In Which It Takes a Very Special Cookie to Make Me Post.

All right, kittens, first things first.

Because no one was able to bring any celebratory eats to SnB last week for Eliza's and Cheryl's birthday celebration, I decided to bring something to last night's gathering. It was also a great excuse to procrastinate packing and cleaning my house. And as the Alarming Female said, procrastination never tasted so good.

This chocolate butter cookie is amazing, but I cannot take credit for it. I found the recipe HERE on the Smitten Kitchen blog. She got it from Dorie Greenspan, one of the greatest bakers alive today, as far as I'm concerned. Smitten's instructions are very good, especially the part about not moving the cookies from the cookie sheet until they've cooled for about five minutes, or else they just dissolve. But if you wait, they have the most heavenly texture and taste. And if you do make these, do your tastebuds a favor and don't scrimp on quality ingredients. Because the elements of this recipe are simple and few, there is nothing to cover the taste of old butter (god forbid you use margarine--you would go straight to hell, I am not kidding).


I'm closing this rare and precious broadcast of Katherine Of It All with a shot of a recent Finished Object (recent in that I finished it within the last two months--I am such a finisher when I am knitting in my spare time instead of blogging!). This is the Child's Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and it's my first complete sweater! Apparently the pattern in the book (which is the one I used) is riddled with errors, such that they posted the entire correct pattern online here (it's a PDF). I was able to make it work flying by the seat of my pants (mostly because I didn't check for book errata until half way through the yoke, and the sweater is not knit top down). I still have to add the bead buttons.

I finished several other things too, but they were all gifts and I didn't take pictures before giving them to their recipients. They were lovely though, just because of their FO-ness.

Finally, my due date is exactly one month from today! Mazel tov! (I thought it was earlier, but I checked my calendar this morning and discovered my error.) Because I haven't used my camera for so long, I want to take a picture a day as the count-down begins. I'm two weeks into teaching a five week art unit on photography to W's first grade class, and as I've watched the kids have so much fun with their disposable cameras, I've found photographic inspiration again myself. (Perhaps the funniest part of teaching the class is the fact that the kids must be constantly reminded to look through the view-finder as they snap the photograph instead of holding the camera out in front of them as they would a digital camera, the kind most of them have used exclusively in the past. There is a clear generational line there.)