My friend J. cannot eat sugar, or wheat, or yeast, or any combination of any of those, which eliminates from his diet pretty much all that's good in the world. It is a sad and terrible way to live your life, and for him, I grieve.

He is a little trooper, and it doesn't seem to bother him, these terrible restrictions that would wreak holy hell on my mood and ability to live through the day, but his ass is rather more stoic than my dramatic one. I know he must be crying inside, though, and I cry with him. I cry especially hard because his birthday is coming up, and a birthday without cake is not a birthday at all, am I right? Of course I am!

He likes pie better than cake, though (which is another way in which he is weird), and I am a good friend with many good qualities, and thus I have tracked down a raw apple pie recipe that sounds absolutely batshit crazy, completely terrifying to even think about beginning to attempt to start to try and consider making, and also totally up his alley, for he is a person who enjoys nuts, and fruits, and also pies. But raw apple pie! It is about as weird as mock apple pie, only it is a little healthier. I never thought I'd spend a couple of days soaking nuts (ha ha! I am 12!) and grinding things and pressing them into tins and not cooking a pie, but the sanctity of birthdays must be preserved, and I am the one to preserve them. And that pie? Actually looks pretty tasty.