Cronut experience works just this once

I am put off by fads. By lines. By pretention. By elitism. So what the hell was I doing this morning a little before 7 AM waiting for a cronut?

I simply had to see what all the fuss was about?

We were headed out of NYC around 8:30 AM so I knew the logistics had to come together just so. I had to set an alarm, which I despise. I had to pack the night before and creep out quietly in the still early dawn. I ran through smelly streets still sticky from the sweat and booze of Friday night and piled with Saturday trash pick ups.

I went halfway across the historic Brooklyn bridge that didn’t disappoint.

Calling the Bay Area home, I take bridges pretty serious. This oldie is indeed a goodie.

Then about a mile through SoHo I came to the quiet street of Dominique Ansel Bakery, now world famous because of his claim to “inventing” the Cronuts™. That may be debatable but he did trademark it and has the people lined up outside his bakery just to buy them. So tip the cap, which I did by making this effort to try them.

The staff was out front to make sure the line was orderly. They dealt with a noisy transient nicely, held a young mother her spot and take her toddlers to the bathroom and even served coffee (for a price) and sample tea cakes (for free).

Here are the key stats: in line at 6:55 AM about 25th. By the time the bakery started serving at 8 AM the line had easily tripled. I got served my Cronuts ($5 each) at 8:22 AM. By judging from the pace of the line (very orderly- no soup nazi here) pretty much every one will wait about 90 minutes until they run out.

So worth it?

Yeah. Once. Still too fadish, pretentious, elitist, etc. But really damn tasty.

The true artistry is the finished product. This baker has a talent for presentation that matches his talent for baking.

Beautiful. Effin artistry. Respect.

Cronuts may well be the Statue of Liberty of NY pastry, the thing you have to see once, but never really want to go back and deal with the crowds after that. Having done it once I’ll stick to the Italian bakers in the East Village who make cannelloni every bit as good and no waiting.

Crumbs, mice close Cronut bakery – Independent.ie

So this is how prophet’s feel? It feels kinda bad actually. Nevertheless, I did call it when I wrote that “Cronuts are so yesterday.” Of course, I didn’t think someone who went to such artistry to launch the cronut (and then to trademark it to keep others from profiting on something he didn’t really invent, but perfected) would be so careless as to let his SoHo New York restaurant be overun by rats.

Karma?

Far be it from me to say it, but read on:

Health officials have closed a New York City bakery famous for serving up croissant-doughnut hybrid treats called Cronuts because of a “severe mouse infestation.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman says the Dominique Ansel Bakery in Manhattan’s SoHo neighbourhood was shut down yesterday.

She says the rodent problem requires professional pest control but the bakery can reopen after inspectors determine the problem is fixed.

Bakery spokeswoman Amy Ma says a customer posted a video of a mouse online instead of telling bakery staff.

She says workers are now re-cementing the basement and will exterminate. She says they hope to open on Monday.

Cronuts have become a food craze in New York. Queues at Ansel’s tiny eatery often start forming at dawn, hours before it opens.

via Crumbs, mice close Cronut bakery – Independent.ie.

It suddenly makes my little Teddy Bear Claw Croissonuts and Italian No-nuts look pretty damn good huh?

But maybe I’ll not go the trademark route. It seems elitism can lead to a far fall from grace.

So here’s the proverbial $64,000 question: Will the lines around the building return when the mice are gone?

News from The Test Kitchen: Juiced up

In today’s age of debating everything, I mean everything, I found a topic that while it can still stir the pot really doesn’t have fierce opposition.

The statement: I need to eat more vegetables.

Nobody in the right mind would really argue this as vegetables have no down side. The totally bankrupt idea of the government’s food pyramid agrees few people in our country eat enough vegetables. Vegetarians are with me, without a doubt, “Can I get an Amen, Sister?!” Fadish Paleo-ites still value whole vegetables with all their carnivorous chowing down. Moms love this as “Eat your vegetables!” (did you ever notice how Mom didn’t eat a lot of vegetables and she never told Dad to eat his even though he mostly ignored them?) remains standard dinner conversation.

We all agree we need to eat more vegetables.

So the simple deduction is we must not like vegetables very much if we have such a universal under-consumption of them.

