After today being just another icy day in along string of icy, bone-chilling, damp days, I couldn't help think about summer, warm weather and getting outside. Clearly, I wasn't the only one thinking about the times when the ground wasn't snow-covered. I had a co-worker approach me today and ask if I was interested in partaking in a golf outing this spring as a fundraiser. I said sure. He asked if I owned clubs. I said yes. He smiled and seemed impressed, wrote my name down and walked away. I did confess to him that I'm not very good. What I didn't tell him is that I've only played golf four times in my life and well, I'm not even close to good. I also didn't tell him that I had hand-me-down clubs from my mom's first set. I think doubling the "par" is my average currently; I can hit a ball only about 75 yards; and my husband calls me "Gumby arms". I don't take the moniker as a slight, my Gumby arms still allow the ball to fly straight. My husband can hit a nice long shot, but who knows if it'll land on the fairway, in the pond or on the bird sanctuary...
Coincedently, or maybe a gift from above, the adult school booklet showed up today. As I thumbed through it, I noticed the dance classes, then the golf classes. I've decided to learn how to play "real" golf, not just hit and hope. Maybe I'll convince my husband to come too. That might help his slice. How bad could golf school be? I can't get any worse and maybe, just maybe I won't embarass myself in front of my co-workers.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Holiday Baking Adventures
I decided to actually make Christmas cookies this year. While this may sound surprising, I've never actually made Christmas cookies before. Sure, I've helped my grandmother in the past, but this was my first endeavor to try to alone. What possessed me to decide that the world needed more Christmas cookies, I don't know. Somehow the knowledge that my mother, my mother-in-law and my grandmother make batches upon batches of cookies didn't make me pause to think, "Do we really need more cookies?" Instead, I felt this kind of "moral obligation" like I'm supposed to bake cookies now that we've got a house with a nice kitchen -or I'm somehow violating the rules of the holiday and that Santa's elves would go hungry or be tortured or something.
Ok, so I'm not Martha, nor am I even close. I'm sure she wouldn't even look at one of my cookies since they didn't have spun sugar or weren't a cascade of cream puffs to look impressive. Yet I was proud. I did, successfully, assemble six different varieties of cookies. The first batch were spice cookies. Now I'm not a big fan of spice cookies, but I bought a mix and they looked easy enough. Cream together sugar and butter- check. I can do that. So I got the butter out of the freezer, threw it in the microwave and proceeded to defrost it. Now maybe I should have left it in there longer, or maybe I should have defrosted the butter ahead of time, but I've now learned that when working with butter your cookies will spread out. These small tablespoon-sized balls of dough when placed into the oven spread out to be massive cookies the likes of which Cookie Monster would be challenged to fit into his mouth all at once. I thought, who'd want a cookie this big? Amusingly, I was wrong, as a few days before Christmas I kept seeing my friends hold them aloft and exclaim, "Now THIS is a cookie!"
From this same cookie creating experience, I also learned about monkey bread. Now, I'd never heard of this before, and no it isn't made from or by monkeys. Well, except maybe me. Nonetheless, my sister bought me some monkey bread mix for my just-before-Christmas-birthday and I thought they must be one of her favorites. (I later learned that she'd never had it before and she just thought it looked good- and had cranberries in it.) Curious about why it would be called "monkey bread", I had to check out what I was making. It sounded like cookies that grow together in the pan. The assembly process seemed so easy. Just add water. No problem! Yet it wasn't so easy. Once it was together, the dough was like paste. It was soft and sticky- like taffy on steriods. It stuck to the spoon, it stuck to the mixer, it stuck to my hands and wouldn't let go. How was I going to tame it? I looked like the-girl-with-the-webbed-fingers from some 1940's circus. If I only could have coerced it from the bowl into a pan and baked it, it may have been fine, but the process wasn't so simple. The dough needed to be separated by hand into little balls and dipped into sugar before going into the pan piecemeal. Ewwy and goowy, I managed so get enough off my fingers for the first ball and into the granualted sugar. I felt like a monkey trying to assemble it. I wondered if I was going to end up as part of the creation. I wondered if that's how it derrived its name... In an attempt to conquer it, I figured, if I worked quickly, the less would stick. Not quite. I ended up just flinging it off my fingers in a vigorous shake and into the sugar. I figured the whole process would be like this. It was. After giving each blob of dough a swirl and tossing it into the pan I make it into something that looked respectable. This "simple" recipe probably took an hour just to assemble. Fortunately, it ended up coming out well and actually being tasty.
