Dear Blog, It isn't you, it's me...

Dear Blog,

I don't know where to start. I've thought a lot about you, but I just couldn't bring myself to write until today. It's not that I haven't been baking, I just haven't been baking from the Gourmet Cookie Book. I hope that doesn't make things worse between us.

I have a lot of other interests, and I take good care of my family, and I got a promotion at work recently...  and really, there is so precious little time in every day. I'm going to make it up to you. In time you'll see that I have it in me to honor the commitment I made. In the meantime, I wanted to show you a few things...

For Christmas, my dear cousin Jennifer gave me the Cookie Pro Ultra II Cookie Press. This toy tool has completely changed my life. I use it ALL THE TIME. The son and I love to add food coloring to the dough and make fun colors and shapes. These cookies are made and eaten faster than you can say Cookie-Pro-Ultra-II-Cookie-Press, but I managed to snap a quick picture a while back.

The pictures doesn't do the process justice, but the cookie press knows how I feel about her. That's all that really matters.

This is what I made for St. Patrick's Day. One platter for the son's classroom, one for the husband's work-suite, and one for my lovely coworkers.

Four leaf clovers and rainbows with gold pieces at each end. I didn't think this up, I got the whole idea here. I loved the concept and will do it again. I didn't love the recipe as much, but I have other refrigerator sugar cookie recipes to work with.

Here is my last offering. This comes from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook that my sister gave me.

I've talked about this cookbook before, and it has Changed My Life. Seriously.This piece of beauty is the brioche bread recipe turned into cinnamon pecan rolls. They are delicious. I plan to double the filling (butter, sugar, spices) next time, and they will be heavenly.

So... I wanted you to know that I still think about you and I'm trying to arrange things in my life so we can spend more time together. Even the son wants to bake from the GCB again soon.

OK. That's all I have for now. Bye bye bye bye bye.

Brandy Snaps

First of all, look at the picture on the left and answer me this: What's missing from the ingredients?  That's right, BRANDY! 

That was Disappointment #1 for me with this recipe. 

(The editors assured me the brandy didn't add much flavor and it's cheaper to make virgin Brandy Snaps. But I would have liked a good reason to buy some, that's all I'm saying.)

Disappointment #2 would be the way they looked compared to the description and photos in the book. "Ultrathin, these cookies melt in the mouth..." The book shows light nearly passing through these delicacies, and you could practically hear the "snap" when you turned the page. 

Disappointment #3? The taste. The flavor was in-your-face strong and I expected something far more delicate.

My Brandy Snaps were thick when they should have been thin. Chewy when they should have been snappy. And I didn't have a clue how to roll them. The tips offered by the editors were sparse, to say the least. 

I found two good write-ups online only AFTER I'd made mine. It was reassuring to learn that someone else thought the recommended baking time was too brief. Mine didn't spread all melty-like when they were in the oven, they just kind of puddled. Maybe mine had to much flour? Maybe the batter cooled too much before going in the oven? Who knows. I'm not sure I care. 

The instructions said to roll them over a dowel immediately after removing them from the oven. I burned my fingers with every single batch, even after I decided to let them cool a few minutes before handling because they are 99% sugar and do you have ANY idea how much heat sugar retains? A LOT, let's just leave it at that. 

They looked so yummy in the book and were so far from what I expected. I might do a little research and try again because I'm stubborn like that. Here's what they looked like at the end of it all: 

Better luck next time. 

1/1/11 Wedding - Wee Wookies

 Let's refresh. Wookie = Wedding + Cookie

The bride and groom were planning to slice the 9" wedding-theme decorated Wookie, so the mini-treats served individually to their guests came to be known as Wee Wookies. There's a lot I could say about the process and the growth opportunity it became for me, but I think pictures are best now.

Start with brownies (yes, that's really the recipe I used, minus the nuts, with a squirt of Hershey's syrup added). Spread the batter thin-ish on a baking sheet instead of filling a 9x13 pan. Feel free to slightly underbake these, since they will see the inside of an oven again soon. After cooling, use a round cookie cutter to cut them into disks.

