Butter & Love

  To know me, is to know that I love to bake.  A self-admitted dessert junkie, I'm rarely more at home anywhere else than when I'm in the kitchen baking sweet treats for my friends and family to enjoy.
  You can't get much better than a good cookie, and I've long been trying to perfect my go-to cookie.  Allen doesn't like chocolate in his cookies, so that's had me experimenting with different combinations.  Often I would just follow a basic drop-cookie recipe and add whatever sounded good, using up ingredients I had a little of or trying something new.  I was quite partial to the dried Michigan cherries, but Allen didn't care for them as much, leading me to continue the search.
   And now I think I've hit the proverbial cookie jackpot with my latest concoction.  Studded with moist, golden raisins, flecked with bits of coconut and oats, and sweetened with a variety of chips these cookies are crispy, chewy, and golden.  Good luck eating just one! 
  I'm in a sharing mood:
This recipe is an adaptation of The Joy of Cooking's Quick Oatmeal Cookies recipe.  If you have another base recipe you like better, use that and just add the remaining goodies at the appropriate time.

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  
Cream 1/2 cup of unsalted butter
Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar.  Cream.
Add 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 T milk.  Mix well.
Sift together: 1 cup sifted flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt.  Mix into creamed mixture.
Stir in 1 cup rolled oats, scant 3/4 cup each of peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, golden raisins, and coconut.  
Place on well-greased cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart, and baked until golden brown (10-12 minutes).  
Makes about 3 dozen cookies.  

This lucky girl has a new helper in the kitchen and her name is...

 

Kitchen-Aid Mixer!!

  The only things that could make this Valentine's Day complete are new skis and a powder day!  Oh, wait, that was yesterday...

All is full of love.  

~Bjork

Let Love Rule

I've spent a lot of time in the past few months basking in the glorious light of other people's love.  Friends I hold dear marry new friends to cherish, and old friends join together as they embark on fresh journeys.  Celebrations of love are indeed special and tender.  They are proclamations of sorts, shouts into the noisy, distracted world that:

"We are here!  We are love.  Listen, or don't.  Take note, take heart, or take flight, but this love intends to soar." 

Or something like that.  The result of all of this lovey-dovey, is that I've been thinking about what it all means to me.  Not just love and marriage, but also companionship and closeness.  Far removed from my younger days of poring over wedding magazines and planning menus, marriage has become more to me than pretty dresses to wear and embossed invitations.  What can I say?  The superficial eyes of my youth were drawn to sparkly things.  But of course now I see the emotional symbolism behind it all, and I understand that the importance of marriage greatly transcends the ritual that is the event.

Yet a part of me still wonders what with all of the terrible relationship role models out there how anyone decides it's a good idea.  I have never been partial to the notion that one's 'soul' mate is or should be their romantic partner.  A person with whom you connect on that level is familiar enough and interesting because you are distant pieces of each other, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be in a relationship with someone like me!  It's just kind of like been there, done that, you know?  A soul mate accepts you, because not to would be a rejection of itself.  A mate chooses to accept you, even though they don't have to.  A mate even goes beyond acceptance.  A mate embraces, envelops, enfolds, absorbs.  Maybe we spend too much time looking for our reflection instead of our shadow.

So let's say you find the shadow, the absorption of your light.  What do you do with it?  Do you hold on white-knuckled, never letting go?  Do you let it keep its distance, like a kite that you can always reel in if it strays too far?  Do you nurture it with predictability and comfortable routine?  Do you marry it?

Maybe you do, and maybe you don't.  Whichever you choose, let love rule your roost.