December is coming

Okay Gwen, this blog is for you.

Last night I was the first friend to arrive at Amara's place for the annual Christmas Cookie exchange. I was determined not to be late this year.

This year I made Christmas Ribbon cookies, which were a bit of a hybrid of recipes. When my sister and I were kids my mom used to make (on rare occasion) Rainbow cookies which were coloured sugar cookies in the shape of rainbows. They were tasty, but a fair bit of work. I started off wanting to make just rainbow cookies, but after further research and brainstorming, they took on a more Christmas-like theme. A special touch is the maraschino cherry bits added to the red and green layers, and the almond flavouring added to the white layer.

From Random Winter 2008-09

I didn't win the contest. Not only do half a dozen of us get together to exchange cookies, there is also a contest to determine the best tasting cookie. The winner is decided by the husbands of the cookie bakers. The girls have no idea what kind of scientific process the boys use to determine the winner so I am not sure if I am at any slight disadvantage for not having a confederate judge on the team.

From Random Winter 2008-09

There was talk of switching things up for next year so that the guys have to do the baking and the girls do the judging. If that is the case I will now be screening all future dates for their cooking skills. Don't know your Bundt pan from a spring form one? Next!

It's 6:15 as I type this. Next week at this time I will be somewhere in New York with my New York Friend. Hopefully eating, because I imagine that I will be very hungry at that point after traveling since 8 a.m. New York Friend asked me on Monday night if I was getting excited for my trip. I laughed. He doesn't read my blog.

NYF is a well-travelled guy. I am not-so-much, but I am certainly not afraid of a little adventure. However, I really feel most at ease when I have explicit, step-by-step directions to follow. I was much too proud to ask NYF for help--how could he possibly understand my neurotic need for directions? So I was determined to just figure things out for myself. You can imagine then how relieved and overjoyed I was when he took it upon himself to e-mail me two pages worth of directions to get from the airport to his office downtown via bus and subway. I will study them this weekend and try to figure out what I am going to wear.
On my birthday.
In New York.
(nope, still not tired of saying that.)