 

Why disks? They're not entirely necessary, but they look nice later on. You'll see. You could use a knife and cut squares, or I suppose you could just break them into pieces, but the circles work better in the final product.

Now you need chocolate chip cookie dough. I needed Wee Wookies for 60+ people, so I made A LOT of dough. 

Scoop large balls of dough, you need one ball per Wee Wookie.

Wet your hands and flatten the cookie dough.

Insert one brownie disk and wrap the dough up around the edges...

... and over the top.

My young helper took those last two pictures. They're a little blurry, he's still learning. But they're good enough to tell what I'm doing. Bravo, little helper!

Plop the dough balls into muffin tins that you've greased, greased again, and then greased one more time.

Catch your breath now. It might feel like you're nearly done, but don't be fooled. They will be delicious at this stage, but you have decorating ahead of you and that really makes them sparkle.

As soon as they come out of the oven...

...turn them over onto a cooling rack. And I can't overemphasize this. They need to come out of there ASAP!

 

If you get an entire pan to come out smooth and beautiful like these above, pour yourself a drink and toast your success. Celebrate like it's 1999. Dance until the cows come home. It's a lot harder than it looks, and I lost at least one in every batch to extraction-related injuries. 

Who am I kidding? In one batch I lost 9 of 12 because the bottoms stuck in the pan. I wept. I've put that behind me and don't want to talk about it. I didn't take pictures. It was sad and heartbreaking and cause for panic - this is a wedding after all - but I'm over it. Really. Totally. Over it. Sigh.

While they're cooling, make some Chocolate Satin Frosting from the Joy of Cooking. Add a heap of cinnamon just to make it yummy. Dip the Wee Wookies upside down in the frosting and swirl 'em around a bit. Shake off the excess and set them back down so the frosting can set up nicely. Don't worry about the shaggy edges showing at the bottom, the frosting will drip down and cover that. 

Pipe a whipped cream frosting star on top and VOILA!

I had an entire dining room of these goodies:

 

Aren't they beautiful? 

Inside, there's a brownie baked inside a chocolate chip cookie. Just like I promised!

The reception was fantastic. The bride was beautiful, the groom was charming. The food was all home-cooked and the Wee Wookies were delicious. Many, many congratulations to Fawn and Ryan, it was an honor to be such a special and yummy part of your celebration. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - -

p.s. i made and decorated the (big) Wookie for the bride and groom but didn't take pictures of it. several people at the reception took pictures for me, and when I get a good copy I will post it here and tell you about it.

'Tis the Season...

...to bake as if you suffered from a life-threatening nutritional deficiency of butter, sugar and vanilla.

The top goodies were made for a friend from Ohio (Buckeyes, get it?) and the bottom goodies were made for my son's holiday celebration at school.

Frankly, I thought six year olds would get more of a kick out of dark chocolate and mint chip cookies, but I think they were pretty overwhelmed with holiday cheer  by the time parents showed up with treats at 2:00. I dutifully plated them out and an hour later put 90% of them back into their air-tight portable home and handed that to the room mom with my holiday blessings. She really wanted them, but I felt a little cheap. She's been an awesome room mom and deserves more. I'll try to make it up to her by the end of the year.

Last weekend the son was in a holiday performance and the parents were asked to provide cookies for the reception afterward. If I'd known how many people were involved in the performance and reception, I would have gone down to Costco and bought 5,000 commercial somethings. Instead, I baked my heart out and made over 10 dozen Chocolate Chip Oatmeal and Old Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies:

I don't regret it, of course, but I like a more intimate setting when I and my cookies meet new people. We just want to build a relationship, you know?

I have high hopes for finishing the 1940s in the Gourmet Cookie Book tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes!

June 1948: Jelly Centers

These are a keeper, if you ask my son. I'm not a fan of jam except in the close company of peanut butter, but these were a huge hit with everyone else.

The cookies are buttery rich with a hint of lemon, and I substituted toasted coconut for chopped blanched almonds on top. No reason for that really, except I had some toasted coconut sitting around and wanted to use it up.

