Do I have great tits, or what?

Before we move, I decided to go ahead and get the tattoo I’ve been thinking about for several years now. We received a wonderful wedding present from our friend Dave of some tattoo work, should ever we want some. Dave owns a great little shop called Uptown Tattoos in the riverbend. I called them up, and he fit me into his schedule on Friday evening when I got done with my last day of work in Baton Rouge. A wonderful whirlwind.

The bird, in case you haven’t been plagued by my horrible jokes yet, is known as The Great Tit, or  Parus major. The  tits, chickadees, and titmice  birds make up the family Paridae. The Great Tit is a relative of our more familiar Tufted Titmouse of North America. Great Tits make their home in Europe, the Middle East, Central and Northern Asia, and Northern Africa. They also reside on the front of many a fine-ass woman. So ends your Science lesson for today, folks.

(Above photo by Alastair Stewart.)

The image I wanted is from my first Field Guide, an ongoing series of hand-bound pencil and watercolor drawings on paper. I talk more about them in my previous post, Field Guides:Drawing a Flashback. But the image started before then, with a tryptic of paintings I did back when I was at Tulane. The first painting in the set is myself looking rather like some sort of statue with an elongated torso, holding Great Tits in front of my own, with some blue-footed boobies and headlights in the background. This painting is currently living with our family friend, Pam Preston.

I turned my imagery into the sketchy drawing above for the tattoo, and then Dave cleaned it up and turned it into a tattoo drawing. Yes, it may seem weird to be getting tits on my back, but the way I see it, this way I’ll have great tits on at least one side of my body for the rest of my life.

So what do I do when the joke gets old, you may ask? Well, first of all, dumb jokes never seem to get old with me, much to the chagrin of my companions. But even if it does, I still have a beautiful drawing on the best canvas my body has to offer, and some wonderful memories to go with it. I’m glad I didn’t get a tattoo when I was younger because who knows if I would even like it now, but I feel that at this point in my life, I know who I am and what I want, and great tits are it.

Before the tattoo, Blake and our friend Barbie and I had some sandwiches and cheese fries from Cooter Brown’s next door. The guys at the shop are, as you might imagine, tired of the food from next door, so they had some delicious-looking sushi from the nearby Mikimoto.

Dave at work.

The bird outlines in, before color.

The first outline before the crosshatching. I really like just the outlines, also. Dave did such a great job with them!

Adding the dark breast feathers.

Adding the yellow. Yes, it looks red here because I was bleeding a bit, but it cleared up!

Outline one on the right in progress. On the left is the transfer he did from his outline drawing before we got started.

The transfer up close.

The wall I stared at for several hours is full of interesting drawings that Dave did for other people’s tattoos.

Dave’s tattoo shrine.

Working from the sketch.

Starting in on the second tit.

We had a wonderful time, and I am healing up well. They say that once you get one tattoo, you want more and more. We’ll see about all that. For now, I’m very happy with my tits.

Octopus, Guns & Emeril’s, with a Touch of Lafayette

A group of friends sat around at Frogman’s Print and Paper Workshop one night and brainstormed a list of all the cliche student work subject matter we could think of. After about an hour, it did start to get personal! We decided to do a print exchange where everyone takes 2 items from the list and creates a print about it. Blake and I teamed up for this one, and we got “octopus” and “guns.”

At the end of last month, Blake and I both heard a story on NPR about the Exxon Valdez‘s final resting place. Sure, we would all think that after dumping oil all over the damn place in 1989, they would just retire that ship. But, no, instead they re-purposed it as a cargo ship that has lived under many names. At the end of last month, they finally decided to retire it. The Valdez‘s final name was Oriental Nicety, and it was going to be sold off for scrap metal.

Since Blake and I have started work on this print, however, India has since refused the ship access to the scrap yards. Their Supreme Court has ruled that the Nicety “cannot enter a scrap yard in the western state of Gujarat until its owners can prove the tanker has been cleaned of mercury, arsenic, asbestos, residual oil and other potential contaminants.” So, as of now, it is just $16 million dollars worth of junk waiting for its fate to be decided in court.

