I heart you.

These are my favorite cookies at Fortunato Brothers in Brooklyn. I know they're piled with sugar, but they're not cloyingly sweet. They're just right.

Love yourself. Do not save the red, heart-shaped cookies for Valentine's Day.

Now, because it's Poetry Tuesday, here's another angsty teen poem (written by me when I was a genuine teen)!

This one appears to be a try at a sestina - and I chose it because it is, in part, actually about eating heart-shaped cookies in the grass. Which would be a good place to eat the Fortunato hearts pictured above.


On an earthly picnic policed by the sun,
grass grasped the sky in its fist
where a girl sat still with the face of a cloud
eating cookies shaped like her heart.
The shade was donated by willow-trees
that previously only allowed the bird

to fly there. But there was no sign of a bird
on the ground, in the shrubbery, or riding the sun
where it couldn't be touched by the trees.
With only crumbs left of the treat in her fist,
she brushed them off the fabric over her heart
and noticed the shape of a cloud.

A sudden gust had whipped the cloud
into cream that flew in the shape of a bird
to the girl, who put her hand over her heart
and saluted the art of the sun.
A passing breeze thought the hand was a fist
and alerted an alarm of trees.

Rattling in a frenzy, the trees
leaped up to scrape the errant cloud
and close it into a white-misted fist,
aimed to fly through her hair as a bird
does more than a bat - who never sees the madness in the sun.
The girl felt that soon her heart

would burst. But body knows the heart
is stronger sometimes than the trees
(that break appendages in ice and winter sun)
And under a wind-birthed cloud
that whistled shrill destruction like a bird --
only harder and more feathered than a flying fist --

the young woman shook out her hair - and her fist
was raised in a prayer near her heart,
then higher, as if it was the child of a bird.
She stretched her spirit to the trees,
placed her voice in a cloud,
and blew out the sun.

A bird had fallen out of the trees;
it was the shape of her fist - or her heart.
The vacuum where the sun had been became clouds.

(circa 1994)

As an aside...

I wish I were going to this event. And not because Duff Goldman is going to be there. (Though, what about Geoff? Is Geoff going? Or Mary Alice? Or Mary? Or the one with the cute haircut - Anna?)


[As an aside to this aside, which already sort of went off on a tangent, the photo here is from our trip to Paris last spring. It's a blurry iPhone shot of Les Macarons at Ladurée on the Champs-Élysées:

"Les Macarons
Petit gâteau rond à la fois moelleux et croustillant, le Macaron est le produit emblématique de la maison Ladurée. Chaque saison nous lui rendons hommage en créant un nouveau parfum."

note: When reading about these before our trip, I thought "macarons" meant "macaroons" like the coconut cookie we've eaten in the USA. But they're not the same thing, as you can see. The closest we found to the US version were called "étoile coco" in the Monoprix grocery store.]

Baby, come back.

I was reunited with a college flame at the grocery store last week. Yeah, the magic's still there.

Caramel popcorn rice cakes (ridiculous website or no ridiculous website) are excellent with peanut butter spread thickly on top. This is the sort of reunion I'm glad to attend.

Pizza roll with the punches

When life gives you lemonade, drink it with pizza rolls.


p.s. These are Amy's Snacks - Cheese Pizza. Amy's southwestern style burrito (with corn masa) is better (and a favorite of mine). These are a tad dry (not enough organic tomato and too much organic flour?). According to the website, both the southwestern burrito and these cheese pizza snacks are kosher and tree nut free. Woo!

My five senses

(another import from the luffly Anastasia, as found in her overseas Snack Sampler)

Smiths (by Walkers) Chipsticks Ready Salted Maize & Potato Snack smell kind of bland and sour, like white bread plus shoestring potatos with an unfortunate twist.

Chipsticks look like french fries (or "chips," for you Brits) if they were made by a honeycomb-creating alien life form of some sort. They look like they should be studied under a microscope by biologists.

Chipsticks feel kind of oily and rough, chew like cardboard and styrafoam were fused together, and leave a slick residue on the tongue and roof of the mouth.

Chipsticks taste very (very) salty with an undercurrent of corn and a soupçon of potato. One might say the salt wallops one's taste buds like a Brixton skinhead with a tire iron. The flavor, like the smell, is fairly bland outside of the salt. Frankly, they taste a bit old.

Chipsticks sound like nothing until one bites into them. Then, they sound crispy at first, all the air in them making quite a crunch. Eventually the sound is more muted as they are compressed into a smishy stick-to-the-tops-of-your-teeth paste.

p.s. I like the packaging. It's demurely festive. It's a clown at the beach. It's litter outside an abandoned state fair booth in a Ray Bradbury story.

Poultry Poetry Tuesday

For Jeremy, who thought I said "Poultry Tuesday"
and for Alexia All Natural Chicken Nuggets, Chicken with Broccoli & Cheddar Cheese flavor:

Don't Just Thaw Me; Heat Me Up

O, farmers who care, who offer no harbor
To added antibiotics,
Your chickens your children, your/my
Frozen nuggets arrive cold but are
In 15-18 minutes (turning once) then
Baked too hot for hands, those
Panko crumbs like bells who cannot peal,
Broccoli and cheese thick as thieves who are thick
Inside soft soft deep chickeny pillows of aroma, these,
Broccoli and cheese twisting together
Tasted together. In rich oblong nuggets they should be
Dissimilar sisters, fraternal twins posing arm in arm
And melting into one.

Once on that darkened baking sheet
Now - gone.

Chicken farmers, I can no longer address you.
My eyes, lips, teeth, tongue,
Roiling boil of stomach,
Turn to your nuggets. Let me speak.
Your saltiness is not my tears,
For I shed none. But neither would
More cheddar in there make me weep.
Ah, and
Friends, you are so few.
My stingy nature, my mean heart
Must have spilled you out.

I say kär'məl, you say potato.

(from Anastasia, who sent the UK Invasion Snack Sampler)

So do you prefer kăr'ə-məl, kăr'ə-mĕl', or kär'məl?

I prefer Tunnock's Real Milk Chocolate Caramel Wafer Biscuits, thankfully "Still Original Size." Great width. It's an old-timey carnival of thick, caramel flavor. The wafers are nicely integrated with the caramel, leading to an expensively chewy-crunchy-melty-smooshy texture. A Tunnock's Caramel Wafter Biscuit tastes down-to-earth and popular;* neither high-falutin' nor exclusive; not sweetly condescending at all; and friendly. I found it mood enhancing, and I've got another.

Eating this was better than wearing borrowed expensive jewelry (sumptuous, edible, and anxiety-free).

Have you ever made caramel? It's like magic. Tunnock's...Chocolate Caramel Wafer Biscuits are like somebody else did the magic and didn't get your pots dirty. They're like the close-up magician at a fundraiser who cheerfully sets his wallet on fire for your own private finale and walks away with a wink as you're still applauding quietly and smiling a real smile at him. You have fond memories of that magician. Magic is cool.

High marks.



Beverage: All Natural Sapat Fantasy Masala-Chai Flavoured Tea. This is my favorite Indian chai mix. I first tasted it in Pittsburgh, PA which is where I bought my supply. I drink most teas and infusions without milk or sugar, but this variety I like with both.

"The boy is based on no one."


*popular in the sense of "Suited to or within the means of ordinary people" (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007.)