You could mix up the flavors in any combination, really. Raspberry jam tasted delicious with the lemon/coconut cookie, but lemon curd might have been fun to try also. I have apricot/pineapple jam in the fridge that probably needs a simple vanilla cookie underneath. Almonds optional on that one.

They are really pretty and once again my photos don't do them justice. I'd happily and proudly serve these to guests, they look and taste great.

The Universe Wants Me to Exercise

From my horoscope today: "Physically, continue to do sport, given that regularity is much more important than intensity."

Thank you Master Rao for that sage advice. If you give me a housekeeper, a cook, a second car, AND a chauffeur I might have the time, energy, and inclination to "continue to do sport."

OK. Thanks. Bye Bye.

Sunday Weigh In - First Things First

Two week net: -2.2
Total: -12

You may have noticed I skipped a week for weigh-ins. I was in Chicago on Sunday and my tall and naturally thin sister doesn't own a scale. In typical weight-denial fashion, I decided to give myself a break and skip the weigh-in. That, coupled with the cookies, bread, and homemade ravioli in Chicago, resulted unsurprisingly in a net gain that, quite frankly, I didn't want to write down.  

That's a long way of saying that you can ignore the man behind the curtain and just go along with me here. Since I last weighed in here, I have lost 2.2 pounds (moderately sarcastic YAHOO!) and since I began tracking I have lost 12 pounds (bigger, more realistic YAHOO!). 

The funny things about all these numbers is that you can only go so far with them. I want to calculate my per week average loss (ok, I DID calculate that and it's about 1.3 pounds per week) but that doesn't tell me anything helpful because the goal is the bottom line (12 pounds of approximately 60). Looking at it per week treats all weeks equal, and that's just not real. Some weeks are up and some are down, and sometimes I have control over that (points baby, points) and sometimes I don't (hormones, namely). 

Bottom line: It's all about the bottom line, and the ends DO justify the means. I have a net loss of 12 pounds so far and that's 12 pounds more than if I'd done nothing at all. I'm eating better and exercising more and those are accomplishments worth celebrating. So YAHOO for me and for all of us working hard on personal goals, whatever they may be.  

Baking in Chicago with my Sister

I took a long weekend and went to Chicago to visit my sister and her growing family. Her second child, a boy, is 6 weeks old and was as amazing as newborns are supposed to be.

To welcome this beautiful boy to the world, I baked the boots off his momma's kitchen. We made three, yes THREE, batches of my "signature" chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and one HUGE  batch of the Old Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies. 

This was a small, staged sampling. Rest assured there were about a million more cookies than I've shown you. There are also small containers of chocolate chip oatmeal cookie dough stashed in her freezer for future use: 

Then we made artisan bread, which didn't look exactly like this but will when my sister figures out the optimal setting for her oven: 

She has a baking-with-yeast phobia, so I walked her through the basics of making the simple dough, letting it rise, then letting it rise/rest/relax again, then baking it in a hot oven with steam. That's all that stands between you and delicious homemade bread, BTW. We opened early Christmas presents the night before I left, and not surprisingly I gave her her own copy of the book -- now we both have copies since she gave me mine for Christmas last year. 

The chocolate chip oatmeal cookies served a very noble purpose on Monday afternoon. Shortly after I left for the airport, her heat quit working on a day that was predicted to peak at 18 degrees. She called her heating guy and told him he'd get cookies if he bumped her to the top of his list. He arrived within the hour and fixed her right up!  Not only are these cookies tasty, they make great currency too!  

Sunday Weigh-In... on Sunday, how novel

This week: +1.7
Total: -9.8

Meh. Whatever. It was Thanksgiving. It was a fantastic meal. I have a TON of leftovers. And it was a wild ride, emotionally speaking, so I'm ok with the numbers this week. Today I walked for 40 minutes and that felt great.

You may have noticed there weren't any cookie updates. I've been doing more run-of-the mill baking. I made a batch of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for friends who came over to visit after dinner last night. Then I sent all the rest of the batch home with them as an early Christmas present. So I'm still mindful of The Cookie and The Challenge, but I'm not blogging as much about it and I'm not making any progress in The Book.

