Confessions of a Closet Foodie

Growing up brings all sorts of realizations as you get comfortable with what makes you YOU. One of the things I've come to realize in the last little while (or at least, finally admit to myself) is that I am a foodie; I like to cook tasty food. It brings me great satisfaction and it's fun! And there is nothing wrong with that.

I like to seek out new and interesting things to experiment with. For example, in the next couple weeks, I intend to try out Arugula, Fritattas and a new way to make fish.

And while I like to cook tasty foods, what I REALLY like is to bake. Mere semantics, you may say.. but no; while cooking produces nice dinners, baking brings delightful deliciousness.

And more than cakes, or tarts or pies, I like to bake cookies. Sometimes I think that cookies are sort of like the neglected stepchild of the baking world; they're common and not typically fancy or gourmet and, in their simplicity, they're frequently overlooked.
Now this tendency of mine to seek after and perfect different cookie recipes does not stem from some altruistic desire to make sure that cookies are equally represented in the universe of baked goods... Nope. I just like them best. They're simple, small and yummy. Plus, they freeze well.

In all my cooking efforts, including baking, I tend toward things that aren't too complicated: Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter, Chocolate-chip; the classic staples. But there's nothing like an impending, big holiday to bring out the creative energies in me.
As I look at my calendar, all of my weekends are fully booked through the end of the year, and most of those activities involve me bringing baked goods of some sort. Now, I think Snickerdoodles are my most favorite cookie of all time. However, I do like to shake it up sometimes too.

In my ongoing quest for new and interesting things to cook, there's this one author who's food blog I frequent where she posts all sorts of beautiful and delicious things, and not all sweets, with great pictures to tempt you into trying it yourself. Most of the time I just look and imagine but then, the other week, there was a recipe for brown-sugar cookies. It was love at first sight. I'm not typically a fan of sugar cookies, or the more especially labor-intensive recipes... but these just looked too pretty to not try out. So I did.

They are so much better than traditional sugar cookies.. and since you freeze logs of them, you just slice off whatever you want to cook right then and put the rest back in the freezer until you feel like baking again. It's win-win-win! And did I mention they were yummy? 'Cuz they are.