What I Ate in Europe

When I was home for Christmas my brother mocked me asking, "do you photograph all of you food?" The honest answer to this is, "no, but I kind of want to." So on my trip to Europe last week I made a point of photographing as many meals as possible. When in Europe I feel constantly obligated to prove that not all Americans are fat lazy oil guzzling creationists which means that in addition to surveying the people around me to verify that I am squarely in the average bucket size-wise (or, in England comfortably seated in "skinny") I have to volunteer to walk anywhere (which one night resulted in a 45 minute hike before dinner, sorry Tonya) and make sure everyone I talk to knows I did not vote for Bush. I don't imagine that photography my meals did much to dispel the fat American stereotype but food is about the only subject matter that I feel confident pointing a camera at (thank god for the "macro" setting) and I knew that when I got home I'd need something to blog about. So, I present "Eating on the Continent" a Photo Essay.

KLM Friday night flight from JFK to Amsterdam

I suspect that KLM kept the plane parked on the runway for two hours only to nurture my appetite to the point of "will eat whatever she's given and will then fall into a sleep coma." I guess I should thank them for the 3 hours of sleep that this meal garnered. The stand out was the couscous salad in the front, the couscous wasn't at all clumpy and the salad had just enough parsley to taste fresh. Everything else can only be described as "carby." The pasta required that I repurpose the butter that came with the roll (not worth photographing or eating) in order to provide some distinction between noodles.

Lunch in Copenhagen

The traditional lunch option pushed at all tourists in Copenhagen are open face sandwiches called smørrebrød. There seems to be an endless variety of sandwich toppings but I was tempted to the roast pork and red cabbage because of a German childhood nostalgia for red cabbage (aka rote cole). The sandwich came on the dark heavily seeded bread that seems omnipresent in Scandinavia, as a fan of bread with lots of stuff in it I like the flavor but it was so dense that I had a hard time calling it bread. The pork was amazing, moist and smoky with just the right about of fat. The red cabbage wasn't as tangy as the sweet and sour version that Grandma and Dad have perfected but it was a nice sharp contrast to the savory pork.

Dinner in Malmo 1

To the entirely uneducated tourist (aka me) Malmo seemed to be a bit of a Swedish restaurants mecca. Our first night in town we dined at a resturant in the little square, where practically all of the eateries seem to live. Before leaving on this trip a friend tipped me off to the Swedish summer tradition of crayfish so when I saw this "Swedish tapas" (pictured on left) appetizer on the menu I knew I had to try it. The crayfish were served cold and garnished with a bit of dill (the Swedes love dill almost as much as licorice and karaoke) but they didn't need any other adornments. The dried tomatoes were a great addition to the tapas plate, chewy and sweet they were a great balance for the heavy cheesy and curred pork (both of which hardly seemed Swedish). The pickled herring trio on the right was probably better than version we tried the day before in Copenhagen, the fish was less mushy and the cream cheese it was served with was a nice accompaniment on the little fish sandwiches that we made. I mentioned this in a previous post but pickled herring is surprisingly not fishy tasting, the pickling seems to render the herring defenseless and you end up with a vinegary background for whatever sauce the fish is smothered in in this case we got apple curry mayonnaise, sweet onion and plain.

Dinner in Malmo 2

Our second night in Malmo found us at the Tempo Bar where the nicest waiter on earth sat down with us and translated the entire menu. We ordered a polenta starter which came with a vingery salsa of capers and olives, it made for a pretty presentation but a week later I can't remember what the appetizer tasted like. I also ordered a nettle soup which didn't photograph near as well as it tasted. I didn't even know nettles were edible -- it turns out they taste a lot like artichokes, I can't find any evidence that artichokes and nettles are related but it seems likley given the similar look and taste. Ox might just be Swedish for "cow," it showed up on the menu at multiple restaurants, my Ox fillet main was a great medium rare steak, the meat was tender and went great with the local beer.