Not so fast (stay with me my veggie friends). What we really don’t like is the godawful way a lot vegetables are prepared, relegated for decades to the corners (side dish) of our plates, served in routinely bland after-thought methods, and often terribly over-cooked into some type of disgusting mash.

Also, compared to addictive, processed food, loaded with sugars, additives and salt that send our brain centers zipping around like a tweaker looking for the next high, veggies are too tame to garner much attention.

Thankfully, I’m rethinking this. I go back to the simple philosophy of Michael Pollan, who urged people to move proteins to the side dish and plant-based foods to the main course.

Suddenly vegetables never looked (smelled, tasted, made you feel) so good.

Even so, with vegetables crowding out our plates on most meals, I knew I could benefit from more vegetables in my diet. I studied up on the benefits of massive-nutrition levels from large quantities of vegetable consumption (Do I hear a Wheat and Chaff coming soon Joel Furhman? Can I get an Amen Brother?!) and wanted more.

The next logical step was juicing, which brings us (“at long last you wordy SOB,” you think to yourself) this week’s test kitchen: Juicing.

Doesn’t quite have the drumroll-effect of “CRONUTS!” does it? I know… but it sure does have a far better health effect.

So let’s first dispense with the problems of juicing that in my reading and experimenting I discovered are all-too-often whitewashed while proponents (I’m looking at you my veggie friends… fess up…) rush to sing about the merits. If juicing was so easy… say it with me now… “Everybody would do it!” (thank you Jimmy Dugan).

The problems:

• Juicing is messy to make
• Veggie juices don’t always taste too great, certainly compared to fruit juices and smoothies
• Clean up is a pain in the arse
• It’s expensive

True or false?

Sadly, true. All true, as we discovered in the Test Kitchen.

BUT…

Each is manageable and I’m here to tell you how. Can I get an Amen?

Amen! (Sometimes a preacher has to help out his own cause especially when 800 words in to a 400-word blog no readers are left to shout with me… sigh). The pitfalls are real, but with some planning they are manageable and worth it. Consuming these glasses of nutrition-loaded health bombs are very, very worth it and virtually immediately noticeable from a health perspective.

In the Test Kitchen this week we started with a basic idea of juicing the shit out of a bunch of stuff and seeing how it would taste.  So I took some beets, some carrots, some celery, some kale and tossed in some grapefruits and apples and even a whole fresh pineapple for flavor (and for the fun of breaking that bad boy down) and made a concoction.

It was… earthy. The Bride smelled it and tasted it and said (with 60% approval and 40% nose curling distaste) “It smells like a garden.” Translation: Dirt.

I realized the beets were both very, very strong and not so very clean. So for all future recipes be careful with the beets — they make a lot of juice, whereas kale, while strong, makes next to nothing — and go ahead and peel them, because their skin adds a lot of dirt.

The good news is my concoction worked. We used it in smoothies with plain yogurt and protein powder to make the healthiest, lowest-sugar content smoothies I’ve ever made and they tasted good. Not great, but good. We used all the juice.

So the next step, now that I discovered both how the juicer would work and what to expect was to look for some actual recipes.

Frankly, I was disappointed. I read through a book on juicing and the recipes mostly took a couple of vegetables, tossed them in and said, “drink this and like it.” I felt the same rising anger I once did as a kid stuck alone at the dinner table unable to get up until I ate my vegetables. Surely if you’re producing a book on the merit of juicing it’s not too much to ask to put some thought and care into the actual taste of the drinks?

Unfortunately online really wasn’t much better. After a couple of hours I thought to myself, “ATTENTION MUST BE PAID!”

I resolved to craft some specific, planned, tried and tested, tasty juice recipes.

Then I stumbled on a “copycat” version of V-8.

I love V-8. I’m constantly thinking (bop to the head) “I should have had a V-8!”

So another trip to the store for another (expensive, more on that soon) grocery purchase and I was back in the test kitchen making my copycat V-8 juice from what appeared to be a very specific, very thought-out recipe.

It looked a little pale to me as I served it to my taste-testing Bride. She winced as she drank it.

“My god that’s spicy,” she said.

I took a drink and suddenly felt triggered for a Bloody Mary with a Mimosa chaser. Can I hear a “Grey Goose!?” Uh… no. Those days are gone. Sigh.

Vegetable juices should not make me want to relapse.

I blame myself because I have never… not once… found a copycat recipe that actually taste’s like the original dating back to the days when copycats swore they could bake like Mrs. Fields.

I ended up going back to the store for more tomatoes and ended up with a HUGE pitcher of still very strong (it’s the onion… way too much onion) and now only marginally tasty.

So, the test kitchen continued (and I’m still slamming those virgin Bloody Mary’s like a frat boy with Jaigermeister on Friday night, because I’ll be damned if all that produce is going to waste).

Let’s talk briefly about the mess.

Juice flies everywhere! I even got some on a cabinet about two feet above my head. Don’t ask me how. I figured out that like Jimmy Dugan who perhaps chastised too vehemently, I perhaps, shoved the veggies through the grinder too aggressively, causing the juice to spray too powerfully into a mess on my counter.

Over time I got a feel for it and it’s not too bad. It’s messy, make no mistake, but it’s not mopping the ceiling messy.

The cleanup of the machine itself take a few minutes. It’s not bad on a Sunday when I make juice for the week, but this whole idea of getting up and bada bing fresh juice and off to work is poppycock. I can’t see anyone wanting to mess with this when in a hurry and before their morning coffee:

But in the scheme of things, the parts come apart pretty easily, they clean up quick enough and it’s really not out of the ordinary of a typical kitchen mess. So don’t let the mess scare you off, just plan when you want to make your juice.

As for the expense… vegetables cost more than processed shit. It’s just the way it is in our industrialized food economy that is bent on making you fat and killing you. If you want to fight back, stay healthy and eat right, it’s going to cost more. So I’m tackling this two ways:

I’ll buy into a CSA that will bring me a box of local produce regularly that I can budget into my monthly expense. I love the farmers market and will still go, but knowing a box of stuff picked for me will expand both my cooking and my juicing experiments, pump those vegetables into my system and support local farmers.

Also, I’m adding even more to my garden this year. If I can offset the costs with my very inexpensively grown produce and even learn to can these juices for winter then my produce bill will decline dramatically over time. It’s not unlike my steer “Dinner” who cost a bundle up front but has been so wonderful to both eat and to see the impact on my food budget over time that I’ll never go without a wonderfully locally raised steer in my freezer, God Willing.

And FINALLY, (hey.. that Amen was uncalled for buster!) let’s deal with the most important part of this whole exercise: taste. This stuff should (and soon will) taste EFFin DELICIOUS. IT should not and will not be for long “Ok.” The ingredients are fresh and pure and the healthiest things on the planet you can eat. They are colorful and exotic. It’s everything a true culinary artist should enjoy playing with.

So… once my first shipment of CSA produce arrives I’m going to do another Test Kitchen dedicated to recipes. And I have a simple plan you can do yourself right now if you are motivated: Mix all the various juices separately and then slowly combine in various amounts and combinations to find the most flavorful balance. Then add in the spices and flavors — a dash of this, a splash of that — until Effin Artistry of Juice results.

Sounds fun huh?

At long last, EFFin ARTIST is… out!

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Love affair with dough pays off in the end

I know that you all have been reading lately of my husband’s love affair. While some women have to deal with the advances of other women, I have to compete with dough these days. No, not the green kind, but the white, puffy texture. You know the kind that feels really soft sometimes, and the kind where it’s okay to poke, and pinch (an inch or more). This lady won’t talk back to my husband, or yell at him for calling it fat. She’s a considerable foe.

His latest Effin Artist creation: croissants with all their flaky, perfectly buttery tasting goodness. It took awhile, the process that is. Maybe even days from the first utter of the word from his mouth. Daily, I asked, when will the croissants be done? Just finished the dough…the dough needs to rise…the dough needs to be spanked, and worked up in my hands real good…(are you sure you are talking about dough here?!) The dough needs to rest.

The “dough” seems like an awful lot of work. The “dough” seems high maintenance and downright bitchy if you ask me.

“You seem to be giving so much of your efforts and time to the ‘dough,’ what does it do for you lately?” I asked with no small amount of snark in my voice as he sauntered off to the kitchen yet again. “I don’t see the ‘dough’ appreciating you the way that I do. Every time I’m around the ‘dough’ all it seems to do is complain and belittle you. I’m not sure who would put up with that. I would have been gone a long time ago!”

He just gave me that smile he does in my Crazy Train moments and went back to his floury concoction. 

