Life list number #26: Chizeck!

I know many of you might find this difficult to believe, but anytime I ask my mother (Why do I ask? Why do I KEEP ASKING?) what she would have done differently in raising me, she always tells me that she wishes she would have insisted on my having learned more “life skills” (her term, not mine). How my mom even thinks I accomplish simple tasks like toasting bread is beyond me. She truly beats herself up over this. I’m not sure what made her come to this conclusion. Was it the fact that I called her from the grocery store every other day in college, asking her things like “What does BROIL mean? It sounds some sort of skin condition.” Maybe. Hard to say.

Either way, I think every female on the planet has an innate need to impress their mother. I’m not sure life list #26 was brewed up as a result of this need or not, but for some reason I felt like I had to prove it to my mom myself that I could cook (er, bake) cookies, and I could bake so damn many of them that I’d have to give them away as gifts or even freeze them! So I put it on the ole’ life list, and ladies and gentleman, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Please note exhibit number #1:



That’s puppy chow we’re holding up, by the way. Anyone this side of the Mississippi knows what that is, I think.

Sure, maybe I lost my will to live shopping for the ingredients. Maybe it took just a shade longer than I had expected (WHO BAKES FOR 8 HOURS IN A DAY?), maybe the three of us who decided to tackle this job weren’t on speaking terms by the end of the process (just kidding), but we baked the SHIT out of those goods, and we’re better for it, dammit.

When it was all over and done with, I called my mom. I was feeling good. I mean, I was feeling like a Domestic Goddess, I’m not gonna lie. My mom seemed impressed as I relayed the afternoon activities, she really did. What was most intriguing to her was the fact that that her daughter, who had never baked in her life, actually baked fudge (now I’m confused…I feel like I didn’t really BAKE the fudge. This is hard.). I was relaying the skill I exerted in the fudge baking, err, cooking - MAKING process, and she seemed very, very impressed (surprised).

“Oh YES!” I said. “It was EASY! You’ve struggled to make fudge in the past, mother?” I quipped. “I really just had no problem at all! Bubbling? No! What’s that?”

I allowed her to explain. Then she asked, “Now, honey, did you make the fudge with the marshmallow cream?”

“Why YES!” I answered. At this point confident I was really giving her something to tell Aunt Arlene about next time they spoke.

“Well that’s a little easier, but STILL, so proud of you, honey.”

Now, I was willing to shake off that last little comment. After all, we’d really busted some cookies out over the course of the day.

Anyway, I was not about to let that comment get me down. I was ready to teach a pastry class or something. I was ready to pass some knowledge on to the grandkids. I’m not even kidding.

So when Amy (who’d done a FABULOUS job on the scotcheroos [sp?], by the way) gently noted that I had something on the back of my thigh, I brought my hand down just below the bum to wipe what I was sure was simply DUST, A HAIR, a CHERRIO. What I found was a frosted cookie.



No shit. It was like someone had actually taken one of the cookies we’d JUST frosted and pressed it in to the back of my thigh like, I DON’T KNOW, a STAMP? HOW DID THAT GET THERE? That’s what I want to know.


Then I tried to cut the fudge. Things were going downhill quickly.







Let me say that I had every intention of taking a picture of the “plates” I’d made to give to friends as gifts. For the record, I did make those plates. Friends did receive them. However, by that point, I’d decided to get back to what I knew best, which was not BAKING, but wine.

So, I don’t have a picture of the plates.

But they were amazing. They really were.

Cheers!