There's a lot going on. It's Holiday Season. I'm going to Chicago this weekend to see my sister, brother in law, niece, and brand-spanking-new nephew. I'm nearly done with the Christmas shopping. And there's a fair amount of Family Drama (extended, not immediate) going on in the background. This is all just a way of saying that I'm making progress in some ways and I'm treading water in others, but I'm mostly ok and I don't have a lot of baking or weight loss topics to blog about. Sorry to disappoint.

Weigh-in (success) and an update, but no cookies

This week: -0.9
Total: -11.5

Not bad. Really, not bad at all. I'm not going to make my Thanksgiving challenge, but I'm still losing and that's the point. No Gourmet Cookies this week or last, it's all about Thanksgiving. Frankly, that has me pretty stressed out so I'm not holding myself to extra high expectations regarding weight.

I could go on at length here about the family stress that is Thanksgiving, but I'm just not going to blog that much about my personal life. At least not the seriously neurotic parts of my personal life. If I write THOSE stories I'm going to publish a book and make a gazillion dollars and sell the movie rights to Matt Damon who can play my ex-husband. But I digress...

I will say that I've finished some cool Christmas knitting and craft projects, but I can't post pictures because the gift recipients' mother reads this blog and I don't want to ruin the surprise. I'm also getting close to finishing a pair of socks for my son. They are special toe-socks that can be worn with flip-flops, the footwear of choice around these parts. I'm nearly done with my Christmas shopping, and that brings me great pride and even more relief.

I've been reading like a fiend lately. I'm working my way through The World is Flat which is highly readable since Friedman is a journalist, but also very meaty (to me) so must be taken in small bites. This book is referenced in so many other books and articles that I decided I need to know what it says to understand the context of discussions about The World We Live In. It's very interesting and I highly recommend it.

I'm also working my way through The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do About It. Not because I'm unhappy with my child's education this year, but because I want to understand the educational paradigms that influence my child's education over the next 12 years. Next up on this topic is 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times. My kiddo's (expensive private) school is all about 21st Century Skills and I really don't know what those are.

I flew through The Cardturner by Louis Sachar this weekend, mostly to see if I wanted to give it to someone as a gift for Christmas. I do and I will, and it was a great read if you're even remotely interested in young adult literature (Sachar is an amazing storyteller) or the game of bridge. This book tells a wonderful story in its own right, but it's also a loving ode to the game of bridge.

Lastly, I finished The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie just last night. It's also shelved in young adult literature, but Alexie is such a great writer that this story can be enjoyed by anyone. It's narrated by Junior, a 14 year old Spokane Indian, and illustrated with Junior's cartoons about life and the people around him.

So my dear friends, I wanted to give you the weigh-in stats and a little update about what I'm doing besides baking cookies. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Sunday Weigh In

This week: -0.2
Total: -10.6

Sound familiar? I know. 

Last week was just too much. Too much Old Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookie. They were awesome, but there were far too many of them. I took them to my work, I sent them to work with the husband, and I took them to a BBQ.  And there were still too many around for me to exist safely in my own home. 

I did manage to exercise three times for 30 minutes, and that's better than zero times, right? I'm tracking points this week and exercising too (rode my bike today) and remain optimistic that I'll have a bigger loss to report next week.  

But man, oh man, did those cookies try my will. In fact I think they temporarily broke my will. I let a cookie rule my life. I turned it all over to a cookie. Humbling. 

But it was one seriously good cookie. More later. 

Happily ever after

Made more cookies today with my best small helper. 

We made sunshine stamps,

and we made pink bunnies, 

and we made moon and stars.

And we all lived happily ever after.

Until 8 PM tonight when "we" went out to the garage 

and pumped away on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes. 

Ugh. 

But the cookies made it worth my while.

Oh! My! Good! Ness!

I am swooning - absolutely SWOONING - over the Old-Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies. 

From start to finish these are a hoot. The recipe calls for 3 hard-cooked egg yolks. In a cookie. Who's ever heard of such a thing? 

You press the yolks through a fine sieve and get the strangest velvety stuff that evidently works magic in cookie dough. You also add three raw yolks. That's a lot of egg yolks by any measure. 

