Author: jackvolpi

I’m getting frustrated, team. I can’t quite seem to get my bakes and things to turn out the way I want to anymore. I’m losing patience. I don’t have a lot of time to devote to this hobby right now so when I have what I think is a good idea and should be easy to execute I’m doubly upset when it doesn’t turn out.

Oh. And here’s an embarrassing confession. I also really like getting likes and follows on Instagram because it makes me feel like people in real life like me and I know logically that I should feel validated by the people in my real life, but I do secretly enjoy the attention. Secret’s out now, bitch! So when I have a lil idea like this i really want it to turn out and go viral and maybe someday I’ll be an Internet influencer and jet around the world to get ted talks. Well, that door is closing. I’m almost 43 and if these shits have anything to say about it, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

Quick sidebar – these were supposed to be chocolate peanut butter sasquatches. The idea came to me in a dream. It’s just a buckeye that I painted a chocolate mustache on. They didn’t even taste good so it was a complete fail from beginning to end.

ANYWAY – I just needed to vent. I know great things happen when you practice and take time to do things right so I just need to reset myself and try again another time. I’m feeling bad about myself and that’s just going to be how I feel for a little bit.

This is a picture of my grandma showing off here coloring in her nursing home elevator back in 2013. This makes me smile. I’m going to bed soon. GOOD NIGHT!!!!!

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi!

Y’all! It’s been a real minute since last blog! Wow wow wow wow wow! I’m sure y’all were all “what is happening with my fave blogger – JACKO!?”

Well, team – I’m the last two months, I moved houses and started a new job!

Here’s the new house – The Mint Biscuit

Team! She needs some dang work! We need a new garage and a basement reno and the dishwasher top rack is a disaster and almost broke all my finest rosé glasses! But we love the location: so close to Rita & Skipper, farmers market, Park of Noses. And our neighbors are currently playing Lizzo on repeat while they clean out the garage, so you know this is a banging street.

AND – as I mentioned just sentences ago, I got a new job! I’m the new Brand Manager at Bob Evans, y’all!!! Biscuits & gravy! I started two weeks ago and already am v in love with it. I do my first in-restaurant training Monday! I’m all up in the grits and so forth!

And tonite, jimmy and I are walking down to Rita & Skipper’s to make some final plans for our big trip at the end of the month: Portugal & Morocco! Do y’all remember five years ago when I tried to take myself on a trip to Portugal?? We got like two hours over the Atlantic and someone had a heart attack on the plane. We had to go back to the States to let Ol Boy off the plane (he was FINE) and then we couldn’t restart the trip that night or the next day or the day after that, so my whole trip was completely hosed. And my luggage got lost maybe in Arizona? Who knows!?

But – this time, we will absolutely make the trip and it will be perfect and we’ll see camels and spice markets and so many cute churches and mosques and maybe snakes in baskets??? To get us in the total Portuguese mood, I made these traditional Pastels de Nata (spelling???). They’re these sweet egg custard tarts and I really blew it, team. My oven doesn’t get hot enough to blister the tops and I didn’t have small enough muffin tins. Also i beefed the puff pastry so they don’t have the trademark spiral bottoms, so these are just real fucked but also real delicious. And I won’t apologize for these shits no more. I TRIED! HOORAY! Anyway! That’s it!!! Hope y’all are having a blessed September! BYE!

Y’all! My sister Rita is a frequent contributor this lil blog and we had ourselves a real day today! We went to WAPAKONETA, OHIO for a just-us 5K (moon festival / 50th anniversary of first moon people / Neil Armstrong is from Wapak. OBVIOUSLY). And she made some moon pies!!!! Here’s her hot take on the whole experience!

Moon Pie + Pile of Money

 

It all started so innocently.  I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing & somehow decided on making Moon Pies.  (That’s what Neil Armstrong would have wanted.)  Not knowing much about Moon Pies except they were a chocolatey confection that I confused with Whoopie Pies and GooGoo Clusters, I decided to do a bit of research on the official Moon Pie.  And that’s when I went down a real rabbit hole.  