My husband is no quitter. His patience goes beyond normal mortals. I recalled his Cronut Test Kitchen when one flavor wasn’t enough… he had to make four! And then I recalled how amazing those were and I started to chill a bit.

In spite of the lack of the dough’s lack of respect, he held out. Never lost hope. In the end, I think he wore the dough down. It was his love and respect, and his never-give-up philosophy that won out.

In the end, my patience with his affair, his need — or should I say knead — for freedom, was worth it. These buttery pillows of perfectly golden goddesses were to die for. I started seeing his love affair with dough in a new light.

IF my husband shares his recipe, I encourage you to try them yourself. (He says all the websites that share recipes are as over-killed as Quinoa. I’m not sure I know what that means. “Is that a yes or a no honey,” I asked him. He just smiled at me. I heard him doing a Rainman muttering thing about italian-herb croissants sandwiches, so maybe … maybe… he’ll make those. God I hope so.) Anyway, if he does give you the recipe, you won’t be disappointed. If not, find a good recipe  and do it anyway. Do as I say, not as I do, because there is no way I have the patience to do it!

Still… so delicious.

Peanut Butter revisted: a must-do DIY staple

A while back I spent a week in the test kitchen focused on peanut butter, but I mostly skimmed past it in on the blog, lost in the fury of the Croissonut Craze that turned my family email chain into a WWE tussle we’re still recovering from. It wasn’t pretty, I’ll tell you that. Nevertheless a deserving winner arose from the abyss and enjoyed a sweet package of Croissonut goodness for her efforts.

Now that that’s over (for now- stay tuned for Valentine Cronuts) let’s revisit the peanut butter testing, which turned out to be a true keeper. I have simply realized I will never buy peanut butter again.

There are few things I just won’t buy, period. Spaghetti sauce. Won’t happen. Salsa, nope. Beans are starting to move toward that list, but in a crunch I’d probably break down and buy a can. As much as I love my pasta, I’ll buy some for convenience.

Peanut butter has now joined that list. I see absolutely no earthly reason to ever buy it again. We ran out the other day — no small thing because I eat peanut butter on everything. But rather than dash out and buy a jar to tide me over, I went through my test kitchen supplies and found a tupperware container of peanuts. Ten minutes later I had peanut butter. The cost is easily half that of a store-bought jar, more so of the really good peanut butters.  As I explained before the recipe can’t get any easier. Here it is again:

Get peanuts, toss em in a food processor and whirl the heck out of them for six minutes. Done.

You can get a bit creative and I have, slowly working toward my own concoction that will forever be EFFinArtist Peanut Butter. But you’d be a dolt to ever try to buy it from me as you can and SHOULD make your own, and it will be every bit as good as mine or Adams or Skippy or any other jar you can buy.

If there are better things in life than a Effin Artist brownie dunked in a jar of Effin Artist peanut butter, I don’t what it is, at least not right now (as I wipe the gooey brownie flecked peaut butter from my keyboard). What’s that you say about weight loss? We’ll revist that in another post, thank you very much.

There’s no excuse. Make yourself some peanut butter today. You’ll thank me.

And folks say I’m wasting my time

My kids won’t admit it, but I stress them out a bit. I’m nowhere near retirement age but I sure dotter around like a retiree. I keep telling them I’m training for grand-parenting and they keep reminding me there aren’t any grand-kids yet.

Even though they enjoy these Effin Artist creations and musings and what not, I think they’d much prefer I spend more time writing the boring stuff I write that actually brings in a paycheck.

It’s not a bad point, but eh… they really needn’t worry. As the great Bob Marley said, “everything’s gonna be alright…”

Besides I’m far more productive than 535 so-called exemplars of success and American respect. I’m talking about Congress, the 100 Senators and 435 members of House who we elect and pay and then coddle, all in the hope they will do this little thing like represent our interests in government.

Now that’s a colossal waste of time.

I’ve been there. I covered these folks for a long time. I’ve seen the tail wag the dog. I’ve written about it and exposed it and argued for changes and it just kept circling the drain with the relentlessness of a tornado.

A photo of Speaker of the House John Boehner made its way around the blogosphere recently, with a caption that claims it costs taxpayers $30 million a day for Congress to be in session, yet it failed to pass a single jobs bill. As it turns out the numbers are slightly inflated. It really is about $16.7-$21.7 million a day. Might as well be accurate here, right?