All in all I survived, the mission has been accomplished and no one has been poisoned from eating the cookies. Maybe I'll try again next year.
Ok, so I'm not Martha, nor am I even close. I'm sure she wouldn't even look at one of my cookies since they didn't have spun sugar or weren't a cascade of cream puffs to look impressive. Yet I was proud. I did, successfully, assemble six different varieties of cookies. The first batch were spice cookies. Now I'm not a big fan of spice cookies, but I bought a mix and they looked easy enough. Cream together sugar and butter- check. I can do that. So I got the butter out of the freezer, threw it in the microwave and proceeded to defrost it. Now maybe I should have left it in there longer, or maybe I should have defrosted the butter ahead of time, but I've now learned that when working with butter your cookies will spread out. These small tablespoon-sized balls of dough when placed into the oven spread out to be massive cookies the likes of which Cookie Monster would be challenged to fit into his mouth all at once. I thought, who'd want a cookie this big? Amusingly, I was wrong, as a few days before Christmas I kept seeing my friends hold them aloft and exclaim, "Now THIS is a cookie!"
From this same cookie creating experience, I also learned about monkey bread. Now, I'd never heard of this before, and no it isn't made from or by monkeys. Well, except maybe me. Nonetheless, my sister bought me some monkey bread mix for my just-before-Christmas-birthday and I thought they must be one of her favorites. (I later learned that she'd never had it before and she just thought it looked good- and had cranberries in it.) Curious about why it would be called "monkey bread", I had to check out what I was making. It sounded like cookies that grow together in the pan. The assembly process seemed so easy. Just add water. No problem! Yet it wasn't so easy. Once it was together, the dough was like paste. It was soft and sticky- like taffy on steriods. It stuck to the spoon, it stuck to the mixer, it stuck to my hands and wouldn't let go. How was I going to tame it? I looked like the-girl-with-the-webbed-fingers from some 1940's circus. If I only could have coerced it from the bowl into a pan and baked it, it may have been fine, but the process wasn't so simple. The dough needed to be separated by hand into little balls and dipped into sugar before going into the pan piecemeal. Ewwy and goowy, I managed so get enough off my fingers for the first ball and into the granualted sugar. I felt like a monkey trying to assemble it. I wondered if I was going to end up as part of the creation. I wondered if that's how it derrived its name... In an attempt to conquer it, I figured, if I worked quickly, the less would stick. Not quite. I ended up just flinging it off my fingers in a vigorous shake and into the sugar. I figured the whole process would be like this. It was. After giving each blob of dough a swirl and tossing it into the pan I make it into something that looked respectable. This "simple" recipe probably took an hour just to assemble. Fortunately, it ended up coming out well and actually being tasty.
All in all I survived, the mission has been accomplished and no one has been poisoned from eating the cookies. Maybe I'll try again next year.
Christmas cards
For Christmas, I've received many interesting cards though the years from my high school students, but none amused me quite as much as one I received this year. This card came from a very demure young man who has one of the highest averages in his class. A class which contains quite a number of particularly excitable and immature freshmen. It began with a nice normal, "Hope you have a great holiday and enjoy Christmas break," as did most of the cards I received. I thought it was sweet. However, unlike any other I'd ever read this one went on to say, "Thanks for being a great teacher and being nice to our class even when we behave like deranged animals." I burst out laughing at the particularly colorful statement.
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