 

You see…Moon Pie has a lot of history, a lot of fans & is kinda banoodles.   Here’s what I mean: 

First: Moon Pie is 100 years old!  Sheesh that’s old.  (ed: SHEESH!) It started when some Kentucky baker asked some miner, what kind of treat do you like?  The miner says “I want a s’more.  But as big as a moon.  But a moon that fits in my lunch pail.”  The baker goes and whips up a “Moon Pie.”  It’s so sugary & cheap (just 5 cents) that the miner all of his friends get addicted.  

 

Second: The Moon Pie products page reveals a fairly normal assortment of snacks in the usual flavors (caramel, vanilla, barf banana).  What catches my eye is “Personalized Moon Pies.”  Hmmm…what is this?  Can you create your own?  No.  No, you cannot.  But you can get your picture on the box.  Just like this strange naked guy with his nards covered by a sheet. Way to go, Moon Pie!  I’ve been wondering what to get Grandma for her birthday.  (Actually if you zoom out it’s a guy at the beach with his family, but it really does make you do a double take, right?)

 

  

 

Finally:  Where I really got lost was the Twitter account.  It started with a search turning up this Tweet:  “Can someone who is good at photoshop make me a picture of a MoonPie next to a bunch of money I need it for a private reason” (July 12)  A private reason…huh???   Of course, the Tweet had a bajillion responses from people with all sorts of time on their hands & artistic talents.  

 

Yep.  I kept scrolling.  Which made me wonder how does one master illustration via keyboard strokes?  This one is kind of cute…

 

but this next one gives me funny feelings.  Why is the second face so close to the groin area, MoonPie?  

 

 

Finally, I’m thankful to MoonPie for the new vocabulary.  I used to dream big, but now my dreams will be CHUNGUS.  

 

 

Oh what’s that?  All this talk has made you hungry for a Moon Pie?  Well here’s the recipe:  https://gardenandgun.com/recipe/anatomy-of-a-classic-do-it-yourself-moon-pies/

 

I got it from Garden & Gun, which shared David Guas’ recipe.  I’d give the recipe 3 stars out of 4.  The graham cracker cookies need to be a bit moister, but I forgot to add the flour until the end.  Oops!  My bad.  Hot Tip:  If you need a short cut, Marshmallow Fluff & Ghiradelli Dark Melting Chocolate are winners.  Hotter Tip:  Spray utensils with cooking spray before handling marshmallow so it doesn’t stick.  CHUNGUS Tip:  Add googly eyes & mustaches so you can eat a friend.  

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi!

Y’all. Does anyone have a boat or a pool that they’d like to invite me to hang out at with? (Grammar???) It’s so hot and I’m over here watching all the cool Instagram people having boat fun and sipping their dranks. WHERE’S MY BOAT DRANK???? I promise I’m cool for the summer!!!!

Summer whining over. Let’s talk about strawberry jortcakes. As I’ve been thinking about cookbooks and summer recipes, I was like “must have more fruit shits”. Summer = fruit shits. That’s a SCIENCE FACT.

So I made my best attempt at a jortcake. I fucked up the whipped cream somehow so I moved on to a cream cheese frosting which is FINE. I actually think whipped cream (while v traditional) is too thin for a stacking dessert but what the fuck do I know? Also I didn’t macerate my dang berries. I was winging it, ok???? As for the jorts, I don’t even want to go there, sister girlfriend. When I make just the jortbread cookies, I get real definition on the beltloops and the jort cuffs but lost it all when I caked up my recipe. I was like the baking equivalent of an Icarus, team – I flew too close to the dang sun!

