I don’t want to alarm you, but are you aware that Valentine’s Day is upon us yet again?

If you’ve got a Valentine you’re looking to impress, might I suggest these sinfully rich chocolate-covered balls of cookie dough? They will scream your unending love and devotion with every bite and make this one of the most romantic and memorable Valentine’s Days you and your lovebird have ever had.

Or, you can just go with that Ziggy card you’ve got in the top drawer.  It’s your call.

I found the recipe at one of my favorite blogs, Eats Well With Others, which is helmed by Joanne, who, except for the fact that I live on the opposite coast, don’t run marathons, am not pursuing a medical degree and have sex with men, is my perfect match!

Salmonella is of no concern here as there are no raw eggs involved in the dough.  Another plus is the limitless joy that comes from having a giant bowl of warm, melted chocolate in your house.  There’s also the joyful sensation that comes from swirling these little truffles around in said bowl of chocolate with your fingers.  Chocolatiers must be the happiest people on earth!

I made these little babies while watching Defending Your Life with Albert Brooks and Meryl Street.  I’m not saying there aren’t other movies out there better for making cookie dough truffles, but this was most definitely a triumphant pairing.

Cookie Dough Truffles found at Eats Well with Others, adapted from Annie’s Eats
Makes 4-5 dozen

8 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 lb semisweet (or bittersweet) chocolate
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Combine butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and cream until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes on high speed. Add flour, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. Incorporate until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to form balls, about 30 minutes.

Shape the chilled cookie dough mixture into 1-1 1/2 inch balls. Place onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Cover loosely and transfer the pan to the freezer and chill for 1-2 hours.

When ready to dip the truffles, melt the semisweet chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Dip each chilled truffle, one at a time, in the chocolate to coat it. Shake to remove the excess chocolate. Transfer to a wax paper-lined surface. Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Drizzle over the top of the truffles. Store truffles in the fridge until ready to serve.

1.) Knows to cross from table to stove without breaking face from camera.  Not an easy talent to foster.
2.) Just like every chef host currently employed at Food Network, starts every sentence of instruction with the maddeningly condescending, “What you wanna do is…”
3.) Recognizes when it’s okay to give herself some major kitchen props (“My chopping skills are REALLY good!”).
4.) Recruits her best fans to be her audience (Note how Betsy Wetsy is so riveted by the proceedings, she doesn’t even notice the full baba staring her in the face).
5.) Already has her own catch phrase – “Tune in too-mah-woh!”

It’s true that little Chef Chiara might need to work on withholding reaction when her producer instructs her to throw to commercial, but this is a minor detail sure to worked out before her first weekend marathon.  Enjoy the birth of a future superstar.  And remember what website gave her her first big break!

I’m still not the biggest fan of the shroom, but the zesty aroma will make them hard to refuse. A definite must-bring to any pot-luck party. Just make sure your host has available oven space to cook them just before putting them out. (Geez, I sound like Martha Stewart! I’m tossing that powder blue oven mitt the minute I get home!)

Stuffed Mushrooms from Half Hour Meals

1 package of large white mushrooms (about 10)
8 oz. cream cheese
6 strips of bacon (cooked and crumbled)
1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. parmesan cheese (separated)
Preheat your oven to 400F. Wipe all your mushrooms off with a damp paper towel to remove all dirt. DON’T RINSE THEM or they’ll absorb all the water and blow up to something you could attach to a rope and parade down Central Park West on Thanksgiving morning.

Carefully pull out each stump so there is a hole in each mushroom to stuff. Discard the stumps. If one breaks off, you can use a spoon to scrape it out of the inside of the hole.

In a large bowl, add your cream cheese and stick in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute to soften. Take your precooked, crumbled bacon and add to the cream cheese. Stir and add your Worcestershire sauce as well. Mix all ingredients vigorously until fully combined. Take a spoonful of the mixture and fill each mushroom cap. You can fill each cap pretty generously as long as it does not fall down the side of the mushroom.