Last Meal in Scandinavia

In an effort to spend the Danish change in my pockets before flying off to the UK I purchased 3 packages of licorice candy, a sparkling water and an unidentifiable juice from the in airport 7-11. The licorice mentos were a particularly exciting find and while I would not have thought to combine the flavors of mint and licorice I was pleasantly surprised. The orange box contained a much more sinister candy with a taste reminiscent of couch drops. The Super Flyers candy delivered on the mild promise made on its label but the licorice ropes were filled with a strange grainy white substance that, while not completely unpleasant taste-wise seriously diminished the licorice experience in term of texture. When I purchased the bottle of juice I thought it was likely a current juice but it seemed much too sweet to be anything other than the juice from the sugar cane plant, it was much more palletable when mixed in a 50/50 ratio with the seltzer water.

Proper English Supper

On my last night in Leeds my friend Courtney and her boyfriend Darren took me out to a pub for a traditional English meal. In the spirit of the evening I ordered a steak pie with a beer based gravy. The Brits must be getting fancy because they threw a bit of green on my plate -- I don't know what type of plant this came from since I refused to eat it -- no one eats greens in England! The pie was good, but not great -- I know this might be blasphemy but I think it needed some carrots and peas and potato bits, like in a chicken pot pie, this was all beef and gravy and a bit boring -- though the crust was great, flaky, crisp, everything Martha Stewart strives for.

Virgin Airlines flight from Heathrow to JFK

Everything here was fine and notably better than the KLM meal that the trip started with. The cottage pie (mashed potatos on top of mixed veggies in a tomato sauce) was a bit bland but still good by the standards of airline food. The pasta salad was also in need of flavor but the mozzerella balls kind of made up for the otherwise uninteresting experience (it's amazing the things that dairy can save). The wine was bitter enough that I had to force it down (can't let booze go to waste!) and the bread was so dry that I don't think even butter could have saved it. In the end none of the slightly disappointing food colored my feelings about the meal because Virgin had the good sense to end on a high note: The Frü-ty Pud. This tiny little lemon flavored dessert was scrumptious! the bottom of the container was filled with a tart sauce and ontop was a creamy lemon mouse-like substance. I've just spent 20mins googling "Frü-ty Pud" and have found surprisingly few references to the dessert or porn -- I think the internet is getting lazy.

After a week of good food I'm forced to accept at least two weeks of consciously healthy eating in order to maintain my sleek physique. The two weeks started today since last night Kajal made Dorito casserole in honor of the season premiere of Big Love. I can't recommend this dish mostly because I could never quite get over the scary concept of chips as binder. I know at least one reader will be disappointed that my first foray into Frito-Lay sponsored main courses did not include Fritos but I can't imagine that any chip could really make an elegant cross over from snack to dinner.

In conclusion -- Eurpoe has some good food, you should eat there, I give it 4.5/5 fat Americans.

Ain't No Party Like a Swedish Party

Last night I attended a very nice sit down dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Oresund Bridge outside of Malmo Sweden. There was tuna sashimi in a lime sauce, some sort of veal filet, an unidentifiable triangle of shredded meat covered in mustard seeds, roasted beets, some vegetable with the texture of old gnarled tree bark and a delicious Jerusalem artichoke soufflé that I’d like to recreate (this recipe seems like a good place to start). I sat next to a pair of Swedes, both named Magnus (“it means the big one!” *NudgeWinkNudge*) and across from my travel partner Tonya who was next to a British guy who claims to have played drums on the Animal’s versions of “House of the Rising Sun.” The former Animal has been through a lot of therapy since his Rock ‘N Roll days and has "learned how to be a people." He has also learned about The Secret and would not shut up about the awesome miracle of positive thinking – it’s good to know that America has no monopoly on suckers. The dinner was sponsored by the company hosting the conference that I’ve been attending all week and was a forum for them to present their yearly awards for the best uses of their product.

Between finishing our main course and the promised chocolate cake the lights dimmed and smoke began pouring out from the stage area where the conference MC had been announcing award nominees and flirting with guests in broken English. I briefly considered the possibility that something was seriously wrong with the cake baking process but concluded that more than likely the smoke was there to create a celebratory high school dance-like atmosphere for the announcement of award winners. Luckily, what happened next was much more awesome than a fire or a prom.

