Friends, welcome to Bleach and Sugar Cookies, my virtual test kitchen and little nook of the internet. If you're here, you're probably aware that some recipes are only for cleaning the fucking countertops, while others are sweet. Both are welcome in this area. You can't make a gorgeous cake in a kitchen that the health department has condemned. And my life was a culinary crime scene for years. The only tool I had left was a bottle of bleach, the ingredients had gone bad, and the surfaces were covered in the stain of old grief. I scorched the ground upon which the kitchen was built in addition to burning it down. This post serves as the introduction to my new cookbook, which tells the tale of my kitchen renovation from the ground up. Here's my rebuilding formula. Let's begin with this dish's name: From Bleach to Bloom. My twenties and early thirties were characterized by the flavor "bleach." An attempt to sterilize a recipe gone horribly wrong, it was t...

Okay, grab a chair, Sweet & Gritty Gang. Not only are we analyzing a cold case file today, but we are also analyzing the recipe book that sparked the commotion in my neighborhood. I was raised just a short distance from the VA Hospital at 33rd and Kensington. It could be just another zip code to an outsider. However, Kansas City residents are aware that our neighborhoods weren't seasoned by chance. They were painstakingly prepared, with some ingredients purposefully allowed to go bad. This is more than just a history lesson; it's the tale of how, even now, when you hear the sirens wailing, the invisible lines that were drawn on a map a century ago still feel like brick walls. 📜 The Poisoned Pantry: A Segregation Recipe It would be impossible to discuss Kansas City crime without mentioning the cookbook. As you can see, early 20th-century real estate developers such as the J.C. Nichols Company constructed barriers in addition to homes. Racial restrictive covenants were a fan...

Call me a ghost and butter my biscuits! My long-term partner pulled a Houdini-esque disappearance act on July 18, 2024, last year. We were simmering one minute, and then—poof! Lost. similar to a soufflé that bursts as soon as the oven is opened. It felt more like dropping the entire damn book in a puddle than it did like turning a new page. Naturally, the timing was perfect—just before my bachelor's degree final year, which I was completing while working a full-time job at a behavioral health and substance abuse treatment facility. The Three Ps: From Planter to Dangerous "Pop-Off P" Now, the golden rule is obvious to anyone who has ever ventured into the murky waters of recovery: before you even consider a penis, get a plant and then a pet. The holy trinity of newly discovered self-care is it. To demonstrate your ability to keep a damn thing alive, you must first cultivate some stability, a small pot of something green. After that, you advance to a furry friend—someone yo...

Hello, Gritty & Sweet Gang! Welcome back to the digital bakery, where a true crime documentary is typically playing in the background and the oven is always on. Finding the sweet spots among the harsh realities is the focus of my blog, Bleach and Sugar Cookies. Today we're delving deeply and thoroughly into a different kind of Kansas City horror that was a little more... domestic. I am referring to Robert Berdella, a man who elevated the concept of solitude to a completely new and profoundly disturbing level. For this in-depth analysis, we're borrowing from Wikipedia, the most trustworthy online resource. Consider the following facts with a great deal of disgust, sarcasm, horror, and a grain of salt. The Illicit Recipe: From Isolation to Acquisition The origin story of Robert Berdella, who was born in 1949 in Ohio, sounds like a monster recipe that was put on the back burner for too long. He was a bright child who was socially isolated due to a speech impairment, thick glas...