Here’s where I’m going to spit some truth, y’all.  This wasn’t my best work and I need to say “I’m just not going to include a strawberry jortcake in this cookbook!  IS THAT OK WITH YOU, KAREN????”  This leads me to my very new and very important RECIPE ESSENTIALNESS CRITERIA CHECKLIST:

• Is this recipe fun to make?
• Is this an item that I can’t wait to mash into my mouth?
• Does this item look incredible in photos and who cares how hard it is to make or how gross it is to eat – because I’m getting so many likes on my Instagram that nothing else matters in my life?
• Do you think this would win you a James Beard award for culinary genius?
• Honestly – do we need more jort-themed desserts???

If the answer to any of these questions is a “fuck no” – the recipe gets thrown into the idea toilet and FLUSH!

So, team – that’s where we are this week.  A failure.  On the bright side of things, I’ve signed up for daily emails on cookbook writing tips, which may or may not be a waste of time.  I also contacted Jeremiah from the Flour Hour podcast about a cookbook writing class he mentioned on the Andrew Smyth episode and he said I should check out the Green Apron website.  I haven’t yet, Jeremiah, but I promise I will!  Jeremiah???

Are you reading this???

Hi!

Also – here’s a fun pick of me really nailing the baked good show-off selfie.  I fucking love that red hoodie, y’all!

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi!

Hey. Who here loves Pat Benatar?

🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♂️

and who here loves peanut butter?

🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️🙆🏻‍♂️

Have I got the dessert for you!

And it’s so great for the summer because there’s no oven, and if you do it right – only one bowl. Here’s what you do. Take two sticks of butter and microwave til melted in a giant glass bowl. Then plop in 2 cups of powdered sugar, 1.5 cups PB (peanut butter, not Pat Benatar, stupid) and two crushed sleeves of graham crackers. NOTE: some recipes will tell you to completely pulverize the crackers into a fine dust. That’s your prerogative. I like bigger cracker chunks up in my bars for extra crunch. THAT’S MY PREROGATIVE, TRICK!

Wait. Are you listening to Hit Me With Your Best Shot while this is happening? If not, turn that shit on.

Now mix all this shit in your melted butter bowl until it’s mixed. Then spread it up in a baking tray. Like a 9×13, ok?

Ok. Clean out the empty bowl. Then – plop in 1/4 cup PB and 2 cups semi-sweet choco chips. I suppose you can use dark choco here. Or milk. But not me. I like semis for this shit. Microwave this 30 seconds at a time until the choco is melted. Don’t over microwave or your shit will burn.

Need something to do while the choco is microwaving? Watch this Seinfeld clip featuring Heartbreaker. CLIP!

When you have a bowl full of melted chocolate, spread it on the PB layer. Now here’s the fun part. Find some pretzel sticks and use them to make your best portrait of Pat Benatar.

I don’t recommend this one. It’s gorgeous but you’ll never capture this in a 9×13 pretzel portrait. No way. Although – prove me wrong! I’d love to see it.

CONFESSION: this wasn’t my first PBPBB. I attempted this back in 2016 and here’s how that turned out.

PAT!? You reading this? Hey – I hope you love it. I love it and I love you and your songs! If you’re ever in Columbus and you need some We Belong back-up vocals, give me a call. I’M AN EXCELLENT SINGER!

Here’s one last look at these dang bars! not as great sliced, but still delicious, team!

BYE!

Hey team!

Remember when I started this blog because I was like “hey – I want to write a cookbook”?  And then, I completely stopped talking about writing a cookbook?

Haha – that’s funny.  No one reads this blog!

ANYWAY!  Some recent conversations with my LIFE COACH (my sister – hi fartface!) got me thinking about my goals and my PASSIONS and I was like “DANG IT!  I want to do this!”

Step 1 was to revisit my past thoughts on cookbooks.  Here’s a link to a rough draft on a table of contents.  THIS IS A LINK! CLICK!

Pretty good, but not good enough!  If I’m a publisher, I’m gonna be like “da fuq?”  There’s nothing special about that TOC.  Readers ain’t gonna be pre-ordering that shit!  Books today need SIZZLE.  They need PIZZAZZ!

(Pizzazz from the Jem show.  Remember her?  Nasty!)