Out came the youngest and prettiest of the conference hosts -- we’ll call them Swedish Classic (the blonde one) and Swedish Now with Pigment! (the brunette) -- dressed in matching long black glittery dresses and carrying microphones. They waved and smiled at the audience and then they began to sing “Hopelessly Devoted,” about 90 seconds into the song they segued via a move in which they rhythmically rubbed their asses against one another into Swedish Classic singing her version of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” which was quickly followed by New Swedish with Pigment doing her best Axel Rose version of “Live and Let Die.” Throughout much of this performance I was forced to stare at the table cloth, praying that I would not pee my pants laughing. I could not look up lest I looked too closely at Tonya and caught her particularly deadly and contagious version of the giggles which were obviously very painful as she was crying. Between drooling over the contestants of Swedish Idol Mr. Animal kept insisting that we telling him the story that made this situation so funny proving that none of his group therapy taught him to develop a regular person sense of humor.

I am having a hard time imagining the sequence of events that lead to this karaoke performance at a technical conference but I hope it went something like this:

NSwP: This conference sounds kind of boring, it’s like: børk børk programming, børk børk technology, børk børk gross chocolate mouse that we’re calling cake just to piss people off. We should spice things up.

SC: Are you thinking find the licorice candy in the pickled herring cause I am!

NSwP: No, that seems unsafe. There will be Americans there, preserved fish terrifies them and they might start yelling about WMDs and invade. I say we wow them with a little love song medley!

SC: Børk!

There was obviously nowhere for the evening to go after the song fest was over. I had a couple more glasses of wine and briefly considered bedding a Magnus but a mere 20 minutes later I was alone in a cab back to the hotel with the knowledge that American conferences never offer this level of amusement. If we’re not careful we may lose our status as World’s Leader in Buffoonary.

(don't worry, I totally took pictures -- I'll update when I get home)

Dispatch from Copenhagen

I spent the last two days in Copenhagen where I did not find any cherry liqueur but did find a few other things worth importing to the USA. Yesterday, at lunch, I tried pickled herring 3 ways, I have no idea if each type had a special name so I will call them "fish and cloves," "the vinegary one," and "the yellow one." Surprisingly I liked the clove version the best, you would not think that a flavor most commonly associated with pumpkin pie would work well with fish but it was quite yummy. None of the pickled herring tasted much like fish anyway, either herring isn't not a very fishy fish or the salt and vinegar are overpowering enough to mask any flavor. That said I'm not sure that us Americans are ready for preserved fish, but if someone would bring the following 5 items to Target, I promise to buy them.

A Few Things That We Should Import From Denmark

1. Bikes! there are bikes everywhere in this city, they are piled in impressive hills of handlebars and wheels or parked in football field sized bike lots. Lately, I have been toying with the idea of getting a bike myself but have been overwhelmed by the idea of shopping for a bike since I really just want something to tool around on and see no need for all of the fancy-schmancy silliness that seems to come with every bike for sale in New York. The Danish bikes are exactly my speed, they are bulky station wagon-like contraptions with huge wheels covered with bumpers and have wide comfy looking seats. I imagine that they are perfect for a big basket and a cruise into town to pick up a few flowers and some fruit at one of the quaint little kiosks in the city center (there are beautiful peon's everywhere and I bought a pack of the largest raspberries in the world -- each was at least 2 inches long!)
   
2. All Around the World! My travel companion, Tonya, and I stumbled into this store while wondering around in Stroget, a huge outdoor mall. All Around the World was like a hipper, Ikea (without furniture) and while I suspect it might be a chain I could not locate a website online. If I didn't have to carry it around Europe I would have purchased some cherry themed dishwear, a couple of brightly colored blue and pink floral pillows, and some elderflower cider (which I later had at a cafe and was very impressed with, and which does have booze in it, in case you were wondering). I would probably have refrained from purchasing the other 500 or so objects of desire in the store because at this time I was still unable to grasp the conversion from DKKs to USA $s which resulted in that hilarious time where I withdrew $700+ from my bank account and had to figure out if I would need to call mom and dad to put money in my account to cover my rent check. Good times.
   
