COOKIES!!!

As a fair number of people could tell you, I am not a bad cook. In fact, I am a rather decent cook. I might even be a good one. As a somewhat fewer number of people could tell you, I am a messy cook.

When I am in the midst of a project, the kitchen invariably appears to have had a small flock of geese go through and pull things off shelves, chewing packages and leaving a medley of ingredients...well, somewhere in the kitchen. But of course, I know exactly where they all are (cough cough...really, I do) but no thank you, I don't need any help. No matter how many times one might hear me mutter "Now where did I put that spatula?"

Because I like to cook. I enjoy the insanity that I go through, whirling from counter to counter, checking the recipe then going "meh, let's do something else anyways", mashing and spooning and smashing and beating.

Food processor and electric mixer? I don't think so. We're doing this the hard way.

Because chocolate chip cookies are worth it.

And not just any chocolate chip cookies. These are the Consummate chocolate chip cookies! Of doom.

Someone actually went out and researched chocolate chip cookies. (Tough life, eh?) And experimented combined the elements that seemed to be the most successful. I thought it might be a good idea to try to make them.

Unfortunately, I cheated on the first ingredient. I don't have cake flour or bread flour. I used all-purpose flour. Gasp! The horror! Then I discovered that when sifting the dry ingredients together, the coarse salt called for doesn't actually make it through the sieve. Hmmm.

I threw it in afterwards.

I also discovered that it is a good idea to check the cupboards to see what kinds of bowls are available. Metal salad bowls that are slightly too small are not the best. But when that is all your roommate has, well...yeah maybe I should go buy bowls.

Creaming butter and sugar together in a slightly-too-small bowl is a challenge. It is necessary to either be extremely careful and therefore go slowly, or make a huge mess and get it everywhere. Or in my case, both works.

Tip: Make sure to note which ingredients get put into each bowl. It is not a good idea to sift the dry ingredients into the larger bowl because there are more of them, then cream the butter and sugar in a smaller one when you have to put the dry ingredients in the butter/sugar bowl.

When you're doing it by hand, "Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes." means "BEAT THE HELL OUT OF IT for 20 minutes."

Also "Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds" translates to "Stir very slowly because your bowl is too small and you will get flour EVERYWHERE until it's all mixed together which will take 8-10 minutes."

Very important: When they tell you to add the chocolate pieces, eat some. And when the dough is done, eat some of that too.

Slightly less important: Don't wear a black shirt...



No you don't get to find out how they turn out. At least not yet. The dough is in the fridge, where it will remain for "at least 24 hours" which means I will be baking at midnight tomorrow! YAY!

Here's hoping for a more educational fin du semaine.

It's only Friday (ok, Saturday morning...) and I've already learned that waxing legs is really not worth the effort. It takes too much time, although I can't really decide whether I'm annoyed that I ran out of Battlestar Galactica episodes before I finished, or if it just would have been a hell of a lot faster had I not been watching BSG in the first place...

In other news, I learned stuff during the week. Like that "Let's go out for a beer. Just one." really means "Let's start by going out for a beer, and finish with getting home at 3am."

Lessons learned this weekend:

1. When making mojitos, it is beneficial to make the simple syrup BEFORE commencing with the drinking. This prevents sugar from getting all over the kitchen.

2. Also when drinking, it is better to choose snacks that are not orange in colour. Especially when you have beige carpets. People tend to be a lot more careful about their drinks than the snack bowl.

3. When going for a day trip somewhere (especially with musicians) always plan to be on the road an hour later than you thought.

4. When hiking, do not take the least experienced hikers' estimates for trip times. Just because they can walk 10km in 3 hours, does not mean it takes the same amount of time when lots of hills and difficult terrain are involved.

5. Never leave your facebook logged in on someone else's phone.


Actually that's not a hell of a lot. I only learned 2 things each day (1 for friday evening). I shall endeavour to have a more educational weekend next weekend...or some other time.