(no subject)

[which_chick]

Holidays, please be over. You are ruining my diet efforts.



I was disappointed by the reddit Secret Santa. My secret santa may have (as he or she claimed) shipped me something, but I have not gotten anything yet. Damn it.

I was disappointed by the MeFi cookie exchange. I was put into a cohort of 4 people, so that I sent out three packages of cookies and was to receive three packages of cookies. Now, in my own particular view of the world, persons who participate in fully-voluntary cookie exchanges are the sort of overachieving Martha Stewart folk whose cookies I would totally enjoy eating. While I did receive three packages of cookies, or at least two packages of cookies and one package of crumbs that had previously been cookies, the exchange was not as successful as I'd hoped it would be. The MeFi cookie exchange drove home yet again the recurring (for me) lesson that my particular view of the world has very little to do with reality.

In three batches of sent cookies, I got the following:

Deathalicious's snickerdoodle re-imagining, as pinwheels. These were carefully packaged for shipping, arrived in reasonably good shape, and were a tasty re-thinking of a familiar favorite. It is in no way Deathalicious's fault that I am not a huge fan of snickerdoodles and I happily parceled the dozen cookies out, two at a time, as lunchtime desserts until they were gone. Deathalicious gets a solid B-plus for this effort at Cookie Exchange. (An "A" would be perfect packaging -- I had two cookies cracked in half -- plus stellar choice of cookie, superb execution of same, enclosure of extensive and detailed recipe card, etc.)

Aaronbeekay sent chocolate chip cookies that were secured for shipping by being placed on a paper plate and wrapped once over with plastic food wrap (no tape or anything), the entire plate-cookie-wrap assemblage being stuffed (badly) into a cardboard box and mailed off to rattle the pieces around and see if any broke in transit. Some did. These were tolerable chocolate chip cookies, but I don't like chocolate chip cookies very well and I felt that Cookie Exchange efforts should branch out from standby cookies unless the execution was somehow a cut above. Aaronbeekay's chocolate chip cookies did not suffer from "a cut above" execution. They were competent but not inspiring. Aaronbeekay got a C in my cookie scoring system -- competent but boring cookie, crappy packaging effort, lack of imagination all 'round.

Josher71 sent chocolate chip cookies in a ziplock bag (no padding) that had been placed in one of the unpadded postal service envelopes. At least I think that's what happened. What I got at my house was a ziplock bag of crumbs with the occasional chocolate chip floating around in the sea of golden-brown crumbs. I was very disappointed by josher71's effort and I scored it a D on the grounds that everybody should be aware that cookies need at least some packaging

I sent out Moravian Spice Cookies and Sand Tarts, six of each, in pretty good packaging -- wrapped pairs of cookies in paper towels, flat side to flat side, bagged those by type-of-cookie, put the whole shebang in boxes with festive tissue paper, included recipe and instructions. I scored myself a B-plus or maybe an A-minus on the cookie exchange and I was disappointed that the efforts I received were not as nice as the effort I sent out.

Comments

Sand Tarts

[guitfiddmando.livejournal.com]

I have the thinnest in the world, Lovely texture, but need help improving overall taste. More butter? I've been using your recipe, but without doing the rolling of dough I think it changes something. (I'm the guy usung the pasta machine. I swear we're almost down to 1/32" thick) Would you like a nicely wrapped packed set to try?

And I think I'm ready to try Moravian Spice Cookies. Can you please send recipe for those?

Thanks,
Pete

Re: Sand Tarts

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I would very much enjoy a packaged set to try -- shipping address is
Jessica Gothie
136 E. Pitt Street, Suite 1
Bedford, PA 15522

(Note for internet stalkers: that's my office, not my house.)

I agree with you that the rolling probably does something (work the gluten?) beyond make the cookies flat and thin, but I'm not sure what you can do about that if you are using a pasta machine. As for overall taste, I use pretty much all the zest I can get from one lemon -- if you are not using all the lemon zest at your disposal, maybe that would help.

Also, it is a possibility that making them too thin reduces the amount of mouth-feel that you get from a bite of cookie. There may be an acceptable thickness somewhere between too thin and too thick that gives more pleasing eating results.

Moravian spice cookies are here (http://www.gothie.net/index.php?title=Moravian_Spice_Cookies)

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Fuck off, marketing drone. You pimp hope to people who want to believe and I do not support your efforts. Fuckwit.