Cookie Monster!

The universe was calling to me.

I mentioned my favorite cookies, "Black and Whites," in my most recent posting and then a cousin of mine sent me an email requesting a favorite recipe.

Also in the mix was the fact that my wife and I had visited two Dunkin Donut restaurants recently, one during our trip to Ithaca last week and another when we went to the movies the other day, trying to get a cup of hot chocolate.  We were rebuffed by both places, "No hot chocolate...we're out!"  They had coffee, but we wanted chocolate.

So, now I have that craving going and a fear that we'll never get another hot chocolate at a Dunkin Donut's shop again...what's with that?

So, here's what I figured.  I have to get the recipe out, I want something chocolate, and I all ready mentioned my favorite cookies...it was all a go!

The recipe is simple...and this is a double batch so I get about 16 cookies.

Mix 2 1/2 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of salt.  Set aside for a minute.

Mix 2/3 cup of buttermilk with 1 teaspoon of vanilla.  Set aside for a minute.

Mix together 8 tablespoons of softened butter (1 stick), 1 cup of sugar and 2 eggs.  Beat the butter and sugar together first, until well blended and then add the eggs.

Now, start adding a little of the dry flour mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, then add a little of the buttermilk/vanilla mixture.  

Keep alternating adding dry/wet until all is added and beat well for about 3 minutes.

Butter a couple of baking sheets (I do that by taking a paper towel and rubbing about a tablespoon of butter across each sheet).  Then, drop about 1/4 cup of the mixture onto a sheet to make one cookie.  Repeat and fit as many on one sheet as you can, leaving about two inches between each.

Did I mention you should have the oven heated to 350 degrees?

Pop them in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes.

Repeat until you have used up all of the dough.

They have to get off that baking sheet quickly when done.

Scoop them right off the sheet with a flipper and place them on a cooling rack.

I use a simple icing to finish them off.


In a bowl, beat together 1 pound of confectioner's sugar, 1 stick of softened butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 teaspoon of salt.  I add about 3 or 4 tablespoons of milk, depending on how loose I want the icing to be.  You can add as little or as much milk as you like.  That makes a full bowl of white icing.

I then frost one half of each cookie with white frosting.   I use about half of the white frosting and leave the rest in the bowl to transform it to chocolate

I then take about two tablespoons of butter and melt it in a pan.  I add 1/4 cup of Hershey's Chocolate Powder to the butter, stir until moistened and then add that to the frosting that remains.  Beat it well and it all turns to chocolate frosting.

Then, I frost the other half of the cookies and voila!  Black and White cookies!!!

I love these cookies and have to remember that I can't eat six of them at one time, as I used to.

In my college days, there was a bakery across the street and they made awesome Black and White cookies.  I'd buy three or four, with a cup of coffee, and that was breakfast.


When we were at Dunkin Donuts, I spied their chocolate glazed donuts...they looked good, too.  But, no hot chocolate, no donuts.  We left depressed.

But, not to worry, the Black and Whites on my table are making up for it.

I have to admit that I am a bit of a cookie monster and my mind is usually in several places at one time.

In making reference to our favorite Sesame Street character, and cookies, I thought of a painting I had done on Monhegan Island many years ago (see how my mind wanders?).

During one painting trip to Monhegan, we were having a critique, after a day of painting, and Fred Wiley was sitting in with us.  He had befriended our leader and joined us for some of our artistic endeavors on Monhegan, as he lived there.

Here's a short piece about Fred who was a Monhegan main-stay, a great artist and wonderful wit:

http://www.pressherald.com/archive/obituaries_2010-01-07.html

Fred Wiley

After all of this, here's what I'm getting to.

I put up this painting and awaited an educated critique.

During the sessions, people might talk about use of color, tones, the drawing, the painting technique, the actual place chosen for the picture, or any myriad of things that deserved (or maybe not) attention.



The idea of the critique was to provide a place for constructive criticism, in the hopes of making the art or the artist better.

Here's my painting:

The first thing I heard was Fred's quick remark!

Cookie Monster!

I looked at him and he pointed out the eyes (windows) and the big mouth (you can almost see its tonsils)!

Everyone laughed so hard...there was nothing more to say about this one.  Each time I see this painting, I'm reminded of Fred, of Monhegan, and the fact that it's time to make cookies, cookies, cookies!!!

For the Birds!

I noted in yesterday's posting that we had visited Ithaca, New York, over the weekend.

One reason for the trip was so that my wife, an avid birdwatcher, could take a birdwatching hike with a Cornell Ornithology nature hike leader.  Those adventures are offered on weekend mornings, and we had the weekend morning to do it!

She was hoping to learn more about birds and hopefully see birds that are not common to our area.

I agreed to go along, as there were promises of sidewalk time before and after that adventure and winery visitations (she knows how to handle me).

