Cookies for the County Fair

In an effort to justify my cookie baking habits, I decided to once again enter two cookie entries in the Indiana County Fair. I spent more time than I think it appropriate to admit preparing for my big baking day. 

First, there was the whole matter of choosing what kinds of cookies to enter, then the recipe search, taste tests, recipe tweaking, practice runs, and big day production. But hey, it was great fun and delicious! And this year I did learn something - make sample batches in half-recipe amounts, which only generate half as many calories to have lounging around the house, begging to be consumed.

Bakers can only enter one product per category, which is a good rule, but a frustrating one for me. I prefer to make drop cookies, and I wanted to enter two kinds of cookies. Therefore I had to figure out a different kind of cookie for my second entry. This year I opted to try a rolled cookie, which is hardly my forte. I can't remember the last time I made rolled cookies, to be honest! But I wasn't up for experimenting with filled or refrigerator or sugar-free or spritz ones, the other cookie categories.

Many months ago I had volunteered to help make cookies for a friend's son's wedding. I did a lot of internet browsing to look for a cookie recipe that was wedding-worthy, and found Guyanese Lime Nutmeg Cookies. They are kind of like lime snickerdoodles. They turned out fabulously that time, as did my trial run a few months later. Choosing them as one of my fair entries was an easy decision.

Recipe number two, however, took a lot more work. Andrew had suggested once that I try to make ginger lime cookies, and I set about working on those. Well, let me tell you, there are not (that I found, and I really tried) any rolled ginger-lime cookie recipes out there! Necessity is the mother of invention, so invent I did. After four attempts that didn't turn out quite right, but each one got a bit closer in some way, I am happy to say that attempt number five, which was the one I had to enter in the fair, turned out excellently! I wanted to replicate the flavor of a Stoney Tangawizi soda with a lime glaze, and I think I got it.

A friend in town is also a bit obsessed with fair cookies, and she and I had a lot of fun discussing entry options during the year, and then e-mailing and texting each other while baking. That made the whole experience that much more fun. We'll find out how we did after an interminably long two-day wait!

My enthusiastic helper

Every heard of a silicone baking mat? This is why you should use them! Cookie on the left, no mat, cookie on the right, mat. Go buy yourself a Silpat now. Silpat on Amazon

The finished products! Ginger-Lime on the left, Guyanese Lime Nutmeg on the right.

Northwest Vacation

We went on vacation! We flew from Pittsburgh to Seattle, and had one night and a two Sunday morning church services in Olympia. Then we journeyed down to Oregon where we spent a week with Andrew's family. After that we went up to Priest Lake, Idaho, for another week, this time with a whole pack of people - my parents, my sister and her husband and two kids and his parents, and our near and dear family friends and their four kids! Ai yai yai! Then the kiddos and I went back to Olympia for a week at my parents' house (Andrew had to return to PA after the week in ID). That third week finally felt like my week off - two grandparents to two kids is a great ratio, and it left me rather free at long last!

Here are a few highlights among many, many great moments.

Zarya had some awesome bedhead every morning

 Jerod would like his dinner now, please. He often sat at the head of the table where all 18 of us were, and this is his family patriarch expression.

 Neither of our kids liked Priest Lake all that much, to my great disappointment. They grudgingly agreed to let me push them around in this little boat, but when they discovered that they didn't get wet while in it, we found a successful compromise.

 Andrew went on a hike one day. I guess it was a decent view at the top!

 There were some good male bonding moments. Nothing like a little elbow in the gut to say, "I love you, Baba."