Baker Baker

Help! I’ve been taken over by food blogs. I’ve been moved to write some of them fan mail, for crying out loud. I made my third clafoutis this weekend (plum! Again, a flognarde!), and tomorrow night, we’re having Pioneer Woman’s lasagne, for no good reason other than I’ve been craving lasagne and am in desperate need for a new recipe. Cottage cheese, however, has been deemed “gucky” during a trip to the grocery store tonight, because my husband is afraid that the cheese is actually manufactured in bungalows or something.

Which reminds me: during our trip to the store this evening, I spied a woman tooling through the aisles with no shoes on. As in, she was actually buying groceries barefoot, and doesn’t that seem like some sort of wild health code violation or something? And further, health code or not, what normal person decides to head out of the house without shoes unless they’re heading to the beach, and EVEN then, bring flip-flops, people! And for the love of God, refrain from hitting up the grocery store, no matter how desperately you need those smoked almonds!

Ultimately, it was taco night at Chez Jonniker, and the thing is, when I opened the meat package, there was this poof! of stinkiness that had us both asking what the good godly hell that smell was, but after several up close and personal sniffs, we hopefully surmised that it was just trapped gas, for the meat appeared to be fine, and we … we … ate it anyway. Gastrointestinal watch begins now! (Hello, Padma!)

I glossed over it somewhat last week, but I have a new bikini waxer, and though it was, as I noted, just as painful and miserable as ever, despite her promises to the contrary (“I use hard wax, which is virtually painless!” HAHAHA. Um, no), I promise y’all, look, I’m not going to detail the waxy torture, but I simply cannot stop myself from discussing the fact that my new waxer’s face was permanently tattooed with make-up. Which is fine! Really, it’s fine! And I understand it’s very popular, but I’m not just talking about a smidge of eyeliner here and there, I’m saying that her whole. entire. face. was made up, and every last bit of it was tattooed on. She pointed each of them out to me, and announced that I, too, could have the convenience of waking up every day with a fully made-up face!

Y’all. Her eyebrows were tattooed on. Her eyeliner. Her lips. HER LIPS! They were a bright coral when she started the discussion, and then explained that actually, her lips were done in a soft pink *modeled after a Revlon lip shade*, but she was planning on going bright coral for her next lip tattoo. Her NEXT lip tattoo! And then – AND THEN! – she whipped out a tissue, wiped off the coral, and WHAMMO! Soft pink lips complete with some sort of lip-liner looking action going on. Dear God. And don’t even get me started on the astonishing detail of her self-tattooed eyebrows.

Am I alone in being freaked by this? Has anyone done this? My sister-in-law has tattooed eyeliner, and while the idea of an ink-filled needle whirling towards my eyeball makes me want to … well, poking my eyes out would be an inappropriate statement here, I see the appeal for her. She wears eyeliner every day, and it’s subtle on her, although again, not for me. No needle near my eye, NO. And again, if the waxer had done any ONE of those items, I’d nary batted an eyelash (HEH), but the whole …. the whole face? … the eyebrows? She had fully functioning eyebrows before this whole thing and had them removed by electrolysis to reshape them! IN TATTOO! She looked very alert, is what I’m saying, and it seems a little dangerous to have that expression etched so permanently on one’s face. And I thought that a bikini wax was painful. It appears that I should shut up, and God knows, she has no sympathy for me.

And finally, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it was to read about all of your friendship styles, and I’ll say that it appears that I was wrong! Very wrong! I loved hearing the reasons why many of you gravitate toward male friends, and there wasn’t an alpha female in the bunch. I’ll also say that female friends are one of the great pleasures of adulthood — being secure enough in yourself to ignore the people who suck, and gravitate towards the good ones is a real pleasure. And – AND! – it’s nice to see that so many of you believe that men and women can be friends. I hate hearing that we can’t, because “sex always gets in the way.” It doesn’t. Or if it does, at least most of my male friends have the courtesy not to tell me about it.

But wait! Wait! I was going to go, but I forgot to mention, as I’ve just caught up with Top Chef: could Joey have been any cuter? The blubbering! The sniveling! The beet-red crying face! I wanted to hug him, I really did. And I wanted to beat Hung over the head with Calphalon.

Happy Monday!

*Tori Amos

28 comments August 5th, 2007