pillsbury bake on.

ever since i saw a documentary on the food network in 2003, i have been obsessed with the pillsbury bake off.

i don’t know what it is. the massive ballroom full of kitchens? the chance to rub elbows with the dough boy? an excuse to eat as many cinnamon buns as i can in the name of the $1,000,000 prize?

ok, yes to all of those things. but what really really gets me is that at the heart of the bake-off, is hope.

as opposed to throwing my dreams recklessly into the lottery hole- where i leave myself entirely at the mercy of chance, the bake-off gives its entrants the element of control. your chances of making it to the big ballroom showdown are only as good as the magic you can work with refrigerated biscuit dough and canned soup.  like pedestrian top chef (with scary life sized doughboy instead of scary snide gail simmons)!

i’m a top notch food assembler (vs. a real cook), so why couldn’t i attain the same level of glory as the guy who put cookie dough in the waffle iron (genius BTW)?

i took monday off from work to hunker down and tinker with my potentially prize winning “recipes” (adding stuff to prefab cake mix isn’t exactly the true spirit of the term), and i have to say that i’m pretty fucking pleased with myself. i’ve been wanting to enter the bake-off for almost 10 years now (i kept missing the every 2 year slots), and monday was the very last day to enter. i sort of wish that i had given myself more time to hone my assemblies, but as far as my general fatness goes (especially considering my recent puffy run-in at the mall)… one day every two years to gorge myself on biscuit dough and brownie mix (well, i do have to taste test) is probably wise.

i’m not entire sure what the rules are about revealing your recipe secrets, so i’ll refrain from spilling all the details until they announce the finalists in september. but for now, i can tell you that i did something with spicy chocolate and a twist on eggs benedict (2 recipes, no spicy chocolate eggs benedict). i will also tell you that i will probably be disqualified because they think i’m a representative for TOBASCO. what can i say, i was feeling the spicy this year.  [side note: growing up, my next door neighbor was the heiress to the TOBASCO sauce fortune].

so… should i start spending my $1,000,000 now?

but seriously, do any of you out there know anyone who has ever been a finalist? i want the first hand dish!

weekend pickthrough: a lesson in customer service edition.

today, something really lame happened. possibly my lamest retail run-in ever.

i was at the mall trying on dresses, and was feeling uncertain about a strapless number with somewhat poorly located pockets. still pretty cute, and at $19.99… definitely worth consideration.

so i threw a belt on it, walked out of the dressing room, and asked the nearest sales associate if she thought it was too poofy around the waist. as in: is the excess pocket fabric making it unflattering? (i may have even motioned to the bunchiness with my hand.)

apparently i wasn’t clear enough, because her response knocked me on my ass:

say NO to the dress: why paying the rent should be a bigger priority than feeling like a princess.

anybody who follows me on twitter knows that i’ve been watching A LOT Of say yes to the dress (there are 78 episodes on netflix instant!). the thing is, it’s a TERRIBLE show. like the worst possible people that you can imagine whining, and crying, and hissy fitting all over the store until some poor frazzled family member agrees to spend $11,000 on a skin tight cacophony of beads, lace, tulle, crystals and bad taste (don’t even get me started on the whore-bride trend…). this dress will invariably made by a woman named pnina tornai. this woman must be stopped. but again, that’s a conversation for another day…

i can’t seem to stop myself from watching the show, but with each subsequent viewing, i become more and more furious.

as you will learn shortly, there are actually only 2 kinds of brides that shop at kleinfeld. they are both equally revolting.