On a dark and stormy Halloween night in 2016, a family from Brooklyn wandered down the gluten-free aisle in the Upper East Side Whole Foods.  Legend has it that the hunt for an edible frozen pizza crust made of cauliflower drove them mad, and they were never seen or heard from again.

Good morning! Me Cookie Monster. Sam Sifton and Melissa Clark both on vacation, so me here to help you plan out week of cookie – oops, cooking. 

Me grateful to NYT Cooking for valuing diversity of perspectives. It have recipe collections for sad people on special diet, like gluten-free, low fat, and potato salad. But Times also platform for connoisseurs like Cookie Monster, who think cookie is foundation of food pyramid. Me personally believe pyramid should be shaped like cookie, but me will save this argument for me op-ed column.

Hi there, the name’s Bruce, I’ll be your caddy for the afternoon.  You might think you know me from Electric Light Orchestra’s 1979 classic, “Don’t Bring Me Down.”  The words in the chorus sound like, “don’t bring me down, BRUCE,” but my name isn’t actually in it.  That song is an earworm, though, and the line that sounds like “Brrrruuuce” is an even tinier worm that crawled in the ear of the earworm and held on for its dear wormy life.  

6:03am: In my recurring dream, I’ve been transformed from a dinner plate into a decorative plate. I’m mounted on the kitchen wall, imperiously looking down at the workaday dishware as they toil away. No one speaks to me. No one places anything upon me. Passersby admire my rendering of the Queen Mum on her 90th birthday.