don't take recipes from strangers

(or "the batch of ill-fated sugar cookies")

i love holiday baking and sugar cookies hold special memories for me. my mom & i used to bake them every year and then decorate them with every imaginable color of icing, and there was nothing better than a few fresh sugar cookies - the icing perfectly set - and a big glass of milk to reward all of that hard work.

you could say that this year's burning desire to bake sugar cookies was my inner 8 -year-old longing for a taste of her childhood. saturday morning, i rose early, cracked open my recipe book and proceeded to mix the dough for sugar cookies. it was in tasting the dough (as every baker knows is a requirement!) that i noticed it seemed sweeter than mom's cookies... i was disappointed, but kept going. the purpose for making the cookies was to have something for matt to take to a party that night, and something to offer guests that were coming over the next day. so i kept rolling, cutting and baking.

the baking part went fairly smoothly, especially compared to the rest of the evening. the cookies came out and i tasted again: they were definitely too sweet for me. i looked at the recipe and thought through my steps - yes, i'd done everything right. they were simply too sweet for me. and it was far too late to turn back now.

so i'm feeling short on time - having to send at least half the batch with matt in under an hour. to speed the process along, i'm cooling cookies in the fridge on a rack, and apparently having a serious case of the dropsies. more than one cookie gets fumbled between pan and fridge, shattering on the not-exactly-clean-anyway kitchen floor.

gotta keep going - i mix the icing. no recipe - recalling from memory... confectioner's sugar, water, vanilla... or was it milk and vanilla... mom doesn't remember, so i go with milk just to be "safe". first dribble of milk into the mixing bowl - icing's too thick, need more milk. second dribble - i lose control of the gallon, and pour way more milk than intended. ack! i mix and taste the icing. doesn't taste like mom's. frustration is mounting. i mix in some color to see what i can work with and begin to ice the done & cooled half of the batch.

the icing is runny, to say the least, and i'm not thrilled by the idea of serving these to company, but they're probably okay for matt to take to his party. except that the very wet icing won't set. matt comes home and is very patient and understanding, until he urges me that he has to get going and i tell him to just wait a minute, i'm not done yet. having gotten the point that i'm having a "bad cookie day", he impatiently says "i'll just get something at the store".

wrong answer, bud.

i basically send him packing when i - with the heat of the 375 degree oven in my eyes - suggest that he does, indeed, just get something from the store. he leaves, and i've had it with the cookies. it's about time for a saturday night movie on TV, so i set out to fix myself a plate of goodies. of course, i drop the first gooey cookie on the floor, icing side down. *sigh* cleanup the mess, start again.

i walk to the living room, balancing my plate of cookies atop my glass of milk, as i do with my breakfast every morning. i reach the coffee table - and i bet you saw this one coming - the plate gets jostled and goes down, smashing into my glass-topped coffee table, shattering both the plate and the cookies into a thousand shards and a bunch of dust all over my table AND floors (oh, and icing-side down, of course). being of a rather skittish nature, this process startles me, and i jump back. the milk in my glass reacts as one with a basic understanding of physics would expect and sloshes out of the glass and down - onto the couch, the coffee table and the floors. i hope santa doesn't mind eating his milk & cookies off the floor because i might very well leave it there till christmas...

at this point, i'm pretty sure i'm being tested. i mean really - how could one day of baking possibly go so awry without it being used for Divine Purposes? i sigh and retrieve the necessary supplies to clean up, fix myself another plate, and then effectively ban myself from the kitchen for the remainder of the evening.

the next day, as i'm cleaning up for company (and cleaning up the previous day's mess in the kitchen), i'm sweeping. what remains of the cookies - which i intend to ice with something other than my recollected icing recipe - is resting on the rack on the counter. the kitchen being small, and me being in a hurry, the arm of the broom brushes up against the edge of the rack and sends the whole thing tumbling onto the floor. every last whole, servable cookie is now face down, on the floor, and in pieces.

so maybe the whole day's events weren't related to that one recipe, but i've found that cookbook rather hit-or-miss, and those cookies definitely didn't taste like mom's.

today's picture:

i've always loved miniatures, and have admired my mother-in-law's collection of christmas houses for several years. her collection spans the entire top of their entertainment center, with trees and figurines and even a little gravel pathway. last year, i fell in love with a set and began collecting for myself, with the help of the after-Christmas sales and a little contribution from my mother-in-law. it's minimal now, and when compared to hers, looks rather pathetic and bare, but i love it. i love the way the houses glow when they're lit up and the room is dim. i love the warm, cozy feeling they give me. and when we're not having a white Christmas - at least i know my little Christmas houses are.