The trouble with cookies | Jules Maas
By JULES MAAS
Covington Reporter Columnist
July 22, 2010 · 4:16 PM
Give me grammar, give me code, give me project management - I’m your gal. But baking isn’t one of my strengths. In fact cooking isn’t one of my strengths.
Top two reasons you will never see me on “Hell’s Kitchen.”
1. I am often introduced by my friends as the woman who put a take-out pizza box in her oven to warm up lunch. Because I had seen my friend, Jerry - a chef, mind you - do the exact same thing at his house. We have a gas stove.
2. I am also the woman who ran out of vegetable oil one night and called her sister in pure amazement because my Betty Crocker cookbook said I could fry fish in melted shortening. She almost hung up on me.
So how I was able to look at a 100 plus year cookie recipe the other day and think to myself, “This is totally doable.” I have no reasonable explanation. It just happened to fall out of a binder while I was looking for something else, wrapped in a note from my grandmother. She sent it to me two years before she died. As I reread her brief note, I remembered the smell of those cookies. And I had to have them.
I didn’t think about the fact that the recipe had my GREAT grandmother’s name, right there, ON THE CARD. I didn’t notice there was no temperature listed. Or flour measurement. Or that any of these minor clues might indicate, oh, possibly, that these were baked in a wood stove. Which would make those teeny details slightly more important.
It’s safe to say they were a complete and utter disappointment. They turned out about three times weirder, fluffier and flourier then they were supposed to - but I made them.
Phone calls have been made. Relatives consulted. Next time, I’ll be supervised.
Contact Covington Reporter Columnist Jules Maas at editor@maplevalleyreporter.com.Comment on this story.
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