Random Thoughts

Losing My Cookies

This time last year, I swore I would never again spend hours in the kitchen — time I will never get back — baking cookies. But I found myself doing it this week  Why?  Because.

Because I feel like if I don’t give I should not receive!

I know!  I‘ve been told I need to get over it. I know this is the season of giving, and if someone wants to give to me, then damn it, I should let them give. But we've all experienced that awkwardness, that moment you sincerely thank the gift giver while simultaneously beating yourself up for not having foreseen and prepared for this moment.

So once I again, I returned to the kitchen to spend the last several nights adorned in flour or batter, keeping the Christmas cookie mill moving like a well-oiled machine.  Could my counter be any more full of clutter?  I've got two flours, three types of sugar, baking powder and baking soda (I still don’t know the difference), chips, dyes, extracts, pans, spoons, scrappers, a rolling pin and a bottle of red.  Wine, that is.  The only thing that helps me get through this.

The night before last, after my first batch of chocolate chip cookies was completed, rather than feeling accomplishment I felt slight disgust with my progress. I only filled one large cookie tin! This project was going to take hours! Days!

Not only was this taking longer than I would have predicted, but my family was not helping me in my mission to produce dozens of cookies for the inevitable exchanges. A short time into the baking, my two kids and hubby became interested in what was happening in the kitchen. Must have been the unusual cookie scents wafting through the house that got their attention.

Suddenly it became a game to them to poach spoonfuls of batter every time I turned my back. My warnings did nothing to slow them down. They ducked wooden spoons hurled at them and laughed off my threats to hurt someone.  The hubby thought he was adorable as he made off with a hijacked handful of fresh baked cookies. You'd think someone might pitch in to help. But no. They felt no shame in adding to my time served here, toiling to get my cookie numbers up.

So I doubled the recipe for the next batch. Focused only on my cookie count, I thought I was being slick. But when I added in all the dry ingredients and turned on the mixer, I realized  there was nothing sly about it. Unable to accommodate this larger volume, the flour mixture powdered the immediate area in a sudden explosion. Now I was a frustrated cookie baker that resembled a snow woman!

Things only got worse when in my impatient state I made no adjustments, but continued beating. Once the flour combined with the wet ingredients, the mixer began to arbitrarily flick batter into the air.  To where?  I’ll find it! Eventually.  When I go to use that coffee mug sitting in the corner, for example, now caked with dried cookie dough.  I wore some too.  But surprisingly, no one in the house was trying to get at me with a spoon.

A fresh glass of wine? Don't mind if I do!

Sometime in the midst of baking my third or fourth dozen, I made the tragic error of leaving the kitchen for a bathroom break and to throw on a load of clothes. Of course, having left the room I was feeling enslaved in, I got distracted (the wine didn’t help).  When it hit me that I hadn’t heard the timer, I dropped the TV remote to sprint through the house to the kitchen. No surprise that I ran into a cookie thief taking advantage of my absence.

With potholders in hand, I made my plea to the oven:  Please, PLEASE let them be spared!  I couldn’t bear to be set back!  I pulled open the oven door to assess the forgotten batch, with a glimpse over my shoulder at the time.  Ten minutes late coming out, and yep, my two trays of cookies were toast.  Forty-eight cookies, all charred, all inedible.  I scraped off the cookie carcasses, took ten minutes to clean the pans and started over.  With a fresh glass of vino.

Mulligan!

Last night, my final night of this gig, I dusted off the cookie cutters  (it's an expression - relax!) to make Christmas-y sugar cookies.  Whatever.  This time, wine first, then batter.  When it came time to press the cookies, I ditched the angel cutter. Not in the mood to bake celestial-being cookies. But I was feeling it with the gingerbread men. Until I realized I had made another error. I was about to add a tray of newly baked Christmas trees and stockings to the cooling rack when I noticed that all of my gingerbread dudes had taken the shape of the rack. As they cooled, their body parts sank into the rack spaces!

I could have chucked the whole project all at this point. But I didn’t. Instead I picked up a warped man and ate him. One less ugly cookie. I dumped the others in the tin reserved for my family. Don't judge. I'm not enduring this domestic form of torture for them. I will gladly cook for them, but bake? Not happening.  Misfit cookies for them. Back to the drawing board for me.

Last year, I was an equally large baking fool. For two weeks, I was dedicated to my mission. I beat dough, rolled it, cut it, baked it, cleaned up and then tried, unsuccessfully, to hide cookies from my family.  And for what?  To receive what I gave?  (And here, I have to say it’s amazing how so many people can make ONE chocolate chip recipe so differently!) When will I learn?

Next year will be different, I swear! I will approach this differently.

My good friend has the right idea.  She is capable of accepting, without guilt, a cookie tin or gift bag from a neighbor without giving something back in return.

And when she bakes, it involves a cookie roll and a knife. Wine is always optional.