This is not a food blog. This is a food-related post...in my blog.

If someone had told me a year ago that I would be writing a sappy, self-congratulating post in my blog about the delicious baked goods I've created, I would have laughed derisively in his or her face, and then proceeded to stick a Pop-Tart in a toaster and somehow cause an explosion. Allow me to share with you an abridged version of my culinary journey thus far. Until a few months ago, I was incapable of creating anything in the kitchen (except for a mess, a nervous breakdown, and a small fire or two). Friends and family alike used to joke about how I wouldn't know a whisk from a wok or a bay leaf from a Brussels sprout. It seemed that I was destined for a life of take-out and Lean Cuisine...until I decided to switch to a vegan diet.



A vegetarian/pescatarian for several years, I had no difficulty making the transition to veganism. (Well, let's just say the transition was eased by the very, very occasional dip into the basket of cheddar-cheese biscuits at Red Lobster). The ease of this change has been compounded by the fact that I sometimes eat seafood, unlike other vegans. So, even though I'm not the world's strictest vegan, I definitely have to control what's in the pantry and what comprises my every meal. What did this mean for this anti-domestic diva? I had to learn how to cook.



Oh, the horror! I suddenly found myself immersed in a world of recipes and measuring cups and dishwashers. But, to my enormous surprise, my first few attempts were rather successful, due to what I believe is known as "beginner's luck". More realistically, I think my success can be attributed to a number of excellent vegan cookbooks, including The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (well, really, anything written by Isa Chandra Moskowitz), as well as a very well-stocked, well-organized kitchen and helpful assistants/knowledgeable overseers (all provided by my parents). I didn't start out with anything super fancy, especially with regards to baking. We're talking nothing scarier than your basic chocolate chip cookies, the first batch of which was rock-hard and too doughy, but otherwise decently edible. The second batch of chocolate chip cookies was divine, and was quickly followed by a heavenly batch of banana bread (which is easy enough, albeit labor-intensive due to the need to mash 4 bananas with a fork. I built up some major guns!). Was it possible that there was hope for me, the once hopeless, ineffectual basket case who used to somehow invariably inspire the toaster oven to spontaneously combust?



That remains to be seen. Obviously, the only way to learn is to continue to attempt new recipes, which I've been doing for both dinner and desserts (the desserts are way more fun and don't require the stove top, which I'm still a little afraid of). Today, for instance, I attempted a batch of Macadamia Ginger Crunch Drops, found in a fun little book called Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.



Of course, I know exactly what you're thinking: how do you make cookies without eggs? The answer, in the case of this recipe, is ground flax seeds. All you do is add just a little bit of ground flax seeds to the wet ingredients and, assuming that you ground the flax seeds properly and beat the wet ingredients properly, it's just as if you put an egg in there instead! Miraculous. I made the mistake of using milled flax seeds instead of ground and found that my dough didn't want to stick together AT ALL, so, in a panic, I manually ground another half-tablespoon of flax seeds, added 1.5 tablespoons of canola oil, and continued to mix the dough while praying to all the Baking Gods for a favorable outcome. The dough then became sort of scary-looking; it was a bit oily and goopy, but everything seemed in order once it was on the cookie sheet. With the goopy-ness in mind, I decided to just flour up the old paws and drop the dough onto the cookie sheet by hand. Because the milled flax seeds were still in there, I ended up with some biggish, conspicuous seed particles in my cookies, which weren't very pretty. But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, so you shouldn't either.



I also made the relatively minor mistake of neglecting to chop the macadamia nuts into teeny-tiny pieces and instead put them in the dough as big honking chunks that didn't really want to stay folded into the dough. Because of this, I was convinced that the cookies would disintegrate as soon as I took them out of the oven, but, through some fortuitous twist of fate, the cookies rallied together and maintained their firmness (possibly because of the extra oil I added at the last minute?) Anyway, everything was absolutely delightful at the end and I strongly recommend trying this recipe, and the book in general, if you have a hankering for vegan yum-yums.



