Prunus Dulcis

Almond croissants are good, even when they're not very high quality.

Here's the question, though: why do I like the almond paste in almond croissants and not marzipan? I think marzipan is beautiful...



...but I do not like to eat it. This sad fact makes me a marzipan outcast in my family.

Marzip-anecdote: My sophomore year in college, I went to New York with my uncle and cousin for my cousin's birthday. My uncle pestered me the whole trip about if there were any boys that I liked at school, and finally I admitted to liking a particular one. He said, "Well, alright then. You need to buy him a present from New York!" He even offered to pay for it.

(I think it's funny that he was so insistent that I try to woo said boy. I think he just wanted me to be happy, but it was a little weird.)

So, what do you get for a college boy you like but only kind of know? A Yankees hat? (No.) An I Heart NY t-shirt? (Lame.) A book? A Playbill? What?

Finally, on the last day of our trip, we stopped for canoli, and my uncle said, "Look at that marzipan! That's what you're getting your friend." Now, I have plenty of friends who would totally dig that gift, if for nothing but the novelty, but really? Lacking any better ideas, though, I picked out all of the best marzipan vegetables in the case, including some radishes and carrots.

When I gave it to said young man upon my return, he was appropriately confused by the gift, as I had expected. Needless to say, my vegetable wooing proved fruitless.

I embrace the awkward in life, or try to (I have to. I am, after all, 'The Girl Who Makes Things Awkward'), but for some reason the marzipan incident got blocked from my memory for about 4 years.

Then I moved to New York, and one day I walked past the very shop where the marzipan was purchased. I stopped dead in the street, and remembered suddenly not only the candy but also the recipient, and the years of awkward gift giving that followed that forgotten marzipan, like a truck it all hit me. And I laughed.

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Sometimes, things are just so weird that you know that life is a funny joke, not a cruel one.


Awesomely awkward
(and awkwardly AWESOME)
-sweet beet

P.S. Almond flavoring smells to me like poison. I had forgotten that until I was making a drink the other day. Teej is a man who knows his poisons, and he told me that cyanide smells like almonds.

Hm.

Hope I'm not poisoning the customers!