Long week, with a peroration of cookies.

FACT: yesterday, I had to drive across the valley, and back, three times. THREE.

FACT: there is yard work to be done, house work to be done, work work to be done.

FACT: I think I am still tired from spring forward.

FACT: all this whining is making me thirsty!

I came home today after workout two and slid right into my chair to talk to students one two three four five on the internet

[FACT: I talked to students one two three four five today!]

and then I roasted some green beans and steamed some artichokes and cut up some strawberries and we ate a dinner that also included a grilled cheese sandwich and a leftover enchilada. And THEN we watched the Jazz lose to Oklahoma while I also took a short basketball nap.

And THEN I made galettes sablés. (This recipe is fancier than the one I made, from The Joy of Cooking, but it's the same basic idea, although I actually like my recipe better. But that's a post for another boring day.)

America, I submit to you that, while everyone now knows that sugar is literally your mortal enemy (I'm not arguing! I'm just saying it in a snotty tone!), a cookie really can save the day. Not that my day was heinous, but I admit to feeling world weary and un petit peu triste. Frankly, also, those strawberries seemed to cry out for a vanilla cookie. And lo, I did arise from my basketball nap and hearken unto their cry.

Which is to say: I put butter and flour into the bowl of the stand mixer, that absolute champ of a kitchen appliance, and let the whirring turn the butter/flour situation into sand. Then: three egg yolks, some sugar (a judicious amount), vanilla, a tiny bit of almond extract, more whirring, etcetera etcetera and then I rolled the dough into long cylinders to chill. And then bake, cut into slim little round cookies. Comme ça:

que suave.

I believe I baked twenty four of these cookies, and there may be two left. In our defense, you know, basically, they saved us from melancholy and distress, so why wouldn't we keep eating them? 

Also in our defense, they are tiny. And delicious. 

Things under consideration.

1. Chris Hemsworth's arms and general Thor-ishness.

2. Mark Ruffalo, the very best The Hulk of all the Hulks.

3. Okay, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, full stop.

4. The fact that I am possibly, maybe, getting a little bit stronger.

5. The fact that I am not working at the moment, at least not at my job job, and thus, I can be firm about the need for flexibility--i.e., my need for flexibility--when I am asked to work work at my job job. ('job job' is kind of fun to say.)

6. Today is the birthday of both Timothy Olyphant and Matt Czuchry--all hail the hotness.

7. The splendor that is the SLCC Publication Center, where I made little bound notebooks today for various people.

8. How thoroughly daunting it can feel to gather one's wits and one's poems to begin sending them out again.

9. HOWEVER with superior mental toughness and so forth, the dauntingness can be contained.

10. i.e., I am sending out packets of poems tomorrow.

11. Vanilla Icebox Cookies.

12. Rain.

Who's ready? Also: weekly recipes.

For breakfast, I mean. Well, not till tomorrow morning, but: I am! I am continuing my long tradition of postponing the hardest work as thoroughly as is humanly possible. Which, it turns out, is quite thoroughly.

But I sent my syllabus to students. So that's something. I have some links in my online course. That's another thing. And there's a lot of content that just needs to be framed into "modules" and "discussion posts" and other linky links that...ack.

Currently resisting putting together a PowerPoint. Death to PowerPoint! or at least this particular PowerPoint.

Wait! I have two recipes to give you.

RECIPE ONE: baked macaroni and cheese with other stuff in it.

So: cook however many penne noodles makes sense for you. Bear in mind that you can eat leftover baked macaroni and cheese  for a few days. So the number of penne could be many.

Then make your bechamel sauce. Quick version: saute a tablespoon or so of minced onion in 1/4 c. butter. When the onion is soft, sprinkle over the butter, which should be gently bubbling, 1/4 c. of flour, and with a whisk, make sure that the butter and flour are well acquainted, and that the flour browns slightly. Then stir in a cup or a cup and a half of warm milk. If you have basil, you could have steeped the basil in the milk, and that will make a slightly more flavorful sauce base.  Once you have stirred in the milk, whisk it around while the sauce thickens.

When the sauce has thickened, take it off the heat and immediately add about a cup or more if you like more of cheese. You can actually be fairly inventive, but it needs to be a melty cheese--not a hard cheese, and not, probably, a blue cheese. I used some entirely pedestrian already-grated colby jack cheese, which I have around because my son likes grated cheese, because evidently grating cheese is very hard work. Back to the sauce: put the cheese in the sauce that's hot, but off the heat. Let the cheese melt. You can whisk it a couple of times if that makes you feel useful.

Mix the noodles and sauce together. Now: take a zucchini. Take two. And take a handful of cherry tomatoes. Or any tomatoes, really. Slice the zucchini thin but not too thin. Halve the cherry tomatoes.

Put half your noodle sauce mix in the bottom of a baking dish, whatever size is appropriate. Then lay the zucchini and tomatoes in an even layer over the noodles and sauce. Then, cover the zucchini and tomatoes with the rest of your noodles and sauce.