As for the jobs bills, that was correct. It is zero. Just like the number of meaningful immigration reform bills or the extension of unemployment benefits for those most in need, or the number of bills that raise the minimum wage.

Right, right, these are the typical Lib/Dem faction laundry list. I get that. But other than repealing a law passed by the Legislative Branch and signed by the Executive Branch and validated by the Judicial Branch and then validated in a presidential election, the GOPers aren’t doing much either–though you have to admire the Don Quixote-like combination of zeal and delusion.

I’m not singling them out at all. Sen. Harry Reid’s Senate passed just 16 laws last year, for goodness sakes. Believe me, this mockery should fall equally on both parties. I cooked it up with plenty to go around and lord knows I don’t like waste.

In a day and age when we stress our carbon footprint, recycling our trash and trying to be efficient, our Congressional leaders provide a starkly absurd counterpoint. We may want to live with hoof-to-head wholeness and health, but our leaders are profligate wasters. And we pay them to be. We pay these millionaires (oh yeah… did you catch the latest report about how for the first time in history, the median net worth of Congress tops a million bucks?) to do nothing. It costs us millions every day for them to do nothing. They in turn pay staff that cost even more millions to help them do nothing.

So I tell my kids not to worry so much. I may not get much done either, but I don’t cost millions of dollars a day to do nothing. And hey, I made Teddy Bear Claw Croissonuts the other day.

From a truly cost-benefit outcome, I’d put me way ahead of John Boehner anyday.

Cronuts are yesterday: Today is Italian Nonuts

We put in long hours in the test kitchen in search of Doussaint artistry this week. Yes, yes, in case you noticed, we are no longer trademark infringing on the C-word trademarked by the genius from New York. We’ve seen the light. His mastery is to be commended and we’d dare not infringe (nod to lawyers… ok? great. Whew…) Besides, now we are a big BELIEVER in trademarks, as you will soon see.

Our goal was not to re-invent or improve the doussant/C-word thing. Just by reading up on it and watching the video of preparation, we set out with two goals. First to emulate its quality and artistry, and second to twist it some way in flavor or presentation to make it our own, which is why the Test Kitchen exists frankly. It’s the journey, man. It’s the journey.

This journey started off pretty decent after our dough went off to “have a sleep.”

The dough woke up rested and ready.

Next we plotted our plan. First we’d emulate the actual doussant/ C-word as best we could. Then not liking the idea of wasting the doughnut hole, we went with the traditional jelly doughnut shape. Next, getting a bit more expansive in our confidence and creativity we busted out the old ravioli cutter. Excitement filled the air, and our phone lines filled with energy to our lawyers.

“What’s involved with a trademark?” we asked.

In typical hoof to head fashion we used every last bit of the dough including the final scraps which we tossed into the oil to make sure the temp was right and enjoyed a tasty friend dough treat when finished.

Finally, we came up with what a truly American version of this french-inspired idea. We cut the shapes into teddy bears for….

TEDDY BEAR CLAW CROISONUTS(TM)!*

Now pumped about this whole trademark thing, we doubled-back, thought of our dear Nonie Mary who inspires our kitchen to this day and named our ravioli version….

Italians Nonuts (TM)!*

This made great sense because at the core of this whole endeavor is fried bread. That’s really what all this fuss is about. This is wonderfully layered bread, delicately fried and topped and filled and brushed with all kinds of sweetness and light. But its’s still fried bread and we’ve been doing this for decades. Nonie taught me how to make fried bread when I was little. Now, she’s trademarked forever and ever Amen!

Who would have thought this trademark thing would be such a blast?!

For the Nonuts(TM), the only filling that made any sense was a decadent custard filling.

This custard just danced to life.

We finished frying the bread, and the real work set in: trying to pump these things full of creams and top them with icing.

Each needed its own flavor and twist. Here’s the final product:

Clockwise starting with the classic C-word/Doussant topped in pink icing is a Meyer Lemon Cronu..err. Doussant. Next is a custard Croissonut topped with dark chocolate. Then a Teddy Bear Claw Croissonut(TM) with cinnamon cream filling. Bottom center is an Italian Custard Nonut(TM) and, finally, another Teddy Bear Claw Croissonut (TM) with happy-face frosting.

