8.10.2005
jealous...
So my good friend from college, Alexandra, used to work at AEI, the American Enterprise Institute. She took off for two months to go to China and is currently back at home in California. I miss her and the rest of the crowd from college, and certainly, I wouldn't mind going back down to DC (which I am doing next year with the choir - yay!). Anyway, a fantastic article in today's Washington Post mentioned, specifically, the food from AEI. And, says Alexandra in an IM just now, "AEI's cookies ARE famous" adding, "and fabulous". I'm jealous.
I remember the chocolate chip cookies available at the P. school, my former employer. They were fantastic. They were buttery and rich and everything that says "I'm totally bad for you but eat me because I'm yummy." They cropped up at receptions, lunch desserts, and most importantly, faculty meetings. Every single faculty meeting, we'd get cookies. And not just a few - a couple hundred. The chefs were brutal with the cookies and I ate it up. I miss them, really. They were fantastic and wonderful and typically American. I wouldn't be able to find them in England if I tried.
That said, there's a delicious cookie company in Oxford called Ben's Cookies, which makes delightfully yummy and gooey cookies as well. They used to be able to warm up a cookie for you, but the owner got mad at the staff for wasting oven space. As a result, the best way to get a warm Ben's cookie is to ask at the counter for whatever's the most fresh. Kind of like what one does at Krispy Kreme. If one is a traitor. Being from Boston, where Dunkin' Donuts rules, it is difficult for me to imagine Krispy Kreme as anything more sophisticated than a fried lard-ball. I dated a girl from Winston-Salem once. Winston-Salem is the home of Krispy Kreme. Note that I datED her. No longer. We also got into fights about grits and their merits (none).
A fun article in today's NY Times puts an interesting spin on Christianity and addiction. It's a profile of Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who lost a huge amount of weight (he doesn't actually know how much, but at least 100 pounds) after being fraked out by a physician who said he'd hardly last ten years at his then-current weight. He says this: "When you don't have very much money, you're not going to be able to buy a movie ticket or go to a Major League ballgame, but you can have a second helping of potatoes. One acceptable way for a good Christian kid to delve into a chemical addiction without being thought of as inappropriate or evil is to go to the pizza buffet. Pizza, well, that's O.K." I'm amused by his candor, and certainly we were taught not only that it was the good child who finished his plate, but that wasting food, be it at the restaurant whose portions are triple what they ought to be, or at home when mom or dad cooks too much, is a sin.
On the other side of things, a medical school classmate of my brother's never finishes his plate at a restaurant, no matter how little food he is given. Being allowed to send food away uneaten makes him feel wealthy, even if the plate contains a few fries and a quarter of a burger from the local diner.
I remember the chocolate chip cookies available at the P. school, my former employer. They were fantastic. They were buttery and rich and everything that says "I'm totally bad for you but eat me because I'm yummy." They cropped up at receptions, lunch desserts, and most importantly, faculty meetings. Every single faculty meeting, we'd get cookies. And not just a few - a couple hundred. The chefs were brutal with the cookies and I ate it up. I miss them, really. They were fantastic and wonderful and typically American. I wouldn't be able to find them in England if I tried.
That said, there's a delicious cookie company in Oxford called Ben's Cookies, which makes delightfully yummy and gooey cookies as well. They used to be able to warm up a cookie for you, but the owner got mad at the staff for wasting oven space. As a result, the best way to get a warm Ben's cookie is to ask at the counter for whatever's the most fresh. Kind of like what one does at Krispy Kreme. If one is a traitor. Being from Boston, where Dunkin' Donuts rules, it is difficult for me to imagine Krispy Kreme as anything more sophisticated than a fried lard-ball. I dated a girl from Winston-Salem once. Winston-Salem is the home of Krispy Kreme. Note that I datED her. No longer. We also got into fights about grits and their merits (none).
A fun article in today's NY Times puts an interesting spin on Christianity and addiction. It's a profile of Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who lost a huge amount of weight (he doesn't actually know how much, but at least 100 pounds) after being fraked out by a physician who said he'd hardly last ten years at his then-current weight. He says this: "When you don't have very much money, you're not going to be able to buy a movie ticket or go to a Major League ballgame, but you can have a second helping of potatoes. One acceptable way for a good Christian kid to delve into a chemical addiction without being thought of as inappropriate or evil is to go to the pizza buffet. Pizza, well, that's O.K." I'm amused by his candor, and certainly we were taught not only that it was the good child who finished his plate, but that wasting food, be it at the restaurant whose portions are triple what they ought to be, or at home when mom or dad cooks too much, is a sin.
On the other side of things, a medical school classmate of my brother's never finishes his plate at a restaurant, no matter how little food he is given. Being allowed to send food away uneaten makes him feel wealthy, even if the plate contains a few fries and a quarter of a burger from the local diner.
