Pink of Perfection

The bad news is, I killed a plant. A couple weeks ago, I went on a plant buying spree. Green plastic pots filled with pink polka dotted leaves and viney tendrils were two for $5 at the farmer’s market. Then later, walking home from a cafe, a flower shop had a tray of long-armed, spiny aloe plants for sale, and a tall, proud looking green thing. Of course, I had to have them all.

Ever since I visited my friend in Los Angeles in the spring, I have realized that my dream life has a lot more green things in it than my actual life. Jenny had plants hanging from the rail of her balcony, and a terracotta pot filled with succulents and a bed of stones. At night, she might have snipped buds from white rosebushes and slipped then into the narrow neck of a tall bottle back in her apartment.

I came home wanting more green on my windowsills and fire escape. And it’s why, when I ran into a jade plant at Trader Joe’s, I swooned. There’s something about jade plants that so speaks to me––they don’t need much, and they hold what they need, in reserves, inside of them. Yet despite the lovely symbolism and my ability to instantly make reality an element of my dream life right there in the grocery store aisle, I had to stand, weighing the pecuniary ramifications of a $10 plant for several minutes. Then finally it hit me: I’ll spend $10 on a sushi lunch but I can’t drop the same amount to make my ideal life vision a reality? So I got my priorities straight and happily carried that jade plant home, where it greets me every morning from my bedroom windowsill. An important lesson: it’s always worth it to spring for the things that really bring you deep delight, especially when they cost less than $20.

I killed the pink polka dotted thing. I think, perhaps, it was more delicate than it looked. It might have been the rain or the wilting heat. But I still have the jade plant, the aloe plant next to it, and two unidentified green things in the living room: one low and long-armed, one tall and proud.

Here’s the good news: I’m pretty into these cookies. In fact, would it be wrong to say my favorite thing about these cookies was the raw dough? It was the best I’ve ever tasted. Some of their magic seemed a little lost in the baking, but they came out of the oven soft and have stayed that way for days. Plus, while I would not go so far as to call these cookies “healthy,” they do have a number of good-for-you items in them, like whole wheat and oat flours, canola oil, and agave nectar. This is not reason enough to eat them for breakfast, but all the same, I did. Let’s just call that my other piece of bad news.

Continue reading “Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Almonds” »

I don’t feel like waxing poetic today, so I’ll come right out with it. These are amazing. They are simple and quick to throw together with no need for a bowl or mixer, no beaters to clean (or lick). I was looking for a sweet treat to bring to book club, and these was perfect.

Granted, perhaps they were not the perfect item to sit in the sun for five hours on a warm day, but then again, neither am I. Arriving home red-faced and with one sunburned arm (cute, right?), I was comforted to find last summer’s bottle of aloe vera still stashed in the refrigerator door. But for the company, and the lazy day, and the lemonade, it was certainly worth it.

And these were indeed the perfect treat to send packing with my husband to the office on a Sunday afternoon. Who works on a Sunday, you ask? A man who is trying to square away the final details of his first feature film. I like to think these sweet and salty and rich treats saw him through. (In fact, there’s internet proof they did.)

Continue reading “Salted Toffee-Chocolate Graham Cracker Squares” »

$2.50 bouquets of daffodils

reading The Wind in the Willows aloud

Girl Scout Cookies

dreaming about spring dresses

yoga dates with friends

the discovery of vanilla pudding in chocolate chip cookies

bedtime reading of The Pursuit of Love

My month is apparently all about cookies and books. What are you happy about in March?

Can we talk about cookies yet?

I know you’re all eating tofu and baby bok choy and feeling like lean, virtuous tigers of unbounded energy, but consider the cookie. So perfectly portioned, sweet, buttery, a little salty. The perfect nibble, really, with an afternoon cup of tea when you feel your will to look at another spreadsheet flagging. And even though I can’t think of a way to convince you that a cookie is the gold standard in nutrition, you can’t deny how utterly wholesome these devils are. What do you think Laura Ingalls Wilder ate on the grassy plains when she sat cooling her heels in a cold brook? What did Jane Austen use to fortify her mind while considering the proper twist to bring Elizabeth and Darcy back together? I cannot prove that it was cookies, but I feel quite certain that the chances are good it was.

Necessity inspired a revelation with this particular recipe. All I happened to have in the freezer was salted butter, undoubtedly something my mom sent me home with in a “your not eating well enough” care package. Here, take four sticks of butter. Anyway, I followed the recipe to a t, using the salted butter and then absentmindedly stirring in additional salt as well. The results were addictive: flat, rich cookies, crisp on the edges, soft in the middle, studded with saltiness. A cure for the Mondays? I won’t make any promises, but it’s worth a shot.

Continue reading “Peanut Butter Cup Cookies” »

I say salty because that’s what catapults these rich cookie bars into another stratosphere. Without the salt these sweet rectangles would be cloying. With that lick of savoriness, a layer of butter cookie topped with a salted chocolate caramel and sprinkled with sea salt becomes otherworldly. One guest proclaimed that these knocked chocolate chip cookies out of her favorite cookie spot.