3. Licorice candy. The only thing purchases we made at All Around the World were 3 different types of licorice candies (one in rope form, one in chewy capsule form (ala' Mike & Ikes) and one with 2 different types of hard candy). I've always liked Tonya but discovering her love for licorice has made her one of my favorite people. It turns out that Tonya's siblings (all 6 of them!) were much crueler than Kurt ever was as they made her trade other jellybean flavors for the licorice ones that they weren't willing to eat anyway -- Kurt always let me take those off his hands for free (thanks little bro! Who am I kidding? You don't read my blog... loser.) . I suppose when there are 7 kids in a family everyone becomes much more territorial. If you had dropped 7 year old me in that pile of children I'd most likely have starved to death. My favorite licorice candy version was the hard candy which had a slightly salty taste to it, I know that sounds gross but I doubt it matters, I lost all of my readership at the mention of licorice. The candy is so awesome that just typing about it is making me crack open one of the two back up bags that I purchased right before leaving the city this afternoon.
   
4. Blankets! All of the outdoor cafe's in Copenhagen have blankets on every seat! This was especially appreciated yesterday when the cloudy and damp weather had us fearful that we'd have to choose between ambiance and warmth. Why can't all outdoor restaurants offer this awesome luxury? We bundled up and enjoyed our open face sandwiches (I had roasted pork and red cabbage which was yummy but couldn't compete with the German red cabbage of my childhood).
   
5. Not getting dark until 10pm. I was quite proud of both Tonya and I for sticking it out in the world of wakefulness until this relatively late hour. Each of us got about 3 hours of sleep on the hop over the pond and were ready for naps as soon as we deplaned but in an effort to get with the European time zone program we kept busy until we collapsed in bed around 10:30. Dusk just darkening into night as I drifted off but when the boom of fireworks woke me at midnight me there was no light left. I assume the fireworks were in honor of the soccer match between Sweden and Denmark that had taken place in Copenhagen that evening. Earlier in the day this event had also provided Tonya and I with amusement in the form of drunken groups of Swedish boys shouting at one another while swilling large pints of beer. The next morning we would be equally entertaining by the occasional passed out adorable blond bow in the plazas around time. They're all lucky (or perhaps disappointed) that I didn't tie them up and bring them home.
   

American Imports in Denmark

1. 7-11 owns half of Copenhagen. The mini-mart was so omnipresent that when in search of a bottle of water we made no attempt to locate a source figuring we'd effortlessly stumble upon a 7-11 within 10mins.
2. Cowboys. Within 10 minutes of leaving our hotel on a wander around the city we came upon a group of Danish girls in boots, fringed shirts and cowboy hats performing line dances. Once dance was to an Irish reel which, though I'm sure the Irish would be appalled, actually worked quite well.

This afternoon we made our way across the bridge into Malmo Sweden so there will be more blogging to come. I forgot my camera cord at home so I'll update with pictures when I return on the 9th.

Best thing about Sweden so far: The lounge version of Black Hole Sun that was being piped into our hotel lobby.

Maraschino Cherries Should Contain Booze

Since January when I read this Accidental Hedonist post about the history of maraschino cherries I have become staunchly anti prohibition. Maraschino cherries used to be soaked in booze! I guess I sort of knew this, I wasn't really surprised, just saddened that America's overzealous coupling with puritanism could be allowed to ruin what sounds like a wonderful idea. Even worse, why did we continue with the bleach and sugar bath post 1933? It is obviously way past time to bring the booze back to the cherry but after much googling I was unable to locate a source for old fashioned sinful maraschino cherries. So I was forced to make them on my own.

(Warning: The ingredient list of "cherries" and "booze" supplies many ways for this post to slip into dirty innuendo, I will try to resist them, but it will be very hard) (hee. hard.)

