You can't make Spite Cookies without the Love

There are these cookies that I love, and I don't mean the kind of love that I'd take these over an oreo. I mean the kind of love where I'd shank a baby with a rusy spork for the last crumbs in the bottom of the cookie jar kind of love! I remember sitting on the table as a toddler “helping” my grandma make these. After my grandma died, my mom would make them for me. I would ask her to make these cookies for me instead of a birthday cake. Mom always considered them “special occasion” cookies, and unless she tired of my endless begging, she would normally only make them at Christmas. She would also make them for our church's holiday bazaar and bake sale. When I got old enough I would stand in line before the church would open, so that I could be first in line, and I would buy all that she had made.

To be honest, these aren't really that special. They are a cashew cookie, made with brown sugar and sour cream, not very sweet, but they have a browned butter frosting on them, and if you put browned butter on a used tire I would probably ask for seconds. They are a little fussy, but not very hard to make. Sort of. Once you get the cosmic blessing.

Full disclosure: I'm a pretty good cook. Not much intimidates me in the kitchen. I learned to cook from women who didn't have recipe books, so if you ask me for a recipe, I am likely to tell you to come over, and I will show you how to make it. I do this because not a lot of my own recipes are written down. If I tried to give you a recipe it would likely be something like, “Cook until it just about boils, but doesn't.” “Add flour until it sticks together, but isn't sticky.” “Cook in a hot oven until it's done.” Really helpful, isn't it? Sorry. But, here's the thing; I couldn't make these cookies! Starting as a teenager, I tried countless times to make these. Mom wrote out, step by step, how to make them. When that didn't work, she stood right next to me, trying to walk me through it. Didn't help. All I got were nasty light brown hockey pucks, or one giant cookie that spread to cover the entire cookie sheet.

I gave up, and continued to beg mom to make them for me. She did, and eventually expanded to making them for several friends for their birthdays, too. Then 9 years ago, this Christmas, Mom died and couldn't make any more cashew cookies for me. I was talking to a friend the following spring, who had a birthday coming up, and she said, “I know this sounds horrible and selfish, but I can't help being really sad that I won't get any of your mom's cashew cookies this year.”

I tried one more time to make the cookies, and you know what? They turned out perfect! Seriously! I don't know what I did different, but every time I've tried to make them since, they have turned out exactly as they should. Until last week.

I had made these last year for someone, who I knew would love them, and she did. Then we had quite a falling out, and the nicest way I can think to put it is, if she were on fire, and I had a cup of water, I'd be sad it wasn't gasoline. Actually, I've pretty much refused to let her name cross my lips, and now just refer to her as the hosebeast. One of hosebeast's relatives emailed me and said hosebeast had been having a hard time, and the relative remembered how much she liked the cashew cookies, so asked if I would send her the recipe so she could make some to cheer her up. Umm... HELL NO! But, because I don't like confrontation, I emailed back and said I had lost the recipe. Then I went to the store and bought all the ingredients to make me a big old batch of spite cookies!

This is where it gets weird. In the 9 years since I have been able to make the cookies, they have never been anything less than cashewy, browned butter perfection. Last week I tried to make them on two different days. The first time I got the scaling wrong, and only used half the amount of flour that I should have. After buying another $10 in cashews, batch number 2 looked to be a success, until they came out of the oven looking like baking powder biscuits on steroids. I gave up.

Yesterday the fireman brought me a big can of cashews, and said I needed to make the cookies. I tried to tell him, that I couldn't, that apparently I had lost the cosmic cookie gift. He gave me that look, like he is about to ask where I've hidden my crack pipe, but then he said, “They'll turn out this time. It's almost your birthday. Now they are birthday cookies and not spite cookies.”

I just finished frosting them, and they turned out perfect. Apparently they can only be made with love, and not spite. Damn crazy cookie ghosts!



Just another quick note on the crazy way I learned to cook. I do have a recipe for these that mom wrote out for me (and if anyone wants it, as long as I don't also want to set you on fire, I'm happy to share). Where a normal recipe would say, make teaspoon size, or make 1 ½ inch cookies, mom's recipe says, make lady sized cookies. There were two sizes of cookies growing up, lady sized and man sized. Lady sized cookies were usually “fancy” and appropriate for a ladies lunch or serving at a funeral, about walnut sized. Man sized cookies are the non-fancy cookies that were always in the cookie jar. Think oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle and chocolate chip. The appropriate size for man-sized cookies were the size that perfectly matched dad or grandpa's shirt pocket.