And on the seventh day, Effin Artist rested.

Effin Artist’s bride, however did not:

Can’t say I clean as well I create. Oh well, I can’t be everything. Remember, I told my bride, “it’s the journey, man.. it’s the journey.”

*Trademarked name, patent pending… do not use without permission — we prefer small bills — or we will sue you for everything you got!

WeBromance- Breaking my own rules for Sorted

I’ve written before how I try to avoid the really successful foodie websites and shows. I’m not a fan of the whole cult of personality of cooking. I mean it’s food, right? It should be inclusive, not just another area where the stars burn brightest and the rest of us bow to their greatness.

BUT… there’s always a but… I found a hugely successful foodie website that is successful because its awesome. If you want to see how to make a thing good, watch this. The food is great. The videos are excellently produced and well, they crack me up. Seriously, food is fun and this site makes it fun.

What is it about an English accent that’s so funny? God I wish I knew. I wish I could get away with faking one so people would think I’m funny. A swarthy Italian with a British accent? Crikey that’s funny!

Anyway, I stumbled on to these when I steered the Test Kitchen toward Cronuts. When they talk about the “pansy” rabbit about to get skinned, I nearly wet myself.

They just seem like guys who back in my drinking days would be fun to hang out with. I realize that’s idealistic. They will probably sue me once this posts because of some copyright law and I’ll think they’re a bunch of A-holes. But for now, the WeBromance continues.

Enjoy.

Also, the Test Kitchen finished phase one of Cronuts. The dough looks like its supposed to as its “gone off to have a sleep.” We’ll see what the next step brings.

News From The Test Kitchen: Cronuts

The other day I was minding my own business, considering my Test Kitchen ideas. I wondered if those on my Hotel California Email about the Test Kitchen were now getting politely annoyed and were about to have one of those things when I show up and everyone is sitting around staring at me awkwardly when someone says “we need to talk.” You know, one of those kind of things. Ugh.

But to my surprise, an unlikely participant on the Email chain– my son’s wife-to-be who is just too nice to tell me to bang off, but doesn’t respond much to the banter — chimed in with an idea for the next Test Kitchen.

“Cronuts. Google it. Embrace it,” she wrote.

I had no friggin idea what it was. I figured it was like the Acai berry or some such thing that mucky mucks were now making. I wasn’t that interested. But I love soon-to-be-daughter-in-law so I did as she asked and Googled it, while the email chain went its merry way without me.

Shocker alert: The Cronut is without a doubt the very best idea that has surfaced in the test kitchen since Italian Wool Shearing, and that doesn’t really count because it was not.. I swear it… NOT conducted in the kitchen.

At first I hated the idea because of this guy:

http://dominiqueansel.com/cronut-101/

What a freakin snob this guy is. $5 bucks and a waiting list. Trademarked the name, gets all in a hubabaloo over others making it and rumor has it is vying for a new show called “Cronut Nazi” starring Jerry Seinfeld (ok, I’ll confess, I made that last one up).

I thought no way. EFFin Artist don’t do elitist bullslather. (Note to self, add that to the list: Effin Artist don’t do list: Selfies, ESP, and Elitist Bullslather… to be cont., because Effin Artist does do LISTS… We love love lists– read about them in fact in about oh…22 hours at effinartists.com. Commercial now over!).

ANYWAY, I was about to reject the idea out of hand UNTIL… I thought about the neanderthal ideas from the male readership of this email chain to the idea of Cronuts.

For those not on the email chain, let me derisively fill you in on this memorable input:

“I’m thinking that it is New Years and time for thinking healthy. Instead of the Cronut, how about quinoa!”

“Oohh the cronut sounds amazing but so does quinoa and since I gained 900lbs over the 2 holidays maybe you should stuff the cronut with quinoa so I dont feel guilty for eating it.”

“Now that is the originality worthy of an EFFin artist. Bravo.”