I think as far as internet bloggers go I'm pretty qualified to lead everyone down the path to cherry exploration. In addition to being an adventurous chef who can reliable tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue I also grew up with cherries. My grandparents lived in Cherry Valley, California where they grew a few acres of cherry trees. Every year at cherry harvest my family would trek down from the mountains to help out. In my parent's case this meant picking and boxing bucket after bucket of cherries for the "we pick" sales and praying that the suburbanite children didn't fall off of a ladder and kill themselves thus certainly leading to our family's demise at the hands of a liability lawsuit. For me and my brother and cousins cherry season meant a couple of weekends perched in a trees snacking on cherries and spying on the children being dragged on "you pick" family outings. (it also meant ignoring our mothers' warnings regarding what becomes of children who OD on too much fruit... but since this is a post about food I'll leave this little lesson to your own learning). In addition to great childhood memories the cherry orchard all access pass also afforded me direct knowledge of some awesome Cherry recipes (including cherry strutzle cake which the internet is insisting is just like stollen but I assure you it is not -- stollen is bready, strutzle is decidedly a cake with the crumbly top coat to prove it) but, the Germans weren't big on liquor soaked fruit. Until now.

I was supposed to find marsca cherries for this recipe to be authentic, but I don't live in Italy or Slovenia and while my local produce market was willing to stock cherries that have made the cross country trip from California they do not seem to be importing from Europe just yet. I had hoped to find some Queen Anne cherries which is what American maraschino cherry makers use since they're lighter in color and thus more easily dyed florescent red but I came home with a standard bag of bings.

The key to authentic maraschino cherries is cherry liqueur, specifically cherry liquor made from marsca cherries, the most prominent brand is Luxardo which I could not find. I substituted Heering Cherry Liqueur, a product of Denmark made from danish stevns cherries, which seem to exist only to serve this liqueur and a microbrew beer as the internet makes no other references. Coincidentally I'll be in Denmark come Saturday, perhaps I'll try to hunt down some cherries (or at least drink the liqueur on it's home turf). The liqueur itself is surprisingly drinkable. I tend to find liqueurs overly syrupy but this one is sharp and alcohol tasting (in a good way) without losing the feel of cherries. I could concoct many an entertaining cocktail using this as an accent and may have to keep a stock in my bar (aka the shelf where I keep booze).

I know what you're thinking -- Brianna, this is a lot of lead in for a a bar condiment recipe. But I had no choice but to provide ample back story in order to fill out this post since the actual making of the maraschino cherries is easy-peasy. Saturday morning I washed my cherries and packed them into a glass jar, covered them in a loving blanket of cherry liqueur, sealed the lid and put them in a dark place to marinate. At the last minute I decided to make two versions, one traditional and one with half cherry liqueur and half brandy since brandy cherries are also a common enough drink garnish. Today, when I got home from work I broke open both jars and began the cherry sampling, and it was good.

Surprisingly the cherries came out bleached! The few sad fruits stuck at the top of the jar where they weren't completely immersed in the loving embrace of alcohol came out black due to oxidation but the ones buried only a layer below were bright pink in the case of the brandy mix and a stunning red in the all cherry liqueur version. Neither was anywhere near the shade of nonalocoholic maraschino cherries but after tasting each I can't see any reason not to always use the adult cherries. The cherries tasted like a solid more cherry-ish version of the booze they were soaked in and for this reason I think I like the half brandy version best, the flavor is more complex and has a pleasant smoky aftertaste. I don't think I would enjoy straight brandy cherries as much as I suspect they would lose all resemblance to the fruit. The brandy cherries also seemed a bit firmer, this is probably due to the higher alcohol content. This is not to say that the straight Heering soaked cherries are anything to turn your nose at, they're also a vast improvement over their bleach soaked brethren and I suspect that if you don't have a taste for wine (which brandy is made from) you'd probably prefer the cherry only version.