 

 

 

Why We Rarely Get Asked To Dinner Twice

A dear friend recently told me that she remembered this random story I had told her and burst out laughing while at work. And since I know where she works, I know that random laughter is very much needed. So just in case you haven't heard the story, and your day needs some random laughter, I give you the reason why Fireman and I don't go out much.

The fireman and I don't go out to nicer places very often. He says it's because my cooking is better than anything he could order in a restaurant, which is sweet, but I think the real reason is that most of the fancier places have things like Lemon Panna Cota with a Raspberry Orange Sauce, and he really just wants a piece of pie. Every once-in-a-while, though, we have friends, who apparently lack entertainment in their daily lives, and call us and ask that we accompany them to a nice restaurant. Such was the case when a couple we have not seen in a long time asked us to meet them at a steak house, about an hour from where each of us lives.

We had a lovely and delicious dinner, filled with wonderful conversation. Wishing to extend the evening, we adjourned to the supper club's bar for an after-dinner drink. I was sitting on a stool at the bar, with Fireman standing a little behind me. I was chatting away with my girlfriend, when all of a sudden I felt these weird little bites around my waist. What the hell? There they went again! Whatever it was was circling around and around me really fast, and biting as it went.

I started slapping at myself, trying to kill whatever it was, when out of the corner of my eye I see Fireman, pulling furiously on a thread like he is trying to reel in a 10 pound trout! The thread is neon orange. The same color as my underwear. It wasn't a rouge insect, hopped up on speed, biting me, rather it was Fireman unraveling my underwear!

ME: What the hell are you doing???

FM: You had a thread.

       I was helping.

ME: You aren't helping! Stop pulling! I'm going to be naked in a minute!

At this point Fireman has a ball of neon orange underwear thread the size of a softball in his hands, and is still pulling.

ME: Quit pulling. Just break it.

FM: I can't. It's like it's kryptonite underwear thread.

       Why are you wearing kryptonite underwear, anyway?

       I'll just tuck this ball into the back of your pants and you can fix it when we get home.

ME: It looks like I have a tumor on my ass! Take it out!

FM: Well, what do you want me to do?

ME: Do you have anything to cut it with?

FM: No.

At this point, he calls the bartender over, holds up the giant orange ball of underwear thread, and says, “Do you have a scissors or something, she wants me to cut this off.”

Of course bartender has no scissors. Apparently underwearectomies aren't particularly common in this restaurant. Instead, he comes back with a foot long chef's knife. I wasn't convinced that letting Fireman that close to me with a big knife was the best idea and, I would have asked my girlfriend to do it, but she way laying across the bar gasping for breath she was laughing so hard. I'm happy to report the string was severed, and no blood was shed.

FM: I don't know why you are so pissed at me.

ME: Well, lets see, you made me a laughingstock of the restaurant, embarrassed me in front of our friends, and destroyed my favorite pair of underwear.

FM: At your age I would think you should just be happy someone wants to rip your clothes off.

3 Dates Worse Than The Worst Dates Ever

A couple of days ago I ran across an article titled something like, “The 10 Worst First Dates Ever,” since I am always up for giggling at the social awkwardness created by the mating ritual I rubbed my hands together and settled in for a good read. Sadly I did not get my giggle, rather I came away feeling quite depressed. You see a number of years ago I was encouraged/cajoled/threatened/harassed into joining Match.com, and all three of the dates that I had from Match were worse than any of the 10 Worst Dates Ever. Apparently you all can crown me Queen of Social Awkwardness.

After big promotion with Government job I moved to a completely unfamiliar area of the state, and to make things a little more entertaining, I was now located in an office where I was the only woman. Yep, me and the 18 firefighters and lumberjacks. I quickly fell into the role of mother hen/psychiatrist. One of my younger, single guys wanted to make an online dating profile, and asked for my help. I had quite a bit of fun helping him set it up, and then helping him pick some of his dates. Eventually he proposed and married one of the women that I picked out. After that success, a couple more guys asked for my matchmaking help. Then, the tables were turned, and these same guys thought I needed to be matched up, too. They were wrong. I would have rather they just bought me a nice bottle of whiskey to say thank you. After much harassment I finally agreed to join Match.

