[This is a scheduled blog post. I don't know why I feel the need to explain that, except that I kind of feel like there's a ghost me hitting 'publish' while I'm somewhere else doing some non-computer thing. I guess just in case the ghost-me adds something while I'm not there, like, I don't know. "Cats are stupid" or "Sometimes I poison people when I'm bored" or "I'm going to go on a diet." If you read anything like that, disregard it, because it wasn't me. It was ghost-Lindsay. Unless it makes you think more highly of me or find me more attractive or want to give me piles of cash.]


Remember when I told you I googled "Thanksgiving desserts for kids"? Whatever, you're a terrible listener. This is the shit I'm talking about. Honestly. You know what? I'm changing the locks and when you get home you can collect your stuff from the pile I'm going to make of it outside. WHO NEEDS THAT MANY VACUUM TUBES? I am a[n occasionally] beautiful [in the right light], mostly well-read woman of [some sort of mystery] substance and I don't need you to feel validated. Mainly because I have oreo truffle pumpkins now. AND WHAT.

...well. I think we can both agree that we let that conversation get away from us a little bit. Probably holiday-related stress. Also, I'm feeling a little pressured right now, you know? because I have to give this speech in about twenty minutes and I haven't really gone over it at all.* And, yeah, the pumpkined truffleos are going to be an important part of my life from now on but I know if you give them a chance you'll grow to love them too. Let's hold hands while I tell you how to make them.

(NOTE: If you really want to make them "correctly," or whatever, I suggest you go here to where I found them. If your adventurous spirit just got its CPA, or something.**)

YOU WILL NEED:

oreos
cream cheese
pretzel sticks
white chocolate chips
food coloring
a pot of water
a metal bowl to put over the pot of water for (SPOILER ALERT) chocolate-melting
(or i guess a double boiler if you're fancy)
(why do i have a wok and a crazy apple peeling/core-ing contraption but no double boiler?)
butter or vegetable shortening or something
wax paper
tube of green icing

NOW TAKE ALL THAT STUFF AND DO THIS:

Mash the oreos and cream cheese together. (In a bowl. I guess you could just do it on the counter or the floor or wherever you feel comfortable, though. The important thing is that you're having fun.) I used an 8-oz package of cream cheese and a tube of oreos minus some that I ate. I broke the cookies up a little before I started mashing, but when I make them for real I'll probably use a rolling pin before to make smaller pieces. This was just a test run to make sure these things weren't gross before I got too invested in the idea of contributing tiny cute dessert pumpkins to Thanksgiving. I needed time to design a back-up plan just in case because I really can't just go to social gatherings without some sort of offering to take the edge off the social anxiety. Except hold on, I just remembered I don't have a rolling pin. Oh my gosh, PAY ATTENTION. Now roll the oreo/cream cheese mixture into balls. Put the balls on a sheet of wax paper, stick a pretzel stick into each one and put them in the freezer for 20ish minutes. This will give you enough time to make your mom listen to your speech and tell you if it sounds objective enough even though you aren't going to change it anyway, make a cup of tea, read all the texts you didn't notice getting today, wash the dishes, and read some of your book. Now leave them in the freezer for a little while longer because it's time to melt the chocolate. Now, the lady on the website said she used melting chips or magic baker chocolate or fairy dust or something but I couldn't find any in the two seconds I was willing to spend looking in the grocery store. So I settled for white chocolate chips plus some food coloring. Anyway, melt your chocolate. If I need to describe how to use a real or rigged double boiler to you then you really should under no circumstances be following any of my directions about anything because you're probably definitely going to burn yourself. Melt a little shortening in with the chocolate to make it smoother and more magical. Oh, yeah, and remember to sprinkle the actual magic over everything the whole time. I forgot to mention that. I also forgot to add the food coloring to make the chocolate orange before I started getting dip-happy with the balls, so I had one white pumpkin. I suggest you do the same because it will make you think of Charlie Brown for almost no reason and that's always nice. Then put them back in the freezer for a few seconds while you wrestle the tip off of the tube of green icing. When the chocolate is pretty hardened you can start drawing leaves and vines and things on the balls, and if you squint real hard or perhaps if you are actually competent in the kitchen they will look sort of like little baby pumpkins.

And even if you didn't do that great a job (like some of us typing these words named Lindsay ahem) or, for instance, if you got sort of bored halfway through or your hand started to hurt from squeezing the icing tube, they will still taste like what I imagine James Franco tastes like.

The "stems" should probably be shorter, but um. I really like pretzels, so.

*Yeah RIGHT, my steel-plated ladyparts never feel pressure. Ever. I'm going to nail that speech, and then I'm going to nail your mother an I'm-sorry-we-fought picture I painted for you onto the wall over the shrine I made of your precious, valuable things.

**I don't actually think accountants are boring. I don't actually know any accountants. And if your spirit did in fact just get its CPA then congratulations because isn't that kind of a hard test?