Quinoa and a Cronut? Bravo??? Seriously?!?! Guys… go back to the link above, read it, consider the absurdity of that idea and go lie down. For shame! It’s safe to say I know two people who WON’T be winning this week’s sweepstakes package. I mean, quinoa has all the artistry of a Beanie Baby. Just because people get all trendy with it doesn’t make it neato. It’s rice man. Really, that’s about it. Rice. Or Risotto for bad cooks. Sigh.. I can’t believe I’m explaining this. I must move on. It’s as arty as selfies when you get right down to it. (Add to the list: Quinoa)

AND that’s when I opened to the idea because once I delved a bit further, I realized EVERYONE is going to want to win this week’s sweepstakes because these things are — holy CRONUTS batman — incredible looking. I haven’t tasted them, but what’s not to love… a doughnut, a croissant, sugar, cream, frosting all gently elevating with yeast-like perfection together. Amazeballs!

SO I’m in. Let the research begin. The Test Kitchen is going to make Cronuts.

This led me to my new favorite WEBromance, a perfect cooking show type website minus all the snooty tooty rich and phooey. It’s called Sorted. And if you still don’t know what a Cronut is you have to watch this video right here:

Folks, lets face it… you already know the answer to that question you are thinking… yes… this will be on the test. And if you have ANY hope of winning the sweepstakes package of the week, you will, YOU WILL have to pass the test. Should I pause here whilst you all double back and watch my new favorite webromance video???

I thought so. go ahead. I’ll wait…………..

Send me your favorite line from the video for extra credit. Mine was… no cheating, you tell me first…. Done yet?…. (fingers drumming…)

DIGRESSION: EFFin Artist isn’t surprised much. The time my nephew jumped in with the Jailhouse Ramen Sandwich in his dorm room maybe. My sister-in-law the Long Island Medium… that was cool. But as I waited for you all to go back and watch that truly wonderful video, I was SHOCKED when a new email arrived from said sister-in-law. And guess what she said:

“However, I … have gained the requisite 900 lbs. over the holidays, so, since I still consider this time zone to be the holidays, I say Cronut first then quinoa. Or, how about a quinoa Cronut!  Now, that would’ve something!!!!!”

(Effin Artist shakes his head… )

No dear… it wouldn’t be something. Stop with all the exclamation points. This dumb idea would be Lobster Tail drenched in Hotdog Chili Mac. You need to go sit over there with the boys this time dear and next time, THINK… think before you email. Once its out there, you can’t take it back. The gun can’t be unfired, the bell can’t be unrung, the lipstick can’t be wiped off the pig.

Sigh. She was my star student, or at least I thought. She’s an artist no less…a  REAL one, not an imposter like me. I .,.. i… I just sometimes wonder why I bother…

My dear daughter-in-law-to-be who came up with this idea, you can come right up here and sit at the front of class where the sister-in-law formerly known as Artist just vacated. CONCLUDE DIGRESSION:

SO now my brain is in overload. The snooty french guy with the Cronut trademark (CRONUT. CRONUT. CRONUT. CRONUT. CRONUT.  there I said, I’m posting it, and I’m making it, so take that frenchy. Sue me!? Yeah right, get in line. Good luck with that!)… Ooops… sorry… Deep breath… As I was saying, the snooty guy (Note to self: I had a lovely French blogger drop by the other day, and she was not at all snooty. So please be nice to the French. I’d hate to piss of one of my five readers) listed all the flavors he’s made.

“There is only one flavor of Cronut™ every month. Here are the flavors we’ve had: May – Rose Vanilla; June – Lemon Maple; July –  Blackberry Lime; August – Coconut; September –  Fig Mascarpone; October- Apple Creme Fraiche; November – Salted Dulce de Leche; December -Valrhona Chocolate Champagne. January 2014 will feature Peanut Butter Rum Caramel.”

Salted Dulce de Leche? My god! I owe him a slow clap because I can see why folks are lined up for these. Some great creations on that list. But, me being me, I have to create my OWN version that he hasn’t done yet. That will be aces! This is no small test kitchen here. This is GIANT TEST KITCHEN! Game on! This is SURVIVOR Test Kitchen!

Step up your game folks. The Cronut Test Kitchen Starts Sunday right after the 49ers make the Packers into a snowball and splat ’em.

I will test you on everything… so if you are not still reading… right down to HERE… you can go sit with the neanderthals and the artist this week. Believe it. Don’t be voted out of the kitchen. Just… don’t.

To unsubscribe… I got nothing for you. you can deal with it. I’m just not in the mood! And remember Jimmy Dugan… there’s no crying in baseball (or Effin Artistry either).