Snickerdoodles
Cookies are just about the best thing ever. Forget about those crap Cost-Co junky things that show up at business lunches everywhere. Forget the packaged cookie that is so dry it could be used as kindling on a family campout. Forget the architecturally lovely packaged goodies that taste like nothing. I'm talking about real cookies. Cookies with eggs and butter that require a mixer. Cookies that make the house smell wonderful. Cookies that bend slightly and then break in half with a small crackle. Cookies with layers and levels of chocolate that require your full attention and a glass of milk. Now that's a cookie. The Snickerdoodle recipe I used is posted below. The only catch is that I added my new favorite ingredient, Vanilla Paste, and the recipe only calls for two tablespoons of sugar and two tablespoons of cinnamon to roll the cookies around in before baking. I think that's kind of cheapskate-y. So I used half a cup of both. And yep, you'll have cinnamon under your nails for a couple of days, but there are worse things right?
Snickerdoodle Cookies
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1 cup Shortening -- soft
2 each Eggs
2 3/4 cups Flour
2 teaspoons Cream of tartar
1 teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 tablespoons Sugar
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
Who Doesn't Love a Flying Tomato?
"I'm hoping Sasha Cohen dates gold medalists. 'Hey, babe. Oh, this? Oh, yeah, I just got it. How you doin'?"
--Shaun white, U.S. snowboarder, breaking into a line he might use on the figure skater
Check out this article from the Mercury News. I only hope Chad Hedrick goes home with a stomach ache.
Stone-Henge
So it was G's birthday and he wanted a hootenanny. That's right, a hootenanny. You suspected that we were dorks, and I've confirmed those ideas, right? Well, lest you confuse it with a barn dance, a hootenanny is when all your musician friends come over and sit in your backyard and play and sing, with goofy abandon. And they did. And it was fantastic. And so were the slightly unremarkable looking cupcakes that are pictured. While they look like your average, white on white with sprinkles cupcake. They are made with with I've discovered is the perfect icing recipe.
Vanilla bean paste, instead of vanilla. I'll post a recipe later. The table was spread with all of G's favorite stuff, including homemade Chex Mix, fish crackers, brie, crackers, Snickers bars, guac and chips and peanuts. And ... a five pound bag of peanuts.
To make a long backstory short.
G + peanuts = Hell on Earth (kidney stones)I don't know if you know, but peanuts contribute to the
stones. For five long years I've resisited the buying and eating of peanuts, not wanting to enable my husband's debilitating addiction to the nut. There have been tense moments at ball games, and in bars. And then I gave in, I mean it's not my kidney, right? We even laughed (insert mirthful laughter here) at our friend L's militant resistance of all things that may contribute to stone-age. (Cue death of mirthful laughter.)
I'm sure you can see this coming... Guess who had a kidney stone last week? WHILE DRIVING. Well, it wasn't ME. He was writhing in pain. Real mind-bending, earth shattering pain. It was awful. Awful to go through, I'm sure. Awful to watch the person you love most in the whole world gasp for breath. After is passed, we sat in the emergency room and he said, "Don't say it." And I didn't. Kept my mouth shut tight. Kept it zipped. No sireee. Not a word from me. Nope. Nothing. Zippo.
