So, my mum went to a bakery today and brought me a cookie from there. Chocolate chip, right? Can't go wrong with that. Or can you? Apart from being baked no earlier than yesterday morning, it was the most insubstantial, dusty, gritty biscuit that has ever been baked. Fortunately, the establishment was keen to get their name out there and printed their logo onto the sticker holding the box shut (whose name I know better than to post on a website). Looking them up online, I found that they were established in 2015 to provide dairy-free and vegan alternatives to most baked goods. Now, if you're not familiar with Lincoln, Nebraska, anything that was established after 2009 is SUPER gentrified. We're talkin', like, "eminent domain" type gentrification. The type of thing that gets buildings stricken from the historical registry. From about 2013 to 2020, existing installations had to gentrify themselves in order to stay profitable. But then you have new-age glutinophobic coquettes like the founder of this bakery, who are on top of the trend and are exactly the kind that the Chamber of Commerce want on their roster.
Anyway, back on task. Placed as they are, across the road from a Seventh Day Adventist university, I can only imagine the kind of person who goes there. Neoliberal men with man-buns and cable-knit sweaters, cottagecore women with 7 kids whose husbands are managers at Hudl and Nelnet. In general, people who will proudly declare themselves to be gay-rights allies, just so long as you don't talk to them about transgender and intersex people.
Basically, I feel like I just ate the most transphobic cookie in existence. Joann Rowling herself could make cookies and they wouldn't be half as transphobic as these. Apart from being impressively stale, the crumb consistency was somewhere between "dry scone" and "failed attempt at biscotti"; it quite improperly had a caramelised flavour around the edges, indicating it had been baked directly on the tray rather than on any parchement paper, despite not having any actual sugar baked in it. Based on the familiar gritty texture on my teeth from a really sucky day in the distant past, I imagine the sugar substitute was most likely stevia or something derived from it. While I appreciate that the chocolate-like brown melty things were most likely made without slave labour, this remains the only bright spot of the whole experience.
And, for the love of all that is green and good in this world, don't ask me about their website. I had a look at the source code and... no. Mustn't go down that road.