I felt it only appropriate to sample my cherries as a garnish so I whipped up a drink including one part Heerings, one part lime seltzer and, of course, a cherry and was quickly in summer drink heaven. I know I should be sampling my cherries on top of a sundae but I've already had my daily dose of ice cream and am trying not to use this blog as an excuse to gain 3000lbs. I assure you the alcoholic sundae will be explored soon. Also on the exploration list is to try this recipe with dried cherries which I hear works... and which I'd be very happy about come winter.

Self Promotion

Amy and I finally got it together to post an actual review at Alpha Astoria -- read all about it here.

The Winner Parade: Entry 2

Hello and welcome to the much overdue second installment of the Winner Parade series (first entry here)! In this installment fate once again tries to teach our heroine (That’s me!) that the thin line between sexy geek and unstable freak may not actually exist. Perhaps one of these days she’ll get the message (but probably not after many more beatings with the thorny club of reality) and settle for one of the mainstream beer swilling types that occasionally hit on her and she’ll live tolerably ever after. It is probably more likely that she will continue to seek out the socially stable geek which is good news for this blog but remains bad news for her personal goals.

I met He who Flees the Country (HwFtC) (sorry to give away the punch line so early but there is no better way of classifying this boy) via craigslist, back when craigslist housed actual personal ads not just ads for no strings kinky sex (I once read an ad offering to a pay a girl to eat potato chips naked in bed while the guy who wrote the ad watched (and presumably masturbated because, as we all know, potato chips are HOT)). Back before I had this blog my main creative writing outlet was personal ads, and I excelled at this little genre. Sadly, most of the replies were more, “Here’s a picture of my Johnson!” than “I am an awesome, witty, intelligent, Jared Leto look-a-like and I want to make out with you.” But HwFtC was different, he wrote back a silly reply suitable studded with fawning compliments and expressions of general awe over my mere existence.

We quickly progressed from moon-y emails to flirty instant messages to an in person meeting in a coffee shop followed by some face-to-very-close-face make out time on my couch. HwFtC was working on his PHD in population genetics, which appealed to my ironically religious love for science. Before starting down the path to scientist god HwFtC was a “dancer” in the San Francisco Ballet (apparently there is no male equivalent to the word ballerina) which appealed to my shallow love for shapely calves and muscular arms. He also had 2 lesbian moms which I took as a sign that he would not turn into an evil boy because (I assumed) his moms would find out and kick his ass. Because I do not want to edit my stereotypical view of lesbian moms I have chosen to believe that HwFtC never told his moms about how he behaved while dating that adorable geeky blond girl with the hot rack (Me again! And, yes, I assume that if he were to tell his moms about us that he would smartly avoid references to my rack). Or perhaps he did tell them and has since suffered some serious facial contusions and possibly no longer has a penis.

HwFtC and I had been making googly eyes at one another for about a month when the trouble began. This was at a time in my life were I typically went on 3 dates with a boy before he either announced that I’d make an awesome friend (especially if I would also sleep with him) or just stopped calling so I considered 4 weeks of continuous mutual liking a great boon. It was 2004 and, like many programmers in the San Francisco Bay area, I was living off of a combination of occasional contact work, unemployment and my parent’s generosity so my afternoons were often free to lounge around with my favorite soon to be geneticist. One such afternoon I got all dolled up, prepared what I’m sure was a gourmet lunch spread and spent a good 90 minutes staring at the clock before jumping to the conclusion that HwFtC had died in a fiery wreck on the 101. We had yet to reach the relationship stage of meeting each other's friends so I had nowhere obvious to turn to confirm his mortality short of internet searches for deadly car crashes (which, I assure you, I ran at least once ever 5 minutes). In the meantime I had no choice but to leave increasingly more panicked and pathetic messages on his voice mail.

This embarrassing behavior continued for 2 days at which point I received a reply to the following purposefully amusing email sent near the beginning of being stood up (as opposed to the equally hilarious but less dignified emails sent many hours or days later).

