As I write this, Charlie is entering all of the recipe titles from this book into a spreadsheet, thus providing both an accurate count AND a sort-able database that I can look through more quickly than the book’s index. She just said “There are a lot of recipes here”, further pushing me away from the notion of finishing this entire project in a single year. Particularly given my fieldwork and other away-from-home plans forming for this year.
I don’t
feel the need to complete one recipe every single day, but I do think I should
aim for at least that level of productivity as an average. To that end, I made
sure to purchase some necessary ingredients – vanilla, nuts, chocolate chips –
during our brief visit to Cloyne and Northbrook today. These are the nearest
towns to this cottage; the library in Cloyne has an open wifi signal accessible
from the parking lot, and Northbrook contains the actually-quite-good Foodland
grocery store.
The cookies
came out very well, I am better than satisfied. I didn’t use enough fat –
mostly lard, with some butter, rather than all butter – and the dough wasn’t
very cohesive (it didn’t stick into cookie-like lumps). I was able to mix in a
bit more butter and form the cookies by squeezing blobs in my hand before
placing them on the cookie sheets. I didn’t have a cup of chopped nuts, just
whatever Charlie and I set aside as we cracked walnuts, almonds, and hazelnuts
after supper, but I think the ~1/4 cup we put together was sufficient. The oven
here at the cottage is an older model that inexplicably has an
overly-complicated timer system that likes to sound the (quiet) buzzing alarm
and shut down the heating element because the concept of time exists, so the
first round – all but the super-sized cookie on it’s own – went through the
oven twice, because it wasn’t actually hot at all the first time through.
Overall,
(to repeat myself) I’m very happy with these cookies!
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