April 28.19

The news makes me rabid. The endless rain makes me squishy in the head. Aging plagues me. And to make the world an even drearier place, our excellent local art supply store has been bought out and now closed by Michael’s. Another valued small business pulverized.

I dwell in the doldrums. My only hope is cookies. There is no other way to find good in the world.

In my childhood I learned about the good in cookies. Mom and Grandma O’Hern were cookie-bakers. Not that they didn’t bake other things, but they were believers in cookies, and thank goodness. A cookie fits in your hand so much more easily than a piece of pie or cake (though it’s quite possible to eat either from the hand if you aren’t too fussy).

Besides, there was “Raggedy Ann in Cookie Land,” one of my all-time favorite stories. Cookies that walked and talked and lived in a cookie house? You’d think such things would keep me from ever eating another cookie, but it didn’t work like that. It just added to the magic of cookies.

Maybe you also, dear reader, are driven to the doldrums by the news and by trying to deal with losses and worries in your own life. So I offer you my most favorite of favorite cookie recipes, my drug of choice, my portal to Nirvana. It is based on the old (not the current!) recipe for “Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies” on the Quaker Oats lid.

 

Better-Than-Phoebe’s Oatmeal Cookies

1 C. butter (no substitutes)

1 C. firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 C. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 t. plus a tiny dribble Penzeys vanilla

1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 t. plus a pinch of Penzeys Korintje cinnamon

a few grinds of fresh nutmeg

3 C. Old-Fashioned Quaker Oatmeal (don’t be generous)

1 C. dark (not golden) Sun-Maid raisins

1/2-1 C. chopped dates (the best are the ones you chop yourself)

1/2 C. Heath toffee bits without chocolate (my grandchildren’s brilliant idea)

Whisk dry ingredients together. Beat butter and sugars, then add eggs and beat some more. Mix in vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well, then the oatmeal, raisins, dates and toffee bits. Dough will weigh a ton.

If possible, refrigerate dough at least overnight. Bake at 350 for about five minutes, then turn cookie sheet and bake another four minutes or so, depending on your oven. Cool on wire racks. Makes lots but never enough.

 

These are called “Better-Than-Phoebe’s” because of the episode of “Friends” wherein Phoebe says her oatmeal cookies are the best so she doesn’t bake them very often because it’s not fair to the other cookies.

I mention brand names so you will know exactly what I use.

If you want really chewy cookies, add coconut. Dark chocolate chips are another acceptable addition. However, such additions risk changing the nature of the oatmeal cookie, and that is unseemly to purists.

Wishing you homemade cookies, dear reader,

Maureen

March 5.19

Of all the rites of spring

as sure as tulip spear

the forty days of Lent

anchored budding year.

Forsaking sweets (so saintly!)

with purpled liturgies

we plodded ash-benighted

with callouses on knees.

Fish and macaroni

— with a ho, for purgatory! —

we loved and gobbled up

in pleasure gustatory,

and through the season’s sackcloth

on temptation’s slippery brink

cinnamony hot cross buns,

penitential wink.

I laugh at memories ancient

and admonishments infernal

but I don’t laugh at the lesson

that spring can be internal.

 

 Whatever your traditions, dear reader,

may Shrove Tuesday bring you spring!

 

With more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

March 1.19

The season of soup slips behind us —

we can’t let it pass unobserved;

the kettles and bowls warmly bind us

with elixir drippingly served.

Here’s to you, soup,

you wondrous admixture,

the winter’s cozy

regular fixture,

steaming mosaic,

ad-libbed enterprise,

like flannel to bones,

old friend to our eyes.

 

 

Yet more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

And thanks also to Anna’s Pizza in Buckroe, Hampton, VA,

creator of this minestrone and presentation thereof.

(Do you, dear reader, like me, have the urge to grab a spoon?)

February 4.19

Plated Rubenesque

aesthetic,

deliver me

from things ascetic!

 

The photographer says this dark chocolate bag is filled with whipped white chocolate.

Full swoon.

 

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

And wild applause for the dessert chef at McCormick and Schmidt.

 

January 27.19

 

Omelette art,

edible wonder,

delicate froth

both over and under,

but firm enough yet

to spill and hold,

hinting what’s hidden,

coy and bold.

Savory, sweet

edible plate —

I salute the egg

in endless iterate.

 

If you have an omelette today, dear reader,

especially one with such Papageno colors,

be sure to serve it with a birthday candle

and hum a few bars of “The Magic Flute.”

Happy birthday, Mozart!

 

With more thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

And a tip of the chef’s hat to omelette chef Art Lindeman.

Yes, this is Art’s omelette art.

January 12.19

 

Breakfast is served

if you’re not too picky

if you don’t think slimy

pondweed is icky

if you’ll brave the snow

and duckgooseflesh

you’ll savor an entrée

delectably fresh.

 

(Well, at least I didn’t make any cold duck jokes.)

 

 

Disconnections: December 23.18

 

Life has its moments

of bliss unalloyed,

of humor splenic

roundly devoid.

When eye and nose

and memory combine

to flour and fat and filling

enshrine.

In pie, in pie

the toothsome all:

in fragrance, form,

the anti-banal.

If ever our being

you seek to justify,

look but to crusted

invention of pie.

 

 

With many salivating thanks to photographer S. W. Berg.

And kudos to pastry artist Jennifer Berg.

Full disclosure: I couldn’t bake a pie even if you threatened me with Brussels sprouts.

But I can eat it.