The Secret Dutch Conspiracy for Global Domination

Do you work?

I mean, do you go to some place of business five or more days a week where you perform set tasks in the company of at least several other people? A place with a restroom, a break room, and a regular schedule of breaks and lunch hours (even if you don't have time to take them)?

Yes?

Then you've probably been up to your neck in cookies lately. Good cookies, bad cookies, ginger cookies, chocolate chip. Rum balls, snickerdoodles, spice cookies, butter cookies. Shortbread, oatmeal, peanut butter, biscotti. And meringue.

The break room table sags and groans with the weight of plates, bowls, platters, boxes, and chests of cookies Cookies so hard they'll blunt your teeth. Cookies so sodden with butter that they're as floppy as jellyfish.

Because it's the holiday season. And everybody brings cookies to work, including you. For the joy of the season and the joy of giving? To show affection for one another? Well, maybe. Partly.

But mainly, because you made too many cookies at home and need to ditch some on others before you explode trying to eat them all. Or because Aunt Franconia shipped you a three-pound box of her justly infamous maple shortbread squares and you've gotta get them out of the house before your arteries brick up for good.

So you bring yours. And everybody else brings theirs. And you can't resist theirs, and they can't resist yours. And you all spend two weeks snacking compulsively on the sugary cookie buffet in the break room until your stomach acid is at a permanent low boil and your belly fat bulges over your belt. And your blood sugar is peaking and crashing so often that you can't actually do anything but play that idiot Microsoft Solitaire game.

Somewhere, a Dutchman is laughing.

The word "cookie" comes from the Dutch word koekje, which means "small cake." The Dutch introduced cookies to America back in colonial times. They knew we were destined for greatness, and so they planted a time bomb in the American culinary repertoire.

So now, for at least one month a year, the white-collar workers of America are made logey and useless by snowdrifts of tasty but debilitating treats. And they make bad, bad decisions.

Why do stupid things happen most often at the end of the year? Why do bald-headed treasury secretaries dump hundreds of billions on banks to make them lend money -- which they don't -- and why does Congress allow it? Why do Detroit CEOs think it's a good idea to take their corporate jets to Washington to plead poverty before hard-faced senators? Why do people who owe thousands decide to go even deeper into debt to buy the latest iPhone or a flat-screen TV?

Gotta be the cookies. You just know the GM CEO had a plate of chocolate-frosted butter cookies in front of him on final approach to Reagan International.

And crafty Dutch financiers, long-inured to the deleterious effects of cookies by centuries of natural selection, wait for the financial system to crash so they can swoop in and take over global finance and make everything nice and orderly and profitable again. And Dutch. Six weeks out of each year, we're at their mercy.

The fiends.

We must all do what we can to fight Dutch financial hegemony. My small part is this recipe for pretty delicious chocolate zucchini cake. It contains very little fat, fresh nuts, dark chocolate (good for the heart), and would almost be healthy except for the cup-and-half of sugar. But you can eat a hefty chunk of this stuff and still feel good afterward: stomach un-roiled, brain still clear, energy intact. And it makes a great combo with raspberry sherbert or sorbet.

I will say that this is an "adult" cake: not overly sweet, heavy on the dark chocolate. Grown-ups who want taste instead of sugar will like it a lot; kids, not so much. But there are ways to make the recipe kid-friendly, and I'll give them at the end.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinammon
1 teaspon baking soda
1/2 teaspon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups shredded zucchini (or chopped really, really small)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rub a film of butter inside two 8x8 baking pans and sprinkle with flour. (Exact pan size doesnt matter; I often use a 9x9 and a loaf pan, and it works fine.)

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. When you're done, the mixture should have a uniform appearance.

3. In a separate bowl, combine sugar and eggs; beat until well blended. Add oil and apple sauce and vanilla; beat again until combined. Stir in zucchini.

3. Add flour mixture to wet mixture; stir just until moistened. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips. Spoon evenly into loaf pans.

4. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick or knifeblade inserted in center comes out out clean, without bits of half-baked cake clinging to it (streaks of molten chocolate chips are okay). If you're still not sure, check whether the edges of the cake have pulled away from the pan; if they have, it's done.

5. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; then remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack or large plate.

This recipe is pretty robust; you can vary almost everything except the leavening, flour, and zucchini. As for doing the mixing, I just use a wooden spoon.

To make this recipe more appealing to kids, for example, increase the sugar to two cups and decrease the cocoa to 1/4 cup. Also use semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet.

If you don't have applesauce around, just increase the oil to one cup. But it's lighter with the applesauce, sits easier in the stomach, and tastes a little better.