I debated here about whether or not I should discuss some of the feeding-frenzy like attention that I got upon first signing, up, and how I picked who I would go out with, but I think I'll just let the three dates speak for themselves. It's too embarrassing to have to admit to you that I actually chose these men out of a pool of potentials.

Date Number One. Hereafter referred to as Blow Me Guy.

We met at a semi-nice restaurant (think Applebees, but not a chain) and had drinks and shared an appetizer. He was ok, but there were no sparks. We couldn't find any common interests, and his politics and his views on women had me wanting to stab him with a fork. As the date ended I offered to pay my half of the bill, and he refused. I thanked him for the conversation and the nice evening. As we were walking out to our respective cars he had this to say, “Ya know, since I bought you those drinks, you could, at least, blow me in the car.” I replied, “Oh honey, there is just not enough Jack Daniels in Tennessee to make that sound like a good deal.”

Date Number Two. Hereafter referred to as Cross-dresser Guy.

We met at the same restaurant, but this time I stuck to pop, in case he was keeping a mentally tally as to what my sexual services could be bartered for. We were getting along very well, finding quite a bit in common, and laughing a lot. I'm thinking to myself, “this is going pretty well.” And then he asked me if I liked men who wore woman's clothing. I laughed thinking he was still making some kind of joke that I didn't quite understand. He continued, “I love to wear lacy underthings and silk stockings. They feel so nice against my skin.” HOLY... WHAT THE... At this point I was unable to string words together to form a coherent sentence, so I just sat there with my mouth opening and closing like some kind of demented guppy. He took this to mean I was interested, and asked if I was getting turned on thinking about it. Um.... HELL NO!

Now, I want to state here that I have no problem with what anyone does in their own bedroom. As long as it's between two consenting adults, I don't care if you wrap yourself in saran wrap, make yourself a peanut butter bikini, and swing from the chandelier with a vacuum cleaner attached to your genitals, I don't want to hear about it, and I especially don't want to participate. Remember, I was raised pretty conservative, and those Lutheran sensibilities tend to still be pretty strong.

I tried to explain this, but I'm not sure I did a very good job, seeing as I was still in shock, and all, but I did say, that while I appreciated his openness, I was uncomfortable with this particular fetish, but I hoped that he found someone who was a better match for him. He said, “You don't really mean that.” And he unbuttoned his shirt to show me his pretty silk camisole. I really meant it. I put a $20 on the table and left. The next day he sent me an email, saying that he hoped I would reconsider because he had such a nice time with me the night before. And, he sent pictures of himself in lingerie to show what I was missing out on. It was then I realized that even if I could get over the cross-dresser thing, I could still never date a guy who looked better in a garter and stockings than I did.

Date Number Three. Hereafter referred to as Disaster Guy.

Date number three took a while to make happen, and not just because I was a little apprehensive after dates one and two. We were crazy busy at work. It was mid-December, and it was one of those years where the temperature goes below zero with alarming regularity, but there was no snow on the ground yet. We met at the same restaurant, got to talking and about 10 minutes into the date, before our appetizer was even brought out, I got paged to work. Date number 2 was attempted. Same thing, only this time I had taken a bite out of the stuffed mushrooms before my pager started squawking at me. After that we talked several times on the phone, usually as I was driving to and from work, and I started to think, “Hey, it looks like number 3 is going to be the charm!” We really seemed to click. I made sure that I had someone to cover for me, and we made plans to attempt the date again. We got to the restaurant at the same time, only to find that it was closed for a private party. Since we had talked a good bit by this time, and I decided that even if he was a creepy perv, I could probably take him, I asked if he would like to come to my house and watch a movie. I gave him directions to my house, and he said he would stop and pick up a movie, and be a few minutes behind me.

