let’s get baked!

so, a while back i wanted to borrow some wire nuts from JAB…

…he came over, saw what i was trying to do (hook up a new in-wall oven so i would have an oven for the first time in over a decade) and said, “fuck it, i’m already late – let’s do this thing!” and proceeded to help me install it.

it’s good to have friends – even when they get over-zealous with a circular saw and notch your cabinets making an oven hole wider.

it sat unused for a while, ’cause i wanted its inaugural run to MEAN something to me. sue me, i’m sentimental like that. i was gonna wait for the Christmas meal, but couldn’t, so i went with the tres amigos cookies.

tres amigos was my paternal grandmother’s favorite restaurant. she took all of us there at some point, and i always really liked these super-crispy cookies that they put in their ice cream (think that cookie wedged into the sunday at the swensen’s in your mall circa 1987, but more mexicany). nana (that’s what all us grand-kids called her) knew the owner, knew i liked the cookies a lot, so she got the recipe – and when i was older passed it on to me (and by that point i was out of high school but not in college and therefore nocturnal and doing most of my baking at night so the hand-written card i have from her actually says “NOT TO BE MADE AFTER MIDNIGHT!!!” by the title). these cookies are so light and crisp they seem fried but aren’t – and the way you have to achieve that is to grease the cookie sheet, than lay down wax paper, than grease the wax paper, than drop the dough on that. and you have to do this for EVERY batch. there’s more special steps when they come out but i’ll save you the trouble of reading all that – let’s just say that, like many a mexican girl i’ve dated, mexican cookies are kinda high maintenance.

but now i’ve got the bug – i gotta keep cooking and baking. two mornings later i wanted something bready for breakfast (versus the standard breakfast taco run) and had bought some pilsbury biscuits for just such the emergency – but made fresh-made yorkshire pudding instead. cheaper? not really. easier and quicker? far from. better? hell yes – plus, now i have an oven…

…i’m gonna make somebody a good husband one day, i tell ‘ya. now if only the females of the world could be convinced of this.