"Hippie" Cookies or "Indoor Kid" Cookies...

I'm not quite sure what to call these cookies. They are your standard chocolate chunk cookies, but with some mods. I have been experimenting this week with cutting wheat / gluten out of my diet (don't ask why), and the real bummer - or perk, depending on how you look at it - is that cookies are out of reach. I know there's a way to mix certain flours to get a blend that will bake like regular old flour, but it sounds like more hassle than I have time for right now. Fortunately, Red Mill has a pre-mixed blend that they advertise simply as gluten-free baking flour. For the quantity, it costs just slightly less than your right arm, but for peace of mind in my first go-round of staple subs, it was worth it. I decided to incorporate the flour into this recipe, but I didn't stop there....

Andrew's mom has a lot of food allergies, which include gluten, eggs, and dairy, and every time we host A's parents for dinner I have to remind myself not to bake something for dessert she can't eat. We usually do some kind of sorbet or coconut milk ice cream, but it would be nice to have more options. I thought this would be the perfect time to just go for gold and see if I can make it happen. So in addition to the gluten-free flour, I subbed the eggs with egg-replacer and the butter with a combo of canola oil and butter flavored crisco. Here are the measurements of the subs:

1 + 1/4 c butter became 3/4 c canola oil + 1/4 c butter flavored crisco.

This seemed to be the right liquid-to-dry ratio, but I hate to say this: it needed more butter flavor. I don't think I'd up the crisco at all, but I'm toying with buying imitation butter flavor, just to see what it's all about. Worst thing that could happen is a batch of cookies tastes terrible. I can live with that.

2 large eggs became the milky white concoction that the box of powdered egg-replacers recommended for 2 eggs. It worked all right, but I think I'd put 3 "eggs" in it next time, just to see if the texture is better.

I threw in chocolate chunks instead of chips (waaaaaaaaay better results than chips) and baked 'em up for 15 min. Right out of the oven they are super soft and fall apart easily. I think that's just the way the flour is, so it is best to let them cool just a little to avoid a crumbled cookie. Andrew and I split one last night and decided they're actually pretty good. No, seriously! They tasted a little nutty because of the flour, but I think if I'd added peanut butter it would have disguised all of that action and no one would know they were not traditional cookies.

Sooooo.... the only real dilemma I'm facing is what to call them. I started out referring to my little creations as "hippie" cookies because they are vegan and gluten-free, and it makes me think of self-important preachy hippies who lecture anyone they can about eating animal products (but they can eat these!!), but then I was thinking that "indoor kids" with lots of food allergies (and probably an asthma inhaler) can also eat these. So what marginalized-yet-still-living-semi-comfortably-in-mainstream-society group should I name them after?

For Those Who Live In Seattle...

art done by abby taylor

Missin' My Mama

My mom was raised by conservative classy parents in the 1950s and 60s.

[she's the tall brunette in the back row]

Then she went to college and met my super liberal dad.

[yep. she was a hottie. nice work, pop!]

Then they graduated, married, moved to Milwaukee and met even more liberal folks through my dad's grad program at Marquette.

[gotta love my dad's 'stache]

Then they moved back to Seattle and my mom had kids who kicked up so many shenanigans that now nothing fazes her.

[wasn't my little brother the cutest baby?]

Now, at 60, she's pretty much the coolest person I know. She defaults to to prim, proper, and always appropriate, but she's not uptight. When the time is right, she will get out the blender, fill it with pina coladas, kick off her shoes, and dance around the living room with me to the soulful sounds of Aretha. She can talk to anyone. She's amazingly creative. She's laid back enough that I can tell her anything.... anything. I love that she lives 15 min away and I can pop in any old afternoon during the summer and she'll just be hanging out in the garden sipping iced tea and admiring her work.

So why the homage to my mother? She has been in NYC for two weeks taking classes at Columbia as part of her ongoing teacher training (she's a 2nd grade teacher). We're pretty close and I reeeeeeeally miss her. So, to tide me over until she's back, here are a few photos of us being goofy together:

[we used to cut our own christmas trees. i'm pretty sure i'm posing as a reindeer in this photo]


[the annual mother-daughter tea party, complete with tiaras, circa 2000]

[celebrating my bff's wedding a couple years go, doing a tipsy irish jig]

Hurry home, mom!!

