Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

Wednesday has become my favorite day of the week–not because it’s hump day but because of this little wonder:

While it stinks that living in such a fabulous city can be so expensive, it does pay to be in a city where promotions and gimmicks are on every corner. Upon passing Bryant Park one morning, people dressed in Starbucks barista outfits were passing out green pamphlet looking things. Now, usually I don’t bother to take handouts (unless they are free samples like the free Special K cereal bars that were being given out by Grand Central in which Ms. Ball O’ Sunshine and I passed by twice), but because I knew that Starbucks was making a big announcement that day from all the postings on food blogs I read the day before, I was actually excited to see what all the fuss was about. It was soooo worth it! This little card provides me with a free cup of their new blend, Pike Place Roast every Wednesday until the end of May.

EVERY Wednesday. To a caffeine addict, this is too good to be true, and for someone who works in New York, with a Starbucks on each corner, it’s absolutely overwhelming.

The first day I got it, it was a Tuesday. That next morning, I was determined to see how many times I could use it in one day. I used it at the following locations:

40th and Lex at 8:45am

Grand Central at 1pm

41st and Madison Ave at 5pm

and a Starbucks in Hoboken, refrigerated over night for the next morning….I know, I’m sick…and I felt sick…

I was basically foaming at the mouth from de-hydration, but I didn’t care. It was allll free. And just think of how many Splendas I scored out of the deal!

Today I have only had the chance to stop by two locations. But the evening is young. I’m always excited while I leave a Starbucks with my free little tall coffee, but ordering the coffee isn’t as much fun. I’m pretty sure the baristas hate all of us cheapies. Would you like a scone with that? Of course not. Would you like a brownie with that? Of course not. I just take my free cup and then hustle over to the counter with the milk ‘n fixin’s and pretty much stuff my pockets with those wonderful yellow packets. I’m pretty sure I had to waddle away. But oh, the cheap glory of it all.

Here is more proof that avocados are out to get me. After trekking to the gym after work to find that she had forgotten her sports bra, my good friend S went on an entire rant to me on the phone about the ordeal then went into the additional exasperations about her day, which ended up in a rant concerning her fears about the global climate crisis having an effect on the west coast, threatening the growth of avocados. She was freaking out. She asked me what to do if avocados become endangered. I listened with dead eyes.

Ever feel like something is after you? I sometimes do.

I started to think about this more after a family dinner out last Friday. Usually it’s the six of us: my twin sis, parents, and grandparents that still live on the city. My dad and I will meet up after work, and my mom and sis will come in from the ‘burbs. And it’s a fact, we all like to drink, yet we all have very different tolerances. My dad could drink any of us under the table, but my sis will give him a run for his money. My grandmother probably could if we let her, and as for the rest of us, we are pretty much light weights. I pretend I’m not. Sometimes I can hide it.

When we go to Mexico Lindo, on 2nd Ave. and 26th st., you would be insane not to order a margarita. They don’t make it with that sugary crap. They use the juice from an entire lime and quality tequila. So gooooood. So good you want two or three when you can’t see entirely straight after one. Or least I can’t.

Once we get a buzz going, the following usually happens. My mom starts to giggle and then says comments that are completely innocent in her head, but come out in phrases that sound, let’s say, risque. One of my favorites was after two glasses of wine, my mom kept asking me if this guy I went on a date with understood the subway system, because he was an out of towner. After a few times of asking me “Did he get off on that?” and then she’s clap her hand over her mouth and laugh hysterically, right in front of my dad no less, I moved her glass away.

I swear this story has a point. Anywho–dinner last Friday was a bit tamer, except it seemed that this round of margaritas had a profound effect on our motor skills. Enter–the guacamole debacle. Now, I know a lot of people who go nuts over avocados, an addiction I cannot share because sadly, I am allergic to them. But people who love them, like my family, just lose it. When it was brought to the table and my family dug right in. And it got a little messy. It got here:

And then it flung across the table and landed here:

And then it got on a few more elbows and fingernails before the plate looked like it had been licked clean by a pack of wolves.

But it’s interesting how this only happens with guacamole. It’s one of those delights that brings out the gluttonous side in people, a delight I cannot share. It’s in sushi and I have to poke it out with a chopstick. It’s in certain versions of California clubs and I have to spoon it out. And there is usually a friend next to me to who will stab it and eat it all up.

But now I’m beginning to think that they also follow me around. As I was shopping for cupcakes, I found a random avocado next to the shredded coconut in the baking aisle. I had a date where the guy ordered guacamole as a starter to be nice, and when it showed up in a gigundoo sized bowl, I had to explain that I couldn’t eat it–and it’s always attractive to explain your allergies on a second date. When I go to the deli across from my office to order an egg on a roll for a buck if I have no breakfast or lunch, avocados sometimes show up next to the deli meat counter, at which Ms. Ball O’ Sunshine pointed to one and asked me if they made me nervous. I laughed it off. But now I gulp when thinking about them.

