong size, and dislodging clods of dried mud all over my living room floor, I finally got to the task that inspired this post: derailer adjustment.

There's a saying that goes: If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and maybe, for the sake of us hapless Sunday mechanics, it should be: If it ain't broke to the point where you can't make it any worse, don't fix it.

Adjusting the rear derailleur (the French way of saying it, if you're inclined to use the same word in another language to sound more official) should be a fairly simple task – just ask YouTube – a few twists of some screws and you're done!

Unfortunately, it was not. I started out by repeating the mistake I made the  last time I adjusted my gears—trying to tighten the cable with a socket wrench and pliers rather than using the screws and knobs that are there for just that purpose. And if I'd been thinking clearly, I should have realized that having problems shifting down into one gear out of seven was probably not indicative of a global problem that could be fixed by a simple tightening of a cable. Sure enough, after I was done, I could no longer shift into any gear. It was then that I consulted the internet and was reintroduced to those knobs and screws that could have been my friends a little earlier.

But by then it was too late, and I spent the next 20 minutes sliding back and forth on my butt on the dirt-strewn floor between my rear wheel and my shift lever, spinning the pedals with my hands and trying futilely to get all the gears to shift smoothly. I think 5th gear might be a lost cause, judging from the shiny marks of damage on its teeth, but I will happily settle with just being able to shift into and out of the others—and not either into or out of as I am now.

I'm taking a break, pouring out my sorrows on my sympathetic blog, and will soon give the bike one more shot. If I can just manage to ride it as far as campus (could be difficult with my lazy brake), I can get help at the bike shop.

In the meantime, I'd like to rant a little about the design of rear bike gears! They are just counterintuitive in every sense! Bigger gear equals less resistance? Moving the chain down on the rings shifts up in resistance? Right is not tight and left is not loose? Who ever thought this knuckle-dragger work could make your brain hurt so much?

Is that a mung bean soup, or are you just trying to poison me?

I admit without a trace of shame that I eat the diet of a bachelor. A weird vegetarian bachelor to be sure, but in no way the kind of bachelor who would ever be mistaken for a gourmet chef.

Cooking for one feels like a waste of time since I don't have anyone to impress but myself, and myself has always gravitated to low-fuss, minimal food over more refined options anyway. So I generally consume ready-to-eat foods which require literally no effort to prepare, not even microwaving, and pair them with fresh vegetables which I also put the same amount of effort into preparing (for example, I bring whole bunches of lettuce into the office and eat them leaf by leaf.) Some vegetables I steam en masse and eat cold at a later date. Once in a while, when I'm on a health kick, I'll buy dry beans and cook them and bring them to work to eat as my main course with no garnish but a little bit of salt.

But I have a lot of cookbooks (which were gifted to me). And sometimes, like some masochistic automaton with a penchant for creating extra work for myself, I even cut recipes out of magazines (which also just appeared on my doorstep without my subscribing to them).

And since sometimes the thought of eating plain old beans out of a Tupperware is so unappetizing that I pass them up and go buy myself an Auntie Anne's pretzel or McDonald's milkshake for lunch instead – rather undermining the intentions of my health kick – I decided I would try to start cooking myself some healthy foods that actually have some taste appeal.

And you know what that means? Valerie's Adventures in Cooking, that's what!

Read on to learn how Valerie prepares a mung bean soup that's to die for!

Whole Mung Soup

Ingredients

1 c. whole green mung
3 cups water
2 Tbsp olive oil or ghee
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp cumin powder
3 Tbsp lemon juice
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander leaves for garnish.

Directions

1. Soak mung beans in water with a pinch of salt for one hour.
   Rejoice! Any recipe that begins with an hour of procrastination is your kind of recipe! Be so smug about having avoided actually cooking for an hour, that you forget to add the salt.
2. Drain, then cook mung in 3 cups water for 25-30 minutes, or until soft.
   Realize you forgot to add the salt, so add the salt, cover with more water, and cook some more. While you're waiting, go into your room and start shopping on eBay, reading some of those free magazines that are piling up on your bed, and get this amazing idea for your website that you have to try out right away.
3. Come back after 40 minutes to find your mung beans completely desiccated and burned to the sides of the pot. That's OK—it's only the sides, and since the water's all boiled away, you can just call it a curry instead of a soup!
4. In a pan, heat olive oil on medium. Add cumin seeds, roast for a half a minute.
   Cumin seeds? Who has cumin seeds? What kind of recipe in its right mind requires cumin seeds and cumin powder? You'll do fine without the cumin seeds. And if you're not roasting any cumin seeds, you'll do fine without the oil as well. Less oil = more health, right?
5. Add cumin powder, lemon juice, and salt to taste.
6. Add more cumin powder (after all, you left out the cumin seeds).
7. Add more salt.
8. Add more salt. Is this recipe ever going to have any flavor at all?
9. Add more salt.
10. Realize it has a flavor--char. Don't bother garnishing with fresh coriander, because, really, who do you have to impress but yourself?
11. Eat 4 spoonfuls at work, decide it tastes even worse than a Tupperware full of salted beans, and vow to compost the rest when you get home.

Serves 0.