Honestly the only interesting thing about that TOC blog post was my math fact about the distance between sequential squares.  I swear – that is some next level math wizardry.

Oh – and the jortbread shortbread.  That’s a winner and will DEFINITELY be in the cookbook.

Step 2: Define audience.  Listen up, team.  If you’re reading this blog, you’re buying the book.  That’s that.  It’ll be the best $49 you’ll ever spend.  I’m guessing it’ll be $49, but it might be more.  Sorry!  I can’t control tariffs or whatever.

You people are joy-lovers.  You love joy – full stop.

Do you care about the perfect bakes and accurate recipes?  Maybe – but you certainly understand that I’m not a competent person and you also understand that you can get cake and pie recipes literally anywhere else.   YOU WANT INSPIRATION!  YOU WANT A FANTASY ESCAPE FROM YOUR WORK-A-DAY LIVES!  YOU WANT BREEZY STORIES FROM AN OLD GAY IDIOT!

(Note to self, be sure to include a page in the book listing all the bakers with recipes way better than mine.)

Step 3:  Cookbook Insight.  Baking desserts can be fun, but can also be a drag.  Right?  There’s always some excitement at the beginning.  “Wow – look at me!  I’m mixing things!”  Then, there’s the tediousness of the actual bake.  And sometimes, there’s a resting period between the mixing and the baking.  And more waiting around between the baking and the decorating (you gotta chill your shits or else your decorations will melt off, stupid.)  Here’s where my cookbook comes in handy.  Each recipe comes with an activity page for you to work on during your waiting around.

When I was growing up, I had to wait around for my sister to finish her piano lessons.  To keep my quiet, my mom gave me this jumbo Snoopy activity book – and it fucking worked.  It was mazes and crosswords and word searches and matching games and hidden pictures.  How’s come this isn’t something adults have?  Now we have our dumb phones with dumb pornography…  I want more jumbles to work on!

So, this book will definitely come with activities.  For adults!  That aren’t porn!

Step 4:  Just start writing.  I think things fell apart the last couple of times I started because I got caught up in this circular circle of a cycle, which was I can’t start writing a book because I don’t have an agent and I don’t have an agent because I don’t have any awards or a large Instagram following or any real knowledge of anything.  So then I just sit and stew in my juices.  Meanwhile, all of these other people are writing cookbooks.  Including ZAC POSEN.  He doesn’t know shit about baking or cooking or anything.  He just makes pins for Kohl’s.  Fuck this dude.  If he can write a cookbook full of gay white nonsense – I CAN TOO!  Remember this picture of asparagus from the ZP cookbook?

I mean….  Hello?????

Sorry – I got sidetracked.

Anyway – I just need to get some recipes and some cute anecdotes and some activities together and then all the agents and publishers will be slobbering all over themselves to get me signed.  I JUST KNOW IT!

And so that’s that.  I’ve got some surprises and some delights that are happening and I’m real excited and re-energized!  I feel like a bird, y’all!  Ca-caw!

 

Hi hi hi hi!

I made my first ever focaccia yesterday and it turned out pretty medium. I liked it just fine but my dumb oven underbaked it. Paul Hollywood gave me three frowns and spit on my face. I DESERVED IT!

But then I was like “remember when Molly Yeh turned her focaccia into a breakfast sando on her lil show?” I ran to the tv and scoured my saved episodes and guess what. I DANG DELETED IT! I kept “Girl Brunch” and “Chicken Birthday” and “Husband Allergies” and “Aunt Tutu Visits Again”. But I deleted “Breakfast Sandos!”

But then I found it on her blog! Haha! I’m such a dope. Here it is! LINK!!!!

What else? What else….

God bless America – things are really happening around here!

Remember last year, when Jim and I bought our house and I loved it???

Well, we decided we hate this house and we’re moving!

Haha! Lol. Jk. It’s a great house but we are moving. This house is way to big for two homos and two dingus beagles. We’re downsizing! To this dump!