Since it was Christmas, when I got home, I turned on the tree lights, lit a couple of candles and got out a nice bottle of red wine. He got there a few minutes later, and after letting him in, he took off his coat, and tossed it on the end of the couch. At least I think that's what he meant to do. What he actually did was toss it onto the end table at the end of the couch and onto the candle that I had lit a few minutes earlier. He grabs the coat and starts waving it around, thinking that he's going to put out the now smoldering coat. What he succeeded in doing was to spread burning feathers all over the living room. After stomping out the last hot spot on my rug, and turning on the ceiling fan to try to dissipate the singed feather odor that permeated everything, I poured the wine and we settled down to watch the movie. He took a couple sips, and somehow dumped the rest of it on my couch. Well, at least all of the feathers had been put out, so that the alcohol didn't make them flare-up! He was mortified! I was trying to be a good sport, saying things like accidents happen, and now we have a funny first date story. Lets just relax and watch the movie.

At some point he put his arm around my shoulders and started massaging my neck. Then all of a sudden he's tugging on my necklace and pulling my hair. What the hell? “I've got my sweater caught on the clasp of your necklace,” he explained continuing to tug on it, and strangling me in the process. I should mention here, that the necklace I was wearing was one of my mothers, that she had been wearing when she died, the year previous. The necklace meant a lot to me. I was trying to tell him to just wait, and I would undue it, but he continued to pull on it, and finally broke it. To my credit, I did not hit him. I didn't even burst into tears (that comes in a few minutes). He was so upset and embarrassed, that he wanted to leave, and at this point I didn't do much to stop him.

My entryway had a half wall, about a foot wide, and on it, I had a small wrought iron ornament tree, on which I had displayed all of my antique Christmas ornaments. These were the ornaments that my great-grandparents had on their tree, and ones my mother got as a baby. Very old and very sentimental. When he went to put on the still lightly smoking coat, he somehow managed to snag the arm of the coat on the ornament tree, flinging it to the floor, shattering 18 of the 20 ornaments that were on the tree. That's when I burst into tears. You can tell, he's torn. Obviously good manners dictate that he needs to offer to help clean up the mess, but all he wants to do is make his escape at this point. I make it easy for him, as he is starring at the tiny shards of glass in abject horror, I say, “It's ok, you should probably just go now. I'll take care of it.”

I had a brick townhouse, with the driveway tight against the side of the house, and butted up to the neighbors driveway. I heard him get into his truck and start it up, as I was picking pieces of glass out of the carpet. The next sound I heard was a horrible screeching, wrenching sound. Think nails on a blackboard times a million. Think truck scraping down the side of my house. Think truck ripping the gas meter off the side of the house. In his haste to get away from me, and end the night of horrors, he got too close to the side of the house, mangled the side of his truck, and somehow hooked the gas meter with the wheel well of his truck. Instead of stopping when he first hit the house, he gunned it and ripped the gas meter off the side of the house!

Called the emergency number for the gas company who responded right away, but because of how completely he ripped it off, they weren't able to fix it immediately, so they had to call the police and evacuate a six square-block area around my house. Then because the turn-off valve was laying in the middle of the driveway, instead of being attached to the gas line, they had to shut off gas to the entire neighborhood for 12 hours to get it fixed. In December, at 11:00 PM, in Northern Wisconsin, where the temperature was -15°F, without the windchill factored in.

So to the author of, “10 Worst First Dates Ever,” I say, I am sorry that your date texted his mom during your date. I am sorry that your date smelled like moldy cheese. I am very sorry that your date fed you something that you were allergic to, and you had to go to the ER and get a shot. BUT, until your date is wearing your underwear, asking you to prostitute yourself for a $10 bar tab, and tries to blow up your house, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Just Like Arnold... I'm BAAAACK!

Hi! Remember me?

So I've been thinking for quite a while that I need to dust off this blog because some of my Facebook posts have just about reached novel lengths, and to be honest, I usually feel bad subjecting my friends list to the random crazy that I occasionally spout. This morning while putting on makeup, I was trying to decide if I had enough stuff to fill a page every so often. When I realized that instead of primer, I had smeared my face with hair volumizer, I decided that finding enough idiocy in my life to write about wouldn't be the problem. Editing it down, would be. In an attempt to find the happy in my accident, I have decided that if you are going to have one random chin hair, you might as well make it as thick and voluminousness as you can!

I promised on the book of faces to chronicle my 3 dates on Match.com, and I will, but it is going to have to wait a little bit. Right now I have to go to the drug store and by an antihistamine. I looooove strawberries, so I had a big bowl of them for breakfast and now I am trying to scratch my face off, because despite the hope that I will outgrow it, I am also mildly allergic to strawberries.

Nope, not going to be a problem to find things to write about...