Hello, fellow nut lovers!
I’m sorry this version of the newsletter took a while longer than anticipated. The sheer stress of Cricket not feeling well affected me much more than I’d realized. Right now she’s doing okay with a course of antibiotics, appetite stimulant, and a liver supplement. The Cricket update’ll be at the bottom of this letter for those of you keeping tabs on her.
Since we all deal with stress in different ways, I wondered if there was something I could do to make myself feel a little more mellow.
“Dannis Ree,” I murmured to myself while hate-listening to the Grateful Dead, the boringest band in the universe, “What does the most famous food writer in the history of the universe do when he is very sad and needs stress relief?”
I nodded my head and turned to America’s best friend: Pseudoscience.
A lot of people like to use marijuana as a way to treat their own anxieties about the world, but I am a very infrequent user.
Instead of getting high, what could I do?
I decided to experiment with today’s modern cure-all, cannabidiol, aka CBD.
In case you have been living under a rock (in which case I am very jealous of you), people have been shouting about CBD for a while now. It’s supposedly an anti-inflammatory, good for insomnia, and fantastic for shriveled up testicles. This would do it. This would solve every single one of my problems. Speculative science in the hands of Whole Foods enthusiasts can fix everything.
I visited a local CBD specialist (they were very nice) and purchased this bottle of CBD extract, though I almost died when I found out I had to pay $48 for it.
Chugging a bunch of oil sounded like the fast track to my favorite pastime, diarrhea, but I really wanted to find a way to ingest it other than shoving the dropper up my ass. I meditated and went through past memories of my favorite types of nuts, and the scent of sugar and cinnamon wafted through my head.
Mall Nuts.
Remember malls? From six centuries (months) ago?
For whatever reason, I remembered those little kiosks in the mall that smelled like the candle section at Bath and Body Works. I googled “mall nuts” and got this recipe.
Mall nuts mall nuts mall nuts mall nuts mall nuts.
When I was at the store looking for ground cinnamon, this is what I found.
Roasted cinnamon. This is the kind of cinnamon you make fun of in front of its friends.
The recipe is very, very, easy.
Mix the dry stuff together (sugars, cinnamon, salt) into one ultra-sweet blend.
Then whip up an egg white with some water and vanilla extract until it looks frothy.
Mmm. The wonderful joy of froth.
Toss the nuts in the egg white mixture until they’re all wet, then coat with the sugar mixture.
I was so excited to bust a nut in my mouth, but I had to wait, because I didn’t want it to happen too quickly.
Bake the nuts 250°F for an hour, tossing them occasionally.
That magical mall nut smell will fill up your kitchen. For added realism, spritz some shitty cologne in the air and play some audio of teenagers shouting in the background. Imagine some old guy falling asleep on a bench under the skylight, looking miserable.
The reason why I didn’t put the CBD oil in with the nuts in the oven was because I did not want to destroy the chemical compound by heating it up.
So I waited and tossed a small serving of the mall nuts with the CBD oil once they cooled off. This oil…this brand is dank as hell, yo! As in, they do NOT filter out the hemp flavor. The kitchen now smelled like the mall and my college dorm room.
Davida and I ate a handful of delicious nuts (this recipe really is good, by the way) and sat around for a bit. “These are awesome! I ate like 150 of them,” she said, pointing at the bowl.
Technically, you’re not supposed to feel anything using CBD. Does that mean it’s working?
In the meantime, while we waited to see what CBD does, we decided to snack on a weed brownie a coworker gave me.
Then, as we sat around wondering if the CBD was working, we hit this nearly empty, very potent, THC vape pen I’ve had for years.
I was starting to feel relaxed. Maybe the CBD was working!
In my relaxed state, I had a brilliant idea.
Maybe I should smoke some actual WEED. Oh shit. This CBD stuff really does the trick.
“What’s your bong’s name again?” I asked Davida.
“Babs,” she said. Huh. Babs.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Because when we got it, we called it our Babby.”
In the end, I learned that CBD mall nuts are absolutely delicious, and really do make you feel relaxed, especially when you’re high as shit.
For the rest of the night, we sat around, listening to my favorite band, the Grateful Dead.
Thanks for being here. If you enjoyed this post, share it far and wide! It does miracles for the newsletter.
And this is where I ask if you’d become a paid subscriber. $48 for a small bottle of CBD oil?!
Venmo: @dickholedannis
And about Cricket.
Davida took this cute picture.
We went to the specialist today. Apparently Cricket has two growths in her intestines, signalling possible cancer; it’s likely lymphoma, which is not uncommon. We agreed to a biopsy and will know more next week. She’s eating here and there, and I got her to play yesterday, which was a happy turn of events.
I’d like to thank two people today.
One of them is Steve, a vet out in New Jersey, who specializes in complex cases. He reached out to me the other week out of kindness, and guided me in ways to make Cricket feel better (and it’s working). Follow him on Instagram!
And I’d like to thank David, who sent me a letter that made me happiest when I needed it.
Stay safe, everyone, and like Steve and David have shown me, we’re not all strangers when we reach out and show each other kindness.