I should have known it would never work the moment he came over with a bunch of Hostess products on our first date.
I am not really a junk food eater, per se. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a time and place for junk food (especially Cheetos and usually that is a few days before that time of the month). But it seemed like Junk Food-Man brought Hostess to taunt me. This should have been a sign.
When word got out recently that Hostess was closing, I thought of poor Junk Food-Man and wondered what he would do without those cupcakes in the world. I know what I did. I made them from scratch using this nifty recipe from What Megan’s Making. I won’t lie these are labor intensive cupcakes. However, they are also way better than the “real” thing because like, dur, they are actually made with real ingredients by a real person with tender love and care. Something I don’t quite think Junk Food-Man would ever understand.
When Junk-Food Man contacted me shortly after New Year’s 2011, I was ripe for the picking – fresh out of a long relationship and prime rebound territory. We knew each other through mutual friends but hadn’t seen each other in years. In case you couldn’t figure out, Junk-Food Man was rough around the edges. A professional sportsman. A man’s man with a slight misogynistic edge to him. Oh, and a perpetual bachelor nearing 40. What a catch!
It took weeks to plan a “date,” which I put into quotes because he was only coming to my house to “hang out!” Leading up to the “hang out,” I did what every girl would do: I made Oreo cookies from scratch after packing my ex’s stuff and watching the movers take it away.
Now, I’m going to offer some unsolicited advice to all you daters: DO NOT make Oreo cookies (or even Hostess Cupcakes) on a first “hang out”.
What possessed me to make Oreos? The conversations leading up to the big “hang out” revolved around his super manliness and affinity for junk food. When I told him that ‘I love to cook,’ he, of course, cleverly responded, “Well, that’s good because I love to eat.” Yeah, like I had never heard that before.
The very notion of making your own junk food goes against the premise of what it is: something quick that you grab on the go.
While Junk-Food Man seemed impressed with the Oreos that I displayed on a glass cake stand, he remarked that they weren’t really like the “cookie.” Pfft! Then, he went on and on about some other girl, who happens to make the best cookies he ever had. I should have asked him to leave. The remarkable thing is I didn’t and actually “hung out” with him a few more times (Stay tuned as I will discuss in the future how he changed my life). Shockingly, it took me a few times to realize what I should have on the first “hang out”: Junk-Food Man wasn’t looking for something real but something quick. The good news is that there is really nothing quick about me. I mean I spent four hours making Hostess Cupcakes and probably at least two hours making Oreos from scratch! But I attest that some things are worth the time like, hello, me. As for other things, there’s a reason it’s called “junk” – because it’s easily thrown away.
I Can't...But I Can Cook! 