I had some dreams ... they were klowns in my koffee.


(With apologies to Carly Simon)


This is my journey through job transition from a toxic environment to a better life. Join me for a few thoughts and a few laughs along the way.
What are "klowns in my koffee"? They are the factors large and small that make you less than you are. A "klown" can be a grossly incompetent boss,
a short-sighted policy or a moronic coworker. They won't kill you, at least not immediately, but they abrade the soul
as you scrape past them to get through the day. Sometimes it's best to dump them out of the cup.


Wednesday

Day 263 - California Dreaming with Cookies

Daily Kup (My Life in Flight)
Kollege Kid, now 21, flew off to San Diego this afternoon for a short vacation with a friend. My little Weather Channel icon in the system tray keeps flashing red to warn of a cold weather alert. They might as well make it blink permanently from November to March. On the other hand, we aren't going to fall into the ocean.

No Fear of Flying
I love flying into and out of LAX. I made the trip several times to visit the California plant when Porkus management still cared about the quality of the products. Ah, good times. Flying in at night was breathtaking and I never grew tired of suddenly breaching the mountains and seeing the California coast spread out like an amber, lighted table extending in all directions.

When you fly out in daylight, the plane rises rapidly and heads straight out over the ocean. Below are sailboats and cargo ships and even whitecaps on a choppy day. The plane banks sharply and doubles back to the coast, climbing madly. The downtown skyscrapers are on one side and a mesh of highways form arteries feeding suburbs that merge seamlessly with no break. Suddenly you are up and over the purple mountains and it's all gone.

This video, while taken from a small plane and therefore closer to the ground than the view from a jetliner, captures the motion of flight and the fascinating precision of the prettiest urban sprawl in America.

No Bake Cookies
As a fitting successor to yesterday's bleary-eyed, but festive, salute to cookie baking, here is a recipe from my mother's recipe file. She made this file for me about a thousand years ago when I first married. The cards have yellowed and some of the recipes defy that current craze for health, but it's hard to beat the basics when handwritten with love.
No Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1/4 cup dry milk
1/2 cup water
3 cups rolled oats or wheat
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together in a saucepan the sugar, shortening, dry milk and water. Heat until mixture boils, then remove from heat. Add the rolled oats or wheat, cocoa, peanut butter and vanilla. Mix thoroughly. Drop by teaspoonfuls on waxed paper. Allow to cool. Store in a clean, dry, covered container.
Versions of this recipe on allrecipes.com ( http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/no-bake-cookies-i/Detail.aspx) and Foodnetwork.com ( http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cooking-live/chocolate-peanut-butter-no-bake-cookies-recipe/index.html ) substitute 1/2 cup butter for the shortening and 1/2 cup milk for the dry milk and water. Other variations include the addition of coconut or M&M's. It's hard to go wrong with anything that you throw in so it's a wonderful recipe for getting rid of small amounts of leftover dry cereal, raisins, or pretzels.

This is also the rare recipe where children can safely lick the uncooked mixture from the bowl or spoons since there are no raw eggs used.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Kim Barron said...

I'm a big fan of shortbread. You roll it out in one big cookie then bake the whole thing all at once. All done, and without that pesky burned last pan of cookies because you got bored and wandered off.
The ratios I use are:
2 sticks butter, creamed
1/2c sugar, creamed into the butter
1/4teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg (optional) (mix well)
3 cups flour
It will look rather dry and stiff.
Roll out on parchment or wax paper. Score into approx 1x1" squares, (don't be picky about this) using a butter knife. Jab it with a fork all over. Bake for 20-25min at 350.
Separate the squares while still warm. They keep really well.
They can easily be cut with cookie cutters and/or decorated with sprinkles, chocolate, etc.

Burning Khrome said...

Terrific recipe! I'm going to try this right away.

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