Dear Deb of Smitten Kitchen, I Love You.

Now I want to talk about food. I'm thinking about all of the delicious things I want to make but can't because they require an oven or a stove.

I made the poor decision of turning on my oven last night. I had my heart set on pizza, because I'd made some pizza dough out of Cooking Light July and nothing else would do. MISTAAAAAAAAKE! The pizza itself was delicious, but what a dumb idea to preheat my oven to 500 and bake a pizza! Who does that when it's 92 in the SHADE? Apparently, I do.

I think we'll be grilling out today, if we can stand that heat outside. I have a million hot dog buns left over from my birthday BBQ, so that seems the right way to go. But what I reeeeeeeally want to do is browse Smitten Kitchen and choose a recipe from her stock to try. For those of you who don't know, Deb of SK is the best food blogger out there. She is the Barefoot Contessa of the blog world: simple, delicious recipes made accessible to cooks of all levels. When I didn't know what to do with my remaining half a roasted chicken, I looked to Deb for a chicken and dumplings recipe that ended up being one of the most delicious meals I've ever eaten (I improvised a little and left out the tarragon because that's what I do). She is a constant source of culinary inspiration to me. Oh, hell; I'm going to browse her recipes anyway and daydream.

CANNON BALL!!!!

It's blazin' hot here! Do not tell me I'm a pansy who's used to a balmy Seattle summer. While this may or may not be true, the fact of the matter is we Seattleites, and I especially, live in a world largely without air conditioning. My 1939 apartment building has no air conditioning, my shiny new green office building was designed without air conditioning, and just recently all air/ac went out on my lovely little '93 Ford Escort (I drive with the windows down, even on the freeway). Good times over here in summertime Monicaville.

Sooooo, today at lunch I snagged my friend Chris to walk down to South Lake Union Park, a mere three blocks from my office. See the pics I posted? This is where I jumped into the lake. Subtract all clouds and add 88 degrees of muggy heat. I was worried the lake would be so cold I'd feel a shock when I jumped in (this is what I thought about whilst I phsyched myself out for 10 min at the edge of the dock before the plunge). Finally after threats of a bumrush from the peanut gallery, I leapt. Then again. And again. It was the perfect cool down. I'm already planning tomorrow's post workday plunge. See you there at 5:30?

Thinking About [The Place That Shall Not Be Named]

I have been daydreaming about the coastal getaways my friends and I used to take when times were better. There is an amazing beach town at Pacific Beach that offers cottage rentals at amazing rates. It's the perfect place for Seattleites like me to take a weekend away to relax and connect with friends. There are community spaces with game equipment, shared bikes to coast around the neighborhood, and the cutest houses you'll ever see. It's like pleasantville on the coast. Then, something terrible happened... everytime one of us mentioned this magical place by name, someone lost his job or had her pay cut within days of its mention, causing us to cancel beach-bound plans due to economic hardship. Finally, once we concluded the economy had bottomed out, we started to whisper about [the-place-that-shall-not-be-named]. This fall is the birthday of one of the organizers, so we're thinking it might be safe to dip our toe into the water again. Dare we? It's tempting. Here are some reasons:

Making Progress...

This is the project I'm most excited about this summer. I found two sleigh-backed dining chairs at Value Village for $7 a pop (better than Good Will prices these days). They're solid chairs with a great shape, but ugly as all get out. The dark finish on the wood is somewhere between waxy and crusty, and the upholstery on the back and seat is a dingy embossed vinyl. I'm sure at one time it was white or maybe a nice cream, but that was years ago. Again, I'm taking pictures with my camera phone so the quality is terrble, but you get the idea.

On Sunday when I got home from Bellingham, before we went to the concert, I really wanted nothing more than to work on one of my projects, so I got out the sand paper, took one of my chairs out to the lawn and started in. I thought I'd just sand down and chipped parts, spray paint, and be done. As soon as I began, however, it became clear that I needed to sand off the finish entirely if I wanted the chairs to look right. Two hours later I still wasn't done but I was going to be late for the show if I didn't hop in the shower immediately. So I don't have an "after" picture just yet, but I do have a during shot. I really just have a little more do sand down on the lower part of the legs before I can paint. I'm hoping Wed evening I'll have a nice shot of the finished chair.

I'm planning to sell this pair of chairs when I'm done. I just hope I don't get too attached to them in the process.