Things have finally warmed up around here after a vicious little cold snap — or at least what passes for vicious cold in these parts. Today felt practically like spring, but the cold weather of the past couple weeks still had me thinking of soup.
Also, I spent a good part of yesterday using up piles of butter and chocolate on what turned out to be a disaster of a baking project (lesson learned: get an oven thermometer). It seemed like time for something a little lighter. And foolproof….
When I was in third grade, two of my best friends and I pooled our meager resources, walked to the nearby grocery store and bought our teacher a little, flowering houseplant.
Sycophants, clearly, but I also think the teacher had suffered some sort of personal tragedy — I can’t remember what — and we wanted to express our sympathy. Impressed with our purchase, we carried the plant back and set it on the floor of my friend’s bedroom.
You can probably see where this is going….
Sometimes you make something and, right away, you know it’s a winner. But often, it takes quite a bit of trial and error before kitchen experiment turns into a recipe worth keeping.
I started making molasses cookies last month, to send in holiday care packages.
I tried an online recipe so bad that, after foisting a cookie on my husband, I threw the rest of the batch out. I devised my own approach the next time around and was much happier, but then a subsequent batch turned out almost rubbery. I wondered what went wrong until much later that evening when we discovered an egg still resting on the kitchen counter.
Fortunately, I remembered the egg the next time and, after a few more adjustments, the end result was a soft, chewy molasses cookie coated with sugar for a little sweet crunch….
Whew!
2013 was a great — albeit sometimes difficult — year.
I had a baby, who decided to turn up five weeks early and then had to spend three weeks in the hospital. I saw my husband through two surgeries — one minor and one major (a new knee!) — and my cat through one. I watched my little brother get married and then, a month later, one of my cousins. I mourned the loss of my great uncle, David. I introduced my son to his great grandfather. I quit my job.
With everything that’s happened in the past year, it’s hard to imagine that 2014 might have even more in store.
I’m not a very superstitious person but, like any good Southerner, I always make sure to usher in the New Year with black-eyed peas and a mess of greens….