I was digging around in my desk the other day when I found an envelope of 3 x 5 recipe cards that my mother had typed up for me when I left home. I'd spent the greater portion of my girlhood in the kitchen baking cookies (and enfattening my family), but once I'd moved out of my parents' house the cookies never tasted the same, and I couldn't figure out why Tollhouse cookies made in Brooklyn were never quite as good as ones made in Denver. Was it the altitude?

Ultimately, I realized what I'd done wrong. Once I started grocery shopping for myself I never thought to put a big ol' tub of Crisco in the cart. It just seemed gross. Plus, on the rare occasion that I did feel like whipping up a batch of oatmeal crispies for the roommates, wouldn't butter be better? Crisco was one short step away from lard, after all. But then the cookies would come out all flat and burnt and I was never motivated enough to figure out what went wrong, so I just stopped baking cookies.

So then last weekend I opened up the recipe envelope and right in front was this card:

(click to make it larger)

And I knew it was time, for I also had this:

Crisco sticks! Because Crisco's all about HEALTH, and trans-fats are killing their business, so why partially hydrogenate? When you can sell individually wrapped sticks of FULLY hydrogenated shortening.

(Crisco: the flammable choice!)

And by God, those brownies tasted exactly like they did when I was eight years old. And you know what else? They tasted like shit. You could taste the fake. It was gross. Even Jackson wouldn't eat them, and you show me a five-year-old who won't eat a brownie? That brownie must taste like ass.

That's how much we ate before I threw them in the garbage.

Oh, well.