February is the absolute worst month. Just look at this week. It has been snowing for days on end. I've had the words "get your life together" written on the back of my hand in Sharpie for more than 200 hours and I still haven't gotten anything together. Valentine's Day is a mere eight days away and I hate romance and the color pink. Everyone else has a job offer and I'm still waiting for graduate school admissions to determine whether I have a future or if I need to find a cardboard box to live in next year. Despite all this, Feb. 5 was a great day.
In case you missed it, yesterday was World Nutella Day. I had no idea this was a real holiday - isn't every day Nutella Day? - until I checked my Twitter during class and realized I had missed out on roughly 10 hours of global Nutella appreciation. When class finished, I bee-lined to LaFortune and managed to snag the very last jar of Nutella in the Huddle. Sorry I'm not sorry about that one - I got to enjoy Nutella the way it should be eaten: with a spoon, straight from the jar until it's all gone. While I couldn't allow myself to finish the entire jar, I made a sizeable dent in my Nutella nonetheless. I'm not sorry about that either. It was the highlight of my week.
Fortunately, for those of you who missed out on eating spoonfuls of heaven on World Nutella Day, there are other ways to get your fix.
Nutelladay.com features an archive of over 700 recipes incorporating Nutella, and every single one of them sounds sinful and delicious. If you check out the site, be warned if you click on the recipe links there are food porn pictures that will make you drool on your keyboard. From butternut squash with Nutella sauce to Nutella champagne shooters, salted caramel Nutella fudge to Nutellacrèmebrulee, and Nutella-coated bacon to molten Nutella chocolate cake, everything on the list is worth trying. I will give up vegetarianism for 10 minutes if it means sampling chicken enchiladas with Nutella or Nutella-marinated steak. My post-graduation life may still be up in the air, but I know for certain what I am doing this weekend. I will be in the kitchen, testing as many recipes from the archive as possible.
So don't let February get you down. World Nutella Day may be over, but Nutella never fails to make even the worst days a little bit better. When the permacloud, wind tunnel and icy sidewalks get to be too much, or you just can't bring yourself to finish the reading for your philosophy class, grab a spoon and hope the Huddle restocks the Nutella shelf.
