I sat here in front of my computer this afternoon, with PSU football blaring in the background, trying to figure out what to write about today.
Little did I know there was a blog post baking in my oven.
This morning we awake to a crisp Fall morning--overcast and chilly with a bite in the air. To Ian, this means football. To me, this means pumpkin spice, baking, cute clothes, and no more frizz.
So today, as in true Fall afternoon fashion, I decided to bake some soft, no molasses ginger cookies. Not ginger snaps--something light and airy. Now typically, when it comes to cookies with me, I tend to lean towards no chocolate=no good. I need my chunks! But the thought of gingery spicy aroma wafting throughout the apartment was enough to entice me into whipping these up.
As I baked, measured, and mixed, Penn State was not doing well and the husband was getting irate.
Cookies will cheer him up!
As they baked, I sat on the couch with some homemade guacamole (yes, I was feeling ambitious today!) and watched Penn State win. Not by much, but they won! Happy days are here again, right?
Ah, not so much.
Ian was grumbling about the inept team, because apparently this was not a game that should have been so close. "But they won!", I said. I guess I will just never understand.
Suddenly, the oven beeped and I pulled out the sheets where the larger-than-expected cookies were almost dripping off the sides. The recipe said to let them cool on the rack for five minutes.
Five minutes later, it was time to scoop 'em off on to the cooling racks. Except they were stuck to the cookie sheet. STUCK.
I tried to be careful. I tried to ease the spatula underneath and slide it off. But soon, when I found that I was simply going to have to pry them off, I found that they really weren't done cooking and then things just got messy.
Some of them stayed in tact enough to go cool on the rack, and I managed to scrape one off to try and one to lift Ian's spirits.
As I continued to scrape, I found myself getting as irate as Ian was during that game. Several expletives were uttered as I scraped and scraped and scraped, and soon, very maturely slammed the cookie sheet down and walked away saying "I know what I'm blogging about today".
"But they taste good!", Ian said.
"It doesn't matter! They look like shit!"
OK. I'm seeing some similarities here. It was a frustrating football game. It all turned out fine, but the way it got there was no good. I used up the rest of our butter making these cookies that ended up in one messy, crummy mass. Yeah, they taste fine, but that's not the point!
Yes, today was actually a marriage counseling activity. Seeing things from each other's perspective and understanding each others feelings, even when they might not make sense.
Lesson learned: when life gets crummy, have your cookies a la mode.