I'd also like to point out that vegan yum-yums taste just as good if you're not vegan...just saying.

I found something more evil than Miley Cyrus: Abercrombie and Fitch!

At the risk of sounding like a nostalgic senior citizen, I can remember a time when one's coolness was directly proportionate to the number of clothing items from Abercrombie and Fitch that were hanging in one's closet.

Remember those days? If you were the hottest chick in the ninth-grade wing, you had better be wearing size 00 jeans bearing the overlapping semi-circles on the back pockets and a tight t-shirt proudly proclaiming "A&F 1982", "AF Spring Break", "Abercrombie New York NY", "Fitch", or other such permutations. Don't even think about showing up to the Bagel Bin after school if you were rocking an Aeropostale hoodie: you'd be better off walking home and stalking AIM away messages all afternoon.

Can anyone tell me what made this brand so appealing? Don't get me wrong: I realize that some of the jeans make the posterior look deceptively attractive, and there is nothing bad about that. But generally speaking, the clothes are over-priced, not true to size, poorly designed, generic, and of a quality that is mediocre at best and downright dismal at worst.

And worst of all, the store itself never fails to create an atmosphere that assaults the senses and makes one long for nothing more than a strong whiskey and a fistful of Tylenol. Tell me, what top-level executives sat in the board room at Abercrombie & Fitch's conception and said, "I think customers will buy more if we blast 45 billion decibels of techno music, dim the lights to the point that they can't distinguish blue from brown, and spray every square inch of space with the strongest, most pungent cologne known to mankind"? I suppose that, all things considered, it's not a bad strategy: after all, purse-or-wallet-wielding parents are so desperate to leave the store after 30 seconds of this torture that I don't doubt that they'd agree to buy their cool-in-training teenagers virtually anything in order to escape the hellhole.

It's not surprising that adolescents and teenagers have come to affiliate this brand with "coolness", given the hyper-sexual marketing strategies and the unique method of "customer service" employed by the company (and I use the phrase "customer service" very, VERY loosely). Aside from the shock value of the 98% naked minors in the catalogues and in-store marketing, the omnipresence of young, fit, exposed bodies in classy black-and-white delivers an unforgettable impact of sexy aspiration to the company's intended demographic. The young, fit, exposed bodies that are "working" in the store itself contribute to this image as well, and once again, I use the term "working" very loosely here, since I have yet to see these employees doing any actual work. It seems painfully obvious that the company trains its employees to be anything but friendly or welcoming to customers, instead treating them as an inconvenience and an encroachment upon their untouchable coolness. Employees are even told to great customers with a cold, half-muttered, "Hey, what's going on."

The clothes themselves have become laughably unattractive, impractical, unoriginal, and unbecoming over the years. There is essentially nothing that Abercrombie offers that I couldn't find elsewhere for a better value. Worse still, Abercrombie's versions of wardrobe staples are, to be blunt, ugly and poorly designed. I even found a color block dress there today (while enduring a booming techno version of Celine Dion's "To Love You More) that mixed two floral patterns so horrendous and tacky that I became genuinely nauseated. And this abomination was being sold for over $100. No retail experience should involve nausea and Celine Dion wailing over a thudding bass line.

The bottom line is, Abercrombie & Fitch continues to believe itself to be a lot cooler than it is. The adolescents, teenagers, and college students to whom Abercrombie is supposed to appeal are bombarded with overtly sexual marketing, high prices that anoint the brand with undeserving status, and snotty customer service from brand representatives that confer snob value. Maturation and life experience have endowed me with enough perspective to allow me to conclude that any store that forces me to squint, use a flashlight, bellow myself hoarse in order to be heard, and hold my breath to avoid aspirating toxic fumes named "Fierce" just to purchase a logo-emblazoned hoodie manufactured in a sweatshop in Vietnam is not cool. Not even a little.