Survey Results! (Sort Of.)

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: I am extremely tired. I may be dying. You see, I went to the midnight premiere of the final Harry Potter movie last night, and it was so great! Like, the movie itself was pretty good, but also it’s just fun to go to midnight premieres. Especially when they’re full of 15-year-old nerds. I also learned quite a few things about my friend Brendan, who, it turns out, is a total badass.

DO: Take the Danny/Gwyneth Project Reader Survey!

The new GOOP is here, everyone! And we got SCREWED, because instead of giving us delightful tips on fashion or the finest London fishmongers or whatever, Gwyneth is instead asking US to do something for HER. BOOOOOOOO. It’s the first-ever GOOP reader survey! And, of course, it’s slightly pretentious. For example, the question, “What do you visit GOOP for?” (terrible English, by the way) requires two answers. Because everyone visits GOOP for not only one, but TWO reasons! And “I do it ironically,” isn’t even on the list! So 95% of GOOP’s readership has been forced to lie. (I should also note that in the “favorite website” section, I listed my own website three times. Hi, Gwyneth!)

And, you know what? If today is survey day in the Paltrow household, it’s survey day for me, too. So fill out my survey! Let’s get to know each other better! Or don’t. You don’t have to tell me about yourself if you don’t want. I don’t care. I’m not really going to USE this information for anything, other than curiosity’s sake. And possibly against you in a court of law.

I Didn’t Expect Today’s Post To Be About Homosexuality, Either

Oh, boy. What a week. First I finally place an order for duck bacon (only to realize that I didn’t order NEARLY enough, so now I’m going to have to go through all that again in the future) — which should be arriving tomorrow, patient readers. And then the new GOOP comes out and it has THIS headline: “Homosexuality in the Bible.”

Ummmmm. Let’s look into this a little more closely.

The Fourth Week Slump

Guys, I’ve been awful this week at cooking. Just miserable. I’m sorry. We’re almost at the one-month point, and I’ve hit a wall. I know it’s bad when my friend Ali harasses me to “knock some recipes out,” when I know she doesn’t even CARE about this project. I don’t even have any decent excuses, is the worst part. But that won’t stop me from trying to come up with some: I’m frustrated at the impossibility of locating half the ingredients now that I’ve completed most of the easy recipes; twice this week I’ve come home from work to a roommate cooking something for me, giving me the luxury of not having to do anything; and also I’m just really, really lazy.

I don’t really want to go into the trials and tribulations of duck bacon so much AGAIN, because who wants to read two posts in a row about duck bacon? Let’s just say it’s still not going well, but I will be doing my damndest this weekend to try to hunt some down. Many commenters have suggested settling for pork or even turkey bacon (except for the LUNATIC who suggested I make my own duck bacon – you, sir, are almost as sadistic as Gwyneth). I’m torn on the matter of Bacon Substitution. On the one hand, Gwyneth does say pork and turkey are suitable alternatives to duck bacon. On the other hand, I don’t want to settle. The recipes are written for duck bacon, and I want to try them as close to the original recipes as possible. Plus, let’s admit it, no one wants to read about a guy who goes shopping at one grocery store, gets everything he needs, and makes a mediocre dish. I’m torturing myself for the sake of your entertainment. Or at least that’s what I’ll be screaming from a straightjacket in a couple months.

But the good news is that I finally got my birthday presents from my parents, and it’s a ton of cooking supplies! My mom actually went to Barnes & Noble and wrote down all the “essential tools” Gwyneth lists in the front of her cookbook, thinking she would get me a lot of them, which is awesome. And then, she said, she brought the list to a store, and no one had heard of half of the tools. So now she hates Gwyneth. GO FIGURE. Everything’s fine and dandy when you’re watching her dancing on Glee or accepting Academy Awards, but the second anyone cracks this cookbook, all goodwill flies out the window. The woman is some sort of culinary psychological torture genius.

These are dark, dark days for the Project. We’ll get out of this slump eventually. What’s that old saying? “When you fall off the blog, get back in the kitchen?” Yeah, that sounds like a real thing people say.

In the meantime, please accept my apologies and entertain yourselves with the latest GOOP, in which Gwyneth gets drunk and fucks up her own pizza recipe. It’s good to know even she has her off-weeks.

Multitasking With Gwyneth

Yesterday was a hectic day on par with one of Gwyneth’s “more manic days” she immortalized in a recent issue of her GOOP Newsletter, which basically consisted of bringing the kids to school, meeting her personal trainer, and doing interviews. My day consisted of going to work for 9 hours and then getting home for a session with my personal trainer. (Who also happens to be my roommate Danny B., so I’m not as fancy as Gwyneth, AS ALWAYS. But he is a certified personal trainer! And available for hire, Portland readers!) I didn’t have any interviews to do, although I did receive a bit of press, which was very exciting. But, basically it was about as busy/important a day as a wealthy movie star with no real job ever has.

So I knew I needed to make something easy and healthy, if I wanted to make sure I didn’t feel like a fat slob after my workout. Gwyneth to the rescue! I decided to make her Vegetarian Chili, because it seemed easy, relatively cheap, and offered a lot of hands-off simmering time in which I could do all my personal training. Gwyneth would be proud of my multitasking, I imagined.