Cute cute cute!

Anyway – we’re closing on the new house in a few weeks and will be all moved in by early August. And current house is in contract, so if you wanted to live where Jim and I hold hands and smile politely at each other – too late, champ.

Oh! Forgot to mention that new house is right up the street from my dang sister! And across the street from a gigantic park. And right around the corner from Clintonville farmers market and a 10 minute walk from my fave Starbucks with my hunky barista Mr Man. What a dream!!!!

And I’m already thinking about a garage renovation and new porch and new fun basement situation and where will I put all of my junk???? Off to ikea for so much storage nonsense!!!! I’m so excited!!!!!!

Anyway – that’s really the big news here.

BYE!

David!  Hello!

Hey, you added a comment to my Instagram page asking for the recipe for PECAN SANDERS!  I wanted to make sure you had it handy in case you were doing some baking soon.

I first posted my Pecan Sanders recipe back on my old blog – 100 Cookies – back in March 2016.  Remember March 2016???  Obama was still president!!!  Remember him????

Ugh – I started thinking about that whole election cycle and got real emotional!  David???  You still reading this???

OK – well – it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, y’all!  I’ve been trying to make my running side-thing happen.  It’s called Just Me 5K and you can check out the Instagram for that HERE!

Here are some other things that are happening in my young life, in case you’d like to know!

• Jimmy and I are still engaged!  No plans for a wedding – so STOP ASKING!
• I lost about 10 pounds on my WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEY!  And then I stopped the journey – and need to restart it!  Losing weight is the fucking worst!  Right?
• Nina West!  Wow!
• I had a dream two nights ago where I was in Oman (!!!), staying at a hotel.  I go down to the hotel lobby shop and I’m like “I’d like some BBQ potato chips, please.” And the man hands me a bag of plain potato chips with a tube of BBQ connected to it.  In Oman, you sauce your own chips.  Isn’t that wild?
• Jimmy and I are selling our house and buying a new house and it’s all happening so quickly and I don’t have details to share just yet, because I’m trying to keep some things private, but we only just bought our current house 15 months ago and here we go again, you know?  It’s all too much and I’m stressed out and this better be our house for more than 15 months this time because I can’t handle this shit anymore….  You really need to see the new kitchen, though – it’s fucking awesome – but also – where am I going to put everything???  Ugh – more stress!  WHY WHY WHY WHY????

David!  What’s new with you?  Your dog is cute.  Have you seen my dogs lately????  Here they are!

WRECKO!

VITO!

All right – are you ready for the recipe???  Are you so excited???

6 or so ounces of pecans (damn, these are expensive nuts!)

1.5 sticka butter

1/2 cuppa sugar

1 egg

Big ol splash of vanilla

Big ol splash of water

2 cuppa flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda (NOT POWDER!)

Basic B buttercream frosting for decoration (powdered sugar, soft as shit butter and some milk.  Mx until it’s frsoting)

First off, spray down a baking pan and drop on about two heaping handfuls of pecans.  Bake those nuts at 350 for 5 min. Then chop into small bits with a dang food processor.

Next, mix together all the stuff including the chopped pecans. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for a half hour. Roll the dough out and cut circles with a biscuit cutter. Using a toothpick, draw on a Sanders face. I recommend a Vermonty scowl. Cook those shits at 350 for like 12-14 minutes and cool. When they’ve cooled off, apply your white frosting in a swirly disheveled hairdo swoop.

 

 

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi!

Y’all! Hello

And happy Easter.

Listen. Easter is a pretty medium holiday for me. I’m former Catholic but very much have ISSUES UPON ISSUES with Catholics and Christians and the whole business these days. And just earlier this morning I had a new thought. You know how Jesus lived in way-before-modern-science times? Listen. Maybe he wasn’t really dead before he came back to life – just really dehydrated? He just was definitely crucified which sounds awful but then his body shut down and he was almost dead but not 100% dead? (Yeesh. We’re getting into some real real dangerous waters here, team).