Place your mushrooms, filling side up, in a greased baking pan. Place into the oven and cook for about 15-25 minutes, ovens will vary. The last 5 minutes pull the pan out of the oven and top with grated parmesan cheese. You can tell that they are done when the mushrooms are dark in color and slightly mushy to the touch. The filling should be slightly browned on top.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. The filling will be extremely hot! If you have any filling leftover, I recommend hanging on to is and using as as a bagel or sandwich spread. You will not be disappointed.

Here’s a simple twist on the recipe for crab puffs I posted a while back to accomodate those heathens who dislike crab. There were more of them out there then I originally realized – my mother and father being two of them – so out with the crustacea and in with a hot and zesty one-two punch of prosciutto and serrano pepper that’ll keep these babies flying into your mouth faster than you can keep count. And being as light and mouth-watering as they are, you won’t want to keep count.

Serrano is Spanish for “from the mountains.” The peppers were reportedly first cultivated in the mountain regions of Puebla and Hidalgo, Mexico. They are generally the hottest peppers commonly found in U.S. grocery stores, and are 5 to 10 times hotter than jalapenos. Their thin skin and meatiness makes pre-prep nearly non-existent. I simply mince a few up and toss them into everything – tacos, tuna salads, ground beef, chicken, sandwiches, eggs and pizza toppings. They’re bountiful and inexpensive, but if you’re not a fan of chile pepper heat, just omit them from the recipe. The prosciutto itself brings more than enough flavor to satisfy just about anyone.

• 1 cup water
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 eggs
• 3/4 finely chopped prosciutto or fully cooked ham
• 2 serrano peppers, minced
• 1/4 cup minced chives

In a large saucepan, bring the water, butter and pepper to a boil.  Add in the flour ALL AT ONCE and CONTINUE TO STIR until it begins to come together into a sticky substance with a “Play-Doh” consistency. Remove from the heat and let stand for about five minutes

Add eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.  Continue beating until the mixture becomes smooth and shiny.  Stir in the prosciutto, serrano peppers and chives. Mix thoroughly.

Lay out on greased baking sheets in heaping teaspoons.  Cook for approximately 19-22 minutes, but check frequently, and once they turn golden brown, remove them.  Let cool for about 5 minutes, then serve warm.  Refrigerate leftovers and re-heat at 350 for about 10 minutes  (though they go down almost as well cold, trust me).

Once you start showing off what you’ve managed to learn to make in the kitchen (say, on a blog for example), you have to take a certain level of responsiblity when friends and family start making certain food assumptions about what you’ll prepare for them when you invite them over. I became accutely aware of that fact earlier this week when my friend Travis asked what I was going to be serving at my weekly LOST viewing party and dinner:

Travis: “What are you making tonight, Gary?”
Me: “I’m making this amazing jalapeno popper mac and cheese.”
Travis:  “Cool… what else?”
Me:  “What do you mean what else?”
Travis:  “I mean… what else are you making to go with it?  And what, no dessert?”

I guess my days of gliding by with spaghetti and meatballs served on plastic plates I stole from my college dining commons are over, but I’ll happily leave that era in my past. MG often reminds me of my typical day’s food rundown from our first year or so of dating. I don’t recall, but apparently I lived exclusively on Hot Pockets, McDonalds and Tombstone frozen pizzas. I’m guessing MG is happy I’ve left those days behind as well.

On to the mad mac and cheese recipe I found over at Let’s Cook.

It’s not going to win any awards for keeping your arteries shiny and clear, and it may cause your eyes to spontaneously cross every few bites, but it is deadly satisfying in the way really bad Catholic sins are satisfying. And don’t worry about preparing anything else to go alongside it. Trust me, it is not necessary. This meal is covered in cheese, and since the cheese stands alone, this meal does as well.

