First of all, I would like to share with you how much I love Paula Deen: A LOT. Ok, maybe that didn’t describe my adoration enough. First of all, I think she’s adorable. I just want to hug her. I’m sure she gives fantastic hugs. When she laughs, I laugh too, because her laugh is just so infectious. When she takes a bite of her food, SHE SWALLOWS (most of the Food Network cooks don’t**) and then she has a little orgasm over it. All that mmm-ing and oooh-ing and then “Ohhhhh, you’ll just LOVE this, ya’ll!” I LOVE IT. On top of that, I love that she puts butter in everything. EVERYTHING. One of my all-time favorite quotes from her is, “Love comes in the form of buttah!” Ohhhhhh, I just loooove this, ya’ll!

Since the writer’s strike caused most of respectable TV to be replaced with awful, more awful than usual, reality shows (American Gladiators? Really? Who thought that was a good idea?), I’ve spent a lot of time watching The Food Network. My personal favorites are Paula Deen (no, really?), The Barefoot Contessa (although she tends to cook things with very expensive ingredients requiring odd cookware), Everyday Italian (totally a spitter, but her food is excellent) and Guy’s Big Bites (manly man food cooked by a questionably heterosexual man). I watch Rachael Ray mostly to get entertainment out of how FREAKIN’ CRAZY she is. Really, she’s off her rocker. Watch her enough, and you’ll realize that she might actually be possessed by the devil.

The other week, ROOMMATE! and his girlfriend were apparently watching Paula Deen (we’re all hooked) and she was making comfort food. Specifically she made a Chocolate Sybil Cake, which really might be the ultimate comfort chocolate. So, ROOMMATE!’s girlfriend made it a few days after Groundhog’s Day, and renamed it Thaddeus’ Greek Orthodox Groundhog’s Day Cake. Thaddeus is her groundhog puppet who lives in our apartment. Recently, he was used by Bear as a receptacle for his insulin pump, so it wouldn’t bug me as much when it BUZZED EVERY FIVE MINUTES because he forgot to bring insulin to refill it, and it needed to remind him CONSTANTLY that HEY, HEY YOU’RE GETTING LOW ON INSULIN. HEY, YOU’RE STILL LOW. HEY, YOU MIGHT RUN OUT IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS IF YOU DON’T CHANGE IT NOW. ZOMG. I hate it when it does that. However, Thaddeus muffled the BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ quite well so I could sleep.

ANYWAYS. The Greek Orthodox comes from the fact that Roommate’s Girlfriend’s Father has a mistaken belief that all holidays have a Greek Orthodox counterpart that comes a week or so after the official holiday. This includes Secretaries’ Day. Since she was a little late on the cake, Thaddeus’s Groundhog’s Day Cake became Greek Orthodox.

The cake was pretty much the most amazing experience on the face of the earth. I think it might actually beat out sex. The chocolate comes from 16 ounces of Hershey’s Syrup. There are 2 sticks of butter. 4 eggs. I think I might try cutting out some of the sugar, since Hershey’s syrup is so sugary. The cake might be slightly too sweet. I also might try bittersweet chocolate for the icing next time. But that’s because I’m a little nutty, and desserts can actually be too sweet for my taste. This is really strange, considering what a powerful sweettooth I have. Regardless, all that syrup and butter and eggs make it squishy and gooey, somewhere beyond even a brownie. It really is comfort food. I recommend it highly. I made it last night for my (diabetic) boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. I am either the greatest or the worst girlfriend in the history of the universe. Actually, I’m just cheap and we don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day.

After you eat it, you should start watching Paula Deen as habitually as I do.

**There are two types of cooking show cooks: spitters and swallowers. Spitters spit out their bites of food off camera, as to avoid gaining unnecessary weight from trying everything they make on TV. Swallowers do the opposite. The next time you watch The Food Network, watch the cooks carefully after they take a bite. Spitters take a bite, and then the camera cuts off of them or they switch to commercial mid chew. You never actually see them bite, chew, swallow, and start talking again. Swallowers have a definite pause while they chew and swallow. In the case of Paula Deen, it’s chew, swallow, orgasm. LOVE IT. I think we can tell what class I respect more.