The recipe gives you a choice of adding the zest of half a lemon or 2 teaspoons brandy. I opted for lemon zest but will try the grown-up version next time. And believe you me, there will be many, many next times for these goodies. 

The dough chills pretty firm but rolls out without too much work or crumbly mess. Even at 1/16" (yes, I measured) the dough holds its shape well enough to transfer easily to a cookie sheet. 

On baking, these cookies hold their cut shape beautifully. The cookies pictured above were made with William Sonoma's Circus Cookie Cutters which are not, contrary to their advertised promise, kid-friendly and easy to use. 

I've tried these crazy cutters on several cookie doughs and failed every single time. The dough sticks in the delicate animal limbs of the cutters. The decorative impressions are too shallow or deep. The cookies inflate on baking and you lose the animal detail. But they worked on this dough like a charm. A charm from Tiffany's. Did I say swooning already?

On to taste. And texture. Deliciously buttery. And deliciously flaky. And 100% awesomely yummy. They taste old-fashioned by today's standards, but they earned that title in December 1947!  These taste like love coming out of a warm oven with a tall glass of milk chaser. 

If I weren't professionally committed to copyright law I would type out the entire recipe right here right, now because you have got to make these yourself and share the love. 

Here's the final kicker, and if you've read old posts you know how I love this detail. The last sentence of the instructions read "...bake in a moderate oven... removing each cooky as it is ready." I love, love, LOVE cooky instead of cookie. I might start using it myself. 

Sunday Weigh In

This week: -0.2
Total: -10.4

Weight Watchers says: "You lost again this week! Congratulations, and keep doing exactly what you’re doing! See you next week."

I'm totally over exaggerated (exasperated?) enthusiasm and really need a kick in the pants. Sure, I'm happier having lost 0.2 lbs than gaining 0.2 lbs, but c'mon, it's not awesome. Who are we kidding. 

So. I've set a mini-goal to lose 6 pounds by Thanksgiving. Mini-goals are meant to inspire you to break routines and push yourself beyond whatever has you stuck. Six pounds is reasonable but will require a little extra OOMPH on my part. 

I'm doing ok with eating, mostly, but I'm still not exercising. So in preparation for Thanksgiving I will do *better* with eating, mostly, and I will exercise. I can't commit to being *excellent* with eating since I'm also committed to the cookies. Such is life. I'm willing to live with that eensy-weensy self-imposed handicap. 

And I'm proud to report - drumroll please - that I did exercise tonight. I used the elliptical machine that's otherwise gathering dust in my garage and I listed to half of a This American Life podcast (Superpowers, if you follow TAL). Elliptical machines are deadly dull, but it's dark so early now and I'm not likely to exercise during the day because I'm schedule challenged. Anyhow, I think it's good for the other members of the home team to have time together  without me, so after dinner works ok for now. 

And I also packed a lunch today, which helps a ton with the eating. I get too hungry at work if I don't go prepared. And then I eat too much unhealthy stuff. Today I had a delightful sandwich with leftover roasted chicken, cucumber, and Laughing Cow cheese on a toasted English muffin. We have a toaster in the lunch room, I love sandwiches on toasted English muffins. 

On the cookie front, I was tragically disappointed by the macaroons I prepared for First Friday. Instead of improving with age as they had done last time, this batch hardened to the point of being embarrassing and I had to substitute The Pioneer Woman's Sugar Cookies at the last minute. They really are the world's best sugar cookies, but still. I wanted macaroons. 

I made date bars and they were wonderful. They looked wonderful too but I forgot to take a picture. Darn. 

So I'm a little torn on moving forward in the Cookie Book - December 1947 is Old Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies - veresus obsessing over macaroons and making all the recipes I linked to in my last post. 

In the spirit of the mini-challenge, however, I think I should leave the macaroons behind and move forward. I'm a little stuck on macaroons and need to break through that routine. OFCBC, here I come!  

Cajun Macaroon for First Friday

We have a small gathering at my house on the First Friday of most months, so I made Cajun Macaroons today (Wednesday) so they will be at their prime on Friday night. I blogged about these gems here and here, and after tonight it's safe to say I'm a little obsessed.