Jalapeño Popper Mac and Cheese from Let’s Cook Adapted from Rachael Ray

• 16 ounces dry pasta (cavatappi was listed in the recipe, but I used mostaccioli – just make sure it’s hollow)
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 jalapeño chiles, seeded, ribs removed and thinly sliced
• 2 serrano chiles, seeded, ribs removed and thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 8 ounces cream cheese, sliced into cubes
• 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
• 8 ounces (about 2 cups) shredded Mexican-blend cheese

In a large pot of boiling, salted water, add pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain and place back into the pot off heat.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium. Stir in jalapeños, serranos and garlic – cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add to the pot with the drained pasta.

Preheat the broiler.

In the same saucepan, add milk, cream cheese and onion – heat over medium-low, stirring, until very smooth, about 5 minutes. Pour in to the pot with the pasta and add the cheese – season with salt and fresh ground black pepper, tossing well to coat. Scoop mixture into a casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Place under the broiler and bake until lightly browned on top, about 3 to 5 minutes.

There’s some serious cheese going on here, folks.  You need to be warned… I mean truly warned.  Take a good look at the photo below and ask yourself, “Do I have the fortitude to take on this recipe?”  All of the cheese in the photo below was grated  and melted into a mere 12 ounces of penne rigate to create the finished product.  You’ve been told.

And it doesn’t stop there.  There’s also butter!  There’s also bacon!  There’s also the fat from the bacon! There’s also white flour.  There’s also fresh sage, parsley, oregano and rosemary.  Some of that counts as vegetables, right?

Am I leaving anything out.  Oh yeah!  I accidentally doubled the amount of butter required by the recipe.  Oops!  I swear, it was unintentional.  And guess what, it totally didn’t ruin the meal!  Who’d have thought it?

I started preparing this at about 8:00 in the evening.  I started eating it at about 9.  By about 10, I was speaking in tongues and levitating three feet off the floor

The recipe can be found at StephenCooks.com, so send your thank you cards and/or the pants you are about to no longer be able to fit into his direction, not mine.  I didn’t come up with this.  I merely used it on a lonely Wednesday night to fill a hole in my heart.  Cheese is really the best way to overcome such things, don’t you think?

So take a read below for how to get ‘er done, and then head to the store for the ingredients you’re missing, because if you have this much cheese just sitting around your house already, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be spending your time reading blog posts.

I will leave the cheeses Stephen used in the recipe below and let you know my substitutions next to them.

Herby Macaroni and Three Cheeses

Serves 6 – 8.

• 6 oz Taleggio cheese, shredded (I subbed in 6 oz of Boar’s Head Muenster)
• 6 oz sharp imported Provolone cheese, shredded (I subbed in 4 oz of Boar’s Head Horseradish Cheddar along with 4 oz. mozzarella)
• 4 oz Parmeggiano Reggiano, shredded
• 2 tbsp fresh sage, minced
• 3 tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
• 4 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
• 2 tbsp fresh oregano, minced
• 4 strips thick cut bacon (about 4 oz)
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 2 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 12 oz elbow macaroni or penne rigate
• hot sauce (I used Day of the Dead habanero)

Toss the shredded cheeses and add the herbs until well-mixed. Divide the mixture into two bowls, with approximately 10 ounces of the mixture in one bowl and the remainder in the other.

Cook the bacon.  Drain on paper towel and chop.

Warm the milk in a small saucepan.

Pour all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat from the sauté pan. Add the butter to the sauté pan and melt over medium-high heat. When the foaming subsides, scatter in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. If you really want to take it over the top, add the unused bacon fat into the warming milk and stir well.

Pour in the milk and cook, stirring, until the sauce is smooth and thick. Mix in the separated 10 ounces of cheese, one handful at a time, stirring t0 melt before adding the next handful.

Cook and stir until smooth. Add the salt and dry mustard and stir to mix.

Add hot sauce to taste and correct seasoning.I probably worked in about 1 half tablespoon total, but could have taken it a little further without it overpowering the finished flavor.

Cook the pasta just beyond al dente and drain. Add the chopped bacon to the cheese sauce and mix the sauce with the macaroni. Pour into a buttered casserole or baking dish. Scatter the remaining cheese/herb mixture over the macaroni and bake in a preheated 425º oven about 20-25 minutes (keep a good eye on it).

