Cooking With Michael
Your irregular guide to what not to do in the kitchen.

This morning I spent 15 minutes making a cup of hot cocoa. 15 minutes isn't bad you say. Good for you for not using the microwave you say. I used the microwave.

My mom suggested that a nice thing to have for breakfast or desert would be hot cocoa flavored with Splenda. Since I like sweet chocolate things and yet still want my love handles/gut to go away, the Splenda cocoa sounded like a good idea.

My first problem with the whole deal was paying $6 for what felt like a box of air. 2 lbs of sugar and 3.8 oz of Splenda come in the same sized box, and reading $1.58 per oz on the tag gave me pause.

After I had my box of Splenda, then I went looking for hot cocoa. It turns out that there's no drink cocoa, only baking cocoa. Ah, the magic of food.

When I embarked on my cocoa creation this morning I had a heck of a time getting into the Splenda box. My brown sugar box has nice flaps on top that re-close. Not Splenda. It has heavily glued flaps that rip when you yank on them. Only tonight did I discover that there's a handy retractable pouring spout on the side.

I also had a hard time getting into the cocoa. They put a foil freshness thing over the opening that I had to stab open with the back of my spoon. I guess I stabbed a little violently, because an overwhelming cloud of cocoa shot out of the hole and settled down over most of my counter. If I keep making this stuff I may need to get a swiffer for the express purpose of swiffing up cocoa dust.

With my Splenda box mutilated and my cocoa box open for business I spooned some cocoa into my mug of milk and stirred. And stirred. And stirred. Turns out that cocoa and cold milk go together like fast paced witty conversation with strangers and me. They just don't mix.

After sloughing a spoon and a half full of cocoa into the sink (and spending 5 minutes trying to de-clump it so it would wash down the drain) I microwaved my milk and tried again to apply cocoa and Splenda. It worked much better, but by that time I had so many cocoa goobers on the side of my mug that I kept getting big chunks of pure cocoa with every other sip.

The correct way to go about things is as follows:

Nuke milk.
Add equal parts Splenda and cocoa.
Stir.
Drink.

I once threw together a pair of wireless headphones out of the wreckage of an old portable phone, and yet the construction hot cocoa befuddles me. I am, apparently, my own special brand of retarded.