Thursday, October 28, 2004

 
Wow. That was the biggest cooking disaster EVER. I still dont know what the hell just happened. Ok, I told the folks at Noodle midtown that I would make cookies. When we had the party a few months back, Jeremy had made a batch with the recipe on the back of the Giardelli chocolate chip bag and everyone raved about them. Fine. I'll make those.
I work all day at the library, get home at 10 pm, and mix up the cookies. The batter looks really thin, so I add some cocoa and recheck the recipe twice. Add a sprinkle more of flour, and then I put the cookies on a tray to bake. The next time I look into the oven, the cookies have melted into a giant pool, covering the entire tray. I bake them until theyre mostly done, and then scrape it off. It tastes fine for what it is...a sweet, carmelized pile of chocolate nutty mess. But it ain't cookies. So I add more flour. And more flour. And more cocoa. And some wheat flour. Still, the cookie dough is thin. By now I've doubled the amount asked for by the recipe (2 1/2 cups). I try it again. Drop six cookies on the pan, put it in the oven, recheck the recipe and oven temperature twelve times, and hope for the best. Nope. Again, a giant pool of goo. I added a bit more flour, but by then I was tired and frustrated and wanting to cry. I dumped it all in a tupperware container and threw it in the frig. ARGH!!!!!!!!

posted by Julie Dorn 8:08 PM

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

 
Whew! What a trip! How people can go on weeklong New Orleans benders is beyond me. Two days of drinking makes me feel like I've been run over by a cement truck at least seven times. I dont think I'll ever drink again.
Thanks again to Dave and Joey for letting me tag along. You guys are fun. (Even when Dave snores like a giant bear.) I loved the live music, the plethora of artists (even if they're bad, they're still selling their work and making art), plenty of food, the Mississippi and funky cemetaries. Of course, there's lots of cheesy tourist stuff, too. But most of that is easy to avoid if you dont want to go. We walked a lot, rode the street car, went on a voodoo/cemetary walking tour that ended with some wacko priestess babbling about Spam, drank and chilled out. It was such a huge break from my normal life here, that its a bit hard to get back into the flow of things. Happily, I have a ton of ideas of things to do when I go back. Jeremy has a conference there in early December and I'll pop in for the weekend. New Orleans is an interesting, colorful city. (That's also sinking an inch every three years.) Just wished I would have taken more photos.
Its back to the work flow tomorrow morning....but for tonight, Im looking forward to a good night's sleep. Ahhhh...pillow, here I come.

posted by Julie Dorn 8:32 PM