So, here's the deal. In a few days if I still haven’t heard from you I’m going to email people in your lab group and ask if you're still alive. So if you are still alive you're going to look like a bit of a jerk with a stalker. To avoid this situation, you should act like an adult and email me and say "nope, not dead, just not talking to you." If you are, however, actually dead you can just do nothing (rest in peace as it were.).

HwFtC was not dead but had instead fled to the woods to get a little one on one time with nature in an effort to clear his head and figure out how he felt about me. Apparently I am *MUCH* more interesting than population genetics (no surprise here) and this had resulted in an overturning of the poor boy's priorities and subsequently resulted in some freaking out. Where a normal boy would think, “Hmmmm study genetics or continue fooling around with Brianna?” and then laugh out loud while making a grab for my ass the kind of boys I typically date go into a free fall that involves a Thoreau-like need to get back to nature and focus on the awesomeness of cells in a Petri dish over cells making up a set of 34Ds (at the time) that the owner is TOTALLY WILLING TO LET YOU TOUCH.

To be fair all was not completely rosy in the land of dreamy gazes -- there was one stressful thing looming in the future, in roughly one month he would be off on an internship in Germany that would require us to be physically apart for 2.5 months. My general feeling on this was “eh, there’s always email” but he was much more concerned (this is understandable considering how awesome I am to hang out with, the entire country of Germany can hardly compete).

Anyway, post Into The Woods there was much apologizing and promising to, in the future, talk to me rather than commune with nature. We made plans to have lunch the next day and I was back on the road to the early relationship honeymoon period. I really should have known better. As should surprise no one, HwFtC didn’t show. Again. There was a repeat performance of the, “where the hell are you?” emails (this time with much more cursing) but I never heard another word from HwFtC. Eventually I made good on my promise and emailed one of his friends. I know this is pathetic, more pathetic than most of you hopefully think that I am capable of but a girl needs closer.

Hi,

I *think* that you sort of know me (though it's possible that i have the wrong Steve), I briefly dated your friend [HwFtC]. anyway, about 3 weeks ago he sort of dropped off the face of the planet and while normally I'd just write him off as a jerk he never seemed like much of a jerk and now I'm a bit worried that something happened to him. I know he was going to Germany soon but I would have expect some sort of note letting me know that he was leaving the country. So, I know this is incredibly weird but I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know if:

1)He's still alive (and not you know, in jail, or abducted by aliens or something)

2)If I can potentially expect to hear from him again (presumably not from the beyond -- though that might also be kind of cool.)

Hopefully with a little more information I can step back on to the good side of the "crazy stalker-chick" line.

His friend at least had the decency to respond (and was even witty! I wonder if he's single...), which is WAY more than I would have done in a similar situation. Of course I try not to befriend people who leave the country without sending at least a memo to everyone that they are currently making out with on a regular basis.

Um yes, crazy-stalker chick, this is kinda weird but I will say that I've heard from him once since he went to Germany and he was alive at that time. I did not hear any of the characteristic beeps and strange languages in the background that one would expect if he had been abducted by aliens (although who's to say that alien languages might not sound German). Nor did he mention needing bail money wired or a sex-starved cell mate named Heinz.

Obviously, that was (finally) the end of things. Even more obviously I should have chucked his ass into the dumpster weeks before – I’d like to assure all readers that my self esteem is infinitely higher today and all boyfriends who attempts to leave the country without telling me will received Lorena Bobbit-like lesbian mom treatment (*snip*).

A year or so later I did see the name of HwFtC appear in the “Who Viewed Me?” section of Friendster (God bless Friendster and it’s attempts to appeal to my humongous ego – myspace, time to cowboy up) so I was able to gather enough information to wonder what the hell I was thinking mooning over such a dork. (For those of you not in the know geeky is one thing, dorky is another thing all together and I think it’s pretty clear how these states of social status should fall in the dating hierarchy.) He’s apparently in a relationship, something I sort of suspect he’s been in since well before I knew him. One has to wonder just who this girl is and how she could possible be better than me – the only conclusion that seems realistic is that she’s imaginary. He includes 3 pictures in his profile, in one he has a handkerchief tied around his head all Little House on the Prarie-ish. 'Nuff said.