I must point out, however, something that struck me when she said we were going to a small city for birdwatching...we live in the country...we have lots of birds.  I'm thinking perhaps more birds, and more different types of birds, out in the hinterlands than one would find nestled amongst foot and car traffic.  But, the lure of walking from store to store, on concrete slabs, randomly and happily, overrode that concern.  Off we went.

I tried to practice for the hike by pointing out some things on our way there.

I saw a Thunderbird, as it passed us on Route 17, and when the radio was playing "Hotel California," I nimbly noted it was performed by the Eagles!





I think my wife was slightly amused, but when the oldies station starting playing the hits of the Byrds, she drew the line at my summarizing that we'd seen them all and didn't have to get up at 5:00 a.m. the next day to see the animal types!



Okay, it wasn't 5:00 a.m., but it was pretty close to that, 9:00 a.m. and it turned out that it was cold!  Freezing!
 
When we arrived at the Cornell Ornithology building, on Sapsucker Road (coincidence? I think not), there was nary a person in sight.  Actually, there was just one gentleman in a car parked next to ours.  I asked him if he was there for the birdwatching hike, he was, and the three of us waited for the nature leader to arrive.

We were about 15 minutes early and I learned something right off the bat.  When you go on a 9:00 a.m. morning hike, especially in the winter, you show up at 9:00.  Or, you stay in your car with heat running until you see the crowd.

The crowd was just the three of us with two nature leaders.  The look on their faces as they rounded the building to spy us on the deck awaiting their arrival was one of, "Darn it, people showed up.  Now we have to do the blankety-blank hike!"

They recovered quickly and started to ask my wife where she got her warm boots, her warm coat, her warm mittens...it was clear to me that they were instantly cold and might have bought any of her garments off her if they had remembered to bring cash.  I was hoping they'd cut to the chase, and start chasing birds, as my toes were feeling the freeze.

But, we stood on the stone deck for another fifteen minutes and talked a bit about what we might see (Great Blue Heron, we didn't), what they were hoping to see again (a red-shouldered Hawk, we didn't), and how cold it was.

I think they were trying to get us to back out, but we were intrepid, and I knew at that point the only way I was going to get heat moving to my toes was to get moving.

Our first sighting was a Mallard Duck.  I didn't point out that my wife drives by a flock of them every day on her way to work.  Closely following, a flock of chickadees.  Now those birds looked very much like the flock that hangs in our back yard and I was wondering if they had just followed us on our trip!  Hard to tell the difference.


All of a sudden, as I had dropped back a few feet (or dropped a few toes), I heard one of the group say, "Stop.  Listen.  Did you hear that?"  No one heard it.  Everyone listened harder, but the only sound was the creaking of my toes as the air cracked through them.

So we went on.

We rounded the bend and, lo and behold, there were dozens of different types of birds grouping together off in a short distance.  Blue Jays, Brown Creepers, Chickadees, House Finches, Downy Woodpeckers...so many of them and how unusual to see them all foraging together on one area in the wild!

Then, I realized that they were all flying around a large feeder that had been placed in a clearing and eating to their heart's content.  That's cheating, isn't it?  I want to see wild birds in the wild, desperately trying to find a mere morsel to sustain them to the next!  Where's the natural nature stuff?  Geez!

In another moment, another shout, "Look, flashing red.  What's that?"

It was my toes that I was trying to warm up.  I had pulled my foot out of my boot and, as I pulled off one sock to put on a warmer one that I had brought along, my foot was suddenly the subject of four pair of binoculars that were hoping for a male cardinal.  The group turned suddenly and expressed no interest in my condition.  I was left to tend to my toes myself.

Another half hour and we were treated to a view of the lake, frozen of course, with large trees.

The nature leader pointed to the top of two trees and noted, "Great Blue Heron."  We were thrilled.  Great Blue Herons!  No, just their nests.  They are large and impressive nests, but the birds were no where to be seen.  I'm thinking they were smarter than us and had headed south long before we even thought of visiting them.  "Come back in the Spring and you'll see them.  They come back to the same nests and use them again!"  We'll come back in the Spring and hope that I still have toes on my feet so I can walk that far again to see, "No birds in the nests!"

About half way around the lake, the leaders noted that the birdwatching time had expired and we could follow them back to the parking lot or continue around the lake to perhaps see other sights, or maybe even birds.  My feet weren't going to get any colder, and I thought that moving them would help, so I told my wife we should do the rest of the walk.

I was also thinking that if frostbite set in this might be the last time I could walk around the lake, so off we went.  We saw beaver teeth marks on trees, a beaver dam, some footprints from animals that were large enough to perhaps be a cougar, lion or elephant, squirrels (we only have a hundred of those in our back yard), and lots of signs that said, "Stay On Trail."

We stayed on the trail, those large footprints made us do just that and stay there faster, and made it back before the others.  We thanked them for their time and information and jumped into the car.

Our next sightings were those of chameleon like creatures.  My toes turning from blue, to red, to pink!