Finish the dish in the broiler for 2-3 minutes (again, keep a good eye on it).  When the top is your desired degree of browned and crispy, remove from the oven and let cool for approximately 5 minutes before serving.

Sticking around all afternoon while the aroma of phenomenally good Italian Barbeque Meatballs slowly creeps its way through your apartment in an invisible flavor fog is utter self-torture.

Damn good meatballs though.

The potatoes were a last-minute addition.  I discovered I had one russet in my cabinet, so I diced it up, coated it with olive oil and a little dry onion soup mix and baked covered at 350 for about 45 minutes.  The tanginess provided a nice contrast to the hickory sweetness of the meatballs, and it wasn’t long before MG and I had everything on our plates mixed together in two giantic savory smokey food mountains.

And of course, you can’t serve a meal like this without a healthy slice of fresh French bread to cover the soppin’ duties at the end.  Barbecue-flavored butter!  There’s nothing better.

Zesty Italian Barbecue Meatballs

Meatball Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground turkey, lamb or lean ground beef
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup dried bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 2 eggs, beaten

Sauce Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
• 3/4 tomato paste
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke

In a mixing bowl, combine the meatball ingredients. Form into walnut-sized balls.

Bake the meatballs in a shallow baking dish at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until browned. Drain off any fat.  Transfer the meatballs to your slow cooker.

In a separate mixing bowl, combine the sauce ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Pour the sauce over the meatballs and stir lightly.

Cover and cook on Low for 4 hours (or on High for 2 hours). Stir once in the middle of cooking to baste the meatballs with sauce.  Remove the meatballs from the sauce and serve.

The King of Comfort Foods! Here’s how to make potato skins that put last year’s Super Bowl snacks to shame.

There’s a secret about how to make potato wedges no one ever tells you. Yes, cheese, sour cream, bacon and green onions don’t hurt, but the real secret to wham-bam, kick you in the face potato skins isn’t what you put in them… it’s what you put on them

Here’s what you need:

• 3 large potatoes, BAKED FIRST
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika (“the happiest spice in the world!”)
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 8 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 4 green onions, sliced

Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, scoop out the pulp leaving about 1/4 inch of potato on the skin for your shell. Place potato skins on a greased baking sheet. Combine the oil, Parmesan cheese, salt, garlic powder, paprika (“the greatest spice of them all!”) and pepper. Brush lovingly and generously over both sides of the skins, and then start thinking of the thank you letter you’re going to write me.

Bake at 475 degrees for about 7 minutes, or longer if you want them extra crispy. I went 14 minutes but I left a little more potato in the shell than the recipe requires. Sprinkle the bacon and the cheese on top, and let them cook for another 2-3 minutes. Top with sour cream and onions and serve immediately.

The recipe is supposed to serve 6.

Yeah, right.

MG and I obliterated these suckers in under 20 minutes.

Don’t be fooled by the two ingredients in the name, these babies cook up with a sweet, buttery flavor and just a hint of cornbread goodness. This is the perfect cookie to ween you off the daily sugar showers you took through the month of December.

Last weekend, a crazed arsonist terrorized the streets of Hollywood, igniting over 50 fires all over town in the span of three nights, and causing over 2 million dollars in damage.

Here are five things I learned from the experience, followed by a recipe for cookies.

1.) I probably am not the person to contact in case of emergency, especially if I don’t know you.

MG called me at 4 in the morning last Saturday to tell me he’d woken to the sounds of his neighbors screaming “Fire!” He looked out his bedroom window and saw the carport of the apartment building next to him engulfed in flames.

“Okay, what do you want me to do?” I asked — not in a snotty way, but because I actually did not know what I was supposed to do!  Thankfully, he didn’t know what I was supposed to do either.  Then there was about five seconds of awkward silence, like when you run out of pieces for your new IKEA credenza but there’s still a page and a half of assembly instructions left to go.  Finally, I managed to come up with, “You need to get out of there!”  Boy, the Red Cross really needs to put me on the payroll, don’t they?  My split-second thinking would be an asset to any life-threatening crisis.  Did MG actually need to hear this from me?  Was he sitting there thinking, “Aw really?  I was planning to just go back to bed.  The fire is like twenty feet away, and if I can’t jump twenty feet, will a fire really be able to?”

