Neural Network Cookbook- Now Illustrated!

Janelle Shane, a research scientist, has been teaching cooking to a neural network. A neural network is basically Skynet if you didn't know. After letting it look at tens of thousands of cookbook, she set it free to create its own recipes, the best of which you can see here. Taking inspiration from the list, I have some cookbook illustrations for you:

to see additional cookbook illustrations 

Grammar Guide: I vs. Me (starring @JasonSegel and @MarthaStewart)

I know that a lot of people have trouble figuring out whether to use "I" or "me" when referring to one's self and someone else.

I am assuming we know it is considered correct (and polite or something) to put the other person first, but here is a trick to figure out if you should use ME or I.

We will employ the skills of the incredibly handsome and talented Jason Segel (who I might just have a GIANT crush on) and the fancy cookie maker, Martha Stewart, for this guide.

So we start out with our statement: "Martha and me want cookies!"

Then we take away Martha so we are all alone with Jason Segel (hubba hubba).

And we repeat the phrase again, without Martha this time.

Clearly, it is not correct, so it would be "Martha and I want cookies."

And it sounds just as weird when you reverse it.

 And yes, yes, I screw up on grammar, I am sure. I am not an English major... I'm an art major, but this should help. Don't give me shit. I am still sore that Jason Segel ditched on the skinny dipping.

Scrooged.

I'm having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit this year.

For the first time in. . . forever, actually, I think, I cannot afford to send gifts to my friends around the country.

Of course, they will understand, but the problem is, sending things out to people is also MY gift.

The whole process of baking fiddly things and then having to bake more because the monster version of my husband eats half the batch of cookies in the middle of the night, and packaging them up with funny labels, and dealing with the heinously rude jerk mail lady, Betty, after waiting in a giant line, sweating to death because I am wearing 2 sweaters and a fluffy coat and the post office is toasty warm, is my present to myself.
I don't get many presents, so I usually sustain myself by sending things out and being elf-like.  Not LOTR elf-like, more of the Harry Potter/Keeblerish type, and that I can't afford that right now kinda makes me one grumpy asshole.

And unfortunately, "Jesus" being "the reason for the season" doesn't really work for me, because I am Jewish and the Maccabees are the reason for the season, which doesn't ring quite as nicely, since they were an army, and long burning oil during a cleaning binge isn't terribly inspiring. So, barring some unexpected windfall,  I guess this year I'll gorge myself on latkes and Christmas cookies and then I'll go out and find some orphans to kick and maybe staple little antlers on some dormice.

As an aside, I've never understood why they make places so damned hot inside during the winter when people are dressed warmly anyway.  I mean, I don't need it to be negative degrees inside too, but it should be cool enough that people don't get heat stroke while waiting in line, buying eggnog.

Brilliant Product Ideas #1

Every once in a while, I come up with some brilliant ideas, instead of just pure unadulterated crap of the silly persuasion.  Unfortunately, upon presenting these ideas to the respective companies, I received the following replies (paraphrased):

Dear Ms. Rose,
That is pure unadulterated crap.
Please stop sending us unsolicited product ideas.
No love,
Us

But they were wrong, wrong I say! So I will share my amazing product ideas with you and then multinational conglomerate type companies, that I fully intend upon naming, will see how wrong they were not to steal my ideas when I was offering them up for free instead of writing about them in my AMAZINGLY popular blarg which will create a paper trail back to me, should they then decide to use said AMAZING product ideas. Early bird, yadda yadda...

So without further ado...

Marshmallow Charger Packs!