Here are the cookies on their way into the oven:

And here they are after cooling:

The Gourmet Cookie Book has the 1941 recipe, and Gourmet continued to publish variations on the original in 1997, 2001, and 2007 (yummy photo here).  I really LOVE the flavor of these macaroons, but I'm not wild about the texture. As discussed earlier, I beat the egg whites harder this time, and I think that was an improvement. But they're still so flat, and that takes some of the yummy out of eating them. I'm happy enough to serve them to friends, but I'm going to keep trying for the perfect recipe.

In other news, I ate so much of my little man-child's Halloween stash yesterday that I wanted to puke most of the night. I had a tummy ache all day and have a headache still tonight. I'm cured of the urge to sugar binge and want to eat nothing but lean protein and vegetables for a few days. But he had a great Halloween and will  happily eat and effortlessly metabolize all that candy by the weekend. If he doesn't finish off his stash, I might try to talk him into this to get it out of the house. (Thanks to Jennifer for turning me on to the Picky Palate blog. I don't have picky eaters but the site has lots of great recipes!)

P.S. I'm thinking about making date bars for First Friday too, those have quickly become a new house favorite!

Sunday Weigh In

This week: -0.6
Total: -10.2

Exaggerated optimism first. WOW! I lost weight yet again! I've lost over 10 pounds! And I've lost 5% of my starting weight! 

But I'm not thrilled. I'd like to be losing more and faster - about 2 pounds a week. I've kept within my point limits, and that's good. But I haven't been exercising, so I've got to work that in. And I didn't eat really well this week, I had a lot of empty calories and too much impulse eating. Not enough nutrient-rich food. 

Eat less. Eat better. More move. That's all there is to it. 

I'm actually liking the eat less part. When I eat too much I REALLY feel awful with a full, bloated tummy. My tummy is troublesome on a good day, and it's generally been a lot healthier. 

When I plan ahead, I eat better. But that's hard for me to do consistently. There's a lot I could say about that, but I'll save it until I have a message and not a rant. 

Moving more? We went for a family walk at the beach today, and that was awesome. Gorgeous weather, good beach combing finds, and the father/son team played football the whole way out and back on the sand. Now if only we could do that every night. We live in paradise, we sure ought to do it more!  

Enough for Sunday. Enough for October. I'm ready to move ahead and do better in November. 

Moravian Cookies are a Keeper

The picture doesn't capture how amazingly thin I managed to roll these. The Cookie Book recommends 1/16" and I was nearly there. 

I got out a ruler and measured. I'm like that. 

They are indeed yummy and hard to describe. The flavors just aren't what we're used to in Betty Crocker Cookieland. 

Sherry is super sweet, but also has a sort of sassy kick. It's not sweet like whiskey or amaretto, it has a little more depth of flavor. The cinnamon/nutmeg combo just makes you think "apple pie", but these taste nothing like apple pie. So the cookie tastes interesting and unpredictable, and that makes you want to eat a few more while your mouth  figures out the flavors. 

In the oven they behaved like a two year old - they required constant attention. I kid you not, they could go from looking slightly undercooked to completely brown in 30 seconds. I overcooked two baking trays of cookies before I got the hang of it, but I saved those because they're still good with a cup of coffee. 

The original recipe left the cookies unfrosted, and I understand why the 2010 editors added frosting. They're really plain looking unfrosted. I still have some dough in the fridge and am thinking a simple powdered sugar glaze with colored sugar might be enough to dress the up. Or maybe even a simple egg wash before they go in the oven. The cookies can stand on their own taste wise - and they might even be better without the complication of icing - but they could stand a little spit and polish before serving. 

All in all, a keeper of a cookie. I'll make these again gladly. 

Moravia, whisks, and website design

I'm working on the Moravian White Christmas Cookies (December 1946). The dough is chillin' and I'm feeling good. I wish I'd taken pictures, because this was really pretty dough. There's a lot of beating that needs to happen, so today I'm very grateful for the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. 