Despite what the stickers on the elevator wall ask of me, I do not stay calm in a crisis.  When I first heard the phone ring, I immediately panicked, the way one does when they hear the words, “I think we should run additional tests,” or “Now we’re going to go around and all say something interesting about ourselves.”    Before I even picked up the phone I had the thought, “Please please please don’t be a number I recognize,” because at least then I’d be off the hook.  If someone I actually know is calling me in the middle of the night, it’s probably going to require a level of cool-headedness I’ve never had to muster before.  No one ever calls you in the middle of the night with good news.  Even if your sister went into the delivery room and instead of giving birth to one baby, as the doctor had predicted, she gave birth to nine babies and a Cuisinart hand blender, everyone knows you wait until sunrise to spread the good word and invite people to omelettes.

If someone I don’t know is calling me at 4 am, while it’s true they may be in the process of getting mugged, going down in a plane, or choking on a chicken bone, what’s also true is that thankfully, it’s not my problem.  That’s why you should always make sure you’re dialing a phone correctly, especially if it’s the middle of the night and your life is in jeopardy. Grandma may hop into her Yugo and speed over to your house with a pamphlet on the Heimlich Maneuver, but once I get my six pillows into their proper sleepy-time configuration, if you call me by mistake, you’re pretty much fucked.

2.) You may imagine that you’ll save your pets in an emergency, but you won’t.

I threw on some clothes, made sure the new knit cap I got for Christmas was on straight, and then drove the three blocks down to MG’s building… without my glasses on.  I never ever do that.  Without my glasses, the world permanently looks like that special effect sitcoms use when they’re about to go into a dream sequence.  But I figured there were going to be more than enough emergency vehicles down on MG’s street, so if I hit any pedestrians I could just scoop them up and bring them down with me.  While weaving and swerving down those three hazy blocks, I was certain of one thing and one thing only: when I finally saw MG out on the street, he’d be holding his cat carrier, and inside, safe and sound, would be Thsibe, MG’s super-brilliant, super-loving cat – the joy of his life, the best animal companion he has ever had, and the only other living creature besides me who is allowed to sniff his hair.

When I got there, I was shocked to find that MG had one thing in his hands and one thing only: his laptop computer.  I hugged him, and once I was sure he was ok, I asked, “Where’s Thisbe?”  MG pointed to his building, “up there, probably under the bed.”  “Oh,” I said, “I thought for sure you’d have gotten her and brought her down.”  MG calmly tapped the lid of his laptop and replied, “No.  I’ve got plenty of pictures of her in here.”

It only sounded harsh to me for a moment, and then I put myself in MG’s shoes.  If I had to choose between saving either my MacBook Pro or my 18 pound cat, Z, from a fire, I’m pretty sure I’d go for the one that helps me secure employment and gives me scrabble cheats, and not the one that throws up wet clumps of Science Diet behind the ficus.

3.) You can be famous by association

When MG told me two days later that the person arrested for the arson spree was the German dude who lived in the apartment right next door to him with his mother until just a few months earlier when they were evicted, I did what any person would do in response to such disturbing news.  I immediately insisted, “You need to put that on Twitter.  You will totally trend!”

I, of course went ahead and immediately posted the news on my own Twitter feed, and within minutes I was flooded with replies, re-tweets and direct messages.  I became the sole focus of the Bachelor tweet stream for over eleven seconds!  I was a star, and all for just dating the guy who knew the guy who blew up fifty or sixty carports over a three-day weekend in the greater Hollywood area.  Talk about luck!  Spit out all the silly platitudes you want about hard work and tenacity.  Everyone knows that the greatest success anyone can achieve is the kind where someone else had to do all the hard work.  I now share a rarified air with people like Frank Stallone, Amber Frey, and Chong.

 4.) There are no parking spaces left in Hollywood

It’s always a thrill to see news vans in your neighborhood.  It’s the next best thing to a UFO landing in your swimming pool or randomly running into Janet Jackson at Pep Boys.  News vans are a fabulous reminder that I live in a city that my mom likes to say, “is really right there… in the center of it all!”  Of course what mom never remembers is that this particular “center” is also over-populated with greasy criminal types, crack heads, and people complaining to you on the sidewalk that the police came and stole all their pigeons.  No matter.  A news van is always a sign of excitement. At first, you don’t even mind that you have to park your car three blocks away from your apartment complex and walk uphill with your groceries.  Who cares if the fro-yo melts… is that K-NBC anchorman Paul Moyer???

But after three or four days, the thrill really starts to wear off, much like Club Med or getting married.  Not only are you still having to schlep your dessert uphill, but once you know that the news reporters are only in a suit and tie from the waist up, and from the waist down it’s baggy sweats, black socks and Sketcher flip-flops, you’re forever robbed of just a little bit of television magic.

And sad to say, when the news reporters see you coming up the street, they don’t charge towards you and inundate you with questions about additional information you may have on the case.  When they aren’t in the midst of reporting, all they do is lean against the sides of the van, sweating and swapping stories with the camera guy about things they found growing on their scalps that morning in the shower.

5.) In the end, no one cares.

The perp has now been in custody for almost five days, and boy has the bloom already fallen off his rose! For almost a week, everyone in town was bonding over him.  At last, we all had something we could use to relate to one another.  The unemployed actors, the unemployed writers, the unemployed musicians, the unemployed spokes models… finally we could celebrate having something in common!  This guy was the talk of the town.  Unfortunately, the stupid schlub didn’t know how to even begin capitalizing on it.

You really need to move fast when you gain some notoriety in Hollywood.  Most people here, no matter what they do for a living, have a publicist on retainer.  That’s because you never know when you might accidentally do something buzz-worthy that could ride you to a small fortune. I’m constantly on the lookout for children of celebrities I might be able to lure into traffic so I can boldly save them in front of a thousand on-lookers, and then book passage on that night’s Piers Morgan.

What a pity this guy couldn’t see the star potential written all over him.  With the right “people” in place, this flame thrower could have been dazzling the talk show circuit by night and the game show circuit by day (“I’ll take the suspected Hollywood arsonist for the block!”).  Instead, the dude’s in a holding cell, and worse… he’s on suicide watch.  He’s got a ponytail, he’s thirty pounds overweight and he’s massively depressed.  You try to pitch that one to the booking team at Ellen!

It occurs to me that this gentleman might have some mental problems.  When you start over four dozen fires in the span of 72 hours, you’ve got to realize that some people might throw a flag on the field.  Nevertheless, it can’t be argued that while we won’t miss him or what he did, we might just regret having to say goodbye to the particular brand of excitement he stirred up.  That probably couldn’t be said if he was an arsonist in, say, Concord or Des Moines.  But things are different in Hollywood.  Where others see tragedy, we see story rights, 3-D potential, and a new cop role for Sam Elliot.

Cornmeal-Thyme Cookies from Martha Stewart

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup dried currants
• 1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cornmeal, and salt in a medium bowl.

Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; cream on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs, 1 at a time. Add flour mixture; mix on low speed until just combined. Mix in currants and thyme.

Using a tablespoon or a 1 1/2-inch ice-cream scoop, drop rounded balls of dough onto lined sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart. Bake, rotating and switching positions of sheets about halfway through, until pale golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer cookies, on parchment, to a wire rack. Let cool completely.

Pizza with apples is both surprisingly tasty and also a daring “rule breaker,” like when you were a kid and made a sandwich out of wheat bread and Fritos and it brought you closer to God.

