The Brownies My Wife Bakes With Sugar Substitute Are Fucking Awful

Dear Good Housekeeping,

My wife reads your magazine every month to learn of new succulent recipe ideas for the family. Normally, my son and I love the creative dishes she comes up with. But the ‘Decadent Unbrownies’ she made the other day, and credited to your publication, were objectively disgusting.

I am not usually one to complain about my wife’s cooking, the recipes she derives from your fine periodical. Most of them, I absolutely adore. The ‘Tempting Tuna Casserole’ with onion, garlic, mustard and avocado was simply delicious. The ‘Precocious Pasta Bake’ with breadcrumbs, Easy Cheese, broccoli and Spam was positively exquisite. The ‘Oscar Winning Olive Loaf’ with red pepper flakes, orange juice, hot dog buns and chicken gizzards was quite scrumptious. I felt like I was dining at the Ritz-Carlton when she made us the ‘Matador’s Meatloaf’ with apple cores, dirt and Clearasil. I felt young and in love again when my wife made the ‘Succulent Steak A La Mode’, with the suggested venison, motor oil and cream cheese. I felt like my mother, god rest her soul, had risen from the grave and I had to blow her zombie head off, again, when my lovely wife made the ‘Zu’Licious Zucchini Rice Bowls’ with organic zucchini, breast milk, snake meat and Vaseline. And I felt like I was the President of The Magical Land of Narnia, sitting down at a state dinner with a bunch of talking lions and magical dwarfs, when my wife made appear at the dinner table the ‘Simply Amazing Spinach Artichoke Dip’, complete with leftover ‘Matador’s Meatloaf.’

I am a sucker for a fine dining experience. The old saying, ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,’ seems written with me in mind. And my son, he brags to his friends on the playground how good a cook his mom is, and the kids carry him around on their shoulders like the end of that movie Rudy, when Rudy hits a home run and saves the town from a tornado.

Sorry. I don’t know where I was going with this. Keep ’em coming!

Yours truly,

Scott Vantage