Peanut Butter Cookie Paradise

I am always on the prowl for a great recipe and these are the perfect peanut butter cookies! For reals! If you think I'm lying then try them for yourselves . . . I dare you. They are chewy and crunchy, salty and sweet, and oh so delicious. They came from The Best Recipe cookbook. But, I will provide it for you below. Thank me later.

Everything I have made from this cookbook is fantastic. I highly recommend it because there are so many tempting cookbooks out there that, once bought, are hardly used. This one is different in that way. The recipes are sure to please as they have already been tried and proved. If you are unfamiliar with the process a recipe goes through before it makes it into the cookbook I will explain. Basically, the team of chefs prepare countless batches or dishes of the same item, each time with slight variations in order to find out the exact ingredients and amounts that yield the tastiest outcome. They even describe the process at the head of each recipe and tell you why they opted to add just 1/2 t of water to chocolate chip cookies, why Jif peanut butter is better for the recipe than other brands, or why superfine sugar is best for Mexican wedding cakes while regular granulated is best for sugar cookies.

The cookies make about 3 dozen, so they are great for entertaining because they yield so many, if you are willing to share them. Put this America's Test Kitchen recipe to the test and I am sure they will put a smile on your face as they so easily do mine. :)

Peanut Butter Cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose
1/2 t (teaspoon) baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 pound (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
1 cup brow sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup extra-crunchy peanut butter, preferably Jif, at room temperature
2 large eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1 cup roasted, salted peanuts, ground in a food processor to resemble bread crumbs, about 14 pulses (don't over pulse or you might end up making peanut butter)

1. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350º. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper (I have never had these handy when I have made these and the cookies were just fine).
2. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.
3. Either by hand or with an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes with an electric mixer. Beat in peanut butter until fully incorporated, then eggs, one at a time, then vanilla. Gently stir dry ingredients into peanut butter mixture. Add ground peanuts; stir gently until incorporated.
4. Working with generous 2 T (tablespoons) each time, roll dough into 2-inch balls. Place balls on prepared cookie sheets, leaving 2 1/2 inches between each ball. Press each dough ball twice with dinner fork dipped in ice water, to make crisscross design.
5. Bake reversing positions of cookie sheets halfway through baking time (from top to bottom racks and back to front), until cookies are puffed and slightly brown along edges but not on top (this is the most important part), 10 to 12 minutes. (Cookies will not look fully baked.) Cool cookies on cookie sheet until set, about 4 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Ahhh, Joanna

When life is biting at your heals or the wind is in the east it is such a relief to hear the very first words of Joanna Newsom's last full-length album come softly like a rain and then poring over, so that before you realize it you are pleasantly soaked. Released when Joanna was only 26 Ys, pronounced the same as the feeling it gives: ease, has received perfect reviews from many critics in such publications as The Times and The Guardian (click for reviews). So, perhaps I feel somewhat justified with my seemingly never ending infatuation with this artist.

Part of the power of her music is due to her incredibly complex lyrics and abstract subject matter (death, love). She had a child- or nymph-like voice in her first album which has definitely matured by her second, however, retaining an equal other-worldliness. Her voice is powerful, but that power is multiplied through the perturbing lyrics that certainly always tell a story, but it is less certain what about. In the beginning of so many songs, such as Sawdust & Diamonds, Emily, and Only Skin, Joanna's voice is like a Pied Piper's first mesmerizing blows in his horn. Sweetly they sound and inviting, but in the end they have taken you to a far and foreign place.

I love her music because it is both beautiful and challenging to the listener, I believe. The orchestrations and arrangements of her music seem beyond what could be produced by the offspring of the unchallenging nature of this everything-at-your-fingertips modern world.

There - even in trying to write how I feel about her music I have created a paradox by calling it both easy and provoking. Well, I hope you will give her a good listen to before making up your mind. As for me, there will always be a separate place in my museum for Joanna.

Interviews:

Interview: Joanna Newsom, Interview by Brian Howe, Pitchfork Media
NPR All Songs Considered: Joanna Newsom

Scroll down below to listen to Joanna Newsom.

Nature Morph

Goldfinch by Amy Ross

Goldfinch by me

I had wanted to learn to paint for years. My natural inclinations towards watercolor drew my gaze in its general direction and recently more specifically on the artist Amy Ross. I found her by chance in a publication of the up-and-comingers in the art world and fell in love with her simplicity, singularity, and beauty right away. As soon as I was home I googled her images and information online. I have learned to paint by studying and attempting to recreate her style.

Amy Ross describes her art thus:

"My drawings offer visual hypotheses to the question: what would happen if the DNA sequence of a plant or mushroom were spliced with that of an animal?" (ref)

Her artwork is a type of hyper realism that leaves one feeling peaceful rather than shocked at the fantastical images. They suggest a unity between all living things: man & beast, hunter & hunted, blossoms & birds in a sort of matter-of-fact magnificence. It seems natural that a sheep is born of a magnolia blossom, that a female hunts fowl in the woods like a wolf, or that the fox hunting a rabbit both have the same roots.

The best thing about her art is that everything else is swallowed in white space, while one submissively regards the one single image, the unity of all living.



The full painting by Amy Ross. These were based . . .


. . . on these from her backyard.

Kindling

You gone, i thought to look
for warmth in the pith of trees,
so i went to the chopping-block,
brought axes edge to kiss
soft, knotty-hearted pine
whose sinews might warm mine.

Matchsticks rasp, blue chuff:
the fine shaved kindling caught,
curled into twenty fists
that cupped their fingers shut,
till fire fastened to the wood
and wooed it close and hot,
and soon the room was warm enough
but i was not.

I wish I wrote this poem. I found it by chance outside of a professor's office. I have no idea who wrote it. Anyone know? Please let me know.

JULIE HEFFERNAN Self Portrait as Post Script 2007

oil on canvas, 67 x 56 inches

Art critic David Cohen describes Heffernan's art thus: "These paintings are a hybrid of genres and styles, mixing allegory, portraiture, history painting, and still life, while in title they are all presented as self portraits." I appreciate her artwork as a collage of styles bringing together history and nature within the individual, thus creating a reason for the individual in a single window. These windows can be as broad as "World," as abstract as "Holes in my Head," and as disturbing as "Quarry" or "Dead Meat."

check out more of her art here.