something beautiful

Just so you know, I’m not being arrogant when I call them the perfect chocolate chip cookies – that’s actually the name of the recipe. I came across it in an issue of Cooks Illustrated magazine I got a while ago (if someone wanted to get me a subscription to that magazine for Christmas, my birthday, or just because, I totally wouldn’t mind), and I have to admit, when I first read it, even with the great explanation of why all the extra steps were necessary, I was skeptical. It seemed like a lot of work for chocolate chip cookies. I mean, do I really have to brown the butter before I even get started? And what’s with the mix thirty seconds, let it rest three minutes, mix it thirty seconds more, let it rest three more minutes, etc. – is it really that much better than just mixing it all at once?

Truthfully, the answer is yes, yes it is that much better. I never knew chocolate chip cookies could be this good.

Of course, mine were only almost perfect, as I do have a tendency to not follow recipes exactly. Perfection would be out of character for me, anyway.

Recipe is here: Cook’s Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

It seems I was remiss in my previous post – I neglected to mention what my dad brought to our Thanksgiving dinner this year. First and foremost, he hosted it. Without my mom. That’s a major contribution right there.

That was not all he brought to the table, however – oh no, it was not. He also made some fabulous barbecue baked beans and a delicious macaroni salad. You may wonder why I didn’t mention this before. Well… I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that he doesn’t normally contribute to the feast (whether he does or doesn’t is irrelevant – I didn’t want to imply it), that he’s a newbie to the provision of Thanksgiving dinner, that he had any apprehension about the edibility of the spread this year. Although, in all fairness, he may well have had a great deal of apprehension about his daughters’ ability to cook something up to the standard of fare he was used to – particularly his youngest daughter’s, but he certainly never said so. Besides, he deserves his own post, don’t you think?

Photos courtesy of my niece, Felicia.

So, despite any concerns we may have had about making Thanksgiving dinner without Mom, everything turned out great. I did not end up making homemade bread, but I did make the pumpkin cheesecake, the acorn squash, and the stuffing. Carol and I even made gravy, just like our Grandpa taught us to. Carol rocked the turkey and “smashed” potatoes, and Felicia made the Best Smashed Sweet Potatoes Ever. Of course, Sara Lee’s apple and pumpkin pies were pretty tasty, too. And just like when Mom cooks, we had enough leftovers to keep three households fed for a week. Photo credits belong to my niece, Felicia, who was the only one who brought a camera, and who kept using it all day.

This year, for the first time ever, my mom will not be around for Thanksgiving. That means my sister and I will be responsible for cooking dinner for our family gathering. My sister, having spent the first four years of her married life in a foreign country on another continent, has some experience with this. I, on the other hand, have never prepared a Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, I usually get asked to make the frozen corn, and I’ve been known to burn it. I’ve never even considered making a turkey and in fact, have often joked to my family that if I ever had to be responsible for cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we’d been eating turkey hot dogs. (At this point, you will all be happy to know that my lovely sister is taking care of the turkey – I just have to help hunt down the recipe.) I am, however, responsible for more than corn this year, so I am researching and planning, and I am determined to make something not only edible, but incredible. Right now, I’m eyeing an “easy” pumpkin cheesecake recipe on Tasty Kitchen, acorn squash (which I actually know how to make because I love it and make it on days that don’t start with “Thanksgiving”), and the Pioneer Woman’s stuffing. And fresh-not-from-a-bread-machine bread because I already know how to make that, too, and find it somewhat fun. Stay tuned for an update this weekend…. we shall see if it gets filed under Kitchen Nightmares or not.

of her newly remodeled kitchen (which I will be blogging soon) so she could post them on facebook to show our aunt in Kansas. When I met her at her house, she had just arrived home from grocery shopping, so we quickly put her groceries away before shooting.

Here’s the thing about groceries: there are some items that may live on your counter on a daily basis (like hamburger buns), that you might not want included in images that you were going to share online, in which case you might temporarily stash them in the oven, where the unsightly blue branding on the bag would remain unseen.

And you might, if you happen to be my sister, have a sister who laughs and says, “I can already envision that melted to your oven rack.” To which you might respond, “No, I’ll know they’re in there because I put them there,” which makes perfectly good sense.

It is very important to note that this laughing sister is not being malicious or insulting your intelligence, it’s just that we have this family history….

Fast forward through an hour of me climbing around on things to get a certain angle, moving my light source from spot A to spot B, blah blah blah … somewhere in which my sister invites me and the kids to stay for dinner, which of course we accept.

As we began making dinner, we are talking. And laughing. And there are plenty of children and teenagers walking through, among other distractions. But dinner is going fine.

Then someone notices the smell of something burning…

As it turns out, when there is a lot of talking and laughing, and plenty of children and teenagers walking through, among other distractions, it is entirely possible and probable that you will forget about the bagged buns in the oven, even if you are the one who put them there. This, of course, will lead to more laughing, because didn’t we just talk about this a little over an hour ago?

Fortunately, there are plenty of teenagers about, one of whom can be relied upon to go to the store and get more hamburger buns.