Treats for appetites of every size
This was both an amazing and absolutely terrible idea. I’ve had Serious Eats The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe saved on my Pinterest for literally about 3 years. In that recipe, Kenji, who runs the food lab (a science person’s dream baking blog) painstakingly adjusts every ingredient in chocolate chip cookies until he arrives at his ideal. And I finally gave it a try.
Happy Mother’s Day! As is my tradition (if two years can be considered a tradition), I’m dedicating this week’s post to my amazing mom, who also happens to be my best friend. Love you, mom! Yesterday, when I was wondering what to bake, I called her for ideas. Normally, I would go the coconut route, but I feel like I’ve done that a lot recently, and since she won’t actually get to enjoy the treat, it seemed more mean than thoughtful.
Nine hours. That’s how long it took me to drive from Massachusetts to New Jersey yesterday. How long should it have taken? 4-5 depending on NORMAL traffic. But no, I was instead hit by a snow storm that kept me at no more than 15 miles per hour throughout the state of Connecticut. And if you know me, you know how I feel about driving on 95 in the Connecticut. So that’s why this post is a day late.
After being sick at the end of last week (which is actually the worst thing as a teacher – it makes you realize just how much energy you need on a daily basis), I made it up to Massachusetts for the weekend just in time to experience one of those blizzards I’d been hearing so much about. Down in New Jersey, this winter has been very much a story of “There’s a huge blizzard coming our way, everybody panic! Oh wait, it missed us, but it did hit Boston.” Up here, it’s a very different story.
Baking ingredients all have their own personality. Some of them are over-sensitive, hardening and becoming unusable at slightest hint of oxygen (I’m looking at you, brown sugar). Some of them have a way of hiding in your cabinet and only appearing after you’ve bought a replacement (that would be molasses, as discussed here, and, oddly, Karo syrup). And others fall into the general category of “You Will Only Ever Have To Buy This Once Because It Is A Magical Never Ending Container” (obviously, this is baking powder and baking soda).
Today is my last blog post of 2014, and what a year it has been. There have been a lot of changes, both good and bad, and, honestly, I’m kind of ready to leave it behind. A new year always holds such promise for fresh starts and trying new things, and I could use that right about now.
Yesterday was my five year high school reunion, which is weird for me to think about. I got to see people that I actually haven’t seen since graduation, as well as others that I’ve kept in better touch with, and it was awesome to be able to hear about what everyone was up to. A lot has changed since high school (I definitely wasn’t as into baking back then), but in a lot of ways it was nice that some things stayed the same.
As I mentioned last week, this weekend was cookie baking weekend. This year, I made cookie tins for 16 different people, so I made 5 full batches of treats in total. That is not an insignificant amount of cookies. In fact, I was in the kitchen so long that I went through my entire Christmas playlist. That’s a good 5 hours of Christmas music. As a side note, Straight No Chaser’s new album is excellent. I’m partial to “Text Me Merry Christmas” and “Nutcracker“. You should watch both of those videos before you keep reading.
This was the first weekend that really felt like the holiday season. It was cold, curl-up-inside-with-a-book weather, and it took a significant amount of self control not to turn on Christmas music while I was baking (I have a rule with myself – no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving). So, when my aunt Anne texted me a picture of what she was baking, I immediately asked for the recipe.
Ahh, November as a teacher in New Jersey. After the mayhem that is the start of the school year, this month feels like a breeze. This past weekend was a long weekend for Teacher’s Convention, which I took advantage of to journey down south to DC and Baltimore to visit some friends from college. It was a short trip, but walking around inner harbor in Baltimore made me very nostalgic for a road trip my family had taken a long time ago.