take a giant step outside your mind.

2006-12-27 / 10:56 a.m.

I think I'm finally done having chocolate cookies for breakfast. I know the holidays are not technically over, but I most certainly am finished with holiday baking, so once the cookies are gone, THEY ARE GONE. I seem to be the sole cookie-eater in this house. Even when the Brit has requested cookies, he then forgets that I've made them, or forgets where I store them, whereas I tend to eat a cookie every time I walk past the cookie jar, or better yet/worse still, I just sit next to the cookie jar and eat them on an ongoing basis while I work.

These cookies are the bomb, too, unless you are a vegan. I heard about them on the Splendid Table a few years ago, and hunted down the recipe on the interweb, and since then have made them many times (to great acclaim). I have noticed that the texture of the dough can vary wildly, and though I am no baking scientician I'm guessing that dough texture depends on the temperature of the butter. This last time, though the butter creamed perfectly, the dough was SUPER crumbly and I didn't really have the patience to squeeze it together. I believe that previously, the butter was warmer and the dry ingredients, therefore, incorporated more easily. Also, I almost always just freeze the dough logs, which look like giant turds in saran wrap (which is kind of fun). I think the dough is easier to work with when it's frozen almost solid. And it is also quite delicious when it's frozen (no eggs, so you may get your dough-eating on with impunity). Just FYI. Highly recommended cookies, if you are the sort of person who enjoys the taste of chocolate.

Now let's talk about loot, because I am eagerly awaiting one piece of requested loot, the procurement of which has turned into a kind of travesty. My mother, as I have mentioned, is a pro seamster, and though she hardly ever makes clothes anymore, she outfitted my early childhood and spent the rest of my childhood with an outdoor gear repair cottage industry in the basement. Oddly enough, however, I never learned to sew properly, and now as an adult I am bursting with unfulfilled craft and wanky design projects that would require a sewing machine. In the past, it was no big deal to stop at my parents' house and use the machine for a few hours, but now I live further away AND I have room for a proper workspace. It is time to have a machine of my very own. So, I put my mom on the job, which is always a good idea if you want to buy a high-quality big ticket item for cheap. It is possible that she enjoys a bargain even more than I do.

Also, my mom knows her sewing machines. She has been scouring ebay for the past month or so, and finally found what she wanted, bought it from some idiot girl who said it worked great, and discovered when it finally arrived that it wouldn't even stitch. The repair bill for the machine currently exceeds the purchase price, and my mom is in ongoing negotiations with this idiot girl to get her money back. The only cute thing about this story, really, is that my mom took the machine to the same repair shop she's used for 15 years, and the same 80 year old man is still repairing the machines, and she said to him recently "you know, you probably don't remember every person that comes in here, but 15 years ago when I brought in my Elna and you told me the motor was burned out, I actually wept because I loved that sewing machine so much." He was like "whatever," but it gives me joy that my mom a) burned up a high-quality machine through extreme use and b) wept about it in the repair shop.

So that's my loot story. I have a sewing machine, sort of. I have a lovely amber pendant from my boyfriend and I didn't even have to pick it out myself! He was offended that I didn't specifically point out the jewel to my parents and that they did not, therefore, compliment him on his selection, so if you see me wearing it, make sure you let him know that he has good taste and that my parents probably like him. I also have some exciting little woodcut prints from my sisters. And assorted other odds and ends, naturally, but what's most important here is that the chocolate cookies are gone, or very very nearly.

Crunch,
Maven.

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