The next obstacle is food – what to bring? You can’t show up to a BBQ with chips and a six pack of Budweiser or you’ll be lynched on sight. On the other hand, a Julia Childs-type soufflé may not be your style. It’s cool, dudes and chicks. I’ve got something easy and cool for you to do. I know you want to disregard this column because it’s something to do with cooking, but trust me, I know what I’m doing.

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In a cookie book, the chapters are usually divided by type of cookie. A chocolate chip cookie is your basic drop cookie – there is no rolling or pressing needed, just scoop up some dough and drop your rounded spoonful on your cookie sheet. Anyone who has been able to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch can make 9 out of 10 other drop cookie recipes. Don’t be fooled by the list of ingredients or the length of the recipe or the recipe’s source: what I love the most about drop cookies is that they’re all made the same way as your chocolate chip cookie. Most of them do not require a lot of fuss and they’re really difficult to screw up. Just like your chocolate chip cookie, the important thing is to make sure it’s mixed really well.

Keeping in the spirit of the approaching holidays, I have a new one for everyone. This one comes from Bon Appetit – don’t be nervous because of the source. It’s a drop cookie called “Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies”, and just as easy as your basic Toll House recipes.

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What a bunch of crap.

Most Americans live well beyond their means. Advertisements and slogans do their best to make the average consumer feel as though their lives will not be fulfilled unless they purchase X, Y, or Z. This is a lie, and yet every year we rush out to the stores to purchase enough food for an army and, dare I say, while some people have none. (Remember the times you have been needy and donate to a family in your area that could use a helping hand!)

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But alas, finding a good cookie recipe is nearly impossible to find. The “winning” cookie recipes usually leave me disappointed. I expect magnificence, but get mediocrity. I demand the exciting, but get the uninspiring. Do the cuisine magazines and food divas of today really know what we want to eat? Or is it that so few people are cooking, we’re just happy to eat anything that isn’t from a box or bag? Maybe I am on to something. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us could only rate cookies into two categories: store-bought grade and homemade grade.

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It has been my life’s pursuit to find the greatest cookie recipes of all time; although just recently I have come to the conclusion that this is impossible. Due to the different tastes and preferences between individuals (not to mention between cultures), it would be impossible to find the top ten definitive cookie recipes.

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I love talking food. In fact, it is my secret ambition to become a world renowned chef. Well, truth be told, I have a lot of secret ambitions to be a lot of really cool things – like a ninja. Unfortunately, becoming a ninja is much more difficult and time consuming than one would think, not to mention a little impractical, and not exactly something you can nonchalantly mention in a conversation. If anything, I would be a ninja just for random ass kicking. I could beat someone up and then shout, “I am Blue Midget! I am no one’s bitch!” But I digress. The most reasonable food ambition that I’ve had over the past few years is to find the best cookie recipes ever – and don’t give me that crap about the Neiman Marcus cookies. I wipe my butt with those things. They are certainly “nice”, or possibly even “pleasant”, but not the best. In fact, they’re not even on the top ten list of awesomely delicious cookies ever. Don’t fall for the hype.

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By the time I had moved out of my parents’ house, I was a coffee drinker, through and through. For years I didn’t even think of tea. In fact, I looked down upon the millions of pansy tea drinkers around the world until a few years ago, when one of my Canadian friends introduced me to loose leaf teas. I remember having to wait for the water to boil and then for the tea to seep – at first I thought it was some goofy liberal tea ritual, but after drinking it (with a little bit of cream) I was absolutely amazed. It wasn’t remotely related to the watery crap I had as a kid, and, converted faster than Katie Holmes to Scientology, I have been in search of good tea ever since.

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Three square meals per day will kill you. Yes, that’s right.

I can say from experience that when you’re a slacker and can eat whenever you want, you eat when your body gets hungry. Makes sense, right? Also, you only eat up to the point where your body is satiated.

Now, stick the body in an 8-5 job. You’re forced to eat breakfast at 7, lunch at 12, dinner at 6. Because you no longer eat when your body says you need to, but rather when your job says you can, you gorge yourself three times a day in order to make it to the next meal without starving. You take in more energy than you expend pushing pencils, and you gain weight.

I suppose the solution is to snack during the day, assuming you don’t work near life-threatening chemicals like hulk.

Problem is, the bread they use is always really dry and powdery. In addition, wrapping technique varies, and in most places is so haphazard that half the meat and cheese and vegetables are bundled inside 2-3 layers of this crap bread with the rest of it sticking out the back. And for the poor bastards who get this with some kind of dressing or sauce, it’s all dripping out the back and all over your shirt/plate. It’s disgusting, especially for someone who’s so OC about food he eats ribs with a fork and knife just so his hands dont get messy. Tell me honestly one incidence where the sandwich doesn’t kick the wrap’s ass. I swear I’m gonna find the evil little mutant who started this revolution, who’s probly the owner/operator of some midwest sandwich shop and I’m gonna torture him until he stops making wraps. And then I’m coming after everyone else.