Stix on the Beach: Tales From The Happiest Hooker!

Let's Get Baked: Devilishly Good Chocolate Peppermint & Polka Dot Cookies

This may sound as though I'm possessed, but I'm not really a fan of cakes, cookies and chocolate. Shh. Breathe. Relax. It gets better in a few sentences. I'm more into croissants, cannolis, caramel-covered Vicodin. But I do love Devil's Food Cake (and its tinted twin, Red Velvet. Not to be confused with National Velvet, which is served at Burger King). So when I decided to make my own version of Pillsbury's Holiday Chocolate Peppermint Cookies, I went straight to Betty Crocker's Quick-Mix Chocolate Cookies recipe!

I'm still utterly amazed by the miracle food that is powdered sugar! There is nothing it can't do! This time around I made Buttercream Frosting with it! Pick yourself off the floor and go make some too! It's so easy, here's how:

*If you go to recipe page, don't accidentally add the sugar to the mix! The sugar is only if you will be rolling the dough in it to make as chocolate sugar cookies!

*I didn't wait for dough to become more easy-going. I let it chillax in the fridge for 15 minutes before I simply scooped out measured tablespoons of gooey chocolate, bitched nonstop about how I hate gooey stuff on my hands, and plopped 'em 2 inches apart on parchment paper. As soon as I took 'em out after 9 minutes, I smashed 'em down with back of spatula. It was oddly the most fun I had baking them.

*Don't leave 'em alone with anything that has a mouth. They will be G-O-N-E before you return.

Calico Fabrics

There was much rejoicing here at our apartment on Tuesday — for Orange County was acting all wintery! You'd think for sure I'd be craftin' in the rain, but instead I put Neil Diamond's Jonathan Livingston Seagull on the record player, opened the bedroom windows, sat on the bed and stared at a pile of fabric. And it felt good.

My daughter, Marissa (The Curious World of Mars), has been buying me fabric whenever we work up the nerve to go stock up on supplies (i.e. L'OREAL mascara) at Wal-Mart. Last weekend I picked up a few more calico prints and feel confident I have the collection I want for when I am ready to get started on my new sewing challenge: A PATCHWORK QUILT (not to be confused for A Clockwork Orange!).

But it's not quite the right time to begin quilting. I am in the middle of doing some major Spring Cleaning (toss, toss, toss!) and a bit of redecorating in the master bedroom (where my little crafting corner is tucked away in), and I need everything in its place to feel chill, you dig? So in the meantime, I'm checking out blogs and YouTube videos — and literally checking out the best "how-to" quilting book I've come across at the library! All of which I will happily share here with you once I get going.

I don't, however, have an excuse to put off crocheting another ripple afghan. I'm thinking more muted pastels this time around, whaddya think?

Let's Get Baked: Be Gone Butter Pecan Cookies

One of my favorite cookies since being introduced to solid foods has been the Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies in the tin container. There always seemed to be an endless supply in my grandparent's pantry — but it's been a few years. Then this past holiday season, my daughter, Marissa, picked up a cute tin box(they put a bird on it) to store cookies in and when I opened it — sweet tokens of Danish buttery goodness magically appeared! It was a Christmas cookie miracle!

I was going to return and stock up on these delectable Danish delicacies, but we already had enough homemade goodies — and a cupboard with plenty of baking ingredients to bring in the new year. And it wasn't until the second weekend of February that I finally felt up to putting the leftover pecans to good use! I planned on making more Russian Tea Cakes, but the thought of having them not at Christmastime was screwing — hardcore — with my head. However, a buttery, nutty, British-y, biscuit-for-breakfast-with-tea-type-cookie sounded just right.

I searched for the most simple slice & bake shortbread style cookie recipe and found one at BakingBites.com! Along with the invaluable tips at SimplyRecipes (whose Butter Pecan Cookies recipe — which only makes one dozen compared to three dozen — is in my Must-Try queue) on how long to toast the pecans (six minutes at 350) and to cream the butter first before adding any other ingredient to the mix, made this first attempt quite satisfactory!

First couple of days the cookies reminded me a lot of the taste of praline candies and Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies. By the third day, they were tasting more like Keebler's Sandies Pecan Shortbread Cookies. I can imagine they can go stale pretty fast, so one of the more awesome things about slice and bake recipes is you can keep the dough frozen for several weeks and only slice off how many cookies you want to bake up quickly at one time!

I'm not going to write out the baking instructions 'cause Nicole at Baking Bites puts in the time and effort (and baking!) to do all that herself, and besides, it's a great excuse for you to go discover her blog and more recipes! Just remember the tips I shared from Simply Recipes and enjoy!

Driving Me Crazy

I never turn TCM off for any long period of time — which is why I did not miss one of the most entertaining, mind-blowing, stop-motion pixilation short films of the modern era! I tuned in a bit after the title, and it was driving me crazy not knowing what I had just seen! But then I went to the oracle known as Twitter and all was revealed.

Nominated for an Oscar in 1967 (in the live-action short category), Stop, Look and Listen still has an audience asking, "How did they freakin' do that!?" Even with all the advancements in animation, CGI, blue screens and Pixar, we remain totally awestruck by Chuck Menville and Len Janson's ability to appear as though they are really driving along Southern California streets on their asses.

And it was through the All-Knowing Google that I discovered that Chuck & Len had been Disney Cast Members in the Walt Disney Studios' animation department. Furthermore, they made Stop, Look and Listen independently while working for Disney. And then much rejoicing was done here in our apartment.

There's some fun anecdotes over at The Animation Guild blog about Chuck & Len's time at Walt Disney Studios. It's especially fascinating to read how Walt played a part in the making of Stop, Look and Listen and that their second stop-motion film was possible thanks to Dick Van Dyke — which gave them their first big break!

So do yourself a favor and take a ten minute break to stop, look and listen to this gem these gents put together that continues to depict SoCal drivers accurately to this day.

Let's Get Baked: Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

I'm back on my hot-oatmeal-made-with-milk-and-topped-with-brown-sugar kick again. Then over the weekend, after remembering we had Tree Top applesauce in the fridge, I just had to have applesauce oatmeal muffins — even though I never ate them before. I wasn't even sure if I liked oatmeal muffins.

But there I was on Super Bowl Sunday, bringing up the Quaker Oats Applesauce Oatmeal Muffin recipe just before the half-time show! I tossed all the ingredients together, scooped the mix into the muffin liners, topped 'em off with extra brown sugar ('cause brown sugar is my crack), and threw 'em in the oven just in time to bawl my eyes out during Beyoncé Bowl and the Destiny's Child reunion (don't tell me you didn't shed a tear too when Kelly and Michelle popped out from that stage!). The muffins were done before Bey finished singing my personal theme song (a.k.a. Halo).

It was perfect timing because I had them for stress-eating during the Superdome power outage!

Here are a few tips:

1. There is no such thing as "too much" brown sugar for the topping.
2. Pay attention to (details in parentheses).
3. Do not serve warm. For one thing, muffins will be stuck to the liners. Second, muffins will suck. Put 'em in airtight container and wait till they are cooled off completely. The liners will peel off effortlessly and the muffins will taste so damn good. In my opinion, they were a hell of a lot more delicious the day after.

And don't forget: twelve applesauce oatmeal muffins a day keeps the hunger away!