Adventures in Delicious... Continued

Tonight I decided to come up with a use for my Italian Buttercream. Dan suggested gingersnaps because the buttercream is actually very sweet. So I decided on a chewy spice cookie. It was supposed to have molasses in it, but I don't have any molasses and I certainly wasn't going to go out and get it. I tried to buy molasses once for a pumpkin pie. It's actually really difficult to find at the grocery store which made for quite a stressful outing. I found it eventually, but only after calling three people for help and assistance from a little old lady who took pity on me.

Photo by Nathan

I didn't take pictures of many of the steps for the cookies. They were pretty standard and, as it turns out, it's kind of a pain in the ass to take pictures as you're baking. You practically have to grow a third arm to hold the camera. Otherwise you have to stop. Wash your hands. Balance the phone in exactly the right spot. Try to balance whatever you're trying to photograph in the other hand. And pray that you don't get flour, butter, spices, egg, [insert baking ingredient here] all over your phone. Luckily I had some help tonight.

There were various steps involved, like this one that required rolling the dough into balls, dipping in sugar, flattening with a glass, and then sprinkling with sugar.

Squish

Dan made chicken and rice soup for dinner tonight. It was the perfect fall treat. I made the cookies while Nathan and Dan were eating. For some reason I thought that was good timing. It actually worked out ok because dessert was ready at exactly the right time after dinner. I'll be the first to admit that the final product doesn't look very good. But I promise it was delicious - and I have witnesses.

On a completely unrelated topic, I finished a sewing project today that I started... well, a long time ago. I bought this dress at the beginning of the summer and never wore it because every time I put it on it felt like there was something wrong with it. It's hard to put to words exactly what was wrong because I could never make up my mind exactly what I didn't like about it. Skirt too short. Straps too long. Too see-through. Too fancy. Too casual. All of the above? Oh wait - that 's not possible. Well anyway I never ended up wearing it.

Original Dress

One day, in the not-too-distant, but still-a-long-time-ago, past I decided that the dress would be better as a separate top and skirt. It then spent several weeks lying on the floor of my bedroom until I got up the courage to rip it apart. Normally I thoroughly enjoy using a seam ripper, but this dress was of shockingly good quality and it took several hours to get the skirt separated and the hem re-sewn back onto the top.

Luckily the project was going well - and I wore the top many times this summer. When I finally got around to finishing the skirt, I first had to order an elastic to use for the waist. That turned out to be the easy part. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find black thread? (I may or may not have used ballet pink for the seam on the top because that's what I had and it doesn't show). I was obviously looking in the wrong place, but I had to go to 7 stores before I found the thread I needed.

Let me just say: elastic waists are a huge pain in the ass. I've tried before and always given up part way through. This time I was determined. I spent an entire day just measuring and sewing the elastic into a circle that was likely to fit around my waist. You're probably wondering at this point whether I have a sewing machine or not. The answer is: yes, I do. But the real answer is that I sew everything by hand because the sewing machine and I do not get along. I'm pretty sure that thing is possessed by a demon that makes it sew crooked lines and creates giant knots of thread out of thin air.

Today I finished sewing the skirt to the elastic. It was a huge accomplishment. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, but we'll see what happens when I go to wear the skirt...

Top and bottom obviously aren't meant to be worn together.