Tips on Beating the Office Blues, # 514.

Recently, collecting the mail has been the high point of my day. Is this sad? I feel like this is pretty sad. I normally don’t check the mail but a couple of times a week, since all I seem get is slips from people telling me I owe them money. The nerve. I’m growing impatient for those IRS fascists to surrender my check, so I’ve been a veritable mail slot vigilante of late. No check. But, I have had some nice, nice surprises:

• A card from my law school roommate, saying that she misses living with me. So. Sweet.
• A letter from my mom, complete with cutouts from the Crate & Barrel sale catalogue with little annotations: “how about this by your table?” “Wouldn’t this be cute in your bedroom?”
• A letter and an update from my sponsored child in Albania. Holy goodness, this child is so cute, it breaks my heart. He had his hair all styled and his ears totally stick out and I love him SO MUCH. He’s seven, in the second grade, and in satisfactory health. His best friend’s name is Gerald. At recess he likes to play with a ball. And when he grows up? He wants to be a doctor. Why? “Because I like it.” I’m seriously considering making that my default answer for everything.
• A box yesterday full of these:

Pink champagne! It’s possible I ordered those for myself (cough). But still! A nice surprise!

I’m on such a roll that I almost hate to check tonight, in case I break the spell. Or, you know, I could always just ship more alcohol to myself.

I almost brought one of those champagnes into work today, except for the minor inconvenience that I’d probably get fired for that. I get the distinct impression that it’s difficult, nay, near impossible to get the ol’ pink slip around here, though I suspect that acting like a floozy and drinking on site in the week I’m charged with playing supervisor would do a fine job of testing that theory to its natural limits. I’m not really that curious.

The thing of it is, I’m meant to be here:

Ah, Paris. No joke, I was slated to cover a conference, in Paris, this week. Since almost a year ago. It’s a long, long story that would showcase (I fear) some very unattractive bitterness on my part to fully explain. [But first a quick aside: my boss views conferences as paid vacations. He transposes the same on me, which is ungrounded as (a) I historically work my ass of on every assignment; and (b) I have won awards for the same (since which time, I will note, I have gone on zero out-of-office assignments). Also: I’ve been to Paris. I speak (passable) French. Not a vacation, you jackass]. Short story thus: boss pulls the plug in April, citing “budget concerns”; blames upper management, washes his hands of it, and goes to Disneyworld. Nice.

We have a Paris correspondent who allegedly will be covering “key portions” of the proceedings. Except he lives an hour outside of the city, and can’t really go to all of it, an e-mail today informs me. Thus, here I am, reading the transcripts, calling my contacts (long distance to Paris—take that, Mr. No Budget), and editing his work into the stories I would have written. Tears, bitter tears I choke back.

A good companion to stifled sadness, though? Espresso walnuts. Yum-my. And so easy!

For those coffee-inclined out there (and friends of the same), I’ll present the directions:

• spray a baking sheet with nonstick vegetable oil, and preheat oven to 325’
• combine 2/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons finely ground espresso (like you’d put in a machine), ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt in a small bowl
• in a large bowl, whisk one egg white until it’s frothy
• add 4cups of walnut halves to the egg white, tossing to coat
• pour the espresso mixture over the walnuts, again tossing to coat
• spread the walnuts over the baking sheet, and bake for five minutes. Loosen with a spatula and shake the nuts around, then bake for an additional five minutes.

Voila! Espresso walnuts, with many thanks to the Bon Appetit Christmas issue for the inspiration. They also had prettier pictures, but whatever.

They’re a fantastic pick-me-up, and aside from the sugar, they aren’t so bad. Nothing artificial, no preservatives; cinnamon is totally good for you, and nuts are healthy, right? Protein and coffee. Brilliant.

A word to the wise, though: if you make these at night, don’t just stand over the pan and eat them because oh holy goodness, they’re just that delicious when they’re all hot and toasty. Ground espresso has a funny way of inhibiting sleep. Don’t even ask me how I know.