In my family, cereal was eaten more as a snack than part of a complete balanced breakfast, and as such, when I was finally able to buy myself Lucky Charms in college (it wasn't that my mom didn't let us have sugary cereal, it was just that she probably knew this problem would arise), I often found, when I went to actually eat a bowl of cereal with milk, all that was left in the box were moderately sweet oat type pieces, because, in snacking on the cereal, I, of course, had picked the majority of the delicious pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, blue diamonds, purple horseshoes, red balloons, and tasty tasty rainbow marshmallows out of the box. You see, they were magically delicious, but without the crunchy sugary marshmallows, not so much. And then I thought, if only there were little charger packets of marshmallows in a separate bag, I could joyfully pick all the marshmallows out of the cereal, but then have some when I wanted to actually eat a bowl of cereal.  They could even make collector marshmallow packs to entice new buyers. Maybe team up with Zynga? This way, General Mills would be getting even more money from me, I would get more marshmallows, all would be right in the world.
It could also work in other applications, most notably, eating a bag of Lucky Charms marshmallows, by themselves, with no care for dry tasteless oat bits, at all.  But also for decorating cupcakes and cakes, putting in hot chocolate, or sticking them to your sister's face (after licking them, of course) while she is sleeping... the list is endless.

Oreo Stuf!

My other idea was born in the time of Oreo Big Stuf.  If you don't know what an Oreo Big Stuf is, picture a horrendously gigantic Oreo that has been mutated by radiation so that you would need a shoehorn to get it into your super, boss Dukes of Hazzard lunch box.  Who am I kidding?! All of my lunches were packed in plastic Publix Supermarket bags *sad face*... Anyway, I digress.
In high school, my mom was great about packing me lunches full of stuff I actually wanted to eat, which was greatly appreciated, however, when eating Oreos, it historically only takes a few bites before I grow weary of the chocolate sandwich cookie and end up chucking them, after licking out the middles.
I had a system that worked for me, which I now realize is completely grody, but I am going to tell you about it anyway, because, well, why the hell not.?! Sitting in the hallway of my wonderful high school (no really, it was the best, like summer camp for 4 years), I would happily eat the middles out of the Oreos that were packed in my lunch and, once I was done, I would give the chocolate wafers to my friend Erik, who apparently had no issue with eating cookies that had made contact with my mouth and were partially covered in my saliva... yeah.. I don't really know what that was about... but they didn't go to waste, and that was acceptable to me at the time.
The Oreo Big Stuf was much better, because it saved me grand amounts of time, as I only had to open one cookie to get the creme equivalence of 8-10 cookies, but I still felt bad about wasting the chocolate part. There had to be a better way.

My solution, which was summarily rejected by Nabisco, was selling jars of Oreo Stuf, not unlike cans of frosting, or marshmallow fluff. Selling the patented Oreo Creme, in a container, all by itself, would allow those people who really prefer the creamy center to the chocolate wafers (or were allergic to chocolate) to get what they want without accumulating a giant pile of discarded cookie outers.  Again, multifaceted product... it could be used as a filling for Oreo cakes, as a frosting for brownies, OR it could be consumed all in one sitting, using only a spoon, or maybe a finger or two, while watching "He's Just Not That into You," whilst crying...

Nabisco clearly made a grave error by rejecting this spectacular idea.


But, you know where to find me, companies, if you need a fresh new face for your R&D departments.  I have no qualifications at all, other than an active imagination, a love of food stuff, and a useless Bachelor's degree in art, but I'll be right here, waiting for your email! An apology wouldn't hurt either!

In bed...

I feel like this fortune cookie from my delicious lunch is mocking me...

Yes, "you should," right, Cookie? If only you weren't afraid of interacting with people on the phone, and  you weren't so socially awkward, and your intestines didn't betray you in moments of stress, and probably if you could make left turns in traffic without having mini panic attacks? There are a lot of things you SHOULD be able to undertake and complete...

SHUT UP! YOU'RE A COOKIE! I'M AWESOME!

Stupid cookie!

Photo-bombing Llama (Cookies)

When I am not drawing or writing or being exceedingly painfully awesome, I enjoy cooking and baking.  Part of that is decorating cookies, even though my hands are not as cooperative as they once were in my early 20s (as you can see in the photos below).
Each year, I send my friends around the country little packages of goodies.  This year, in the spirit of this blarg, I though I would make some funny cookies to go in with the fancy ones.  So my friends received a package of cookies that began with these very serious looking cookies:

and then behind that lovely snowy scene they found this:

LLAMA

PHOTOBOMB!

I thought of doing a blue whale but whales really don't like skiing.

I used my favorite recipe for the cookies, which you can find after the jump: