My 2 Cents

Before I throw a hissy fit, let me start with a friendly "Happy New Year" to all who pass through this site. All the best in 2010.

We spent the week between Christmas and New Years on the road. My in-laws house, an out-of-town friends gathering down in Westchester and then off to the burbs of Baltimore to spend some time with friends from college. It was a fun week. But....there were two things that pissed me off, besides traffic.

While in Maryland I was in a Walmart (why it is frequently pronounced Wall-Marts I'll never know). Personally, I don't like the place and avoid it. I don't think I'd say the store is the root of all evil, but then again maybe I would some days. I do feel the store is partially responsible for the shift in our culture where it became desirable to buy crappy things as long as they are cheap. This decay has been called by some "the Walmarting of America." While the store may not be entirely at fault (people buy the crap they sell), I believe the decay in standards is very real and getting worse. Think I'm wrong...stop by the Olive Garden on Wolf Road this Friday at 6:00 and tell me how long the line is. Then wait in the line and eat there. I triple-dog-dare you.

Anyhow, the particular burb of Baltimore we were visiting, was about a 30 minute drive to the closest similar store (Target, K-Mart, or other chain that isn't coming to mind). My buddy wanted to order some photo prints off a flash drive. Then we were off to pick up a vanity he needed some help moving. No big deal. While he was loading pictures into one of those picture kiosks, I roamed the store. Since I am kind of a food nut, I went right to the kitchen aisles and was faced with the first thing that pissed me off. Apparently, Paula Deen has a line pots, pans, bowls, tea kettles...the works. They are all ugly, el-cheapo enamel on wafer thin steel. Why would she put her name on this crap? Clearly for the cash, but why not put your name on a decent product? I'm not saying she deserved to get hit in the face with a ham, but I believe the song says "Instant Karma's gonna get you. Gonna knock you right in the head."

The second thing that pissed me off this weekend was here at the house. I was putting some stuff away in the kitchen and noticed a Snickerdoodle recipe on the side of a bag of Domino brand sugar. I love a good Snickerdoodle. They're great. So I looked a little closer. The recipe was from Sandra Lee. I took a deep breath and read on. This domestic goddess wants people to buy a package a premade sugar cookie dough, put it in the bowl of a stand mixer, whip in a few ounces of cream cheese, some confectioners sugar and some vanilla. Then roll the dough into balls and coat with cinnamon sugar. I am not a cookie expert by any means, but skip the premade dough and break out flour, eggs, some butter and maybe some baking powder and you've made them from scratch. Let's find out. I just googled "Snickerdoodle recipe" and here's the ingredient list from the first entry which comes to us from the probably very nice people at popularcookierecpies.com compared to Sandra Lee's recipe (I really need to learn how to make a table here)

Homemade......................Semi-Homemade

butter
granulated sugar......................granulated sugar
baking soda
cream of tartar
egg
vanilla........................................vanilla
all purpose flour
cinnamon...................................cinnamon
....................................................confectioners sugar
....................................................package of dough
....................................................cream cheese

The semi-homemade version has 6 ingredients (not counting the list of who-knows-what in the cookie dough) for the home cook to gather. An actual homemade snickerdoodle has 8 ingredients. Since you are supposed to be doing this in a stand mixer, one only needs to add the following to Sandra Lee's directions :

1) unwrap butter (very easy)
2) measure flour (pretty easy)
3) crack an egg (the most skill intensive aspect of the homemade recipe)
4) add in baking soda and cream of tarter (measuring spoons can be tricky but I'm sure Paula Deen is selling them in several reassuring colors at your local Wall-Marts)

Are we so freaking screwed in the head that we can't be bothered to measure ingredients into the stand mixer? Really?!? I can't believe this lady has a job.

I just thought of a third thing that pisses me off. I probably could have made 2 dozen Snickerdoodles in the time it took to write this rant. Whose the idiot now?