A Really Important Poll

I realize that I still have not written up my report on my travels to Anaheim for the CHOC Walk - and I am sure that the hundreds of thousands of readers of this blog are doubtlessly waiting on pins and needles for that fascinating report, but I had another thought first. Why should I be cleaning house when pressing issues like these are facing our nation?

I cannot hide or pretend: I get a sick and twisted level of pleasure out of baking and candy-making at the holidays. I take it to ridiculously OCD-like levels, although I have gotten better over the years. (I can't believe I'm admitting this here.) In the past I have been known to compile spreadsheets to figure my shopping list. I would list each recipe and its ingredients to find out how many cans of Eagle Brand, pounds of unsalted butter, sugar and brown sugar, bottles of corn syrup, and other various obscure spices and extracts I would need to bake everything on my list. Then I go to grocery stores, specialty markets, warehouse stores, and restaurant supply stores to secure the best quality ingredients for the best prices, in the most reasonable quantities as determined by said spreadsheet. As I type, I already have already started to scope out the Cheerios and Chex sales and prices for this year's White Trash, People Chow and Nuts and Bolts.

I have purchased special holiday baking issues of magazines, scoured the internet and posted on message boards looking for new recipes to add to my repertoire. I keep a special file on my hard drive where I gather my recipes and make notes on successes, failures and lessons learned each year.

I'm still trying to master the cookie press spritz cookie. I don't know if the problem is that I prefer to use the Pampered Chef Baking Stones instead of metal cookie sheets or if the problem is the recipes that I've tried to use. I have a couple of "air" cookie sheets, two jelly roll baking stones, a pizza baking stone with handles on it, and a few metal cookie sheets that look sort of nasty so I only use them covered in foil - I should probably just trash those, huh? I'm going to do that when I finish typing this. I have also been bitterly disappointed by my attempts to conquer the challenge presented by Pecan Bars. One of my only regrets about my late Grammy's passing is that while I did get her most precious Potato Salad recipe, I never got her Date Bar recipe. I loved those date bars. I console myself with rum and bourbon balls. 

I love parchment paper. I cover my sheets, even the stones, with parchment paper so I can reuse the sheets between batches. I also use them while one batch is cooking to dish out doughs for my next batches. I spend time shopping around various select stores for inexpensive plates, platters, baskets, fabric napkins or dishtowels, chinese take-out boxes, tins, etc, etc, to use for gifting these delicacies to others. Le Tarjay's delightful front of the store displays - you know the one of which I speak - sometimes house treasures for me but this year I'm also going to check out the Dollar Tree. Yes, I just typed that outloud but seriously, if you haven't visited the Dollar Tree, it's the Le Tarjay of dollar stores. And, yes, I'd rather go to Dollar Tree than Wally World. I dislike Wally World just that much. Digression! Digression! Digression!

We've lived in our house now for over 12 years and all of our appliances were brand new when we moved in. I'm waiting for my oven to die. I would really like my oven to die. Oven dying would be a really lovely thing. I don't hate my oven. I don't mind my oven. Except for a very unfortunate incident several years ago when the control panel died and it took GE so long and so many service visits to properly fix the oven that GE ended up refunding my money, (Twice. After calling their headquarters in St. Louis, MO. Twice.) my oven has otherwise been fine. But there's only one. Below my oven is a wide drawer and above my oven is my microwave. In my kitchen dreams, the oven, microwave and wide drawer all come out and get replaced by a double oven. No, I don't need a double oven that often. I really only need a double oven one month out of the year. But wouldn't it be dreamy? Oh, yes, it would.

The only thing that comes close to my obsession about Holiday Goodie Making is the Holiday Pajama Making that goes along side of it. My boys, all four of them, feed my ego every year, along with a few male relatives. As a young lady in 4-H, Clothing was one of my projects for several years. When I graduated from college my father gifted me with a very nice 5-thread Elna serger and a few years later, my husband upgraded my regular sewing machine with a Elna model we found at the LA County Fair. My favorite thing to make are fly-less flannel boxer shorts for men and pajama bottoms for boys. I'm sure that girls would enjoy them, too, but I'm mostly surrounded by males so they're my frame of reference. Every year I make my boys matching pj bottoms to wear on Christmas Eve, then I take an adorable group photo on Christmas morning. Then I figure out some project that we can make for family for homemade gifts because I truly think that homemade gifts are the best. But I digress yet again...

With all of this in mind, it is November 3 and that means it is time to kick up the Holiday Planning a notch and start obsessing about all that delightful planning. 

The pastor at our church loves to spend Advent lecturing us about how it is NOT Christmas until AFTER Christmas. Blah Blah Blah. Yes, I know this. I actually love Holiday Preparations as a part of the Advent process. I'm preparing for the Christmas season. I totally get that. I make accommodations because the rest of the world does do a lot of celebrating before December 25. The Cub Scout Cookie Silent Auction this year will be December 15 - does he really expect me to show up empty handed because it's still Advent? Actually, he probably does. Did you know that paper chains can be used to count down more than just the days until Christmas? Like how long it is until someone gets transferred? Ooopsie. Ok, that's a bit more digression...

A few years ago, while watching some show on Food Network, DaddyDoc and I watched a man with a copper shop in his backyard making super special cookie cutters. He made a really huge special Gingerbread man cookie cutter but that wasn't the important part. He had TRAIN cookie cutters. OOOOOOOH. My boys are train buffs. Not hard-core, eating and breathing nothing but train nuts, but we go on train rides on vacations, we have dedicated one driving trip around California to the pursuit of train attractions (oh, there's an idea. I can retroactively post about that trip, can't I?) And we have plenty of train memorabilia around our house including but not limited to an O-gauge Lionel Train car with Apple Computer trucks on it, various Disney focused books and goodies, and once we were invited by Michael Broggie himself to attend a private Carolwood Pacific Christmas Party at the Walt Disney Barn at Griffith Park.

(What do you mean "Michael Who"? If you don't know, go ask my good friend Google right now. I'll be here when you get back.)

After watching that Food Network show, we decided to order some Copper Train Cookie Cutters from the gentleman featured on the show. Unfortunately, it was already almost Christmas day by that point and the cookie cutters did not arrive until after the Christmas Season was official and I have never used the cookie cutters. Our family does not generally eat cut-out cookies and they're so much work that every year I put them off. 

Please don't stop and ask me why I bought cookie cutters. I'm a baker. I needed cookie cutters. I'm fortunate that we have a lovely little cake decoration store near my home so I also have some disposable frosting bags and reusable tips and couplers. I can purchase food coloring gels and powders for both frostings and doughs there and they are very lovely people.

The Really Important Poll

Here's my question - at the risk of embarrassing myself by everyone seeing just how few people respond --

What should I make with the Train Cookie Cutters?

A. Gingerbread Cookies

B. Sugar Cookies

C. Some Other Obscure Cut-out Cookie

If you vote for option C, you are required to provide your personal tried and true preferred Obscure Cut-Out Cookie Recipe to back up your answer. It's not just an easy way to get out of voting for A or B.

Help me plan my Advent Baking, please!