In the meantime, Blake and I decided it would be the perfect theme for our Octopus and Guns print to give the Oriental Nicety nee the Exxon Valdez a proper send-off with a 21 gun salute from Octopi with gas pumps. We also included some crabs to scavenge scraps from the ship.

We spent this past weekend in New Orleans. We arrived in town and stayed with our friends Barbie, London and Dave. We had some impromptu tacos and quesadillas with Barbie, London, John, Jess and several neighbors who were passing by. The next morning we set off for the studio early and spent about 8 hours there working on our print, start to finish.

We took a long lunch break during the afternoon with our friend Sandy to get some lunch at a new-ish nearby resturant called Refuel, in the riverbend. It was delicious! Sandy had grits and black beans, which turned out to be a stellar combination.

Blake had Migas: Eggs Scrambled with Crunchy Tortilla Strips, Pico de Gallo and Melted Mixed Cheese Served with House-Made Smokey Chipotle or Ranchero Sauce, House-Made Black Beans and a Tortilla.

I had the Pulled Chicken Salad: House-Roasted Chicken, Feta Cheese, Hashed Green Apple, Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato on a Bed of Organic Mixed Greens.

After finishing our prints, we went with Barbie and London that night to the famed Emril’s. Barbie’s husband, David Slater, is the executive chef there, below only Emeril himself.

We had an excellent time. We tried some new wines and ate way too much food including fried calamari, a prosciutto tasting plate, mussels with rice grits, barbeque shrimp with mini drop biscuits, lobster (my first time trying it!), and what seemed like the entire dessert menu! We had to put a stop on all the food that was coming up because we were all too stuffed! Otherwise we would have also been knee deep in hanger steak and quail and who knows what else. Dave was really sweet to show us the food, and we really had a great time there with Barbie and London.

The next day, Blake and I took their great dane, Gris, for a walk. Then London made breakfast since it was mother’s day: “Love” toast and eggs. We got on the road again shortly and headed not back to Baton Rouge, as you might expect, but straight to Lafayette. Okay, perhaps not STRAIGHT TO LAFAYETTE. We had some FroStop, in honor of their repairing the rotating light-up root beer float sign to its full neon glory.

Then, we were on our way to visit our friends Carol and Howard at their wonderful home in the Lafayette countryside, a patchwork of sugar cane, swamps, and Carol’s florid gardens.

We wandered about the yard and then had a lovely dinner with Howard’s mother, brother and niece consisting of breaded baked shrimp, rice, buttery green beans and some kale/bok choy with onions and garlic. Howard’s mother contributed a delicious angel food cake with raspberries on top, and Howard had cut up some fresh watermelon, also.

In addition to our eats, we tried a fascinating bit of fluid known as Voodoo Maple Bacon Ale made in Portland, Oregon. What a strange concoction! It tasted of woody smokes with a touch of Maple, and the last listed ingredient is “free range coastal water,” whatever that means. At first sip, we all went “agh!” But it grew on us and actually turned out to be quite quaff-able.

After stopping by Howard’s backyard garage to say “hello” to the gorgeous green 1964 Lotus Elan he was restoring for a friend, and saying adieu to Carol’s sweet herd of swamp cats, we set off on the windy back roads in search of the Interstate home. Just remember it’s all alternating Lefts then Rights. Or was it Rights then Lefts? In any case, we made it home somehow after another completely packed weekend covering the bases on everything we’re going to miss about South Louisiana.

Field Guides: Drawing a Flashback

I’ve mentioned several times now that I’d like to get back to drawing more after we move and things settle down. I want to work in my sketchbook more, but I would also like to return to creating my series of Field Guides. The Field Guides are a series of handmade books I created with miniature narratives inside made with drawings, text, or sometimes both.

The first edition, Field Guide to Local Flora and Fauna, Vol. I was set in Winterville, Georgia, where I spent time living in my cousin Jacqueline‘s house in-between undergraduate school at Tulane and graduate school at Louisiana State University. It contained various animals I encountered in the small Georgia town, both in reality as well as in my imagination, and narratives I composed about them. The monkey image shown above is, perhaps surprisingly, not one of the invented encounters.

