12 December 2005

Totally out of my jurisdiction.

Kelli's post reminded me of an upcoming task even more daunting than all of my end-of-term grading and administrative wrangling combined. For the first time I have been invited to a neighborhood COOKIE SWAP. If you're like me, this conjures up images of trips to the bakery, or unpeeling the bag of Milano Mints. However, apparently the cookies for the swap are supposed to be homemade. What the hell am I going to do? Can I bring my signature chicken parmigiana and just cut it up into little pieces arranged in ten sets of 1/2 dozen?

Last winter I had a conversation on the cookie subject around the RHINO editorial table. After much probing and reflection, we came to the consensus that I have never baked cookies on my own because I really don't like cookies all that much. I make a semi-elaborate dinner for my family every night, but desserts are not my forté. However, now that I'm pregnant again, cookies have become somewhat appealing to me. (There you go, Byf.) Perhaps this won't be so bad.

But I'm nervous. Already I can see the bottoms of those suckers blackening. I have a Ph.D. I should be able to figure out how to make cookies. Go ahead and laugh. This guy is:

10 comments:

P. J. said...

You should call my mom and ask her for a recipe for turd cookies (yep, I think we've had this conversation before). They're pretty easy to make, they taste good (though I hate 'em) and they've a unique name. The neighbors'll dig 'em. And what the heck kind of neighborhood do you live in, anyway? Halloween parties, block parties, cookie swaps...this isn't the Ohio I know, where people mind their b'iness and stay indoors watching cable all the livelong day.

marybid said...

Yeah, it's awfully involved, isn't it? Nothing like Michigan, where everyone's busy being adulterous and drinking in the forest preserve with complete strangers.

I spell turd with an e. Terd. But really, it should be tird, methinks.

This is what grading does to my brains...

Justin Evans said...

MAry:

If you buy sugar cookies at the right place, no one will know the difference between homemade or store bought.

I'm surprised you didn't think of this before, or if you had, how you could give up so easily.

Be sure to ask a fraud like me how to cheat. After all, I did get into college without taking the ACT, and into graduate school without taking the GRE or analogies test. I know quite a few short cuts.

marybid said...

You've got a good point, Justin. But now it's actually getting under my skin, like I have something to prove. And apparently the proof is in the pudding.

Maybe I can bring ziplock bags full of pudding instead...

sarahbobeara said...

how about the recipe for snowball cookies in reese's 'blue's clues' book? :b i'm considering trying them, just to get reese off my back.

marybid said...

Byf, I like my modifiers dangling. That's how I got pregnant in the first place. ;)

Steven D. Schroeder said...

Cut from my blog:

"1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 raw egg
1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients in bowl until thoroughly combined. Form "dough" into quasi-spheres ~1 inch in diameter. Place spheres on cooking sheet. Press each down lightly with a fork. Cook at 325 for 12-13 minutes. Eat. Get fat."

So easy that even I can't screw them up (much).

femme feral said...

you could buy those slice and bake cookies and then write pretty words on them with icing.

those peanut butter cookies sound intense!

marybid said...

SS--YUM!

FF--Would they have to be pretty words, or could I write an angry manifesto on them instead? That would go over well with the neighborhood gals...

Suzanne said...

did you just slip in that you're expecting again? Congratulations!!!!!!!

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