Introduction, or How This All Came To Pass

Two days ago my favorite local bakery, Pastries and Petals, posted on Facebook that they had The Gourmet Cookie Book in stock, featuring the single best recipe from each year 1941 - 2009. Yesterday, I went down and bought a copy. Let me repeat that. I bought a cookbook in a bakery. That's how much I love (1) cookies and (2) this bakery. I also bought 3 cupcakes, but that's not entirely the point here. I leafed through it while waiting to pay, I leafed through it at every red light on the way home, and I read it at the dinner table instead of talking to my family.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would bake every single recipe in the book and I would love every minute of it. I would tell everyone I knew about it. I would share the cookies at work. I would analyze the recipes and ponder how ingredients, baking, and preferences have changed between 1941 and 2009. I would make notes in the margins. In short, I was bat-shit crazy about this cookbook.  

And then I remembered that I am on Weight Watchers trying to lose approximately 60 pounds. 

Major. Buzzkill.

So the COOKIE part of this obsession project is obvious: I will bake, photograph and discuss all the cookies in the book. That's not the challenge, that's pure passion. 

The CHALLENGE will be to continue losing my weight and holding myself accountable to that goal in this (rather public) forum.

I've told exactly one two three people that I'm doing WW, though people at work looking over my shoulder might have figured it out by now. I've lost my first 5 pounds which is a big deal in the WW community, and I feel good enough about my chances of success that I'm willing to go public. I'm not ready to tell you what I weigh right now. Take what you think I should weigh and add 60 pounds to that number, you'll be close enough for government work.