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who did you make happy this week?
April 01, 2011
Boy, it's amazing to me how much happiness you can generate with a small amount of flour, sugar, and love. And postage--the key to making people really happy with cookies is to make them from scratch, and then mail them to somebody.
As you can tell, Nephew and GF were delighted to get a box of love from home, and as for the Phoenix contingent...Oh, m'god. Uncle, Auntie, and Auntie's sister and her husband were all amazed at: A) the very fact that we SENT COOKIES. B) said cookies were, in fact, delicious. C) the afore-mentioned cookies were so well-packed that they shed not a single crumb in transit.
That last one pleased Spouse enormously, since he is a box-packing savant who comes up with the most ingenious methods for protecting things--for the cookies, (after I used lots of waxed paper to make sure there was NO wiggle room within the plastic tub)he used stacks of styrofoam dessert plates to create shock absorbers above and below the cookie tub, and wads of bubble wrap on each side to prevent lateral movement. We have tons of the dessert plates left over from his mom's funeral luncheon, so why not, right? Anyway, it worked perfectly, and we will keep this method in mind for the future--I have a feeling that's not the last time I'll be mailing baked goods.
So I have Auntie and her sister clamoring for the recipe for the cookies, various conspiracies to hide remaining cookies from each other, my aunt recovering in the hospital from her knee surgery and fretting that she's missing out on the cookies, and my uncle at home wolfing cookies to the point where they had to pry the tub out of his hands.
Since the recipe is not exactly a secret--it is exactly the same foolproof peanut-butter cookie recipe from the BHG cookbook that I've been using for thirty years--I will just take the page out of the cookbook, scan, and email it to Auntie this weekend. Really, the recipe isn't the big deal to make these great--it's the ingredients. All-natural peanut butter, real BUTTER, vanilla from Penzey's or The Spice House, and Trader Joe's organic brown sugar. Quality ingredients make a quality cookie.
So--who did YOU make happy this week?
Ugh. I ran out of Claritin in the middle of the week and my allergies are kicking my but today. Itchy, gunky eyes are the worst, but my sinuses, throat, and ears are getting in on it too. TGIF, and I could get to Wally's and pick up a new bottle. Unfortunately, it'll take about three days before my body figures out I'm taking them again and the gunk clears up.
Spouse had decided that this was the weekend to tackle the Tunnel of Fudge cake. But when I printed the recipe out, there were too many things we needed that we didn't have on hand. It isn't easy to find Dutch cprocess cocoa in this town. And, as is common with ATK or CC recipes, it's insanely complicated. So he found it too daunting for the present, and we will tackle it at a future date.
But we did go to the grand opening of the Gordon Food Service outlet store today. And found a number of exceptional buys and interesting things. Thick-cut bacon, 3 lbs for $5.99, individually sealed, 1/3 lb sirloin burgers, 5 lbs for $9.99, and a 5 lb bag of elbow macaroni for $2.99 were the best grand-opening deals we got.
We also got a 5 lb bag of frozen meatballs, which I am not crazy about. The are full of soy and salt, which makes me go blech. Not supposed to have soy (death to thyroids) and hate oversalted stuff. But GFS has canned Swedish Meatball sauce, and he loves Swedish meatballs. I, however, hate them.(With apologies to the Johnson side of the family, Swedish food blows.) But I will eat things I hate, just to make him happy. So guess what we are having for dinner tonight?
Sigh. I've done my best over the last 27 and a half years, and he's come along way...but when your culinary influences are his mother and the Air Force Mess Hall, you are always going to think of disgusting crap as your comfort food.
Reading:Hobby--"Tracy Park" (1886) by Mary Jane Holmes. What I'm thinking about, around the end of chapter IX: Someone who "came along on the trip", but but of whom there is no sign. A black trunk that is over twice the size of a normal trunk. The mental case in question is very susceptible to smells. I'm thinking there is a dead body in the boxroom. Not to spoil it, but I was wrong. Relax, this book still has plenty of jaw-dropping crazy in it. Also reading: "Rainbow Hill" (1924), by Josephine Lawrence
Surfing: Melody's awesome 11-part recap of Tracy Park begins here.
Listening: The Decemberists, Modest Mouse, RHCP, Dawes. Cheap Trick, Coldplay, Pearl Jam.
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