Grouchy Cookies

The last few days I’d been feeling kind a bit under the weather. It is still cloudy and grey here most days and there is no green grass in sight. I was ready for spring like three months ago, so this prolonged cold weather wasn’t helping my mood much. Sniffles, sneezes, and a two-day headache weren’t exactly reason to celebrate either.

Normally I like to go to the gym, work on design modules, meet with friends or just get out and about in the evenings. But this week, no. I would come home from work, make a lame dinner, clean up the dishes and then crash on the couch. My motivation level was nearly zero. I needed to snap out of it. So on Tuesday I decided that if I was going to ignore my laundry, the gym and cleaning, I had to do something semi-productive so I could at least pretend I was being productive.

So I decided to bake.

I grabbed a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I pulled out my Kitchenaid and lined up all the ingredients on my counter. My brown sugar had clumped into a huge solid mass (despite my attempts to soften it with a piece of bread) so I chipped away at it for a few minutes until I got a measly cup of the stuff. I then proceeded to assemble the wet and dry ingredients. When it was time to add the dry to the wet, I got lazy and just dumped the dry bowl into my Kitchenaid instead of blending it by hand. I KNOW better and was cursing the crumbly mixture that resulted. Subsequently rolling the dough into balls was a lot more difficult than it should have been as the butter was cold and brittle. Gah, why do I do this to myself?

All things considered, the cookies turned out pretty good. Definitely not my best work, but not horrible either. I ate a couple and put the rest into a big Tupperware container for later, whenever that would be.

So the next day, Danny came over with some Vietnamese food in tow. Yay! I didn’t have to cook! He had a practice exam scheduled 2000h that night at a Staff Doc’s house. I thought it was a bit strange that the Doc wanted him to go over to his own house for the exam instead of going to the hospital (as is normally the case) but figured it was probably just more convenient. Plus, when a Staff Doc asks you to do something you always say yes.

Side note: We’re hoping Danny eventually gets hired as Staff at this particular hospital so positive impressions with existing Staff Docs are key.

We ate our Pho/Vermicelli and Danny studied until just before he had to leave for the exam. Noticing the cookies sitting on counter, he suggested taking some over to Staff Doc’s house. Now normally I would have been all over that idea but this time I was a bit more hesitant.

These cookies weren’t exactly made with love. Truth be told I was rather annoyed and bored at the time. Would my grouchiness be detected in the flavour? Could they tell that the brown sugar wasn’t at its optimal consistency? Would they think I was trying to bribe them? Oh my God, what if they hate them and I ruin all chances of Danny getting hired on as Staff because of my less-than-perfect cookies?

Obviously I was over exaggerating and in my head I knew they were just fine, but if I had known where this batch would end up I would have tried a little harder!

Danny called me after his exam and said that the cookies were a hit. I had nothing to worry about and was grateful that I didn’t ruin his entire future.

Big Sigh...