“What’s so great about expensive wine?” I asked.

“The complexity of taste,” she replied. “In fine wines, you can taste all kinds of things. Like almonds.”

I thought about this and realized, you know what else tastes like almonds? Almonds.

Just eat almonds.

Shaves are like film scores. The best of them fade thanklessly into the background, propping up the finer qualities of their hosts without drawing attention to themselves. People often point out to me the lack of comments about my shave, and ask what my “secret” is. “I’m always happy to share the shaving technique passed down to me by my German ancestors!” I tell them. And so, upon noticing that there are like 80 shaving stories on digg, all proposing disappointingly pedestrian techniques, I became eager to share my guide for the best shave in history. Let’s start at the beginning… of time.

Shaving is old

Roughly 95% of all time happened before Gillette (or someone) invented shaving cream. Yet, I don’t recall seeing a single razor bump on any of George Washington’s many portraits. That’s because for thousands of years our ancestors have shaved using natural ingredients easily found in most forests.

What you’ll need

• Olive Oil
• Cinammon Stick
• A Ripe Orange
• A Gillette Mach 3 razor
• A hot water heater, pot and stove, or toaster oven

Instructions

Place a small towel in a quart of olive oil and bring it to 40 degrees celsius. Rub the towel all over your face.

While your face pores are still erect from the silky heat of the olive oil, give your cheeks a steam rolling with the cinnamon stick. This will really open them up. Your face will feel like a field of sticks in empty flower pots. You will feel air breezing past every side of your hairs and wonder what is keeping them from falling right out of your face. By the way, you should also be smelling pretty wonderful right now. If you shave every day, you may find the cinnamon burns your cuticles; to curtail, introduce a harmless bureaucracy below your fingers by placing corn on the cob spears in either end of the cinnamon stick.

Now it’s time to shave. Before you start, your pores need an exit strategy. They have laid themselves bare before you, and you must cuddle that vulnerability for a sustainable relationship. Mount an orange slice on the back of the head of your razor. Not only will it lubricate your shave, it will instantly disinfect your pores and eliminate razor burn. As you shave, stroke sideways to the grain, combining the best qualities of shaving with the grain and against it. I won’t bother telling you not to eat the orange because you will see that it is covered in disgusting hair and you would be disgusting if you ate it.

You’re almost done. Put down your razor. OK, you’re done! That’s right, no need for aftershave — the nature of the orange imitates aftershave’s properties.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to the produce aisle, and prepare for rest of history.

This philosophy has put me in many situations where I have been fortunate enough to make significant contributions to Earth culture. My most recent public service occurred on Saturday night, when I was debating whether to bring cake or pie to a dinner party. First, I asked myself, “Would I rather have cake? Or, would I rather have pie?” And THEN, I asked myself, “Andrew — what if you didn’t have to choose?” It was at that moment that I had a vision for what I would come to call: Cake Pie.

Cake Pie is best described as follows. Imagine a pie. Now take away the pie, and put back the pie crust. Now, imagine a cake. Imagine putting that cake onto the place where the pie was. Put the pie crust underneath the cake. Imagine it was baked like that from the beginning. Behold! Cake Pie.

I am usually eager to share my brainsterpieces with the world’s hungry children. But I’ve decided to delay the release of Cake Pie’s recipe. As long as its creation remains a secret, the Cake Pie will be the chief topic of conversation at all future dinner parties I attend. That is, unless I allow it to become commoditized by releasing its ingredients, which will relegate its mystery to that of the microchip.

Below I present the recipe, less one secret ingredient. That ingredient will be revealed when it is found written on a slip of paper in the back right pant pocket of my lifeless body on the day I die, unless I die in a place that humans are unable to reach for several days. So to be precise, it will be revealed on the day that my lifeless body is found by a human.

Cake Pie

Ingredients: Pie Crust, Secret Ingredient, Cake Icing

Instructions

1. Prepare the Secret Ingredient according to the instructions on its box.
2. Pour the Secret Ingredient into the pie crust.
3. Bake according to the instructions on the box of the Secret Ingredient. Allow to cool.
4. Spread the cake icing on top of the Secret Ingredient.

Goodbye, culinary arts, my work here is done.