On Junk Food

An excerpt from Ravneet Gill’s Instagram caption

Last summer, Ravneet Gill, a pastry chef who’s in the process of opening a restaurant in London and whose three cookbooks sit on my kitchen shelf for easy grabbing, posted the above comment on her Instagram feed (that’s most of what she wrote). When I read it, I knew she was right. Not only had I seen and eaten examples of baked goods crammed full of processed commercial products (what she refers to as “junk food” or “joke food”), but I was “guilty” of making such things myself.

I didn’t feel so great about me in that moment. I also couldn’t deny my love of Nutella (along with Wheat Thins, it’s my biggest culinary weakness). I’ve swirled it into blondies, brownies, cookies—so many things. I also like to crush Skor bars and put them into those items. And I believe whoever it is that invented cookies-n-cream ice cream deserves a national holiday—and not just because it’s an undeniably great flavor but because it started the Add Oreos to Everything movement, of which I count myself a member. (I have even added America’s favorite sandwich cookies to scone dough and up until I thought about Ravneet’s post, I felt no shame!)

To say that her words cut deep enough to make me stop baking whole Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups into brownies (so that, when you cut them, each square has a cup at its core) would be an exaggeration. A lie, really. I kept on folding chocolate-covered espresso beans and Whoppers into my batters.

Her post has continued to gnaw away at me, though. It made me think back to last year’s Crookie meme cycle, when I wondered how many businesses were making the cookie dough they were shoving into their croissants from scratch, or the croissants, for that matter (the people reproducing it at home were very much not)… or why we needed to combine those things in the first place. I remember Gill’s rant every time I see an influencer reviewing the latest “drop” from PDX Cookie Co. Crumbl, Bake it by Angie or Buckeye Brownies. (I hope for her sake, Ravneet never discovers BB Cookie Co.)

buckeyebrownies

A post shared by @buckeyebrownies

It's all become too much too-muchness—actually, watch a few of those videos back-to-back and it will quickly start to seem gross.