About a half a mile from my house existed an empty neighborhood. The neighborhood was paved, pipes were put in, and lots were put up to sell. Then the housing bubble burst, and the lots all remained empty. It was like a subdivision with no residents but the deer, the june bugs, and some errant teenagers with shot guns and 4-wheelers. I liked to go there to jog. The one sold lot was at the entrance to the neighborhood, and behind their house they had a small Capuchin monkey that lived on a chain.

I only met one of the residents of that house, who it turned out went to high school with my grandmother in Perry, Georgia. Small world.

In any case, I figured I’d show you guys the last field guide I filled in with images. I still haven’t bound the sucker, but hopefully I can do that in the near future. I’ve already constructed the form for the next field guide, Volume V (see below), but I have yet to fill it. It is a book of extremely small height and width (about 3.5″ x 3.5″), but it is incredibly thick. It wouldn’t even fit in our biggest book press at L.S.U. I call it the Field Guide to Brevity. So far it is extremely brief, with no content at all, but I plan to change that soon.

(Binding in progress)

Besides being enjoyable to create in an of themselves, the imagery in the Field Guides often inspires or influences other prints I create. For example, the octopus print below, Mollusca Cephalopoda Infatuare, was directly inspired by the fold above from Field Guide, Vol. I.

The narrative of this image is as follows:

Octopi have low life expectancies as they always die soon after mating. This untimely death is due to a mix of a genetically controlled release of poisonous endocrine secretions and lovesick starvation emanting from a throbbing pain in their third heart. This particular specimen (Mollusca cephalopda coleoidea infatuare), fell in love with the luminous moon by mistake, and spends most of each month gradually wrapping her up in his grasp and then releasing her for an evening before forgetting his failure and becoming moonstruck again. Notice the markings left on the moon’s craggy surface from Infaturare’s insistent attentions; at least he will live forever.

Below are some more images from Field Guide, Vol. IV.

We’re Moving to Kentucky!

Surprise! So, for those of you who haven’t heard (and we have been trying to keep this on the D.L. for some time now–until things were really set in motion and certain,) Blake and I are moving to Kentucky in about two weeks time. We are very excited to be covering some classes for the excellent printmaker, Nicole Hand. We’ll let her tell you why!

Above are a couple of prints by Nicole Hand and one by her husband, Jim Bryant. You can see more of their work on their website, Black Dog Press. Nicole is a printmaking professor at Murray State University and Jim is a graphic design professor–also at Murray State. Oddly enough, Blake and I also know two other artists in the area whom I went to graduate school with at Louisiana State University, sculptors Cody Arnall and Lindsey Maestri. Cody even works at Murray State as a Technician in the Visual Arts Department.

Blake and I are really looking forward to starting this new chapter in our lives. It’s a great honor to get to work with the likes of Nicole and Jim! And we can’t wait to be a part of Murray’s vibrant art department. Blake will be teaching Advanced Printmaking and Beginning Drawing, and I will be teaching Advanced Drawing, Life Drawing, and Beginning Printmaking. This is only a temporary appointment, but it is still a great opportunity for us to teach advanced courses, meet new people, and get a fresh start in a new place. We really can’t wait!

We travel to Murray in a couple of weeks to find an apartment, and then we will move up there the last week of May–right before our friend Ann Flowers‘ wedding in Columbia, KY. Funny how things work out sometimes.

This past month I’ve been working on a photo backdrop for Ann’s wedding. Blake and I will be doing the “sign in” for the wedding, so I decided to turn it into a photo booth opportunity and take snapshots of all the guests in front of what I consider to be an Ann Flowers’ aesthetic backdrop.

The remainder of our time in Louisiana will be spent working to save money for the summer, packing, visiting with friends and eating at all of our fave places in New Orleans before we have to say goodbye! We’ll be back to visit at some point, though, I’m sure. If you haven’t already, “Like” our Orange Barrel Industries Facebook page to keep in touch!

Above is a Shrimp and Pork Belly Bahn Mi: Dong Phyong roll dressed with foie gras mousee, fresh cucumbers, carrots, jalapenos, arugula, basil, and pickled turnip then filled with pan fried Cambodian style pork belly and shrimp in a Thai chili sauce and topped with fried onions from Green Goddess in New Orleans.

Sketchy Times

A lot of who I am has been defined by the obsessive sketchbooking I’ve done since I was a very little girl. My sketchbook was my constant companion through all of my schooling, as well as my other experiences. It was scrapbook, companion, best-listener and my memory.

It is sad that I am using the past tense to discuss its place in my life, but it is true that my use of it has fallen off in the past three years and has dwindled down to very little these past few months, especially. I find myself so busy with living these days that there is no time for recording. But I would like to make a place for it in my life, still. My memory is always enriched by these documents. I have 4 Rubbermaid containers in my closet full of their various shapes and sizes. They have smells and tactility and contain many events I would have otherwise forgotten. This is both good and bad. There are, of course, some very embarrassing moments in all of them. But that’s just they way that goes, especially if you are a girl who writes down all of your thoughts in high school.

I was lucky to be encouraged in my pursuits by my friends growing up. My grandmother always said she didn’t recognize me if I weren’t constantly writing in some impossibly small script in a notebook throughout the hours. Even my high school history professor, Mr. Brown, supported my pursuits by saying that it might become some fantastic primary source for future historians one day. That still remains to be seen… high school girls’ vision of the universe primary source documents are probably a dime a dozen.

In any case, I share below with you a flashback through unsorted images ranging High School through a couple of years ago, heavy on the undergraduate. I have many more in my Digital Sketchbook Flickr set if you wish to take a gander.

Art that Silences Owls

I want to be a writer of images, a player of pictures.
I want to make art you read over and over, under the covers with a flash light, late at night.
I want to make art like a poem: open as air but heavy with life–
Art like deja vu
Art like an itch
Art like a book you can’t put down
Art where things happen for a reason (because you make it so)
Art like a song that pops into your head out of nowhere
Art that silences owls. Art like a constellation.
Art like a yarn you pull to unravel

I wrote this back in 2009 as a Mission Statement for art making. I feel that I need to be reawakened by thinking about this. A year after graduate school, and I have been working mostly in fabric because it is comfortable, free or nearly-free, and I can work on it in small doses after work when I am tired. I can work on it while movies are playing, while I am cooking dinner. I want to start drawing more again, however. I want to get back to using my desk as a desk when we get a bigger place. I want to draw every day like I always used to do.

In the meantime, I carry on with my fabric. And Blake and I have been working on a bunch of new T shirt designs, as well, some of which we have brought into actuality in our re-awakened Orange Barrel Industries Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/nonchalantpeach

Culinary Post-Work Delight: Quick Turkey Lime Zucchini Pasta

I had zucchini pasta first at my friend May‘s house a few weeks ago. I’d heard of the idea to intersperse pasta-cut veggies with actual pasta in order to get kids to enjoy their vegetables, but I’d never tried the veggie pasta myself. Having only eaten breakfast, I returned home from teaching Design I in Lafayette today famished, and decided to try out some zucchini pasta with turkey breast for dinner.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 zucchini per person
• 1/4-1/2 a turkey breast per person (mine was partially pre-cooked as described in my previous post on turkey pot pie. I cook a big one and save bits in the freezer for months.)
• Butter and/or Olive Oil
• 1/4 a large onion
• Salt to taste
• Black & cayenne pepper to taste
• Sriracha to taste
• Low Sodium Soy Sauce to taste
• 1/4 a Lime per person
• 1 clove garlic per 2 people
• A couple tablespoons balsalmic vinegar

We have a spiral cutter. It is one of our splurges. I get Amazon.com gift certificates via my credit card, so I saved up the certificates in order to get this excellent piece of kitchen equipment practically for free! It is kinda pricy on its own, but so much fun! It comes with 3 different blades for spiral cutting any veggie thin, medium or thick. Plus you can use the standard setting to create things like sweet potato chips for deep frying. It’s extremely versatile.

I used the spiral cutter to slice up a couple of zucchini using the second-to-smallest blade attachment. You could also just thin slice the zucchini into long strips using a knife, and it would work just as well (or use a mandolin if you have one).

Boil water in a steaming pot, or heat water in a rice cooker on high.

Dice onion and garlic and pan fry in olive oil or butter on medium heat until they begin to soften. Turn heat to high and add raw or partially cooked turkey breast. Season with black and cayenne pepper, salt, sriracha and low sodium soy sauce to taste while the turkey is cooking. Keep heat on high, turning turkey as needed until both sides are seared. Lower heat and cover, stirring occasionally, until meat is done (juices run clear when poked with a knife).

Mid-way through turkey cooking, add spiral cut zucchini to steaming basket or rack within a rice cooker and steam for just a few minutes (generally 5 or less!). I like my zucchini pasta, like any pasta, al dente! Make sure and remove zucchini from pan immediately after cooking to prevent over-cooking. You can chill zucchini with a bit of cold water if it is getting too soft before eating.

Serve turkey breast and onions on a bed of the zucchini pasta with a lime slice on the side for some extra flavor. Sprinkle a bit of olive oil and balsalmic vinegar over the whole deal. Put some sriracha on the table in case people want to spice it up a bit more.

This meal was really quick and pretty damn good. Plus no carbs! I haven’t been sticking strictly to that whole Primal deal, but cutting down on my carbohydrates has been pretty easy and it feels great.

Why I’m Cutting Back on My Fatkins Diet

Egg Muffins with spinach, onions, garlic, and hog sausages the neighbors made.

WARNING. AS USUAL, THIS POST CONTAINS WAY TOO MANY PHOTOGRAPHS. JUST KEEP SCROLLING.

Easter weekend we visited Aunt Pe & Mike in the Florida Panhandle. We had a great time laying sod, sea kayaking in the waterways, playing with the neighbor’s dog, cooking & eating lots of great food and drinking some lovely red wines.

Beach-dayz computing.

Moroccan Chicken with Green Beans.

The Moroccan Chicken was served on a tri-fold bed of quinoa, cauliflower “rice” (steamed, grated cauliflower) and red cabbage.

Cooking the Moroccan Chicken with lots of local limes.

Since early in the year, Pe & Mike have been exploring the Primal Blueprint. Primal is a diet that hates the word diet. Primal wants to be a lifestyle change. It is a supposedly in-grained, anti-grain pre-agricultural meats, vegetables, fruits, nuts, push-ups, heavy lifting, long-walking, occasional run-for-your-life sprinting, howl-at-the-moon sort of deal with a few modern perks like red wine and coffee with heavy cream.

Duck with Baby Bok Choy. Blake is serving up some duck breast.

Duck with Baby Bok Choy. Gotta love all that duck broth! We supplemented the Bok Choy with Kale since it was cheaper.

Serving up the Duck.

Blake and I tried it out for the weekend and went no-carb (besides some delicious french fries and some crackers! Well worth it.) and heavy on vegetables and meat. The diet, designed by Mark Sisson, is similar to other no-carb/low-carb diets like Atkins except it bases its claim to success not just on cutting out sugars and their next-of-kin, but by supposedly taking one back to pre-agricultral times.  According to Sisson, the innovation of growing grains to feed the masses was great and all, but our guts never really adapted to it.  He believes we should go back to a sort of forager stage, eating lots of veggies with some fruits, nuts, and grass-fed organic meat thrown in. He purports exercising often, but not too hard, and listening to your body.

Collection of delicious fruits, veggies and roots that we consumed over the course of the weekend.

All of this sounds pretty good, but where is the pasta? Seriously. Pasta is my favorite food. I also love to bake bread. Kneading bread dough through its stages and baking it up fresh is extremely satisfying. I often purport that I am on a “Fatkins” diet, eating mostly carbs in protest of Atkins.  In any case, I’m trying out Primal this week, and it has gone well so far. I don’t really crave pasta or anything when I’m eating lots of turkey and eggs and spinach and the like. I believe true-Primal is a bit anti-dairy, but that’s definitely not for me. I’ve been supplementing with sharp cheddar and Greek Yogurt. I don’t even want pasta if I can put some cheese on my veggies!

The Primal Blueprint Cookbook, by Mark Sisson.

I hate all these diet cranks because I want to enjoy food and enjoy life, but I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor for the pasta-lover-I-even-eat-it-for-breakfast girl to cut back on her carbs a bit. According to Science, as a nearly 27 year-old 4′ 11″ woman, I’m supposed to weight about 113 lbs., and I can tell you I’m generally about 20lbs heavier than that, despite a fairly active life-style and occasional bursts of jogging. The last time I weighed 113 lbs was in high school when I played soccer, went horseback riding,  and ran about 8 mi a day. Also, I barely ate anything. I went entire weeks where all I wanted was raisin bran or turkey breast with nothing on it.

The Original “Beef Cakes McGee” Sanders. Don’t try to imitate. Admire.

I actually have no idea what I weigh these days exactly, given the fact that having a scale in our house induces B. to some kind of addictive post-traumatic former wrestler dropping-of-weight sort of thing. At least when I’m a bit overweight, I qualify to donate blood. And I am built like an ox. I could bowl you over. Seriously. I don’t think of myself as fat, but plump. Sturdy. Sometimes I like the term “Beefy.” I once tried to start a nickname for myself, “Beef Cakes.” But you can’t start your own nickname. That’s not how that works.

Neighbor dog, Sumo. He doesn’t like the camera “clicking noise,” for he equates it with gun noise, which he thinks means hunting and then he gets overly excited.

Anyway, I started running a few times a week again, and I’m eating less carbs while still eating delicious meals, so what can go wrong? Over the Easter Weekend at Pe & Mikes (I want to call him “Me” [silent h at the end] so they can be “Pe” and “Me”) Pe & Me’s, we tried a lot of fun recipes from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook including Moroccan Chicken with Cauliflower Rice, Green Beans and Red Cabbage; Cheddar Cheese Chips; Root vegetable chips; Egg Muffins; and Roasted Duck with Baby Bok Choy. We drank more red wine and coffee than Mark Sisson would like, but that’s life. And a damn good one, at that.

Waking up early to sit on the deck and read and watch the water.

Mostly “Primal” Pie (Besides the crust) made from blueberries and bananas tossed in coconut flour with a strawberry home-made gelatin topping.

Chopping up onions, garlic & ginger for Moroccan Chicken.

Green Beans and Red Cabbage for Moroccan Chicken dish.

Chicken legs on sale! Yes!

Aunt Pe

Uncle Me & the Bike He Built From Scratch.

Cheddar Cheese Chips (Cheese toasted in the oven on parchment paper.) We already ate 1/2 of them before I could take this pic… seriously good…

Prepping cauliflower and red cabbage.

Kayaking right out of the back yard. Paradise.

Tater Tots on Top

Did y’all grow up eating casseroles like this one? I sure didn’t. My most common meal growing up was pasta with roast chicken and broccoli. I love that meal. My whole family does. Other staples included Hoppin’ John (black eyed peas in rice,) string beans and cherry tomatoes from the garden, meatloaf with lots of ketchup and lamb or fried pork chops on special occasions.

Falling in love with Blake also meant falling in love with a string of delicious casseroles his grandmother and then his father would make for his family. The last we posted of these was one of Blake’s variations on a receipe he’d seen in his Grandmother Phyllis’ files once: Reuben Casserole.

Besides Tuna Casserole, the Tater Tot variety is one we crave the most when we are in need of some serious comfort food. This casserole is so easy and so loved by every generation, it barely needs explanation. This post is mostly pictures. Prepare to salivate.

This recipe is, of course, altered from its original version by Blake’s memory as well as by some substitutions (ground turkey for ground beef, for example) and some extra spices. In reality, you can combine whatever you have and put tater tots and cheese on top, and it will probably be delicious.

Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees.

• 1 lb. ground turkey, thawed
• Olive oil
• 1/4 large onion, chopped
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup mixed with 1/2 can water (or 1 family-sized can cream of mushroom soup if you want a richer casserole)
• Frozen tater tots (enough to create 1 layer across the pan you are using)
• 2% Milk Velveeta Cheese (or cheddar cheese of your choice)
• salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, lemon pepper, dill, & garlic powder to taste
• 1/2 a small bag of frozen peas (or fresh, of course!)
• 1/4 a small bag of frozen corn (or fresh)

Brown meat on stove-top with onions in a small amount of olive oil. Add salt if desired. Mix browned meat, cream of mushroom soup and frozen veggies together in a large casserole dish. Put a single layer of frozen tater tots on top. Sprinkle on desired spices. Add slices of Velveeta at regular intervals across the tots to your delight. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes. Casserole is done when mixture is bubbly and cheese has relaxed into melty-goodness.

We spiced the top of our tots with cayenne pepper, dill, black pepper & garlic powder.

Ready to Bake!

As an aside, have you guys ever witnessed the music of Garfunkel and Oates? They have great lyrics. I guess they’ve been picked up by FUNNY OR DIE, but even their low-production early videos are pretty neat. I hope that one day I can be a smug one.

Peanut Butter Snuggle Bumps

What better way to end a long day at work than with some melt-in-your-mouth cookies? I received a text from Blake at work today saying merely, “Cookies ?” How could I refuse?

For years I tried out low-fat recipes and substituting ingredients, but I’ve found that very few work as well as the old standby fatty-face delicious cookie recipes.

The following is adapted from good old Joy.

Put an oven rack in the next-to-top slot or 2 slots down and grease a couple of cookie sheets, whatever sort you have. If they are dark in color, just realize the baking time might be slightly shorter or that your bottoms will be a bit more brown. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ingredients

Dry

• 2.5 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 cup whole wheat flour + 1.5 cups all purpose flour)
• 1.25 teaspoons baking powder (I used double-acting because it’s all I had, and that seemed to work just as well.)
• 0.5 teaspoon baking soda
• 0.25 teaspoon salt

Wet

• 0.25 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup peanut butter (really measure this as close as possible. I know it is a pain in the ass to put sticky peanut butter in a measuring cup and then somehow get it out again, but if you add too much or too little, the cookies will be the wrong consistency. I recommend using a rubber spatula thingie to help get it in and out of a measuring cup)
• 1.5 sticks softened butter (I soften it in the pre-heating oven on one of my baking pans, which automatically greases the pan with the bit that melts off)
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar (if yours has gotten lumpy, sift it before adding)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar

Secondary Wet Ingredients

• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk (save the extra white for breakfast or stir it in with some leftover rice while you reheat it with some low-sodium soy sauce and veggies to make healthy fried rice!)
• 2.5 teaspoons vanilla (I use less these days. I LOVE the taste of vanilla extract, but Blake always says, “these cookies taste too much like vanilla,” so I have cut back. They are still good.)

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl (flours, baking powder/soda, salt.) In another larger bowl, use a hand or stand mixer to beat the Primary wet ingredients on medium speed until the froth and are very well blended (oil, peanut butter, butter, sugars.) Add the secondary wet ingredients (egg + extra yolk, vanilla) and beat until just well combined.

Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture until well blended (smooth consistency all over.) Let it stand for a few minutes while you stare at the wall or do something more interesting like eat a piece of cheese or check your Facebook page to see if anyone loves you.

Pinch off bits of dough and form 1 inch balls, rolling them until they are smooth and round in your hands. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheet. Use a fork to create hatch-marks at two 90 degree angles, pressing the cookie down into a round form with plaid indentations.

Bake 1 sheet at a time for about 10 minutes. Rotate pan halfway through baking if you are anxious or if your oven is funky or if you want to be more like Joy of the famous Joy of Cooking.

Remove from oven when slightly browned at edges.

Let cool a small amount of time and then cool on racks if you have them, or evenly spaced on out cold plates if you don’t have those fancy-smancy racks.

Yield equals this many:

Enjoy After Dinner. Or instead of dinner. (See Seinfeld.)