I was rewarded with a trip to the center of town and some sidewalk time.  We'll do the trip again, and the birdwatcher's hike again, I'm sure, but we'll be sure to follow the lead of the birds...after it's time that they've gone south, we won't spend any time traveling to look for them!

Butterflies Are Free, Wine Tastings Two Bucks!

Guess what they have in Ithaca, New York? 

Sidewalks...lots of them. 

I tried to Google the question as to how many miles of sidewalks they might have, but no luck.  But they are everywhere in town.

Sidewalks are in front of all sorts of stores and businesses.  We walked on some of them.  They lead to music and yarn shops, to arts and craft businesses, to restaurants and pubs, and more.

And, there's a lot to do in Ithaca...here's a link below to "Downtown Ithaca."  They even talk about their sidewalks!

http://www.downtownithaca.com/

We had decided to do a one night trip out of town this past weekend and chose Ithaca for several reasons.  My wife wanted to do some birdwatching with the Cornell Ornithology nature tour leaders (they do weekend morning hikes) and she wanted to take me to Taughannock Falls State Park.  We also needed to revisit some of the Finger Lake wineries!

I was looking forward to some walking on sidewalks, so I agreed to some off-concrete action! 

So, one trip was to the State Park.  Here's a You Tube shot...not ours...of Taughannock Falls in the winter...the water was pretty much frozen in time this past weekend, but similar in looks to this one, and still a spectacular sight.



As I mentioned, we've visited several of the wineries on Cayuga Lake, in the past, but you can never be quite sure if you've tasted everything.  

Now, I know what you're saying.  "There aren't any sidewalks that lead to the wineries!"  What I do understand is that there are things we have to accept for the sake of grape art.  If I have to get in a car and drive to a winery, so be it.

I'll continue to promote "sidewalks for all," with the hopes that someday they'll link the entire lake's wine region with sidewalks, but in the meantime, to keep the industry afloat, I'll make the sacrifice and find my way there any way I can.   Any day, any time!

We're fans of many of their spirited offerings.  For a couple of bucks, you can taste six or eight, or more, of their products.  If you haven't been, here's a link to their "Wine Trail" site and I recommend that you try them all, several times:

http://www.cayugawinetrail.com/

There doesn't seem to be enough time in a day to fit in all of the wineries.  And then we got a little off plan, which can happen when you're driving from spot-to-spot.

My wife will, all of a sudden, spy a shop or see a sign and become immediately attracted to its driveway.  That happened as we passed the Cayuga Nature Center on Route 89.  Check it out:

http://www.cayuganaturecenter.org/

The Nature Center has many exhibits, live animals, some hiking paths, and they offer a number of educational programs.  They don't seem to grow grapes or make wine, but they did have complimentary hot chocolate the day we were there.

Just FYI, as I think it's important for you to know, there are producers out there who do make chocolate wine and chocolate beer.  I don't know why they don't offer it at the Nature Center.  I would check out nature more often.  Wouldn't you?

Chocolate is natural, wine is natural, beer is natural, and from the size of the big butterfly sculptures out front of the Nature Center on the main road, you'd think someone there had a few too many.

We spotted the two huge winged insects from a distance and wanted to check out the place.  Of course, now that we're halfway through the wine tour, we're really interested in seeing just how big the real ones are, need to check out this "Butterfly House," and want to see what else is going on in there!

We went through each room in the interior of the center, after paying a small fee, and then headed outdoors, up the hill, towards the Butterfly House.

By the way, that same amount of small fee would cover eight wine tastings, at one winery, just up the road.

I took some pictures of the "Butterfly House" at the Nature Center and want to point out several things.


From a distance, you see the sign on what appears to be a transparent building.

As we got closer, we could could plainly see that there were no butterflies in the building at all.  In fact, apart from dead plants and weeds and snow, it was pretty much empty.

I whipped out my camera and started shooting.  My wife asked what I was doing.

I told her that, as we seemed to be the only people at the place, I was sure that they were going to blame us for the fact that the butterflies got out.

I will also point out at this moment, as you might be asking the question, I was not driving, she was.

I took a picture of the door, to prove to the staff in the center that I saw the sign and was sure to close the door behind us!

When we got back in the building, we let one of the curators there know that we had made the trip up the hill, saw the exhibit and were sure to follow the instructions on their sign, but had to report that the butterflies were no where to be seen!

At that point, much to our relief, she explained that they let them go at the end of the warm weather season (they must be akin to circus performers, there for the warm month's shows and then off to other parts of the country when the summer season ends!)

However, the curator was most appreciative of the fact that we saw the sign and that we had made sure the door was closed!  That ensured, she said, that other insects and animals wouldn't get in to make more work for them in the Spring!   I wonder how many wineries she had been to that day?

We'll be sure to visit there again, maybe before we hit the wine trail next time.  I'll be sharing some of our other adventures from this recent trip with you, and a few winery and other area activities, over the next few days.  We did make use of the sidewalks!