Now, take some stale bread with a small chunk of parmesan and put them both in your blender, the bread torn into smallish pieces. Pulse it until everything is crumbs. Sprinkle all that goodness over the noodles. Bake that at 375 for 20 minutes or as long as it takes for the whole thing to get golden and bubbly.

Point one: hot cheese. Point two: unexpected vegetable bonus. You can actually change up the vegetables and you won't be sorry.

RECIPE TWO: Oatmeal cookies with a little extra business.

Make your regular oatmeal cookie recipe. I happened to have some oats in the tall cylindrical container situation, and I used the recipe on the side of the cylinder. I also substituted demerara sugar for brown sugar. If you have some demerara sugar, you should try this. It was good.

But that's not the business to which I am referring. Once I had my cookie dough, I divided it in half. In one half, I threw some chocolate chips. Also not the business to which I am referring, but my son likes these cookies with chocolate chips, so I made these as an acknowledgement of his tastes.

In the other half, I put unsweetened coconot flakes and golden raisins. Did I mention that, instead of cinnamon, I used cardamom and fresh nutmeg in the cookie dough? Well I did. Those spices plus the raisins/coconut combination--excellent cookies. Really superb. The demerara sugar, which is coarsely grained, also added a little crunchy something.

Happy first week of school, all y'all for whom this is the first week of school. We who are about to die salute you.

We decided we couldn't be bothered to see a movie.

On our way home from downtown:

Me: ...and maybe I'll hang up my clothes, and then I will make these cookies--they're supposed to be, like, the best chocolate chip cookies in the history of cookies.

The historian:  Why's that?

Me: Well, they have some special ingredients. Like cake flour and bread flour.

Historian: Is there butter?

Me: Yes. And really good chocolate.

Historian: Lots and lots of butter?

Me: They are, in fact, an all butter cookie. But the real secret, apparently, is to let the dough rest a long time. Because--

Historian: (interrupting) --because if they don't get, like, twenty-three hours of rest, they're just no good the whole next day.

(this is the last couplet, but it is not the very last couplet.)

Valentine.

you guys all know I love you, right?
even if I'm a day late, and even if
the cookies, which I did bake,
are only, at this point, virtual.
thanks for stopping by and reading.
I mean it.

(and thanks, Jason McF., for the awesome pic.)

Accountability.

In the spirit of transparency, I would like to ask for a full reporting of all the data on the following trend I have recently observed in my household:

We are currently suffering a dearth of treats.

We have butter. We have sugar of many kinds. We have chocolate and eggs. We have almonds and various types of flour.

But can we scare up a cookie around here? No.

A piece of cake? No.

Pie? Forget about it.

The people, there is not even a gum drop.

This cannot stand.

All the Mormons in Beijing.

Sundry updates:

1. I put my clothes away today. Again.

2. I just started a load of laundry. 90% of the items were gray.

3. We just ate the last of the cookies. They were seriously some of the best cookies I have ever made in my life.

4. I have a lot of responding to students drafts to do, which I am doing at this very moment. Or shortly, whichever comes first.

5. We are driving to L.A. in two days, and I literally cannot wait to blow this town.

6. What is the weather like in L.A.?

7. Running son is having a hard time finding the Mormons in Beijing. I am having a hard time helping him. Beijing is far, far away. And they speak a different language, and it's written in a different alphabet.

8. But he will figure it out.

9. Is it winter? is it spring? who can tell?

Things to do to improve your outlook.

By "things to do," I mean "parties," and by "do," I mean "eat."

Saturday morning, I arose bright and early to make foccacia, Famous Pasta Salad, and sugar cookies cut in shapes appropriate to a baby shower. That's right: my daughter, the make-up artist and splendid all-around human being, is having a baby in May, a boy, and my mother and I were the caterers for this affair. We made all the arrangements via e-mail, thus avoiding having to address my increasing phone phobia (note to self: must investigate phone phobia).

I thought, somehow, that in any store where they sell cooking implements (Target), there would surely be a cookie cutter in the shape of something baby-ish (bootie? teething ring? breast pump?). What cookie cutters they had were in the shapes of an Easter egg, two kinds of bunnies, a carrot, a lamb, a duck, a tulip, and another generic flower. I know, appropriate to a baby shower! Especially some of them. I was, I admit, cursing my folly as I was icing the cookies at twenty minutes to shower time, but managed to arrive with a minimum of cursing, enough cookies for everyone, a mountain of Famous Pasta Salad, and two loaves of foccaccia. My daughter got baby booty, a baby shower game was played, we all had a grand time. Because I was taking pictures for my daughter with her camera, I managed to get home with only a small handful of pictures of the shower, none of her, and none of the cookies either. Oh well. The ducks were especially cute, you'll have to take my word for it.

Then, later that same day, we went to a surprise party for the birthday of a poet friend, Jennifer. It was great, super surprising, and delicious, too, as the hosts had knocked themselves out making shrimp-and-scallops pot-stickers, amazing eggplant, sesame noodles, steamed soup dumplings, scallion pancakes, and barbecued pork buns. Another poet brought a gorgeous bombshell of a cake, all whipped cream and strawberries. And we all had a very, very grand time. Here is the surprise:

Here are the dumplings:

and here is the cake: