Greetings friends, family, business associates and a few people that I’ve been quite remiss in keeping in touch with!!
First - let me apologize for all of the half-hearted pledges to turn this annual mini-rant into a regular blog-like publication. Whether it's my commitment to a drug-free existence, or the realities of being 30-something, daily life just isn't incredibly entertaining. It's nice, moderately enjoyable, pleasant, sometimes even a trifle exciting… but it just doesn't produce the quantity of patent sit-commery necessary to make a blog worthwhile. I remember days not so long ago when a weekend in Paris or a night down in Atlantic City could produce an entire prime-time season worth of "episodes".
To be fair, much has gone on since I last wrote early last year. We had medical emergencies is Tenerife, we were burgled in the fall, and the wedding planning juggernaut has since taken over our lives… and will continue to do so for the next several months. While I might possibly, albeit with the aid of several mood-enhancing pharmaceuticals, truly enjoy elaborating on any of these glorious experiences, I fear that I would only induce a level of stress that no one would appreciate. Therefore, I would like to take it down a notch, and reflect on a profound philosophical experience that I believe we can all learn from.
Grape Nuts has, for well over 100 years, delivered the tired, the sleepy, and the miserably hung-over, what could only be described as a categorically disappointing breakfast experience. Perhaps we all had that moment in our childhoods when we were first exposed to Grape Nuts, eagerly anticipating a crunchy treat with a cacophony of flavours ranging from hearty whole-grain goodness to luscious grape-jelly. It only took one bite of that overhyped, pulverized granite to know that we had been cruelly deceived.
Now, as a child of the 80's, I am particularly susceptible to consumer-goods marketing - particularly among the "big 3" of chocolate bars, cereal and chewing gum. The decade of the jingle saw an unparalleled onslaught of newly-released processed food and candy products that turned every mother's trip to the Grocery Store into a complete nightmare. I feel like a tiger when I eat Frosted Flakes *roar*, I feel satisfied when I eat a snickers, and my pleasure really does increase by… oh… I’d say roughly by a factor of two… when I indulge in a stick of Doublemint gum. And to this day, I still get giddy in anticipation of a big shop at Waitrose (think posh Stop & Shop) - all of the different colored packaging, the possibility of a new and exciting snack cake, even that two-for-one on Rolaids that always comes out right after Christmas. Therefore, it should be no surprise that when they recently had a sale on Grape Nuts, I just had to buy a box (actually two – because you never know when things will go on sale again!)
The following morning, I decided it was time to face down my fears, and have a bowl of Grape Nuts. With its rich tawny-brown hue, and just a hint of sparkle in the morning sun, I thought that maybe… just maybe... I had "grown up" enough to enjoy the subtle sophistication that a cereal without marshmallows or crunchberries has to offer. As I poured a healthy measure of skimmed milk into the bowl, I watched in utter fascination at its rapid disappearance beneath the pebble-like surface, creating miniature eddies for just the briefest of moments. I took the briefest pause to contemplate the relatively recent marriage between whole wheat and skimmed milk – what genius! Satisfied that I had achieved the proper saturation level, I sat down to enjoy what was destined to be an extravaganza of crunchy healthiness. As I scooped up that first modest bite, I contemplated whether those little nuts would retain their defining crunchiness, or had they already begun traversing that disappointing road towards toothless mushiness? Only one way to find out…
…and with that first bite, it became painfully clear that those marketing genii at Post had gotten me again!! For over 110 years, Grape Nuts has managed to retain its utterly remarkable tastelessness and over-the-top impermeability that lends itself more towards a chipped tooth than a culinary pleasure. It took half a box of raisins and a fluoride pill to choke down of the remainder, and it took a month of therapy to fully "let go" of my indignation. I'd considered throwing both boxes away, but decided instead to save if for some malevolent purpose to be named later… until two nights ago.
In the preparation of what was destined to be a magnificent feast, Susi found that we were out of breadcrumbs for the chicken she wished to bake. As a green and non-wasting household, we generally take unused crackers or toasted bread to make breadcrumbs. We load up a Ziploc bag and use a hammer (now a bottle of wine since our hammer was stolen in that aforementioned robbery), and use the resulting crumbs. We figured that we'd finally put those little Grape Nuts to good use.
And so, I loaded up a cup or two into a Ziploc bag, and proceeded to hammer them with a bottle of lovely 2003 Medoc. After 3 strikes, the Ziploc bag tore apart, sending a shower of wheaten pebbles across the kitchen. I then switched from the "off-the-handle smashing" method to the classic Pavlovian "roll and grind", but merely ripped through another 3 bags. Aside from a little powdery residue around the edges, those little intestine-ravaging nodules didn't yield a single bit! Defeated, we used those Grape Nuts as they were… turning our "breaded" chicken into what looked like a tray of irradiated crumb cakes.
But then, my friends, on that blustery and rainy evening, redemption was at hand. Obviously, a mere three hours of basting in chicken fat at 400 degrees was just what the original inventors had intended, as it rendered an absolutely sumptuous coating - replete with a generous nose, a rewarding bite, and subtle, satisfying hints of licorice, plum and desiccated sawdust. Most importantly, we have now entered that very exclusive league of culinary masters who turned snails into a delicacy, chocolate covered ants into that perfect after-dinner treat, and rotting yeast into the sumptuous spread we all know as Marmite. Yes indeed – give it three years, and every 2-star Michelin restaurant will be touting their own bastardisations of Susi and Rich’s Grape Nut Chicken!! Just remember – you heard it here first!
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