The butter and sugar gets creamed until it is light (paddle attachment, 5 minutes) then four well beaten eggs (hand whisk, 2 minutes) get mixed in (whisk attachment, 5 minutes). The result is fluffy and light and really beautiful. Then flour, cinnamon, nutmeg alternating with sherry (wow!) are added (paddle attachment, 5 minutes) and that brings us to the Now. 


I should have taken pictures. It would save me a thousand words. Maybe I'll make these again over the weekend if the taste lives up to my hopes. 


While we're waiting for the chilling to occur, I want to share two things. Neither is trivial. 


First, my whisk.  

I bought this silly looking thing from the William Sonoma catalog over ten years ago. It was sort of a gag gift for someone else because it was so silly looking. Later, I was at the recipient's house and the power went out before she'd whipped the cream to go with dessert. I was handed the silly whisk and a bowl of cream and told to Whip It. Much to my amazement, I had whipped cream in no time. I went out and bought one for myself and have never regretted it. Turns out, you can't judge a whip by its cover. 

Secondly, Moravia. 

If you're smarter than me and know where Moravia is already, you can skip this part. But I'm a fairly well-educated person and I finally admitted to myself and my stand mixer that I didn't know where it was. 

According to Wikipedia, Moravia was a historical region of Central Europe in the the eastern part of what is now the Czech Republic. At times the Moravian Empire also included area that is now part of Poland and Slovakia. It's name comes from the Morava River. Today, Moravia is part of the Czech Republic. 

The Moravia Tourism website tell us that there are 8 sites in Moravia on the UNESCO World Heritage List. That's really something. 

If you're interested, the Discover CZ website has details on each site, but it's kind of hard to navigate that site. I took a class in library school on cultural differences related to  website design and information management, and the Discover CZ site would be an interesting case study of culture influencing design (she says having spent exactly 45 seconds on the site...). The layout is hard for me to navigate, but there's clearly an architecture to the information that makes sense. 

Gotta run now to a Halloween party at the wee man's school. I'll update later on the cookies - with pictures! 

Sunday (on Monday) Weigh In

This week: -0.2
Total: -9.6

First impressions: good enough 

I wasn't hugely diligent with point tracking this week and just tried to eat well once I had an appetite. On Saturday I baked cookies for my uncle - about 4 dozen each of peanut butter and chocolate chip oatmeal. He loved them, ate them, shared them, and is raving about them to everyone, so it was worth every BLT point. And that night I went to a wedding with yummy food and yummy wine and yummy cake. It was bound to be an uninspiring week for weight loss.

Which is where the Untiring Optimism of WW comes it. I'm back on the wagon, tracking points and making good choices. I ordered the "fresco" tacos for lunch today at Taco Bell (I will not be made to feel guilty about The Bell, don't even try), and I had an apple for snack this afternoon. I ate a reasonable but small amount of dinner. And I even walked after lunch today.

I'm finally on the mend health-wise and I feel SO MUCH better than I have these past few weeks. I'm still only about 90% but I don't feel infirmed any longer.

So. That's that. More tomorrow :-)

Baking Detour - Breads

I've been channeling my creative energies this week into (1) knitting in front of the TV while my family watches baseball and (2) baking bread. 

If you own one book about bread, it should be this one. Yes, I want you to click the link and visit their site. Buy the book. Read the book. Love the book. Bake the bread. You won't regret it. 

Here is the challah: 

And here is the buttermilk bread: 

Tomorrow is cookie day, and probably more bread. I'm visiting my uncle on Sunday and want to take a lot of goodies. He loves peanut butter, so I have Betty Crocker's version of PB cookies chilling in the fridge. He also loves oatmeal, so I will make the classic Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies. I'll make some bread, not sure which loaf. Maybe both. He's ill and not eating a lot at the moment. I know these aren't spectacular choices nutrition-wise, but I'm going for high-calorie at this point. Eating anything is better than eating nothing. At least for now. 

I'll pick up with the Gourmet Cookie Book next week. My son is excited about the Moravian Christmas Cookies (1946) because they involve cookie cutters and icing. He's an easy man to please.