I say salty also because as filled with as I am with hope, goals, dreams, and expectations for the new year, I’m sure those dark days will come: we’ll get caught in the rain (but not in a romantic way), stay home sick (but not in that mental health day kind of way), and fine ourselves beset by the blues (and not necessarily in a creatively rich Dorothy Parker kind of way).

Just today I woke up with the world unexpectedly softened by snow. At first, it seemed magical in that Christmas morning kind of way. And then I thought of the treacherous streets, worried about someone I love moving from one office to another, just today turning the page on one life chapter. Perhaps the best we can do is notice the flip side of life, and then turn that coin right back to the bright side. That is the art and challenge of living well, no matter how fat your bank account.

Whenever I talk of moving to some fair city and starting anew, a friend reminds me, “Wherever you go, there you are.” The same certainly can be said for money. Sure, some of life’s problems can be banished by waving a wad of cash at them. But the heart of what it means to live fully, ecstatically, confronts rich and poor alike everyday: What is truly meaningful to me? How can I create a daily life that contains my deepest values? What (gulp) is the meaning of my life? And what’s for dinner?

As we approach a new year and the fourth (!!!) anniversary of Pink of Perfection, I want to thank all of you for coming to this site, reading, hanging out in the forum, and most of all, leaving your insightful, funny comments. I have always loved this blog as my creative place; the unexpected joy has been watching it become a gathering spot to the wisest, loveliest blog readers out there. I take great comfort in this community, and I hope you do, too. Here’s to another year of asking the big questions and savoring the smallest pleasures. Happy New Year!

Continue reading “A Sweet (and Salty) New Year” »

Even before I was invited over to a friend’s house for the world’s best beans and rice (holy ham hock!), these cookies had been on my mind. Cool air makes me think of oatmeal. Strike that, cool air makes me want to bake, and nothing gets me back into the baking swing of things than cookies. So wickedly wholesome, so perfectly portioned, so associated with all that is good and innocent and simple in the world. But if oatmeal needs a friend, I confess raisins just don’t get my heart pumping. Chocolate chips, you say? Now we’re talking.

When I discovered, however, that I was out of brown sugar, my powers of improvisation leapt at the idea of making these cookies with maple sugar (white sugar mixed with, of course, maple syrup rather than molasses). I thought the maple flavor would kick up the fall feeling of these cookies. But to my dismay, the maple ended up being a silent accompaniment to the batter. Now I find myself wondering how far a little extra maple syrup would have gone… It’s important to ask the big questions on Monday morning.

Continue reading “Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies” »

Sometimes it’s fun to be a cliché. Like when you are feeling especially tender and emotional and decide to put on your pajamas while the sun is still high in the sky and dunk hot, double chocolate cookies in a glass of cold milk while beginning at episode 1 of Sex and the City and vowing to work your way through to the end (even though Carrie’s frizzy brown hair and the way she addresses camera in that first episode never fails to make you cringe). As they say, there’s a reason why a cliché is a cliché, and in my world this holds especially true when it comes to rom-coms and chocolate. In this particular case, the coziness of fresh baked cookies and a nightgown, coupled with a glamorous fantasy life of endless cocktails (but no hangovers), endless shopping (but no buyer’s remorse), and the tidy tying up of loose ends every 26-minutes is a wildly comforting concoction. And the cookies, a little chewy, very chocolatey, really do help.

Continue reading “Double Chocolate Cookies” »

I thought it best to make my mom’s favorite foods for Mother’s Day dinner, and because she likes aioli, salmon, and coconut, my cooking on Sunday wasn’t so much a labor of love as it was a labor of likemindedness.

We drove together to a farm stand on a hilly stretch of road between our house and another town on a warm and sunny day. The flowering trees and forsythia had their moment the previous weekend, and now potted flowers were laid out for sale on splintery tables outside — gerber daisies and lots of blooms I didn’t know the names of. We grabbed two beautiful bunches of asparagus. The wind was whipping around so wildly, the roadside grasses were bowing deeply at the waist like gentlemen.

Back at home, my mom planted Early Girls in the garden and I stood at the counter in her kitchen, snapping off the asparagus ends, and looking out at her leaning into the dirt. The sun was catching in her short hair, and I thought, with such deep surprise and so much gratitude it nearly took my breath away, the spring always comes. After a winter of doctors and tests, prodding and hospital rooms, it is Mother’s Day and it is spring and it almost seems like a miracle. But it’s my mom.

Spouses and significant others stayed at home, and my older brother and sister and I sat in the kitchen with my mom, the wooden table spread with blanched asparagus and aioli, cheese and crackers, and chips and salsa — all mom’s favorites. Oh, and three of four kids — her other favorites. Salmon was to come, followed by coconut macaroons and a cup of tea. I don’t even remember what we talked about, I just know it was perfect.

Continue reading “Spring Menu for a Mom” »