Anyway – believe in Jesus and Easter if you’d like. Or don’t. It’s all fine with me! I just like Easter for the annual lamb cakes and I get to see my family and jimmy’s family. We saw a good chunk of jimmy’s family in the Cleve yesterday including COCO the puppy! I got to talk about MURDER with jimmy’s niece Midge, who lives in PITTSBURGH! (Here’s coco)

We’re seeing my team today. Rita and the Skip are hosting this year and this babe just got back from like 10 days in dang Nepal!

Anyway! Lamb cakes! Now this year, my dingus friend Robert Mahar (the STAR of TV’s Making It!) challenged me to an Easter Cake-Off, which is a thing. We never talked about voting or prizes so I’m not sure what the hell is happening other than I’m making an Easter cake and so is he. Hi Robert!

I haven’t gotten to see Roberts cake yet but will share his when I see it! Im just putting my cake here for you to take a look at! OK!!!!????

(Oh hello! It’s a few hours later! Here’s his cake! Pretty cute, but LACKING STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY! I’m calling it – VOLPI VICTORY!!!!)

I was tired of doing the actual lamb tin cakes so I did a little sheet cake lamb this year. And you know. There’s not a lot more to say about it!!!! Happy Dehydrated Jesus Day!

Y’all – I’m taking a quicko break from the Wes Anderson baking series.  A cute lil biscuit from Little, Brown Publishing reached out last week with an advanced copy of a new cookbook for me to review.  Check me out, y’all!  I’m reviewing cookbooks now!  >>>sizzle!<<<  The book is a collection of recipes from 102 year-old boss b Maida Heatter.

I didn’t know who she was either….

BUT – I did some quick research and fell in frickin love with her immediately.  She’s a Miami Beach socialite who basically taught herself how to bake and then she wrote a bunch of cookbooks and taught classes and inspired the likes of Martha Boom-Boom Stewart, “Short-Stack Jacques” Pepin, Fancy-Nancy Silverton and Dadgum Dorie Greenspan (DDG wrote the foreward of this book BTW.  Toot toot!).  AND! Ol Girl won herself three James Beard Awards (THREE!!!) and she sounds fucking awesome.

Here’s a dang article written by Saveur Magazine (LINK HERE!).  Please note the bit about her trying to serve elephant meat omelettes to a bunch of Republicans during the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami.  And, did you catch the bit about the wrapped-up purse-brownies?  DDG writes about another wrapped-up purse-brownie situation in her foreward – when Maida was on stage to collect one of her James Beard awards, she starts throwing purse-brownies to the crowd…. 

I need to know – what’s the best brownie for throwing???

There are three brownie recipes in this book but none of them say that they’re the best for throwing. The regular brownies recipe (page 186) seems like it might be her favorite because it was her first ever recipe. (She said she started baking these when she was ten.).

Then there’s a cream cheese brownie which is like half brownie/half cheesecake. And then there’s her Palm Beach brownie with chocolate covered mints (page 191). I wasn’t impressed with the cream cheese brownies, but she says that the Palm Beach brownie is one of her most famous recipes in all her cookbooks. She says they’re “the thickest, gooiest, chewiest, darkest, mostest-of-the-most chocolate bars.”

I ended up making the regular brownies and the Palm Beach deals. And it’s pretty clear: If I’m going to get a James Beard prize (or really be in a public situation of any kind moving forward), I’m throwing the Palm Beach brownies. They have a good heft to them and they really are that chewy and gooey and the mostest-of-the-most. And I really think the recipients would get a real surprise/delight out of the peppermint surprise!

Beyond the throwing brownies, this book is chock full of so many other baked things you can wrap up and heave at a crowd. The recipes all look fairly straightforward and the illustrations are real cute. And Maida reminds me of my old toy store boss Viv, who was so funny and warm and like 3% insane that I like her so so so so much. Thanks Little Brown for the chance to review this book – and thanks, Maida, for these lovely recipes! ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️