I found that I have 75 unpublished drafts among my blog posts. I guess I felt this one was too mundane to post. But now I don't. I am gathering this was March of 2011. And yes, I still use the pad every single day. I am totally buying another when it runs out.


I treated myself to some pre-birthday gifties today. The Martha Stewart Home Office Collection at Staples is pretty great. I had to hold myself back. To-Do List Notebook, $2.99

[image from marthastewart.com]

This is the time of the year where my thoughts turn to cookies. I am not going to lie to you. I am thinking about cookies a lot. So what better place to turn than Martha's Cookie of the Day Website. I love pouring over all the recipes. I could definitely be convinced to make these Pinched Orange Macaroons.

I think they are more macaron than macaroon, don't you?

This time I vow not to deviate from the oven temperature, baking time and ingredient proportions. Well, maybe "vow" is too strong of a word. I will get back to you on that.

Ingredients

Makes 5 dozen

• 2 large egg whites
• 1/8 teaspoon pure almond extract
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted, plus more for rolling and coating
• 1 pound almond paste
• Zest of 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with nonstick baking mats; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1 egg white and almond extract. Add confectioners' sugar and almond paste; beat until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add orange zest and orange liqueur; beat to combine, about 1 minute.
2. Lightly dust work surface with confectioners' sugar. Turn dough out onto work surface; roll into two 3/4-inch-thick logs, about 18 inches long. Cut each log crosswise into 30 1/2-inch pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.
3. Lightly beat remaining egg white. Coat each ball with egg white and roll in sugar, tapping to remove excess; transfer to prepared baking sheets. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
4. Pinch each piece of dough with three fingers to form an irregular pyramid shape. Bake until lightly golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to a wire rack and cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

The week before Christmas, I had a rare desire to bake: Christmas tree-shaped cookies, decorated with various tasty colorful toppings like rainbow sprinkles, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, crushed candy canes, crushed cinnamon candy, you get the idea. And so I went right to marthastewart.com to investigate cookie recipes. Did you know that the site features a different cookie each day during the holiday season? I think Martha should continue Cookie of the Day for the whole year. I personally would return everyday, or at least every week, to see what's new in the world of cookies.

We chose the Spicy Chocolate Sandwich Cookie, unsandwiched and unfilled, for our colorful cookie-cutter Christmas tree cookies. I became inspired to bake after I saw Martha create some overly-elaborate but quite wonderful gingerbread cookies with Isaac Mizrahi on the show. Poor Isaac could barely get a word in edgewise, but the cookies turned out fantastically. On our own baking day, I wanted to deviate from the recipe in all sorts of ways, because that is just my way, but my husband wouldn't let me. I did, however, add extra espresso powder and cinnamon when he wasn't looking.

The cookie project, which included gathering supplies and ingredients in mid-town Manhattan and two neighborhoods in Brooklyn, cookie-cuttering the trees, decorating and baking them (in our Brooklyn oven) took two rather full days. We walked many miles to buy a rolling pin, Christmas tree cookie cutters and parchment paper, burning off calories in advance of the tasting fun which was to follow. But after the baking was done, we were left a little cookied-out, with many more cookies than anyone could imagine. A little overwhelmed, we ate one each and decided they were a total failure. But after some distance from our mega-batch, we now think they are delicious, a bit quirky, but tasty. My husband thinks that Martha would not approve. I probably agree.

days later, the Christmas tree cookies, now accepted as valid,
proudly pose for a picture

I have recently been reading Bluelines, which is the blog of Martha Stewart's Blueprint magazine. Everyone and everything has a blog nowadays. Magazines, humans, you name it. The writing style on Bluelines is pleasingly conversational, and the topics vary from interior design to clothing to art to food and entertaining. Their tagline: "The Shortest Path to Personal Style." I could see myself writing for Bluelines... Just a thought.

I like the ruler edge on all the headers that randomly load in (three variations pictured above and below). I like the navigation in the left sidebar. I have been thinking about doing a little table of contents myself. And I really like the 4 icons below each post: subscribe to RSS, post to del.icio.us, digg this article, link to Blueprint. Now that is a great idea. I might have to use the 4 icon idea, the last one being a link to ElainePerlov.com, with my new favicon that I am designing for the Website today. Hooray for upgrades. Thanks Bluelines.