I’m a crazy Christmas whore.  At least that’s what you might label me if you were a mean person.  And even if you did, I’d be okay with that.  I’m no stranger to being called names, you know.  In fact, regularly in elementary school, mean kids would scratch out the R’s in both my first and last name on my lunch bag, then turn the “N” into a “K,” transforming me from Gary Green into “Gay Geek.”  Once this happened the first time and scored riotous laughs all across the dodgeball circle, they continued with a frequency rivaled only by the amount of times they’d wipe their noses on their sleeves.   And they didn’t stop there.  They also called me “Gary Green Bean” “Gary Green Eggs and Ham,” “Gary Gary the Human Fairy,” and my personal favorite, “Faggot!”

Kids really can be cruel, but if I was pressed to admit it, I really don’t see much of a difference between “Faggot” and “Crazy Christmas Whore,” so in this particular case the kids I went to school with were less cruel than they were right on the money.  Even as a full grown man it would be hard for me to argue it, as just today I was sharing with friends at Pinkberry how I had been dieting for a week so I’d look good for the premiere of The Bachelor. Meanwhile in my head, I was silently booking thirty minutes later in the day to stand in front of the mirror and see what I’d look like with my hair parted on the left instead of the right.  Let’s be honest… a Crazy Christmas Whore is just a Faggot who’s out of season.

I’m almost positive I’m a giant grump outside the month of December. For the rest of the year if you took a shot at reading the sentiment I was presenting on my face, you’d come up with only three options: “I’m not interested in hearing more from you,” “Why the hell would we do that?” or, “Well well well, look who thinks she’s God’s gift to Starbucks.”

Of course, I’ve never gone so far as to ask anyone if I’m coming off as tyrannical and disagreeable as I think, though sometimes MG calls me out for being unpleasant when we’re somewhere in public.  If I’m pretty sure he’s going to pick up the check, I agree with him.  We Gay Geeks are always thinking ahead like that.

But I’m most definitely someone you want to know in December.  I might even say hello to you before you can do it to me.  And if I’ve managed to get in at least a good eight hours of sleep the night before, it’s possible I’ll allow you to tell me what you think is currently interesting about your life and the lives of those with whom you interact.  And If I managed to squeeze in a few episodes of Dallas on DVD on top of getting those eight hours of sleep, I could go so far as to advise you to have a “nice rest of your day” while I give you a bold “I’m not afraid to physically connect” graze across your shoulder.  Yep, in December I’m a real cuddle bug.

This was our awesome 2011 Christmas tree.  It’s the first and only tree MG and I have had as a couple.  It’s fake.  It’s plastic.  But it’s ours!  It doesn’t look like much while we’re inserting Branch 6 into Slot F, but once it’s fully decorated, there’s not a Christmas tree painted on any Candy Land game board in the world that can beat it.

Included on this tree are a variety of ornaments from my childhood, my time with MG and both of my cats – the fat one and the dead one. MG made them both for me.  Guess which is which.Tomorrow, we’ll start dismantling Christmas Tree 2011 and wrapping the ornaments back up in newspaper and plastic grocery bags.  Everything in Hollywood will cease smelling like pine and go back to smelling like public transit.  Drunk people will just be annoying and loud again.  I’ll try and endure it all with a pleasant sigh, and do my best to just keep to myself for a while.  If you see me out somewhere, just keep walking and save whatever it was you were going to say to my until at least spring.  Trust me.  It’s the best thing for the both of us.  There’s nothing worse than a Crazy Christmas Whore in January.

Chipotle Chicken and Apple Pizza

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 – 2/3 cups Apple Chipotle Grilling Sauce
• 1/4 onion, finely diced
• 1 cup cooked chicken, shredded or cubed
• 1 medium Washington apple, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
• 1 cup fontina cheese
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese
• 2 tsp. fresh thyme, chopped

Recipe for homemade pizza dough can be found here

Preheat oven and pizza stone (or heavy baking sheet) to 500 degrees for at least 30 minutes.

Roll out your pizza dough and coat with the olive oil.  Spread the apple chipotle sauce evenly and then add apple slices. chicken, and all cheese.  Top with onion and thyme.

Add any additional seasoning you would like and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. If you notice the side closer to the rear of your oven browning faster, turn pizza midway through the cooking.  Remove, let cool and enjoy!