Am I being paranoid? Have you ever had an inanimate object seem to pop up in your presence a little too frequently? woooooooo

I’ll admit it–I am ADDICTED to food porn. I check about 20 of my favorite food blogs every time I get a hold of a computer. At my desk. At home. Under the covers late at night. It’s a sickness. Ooooh matcha white chocolate cookies. MMMMM peanut butter banana bread. Yummm pesto. Some people have a “goodies” drawer. I have my bookmarks bar that I open when I have a craving.

Not only do I have an obsession with food, but I also aspire to be a foodie/gourmet chef. This of course is not too convenient with my lack of funds. Two Sundays ago, I had my frustrations realized when my parents spent the day in Hoboken as the first warm Sunday in 2008. As we were walking down the main street after lunch at Elysian Cafe, a French bistro inspired place (I had a Croque Madama…gruyere cheese, Canadian bacon, and a fried egg), my mom asked me about every restaurant we passed. And there are a lot of them.

“What about this place?”–as she points to an Italian restaurant I’ve been dying to try.

“Nope.”

“Ooooh Ali Baba’s Indian food–that looks soo good! How’s the food there?”

“Wouldn’t know, Mom.”

“Oh what a cute little outside setting! What about that cafe?”

“Mom! I have only been to a restaurant here if it sells pizza or bagels. Or if I’ve had a date, and it’s been a little dry in that area as well. Drop it.”

We touched upon two sensitive subjects. But as for the first–my foodie desires are too well developed for my wallet. So for now, I have tastespotting.com to help me pretend that the scoops of peanut butter I shove into my mouth are really bites of French brioche toast or pink macarons.

But this weekend, it was the perfect excuse to be a food blogger for the afternoon. Lookie what I made for my friend Ms. Ball O’ Sunshine’s 25 birthday:

Aren’t they pretty?? So girly–I love it. After countless mornings of passing the cake display at the deli we got our morning coffees, where she would scratch at the glass over the coconut cake (I would lick the glass over the carrot cake), I promised her that I would make her coconut cupcakes for her birthday.

The only thing is, coconut cupcakes are quite labor intensive, and by intensive, I mean, you need a lot of materials that just aren’t to be found in my kitchen. My spice rack/baking ingredients consist of garlic powder, chili pepper flakes, and an empty bottle of vanilla extract, and all the recipes for coconut cupcakes were from scratch. This was going to be interesting.

Duncan Hines supposedly makes a coconut cake mix, but it is rumored to be hard to find. A&P sure didn’t have it. I had to improvise. A week short of my paycheck, cupcakes from scratch weren’t going to happen. I ended up using a vanilla cake and icing but threw in a lot of shredded coconut. I almost bought coconut extract, but for a tiny bottle priced at $5.00, even Ms. Ball O’Sunshine reassured me, as a fellow Splenda stealer, “Screw that!” She gets it.

All in all, the cupcakes were a hit. I really love making food and preparing for dinner parties and such. I can’t wait to have a decent working kitchen. Until then, this is where I prepare my food:

on our dining table/mail table/bill organizer. Who says you need a fancy island in your kitchen like Martha Stewart to make good lookin’ food?? A little crowded, but it works. As long as my cell phone doesn’t land in the batter, I’m good to go. I’m learning to improvise for what I don’t have:

one muffin tin: I bought foil liners that stand up on their own to finish off the rest of the batter

no oven timer: cell phone alarm

two cup measurements with the numbers faded off: I crossed my fingers hoping what I thought was a 1/3 of a cup was

and perhaps my greatest improvisation of the day–no tupperware or large plates in which to transport the cupcakes: a boot box

After my cupcakes cooled, and I iced them, I suddenly realized I had no way of bringing these guys out of my apartment. I had thought about this earlier in the week, yet whenever I get to a grocery store, I remind myself–only buy the bare necessities. I always seem to talk myself out of buying luxury items, which in this case would have been a foil pan or tupperware or even paper plates to carry my cupcakes, but I guess I like a challenge?

I start walking around my apartment looking for something big enough to carry my treats. Ceramic dish? Not big enough. Two dinner plates? Not big enough either. Luckily, I found the box to one of my boots that I had shoved under the futon because I was too lazy to throw it out. My laziness paid off.

Cupcakes….I can see you….

Perfect! No one would have known that it was really a boot box except for that “size 9” sticker, which I had forgotten to peel off. But the pretty cupcake display distracted away from that evidence, plus after a few glasses/bottles of wine, no one really seemed to care.