Browsing for Boys

I am not a huge fan of dating, though I've heard that other people love it to death. Ironically most of these other people seem to be married already and, I suspect, are just suffering from the all too common "grass is always greener" syndrome. I suppose it's also possible that they are married because they were so amazingly awesome at dating and they miss dating in the same way I miss my 7th grade algebra class; it's hard to never again get to do something that you kicked ass at. Anyway, dating bad. I am however a huge fan of shopping. This is probably the main reason why I sort of love online dating sites. Much as I can picture myself in that cute red polka dotted dress over at J Crew (note to J Crew execs who obviously read my blog: cut that shit down, no one is paying $200 for that dress no matter how cute) I can picture myself with so many cute boys and there's none of the pressure of worrying if they like me. Of course I am hoping to stumble on the boy equivalent of a $20 sundress (in a nice bright springy color with a full skirt and cap sleeves so I could wear it to work) but mostly I browse. Unfortunately the online dating reality is much like a trip to the Forever 21 sale rack; not only are most of the offerings not so cute but they often leave me wondering just what the designer was thinking.

It's possible that I am way to generous with giving people the benefit of the doubt but I think many of the glaring mistakes I see in these ads are well intentioned. Either way, I'd like to highlight a couple of online dating no-nos that single (or, sadly, too often, not so single) boys should take to heart. Consider this my good deed of the week.

Things Not To Do If You Are Hoping to Land some Hot Internet Girl Booty

1. Do not send me a form letter. I know you think that your message is subtle enough to not be flagged as a form letter but you are wrong. If you can't write something that makes it clear that you are writing to me and not to [insert name of breast baring human here] I will classify your message as dating spam and I will refuse to reply to it no matter how awesome you might otherwise seem. Here's an example that I recently received:

Hi
I'm lawrence, i saw your picture on this dating site and had gone through your profile, i found you interesting. You have a nice picture and your beutifull face has taken a piece of my heart. I can't wait to meet with you and chat with you so sa to know one another better. I would like you to reply to my personal mail address which is Matthewblahblah@yahoo.com.
Hope to hear from you soon.

Dude. It should be noted that I got a duplicate letter 2 days later, the only difference was that he introduced himself as Matthew. Lawrence/Matthew, (I expect you are actually Matthew since that name appears in your email address which I have been kind enough not to include on my blog) this is not a good way to try to woo women. I have not taken a piece of your heart (and even if I had that is the kind of saccharine line that you should keep to yourself), I know girls in romantic comedies love lines like this but I suspect that no real life women (even real life women who are not as cynical as I) will react to this statement with anything other than eye rolling (even if the woman you said it to was actually someone you knew). As a left brained dork who is overly obsessed with efficiency I appreciate your attempts at fast tracking the online dating process with mass mailings, I myself have often considered just handing out "you're cute, call me!" cards while on the subway, but a huge part of asking a girl out is making her feel special, this just makes me feel like one step above a blow up doll on the girl hierarchy.

2. Do not advertise your sexual prowess. I was recently reading the profile of a very cute blond boy and thinking "oh, very cute! smart! likes documentaries! witty! yeah!" until I got to the "Things I'm really good at" section.

using big words in elaborate sentences... cooking fatty gourmet southern food... eating pussy...

Cute! Yum! SKEEVY! I mean obviously this is a skill that I am all for but when you just put it out there all casual like that I do not think "awesome, I gotta score me some of that!" I do think "Ew." and maybe even "those who can't do talk about it." Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident; internet boys seems to be constantly highlighting how much they L-O-V-E cunnilingus (look forward to seeing that sentence on a future segment of "how people find my blog") . I think this may be the result of a disconnect between male and female brains. Men are probably out there browsing profiles thinking "She likes Modest Mouse! She loves the citrus oil smell that you get when you first start peeling an orange! How cute! Hey, I photograph all of my meals too!!!!... man, I wish she'd have included something about her blow job abilities, I don't feel comfortable writing to someone until that information is on the table. Next."