I had forgotten that the beach house kitchen is not set up for baking in any way. Well, okay, there's a hand mixer and a couple of spatulas but that's it.
First of all the mixing bowls SUCK. Some girlfriend-beating asshole chef* advised my parents on the mixing bowls. He probably had some chef thing about how baking is for wussies so the mixing bowls are great if you need to marinate a salmon or make a giant manly caesar salad but they're too shallow for mixing batters. I was creaming the butter and sugar together and butter and sugar were flying all over the kitchen.
I changed to a large-ish salad bowl to incorporate the eggs and dry ingredients. That was an improvement but still not ideal. However, I've mixed up the batter and cooked the first batch of cookies only to remember that we don't have any cooling racks.
Fortunately the top oven is broken so I can cool the cookies on the racks in there.
Did I mention that there's an incomplete set of dry measuring cups? I'm lucky that there are any dry measuring cups. I'm sure I bought them myself at one time.
Oh, and because I was thrown by the lack of a quarter-cup measuring cup I left out one cup of flour so the cookies are a bit on the flat side. That's okay, there's plenty of sugar (!) butter and chocolate in them so they still taste good.
Oh, and another thing. Our friend Spencer has arrived and he's trying to take a nap. I'm not sure he's been able to sleep at all given, for one thing, the incessant large-scale leaf blowing operation that was going on across the street. If it wasn't that it would probably be mowing or hedge trimming.
People here are NUTS about their landscaping. It's got to be Martha Stewart perfect at all times. Of course they don't do it themselves. They hire crews of men with power tools to do it. It is impossible to have any quiet at all during a weekday over the summer. This being a holiday the crews are in overdrive to get the yards ultraperfecto before tomorrow. Laser-sight those hedges guys! At least lasers are quiet.
Once the leaf blowing stopped some crazy bird started kicking up a ruckus in our rhododendron out front. It sounds odd but this bird was really pissed off and letting the whole neighborhood know. I went out to take a look and it settled down.
Then I started mixing the dough with the electric mixer. Fay took noisy offense. I had to put her in the car.
Mixing done, Fay back in the house, cookies dolloped on cookie sheets. Now the part I expected to be difficult. Fay hates the oven. Any oven. Time to put the cookies in the oven and it will take more minutes than I want to leave her in the car outside. Pete and I worked out an emergency system. He holds her and her ears while I open the oven door and move the cookies in and out. It kind of works but now she's riled and barking at any unusual sound.
We suck as hosts if you're trying to sleep but we do provide flawed cookies.
*My brother was friends with the girlfriend of the girlfriend-beating asshole chef back when my parents first bought this place. My brother didn't know about the girlfriend-beating until later, after the couple broke up.
1 comment:
Even with deep bowls, I still manage to constantly send ingredients flying in all directions when baking. :p
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