I am not Martha Stewart

A friend of mine for a house warming gift got me a subscription to "Martha Stewart Living." I was kind of like, "Oh, cool." She also got me a subscription to a Vegetarian magazine, as I hate raw meat. But the Martha Stewart was what got me.

I have never been a Martha fan. Mostly because everything strikes me as overly complicated and time consuming and while I might sit around and wait for Gadot to show up, I do not have the patience to play with glitter.

I hate glitter.

With a flaming passion.

I really hate flitter and gorilla glue, but we'll get to that later.

So for the past six months or so I've been getting "Martha Stewart Living." It first began showing up when there was no one around to play with raw meat for me, so I just mostly stared at it and was hungry. Also, a lot of the recipes in it have things I don't know what they are.  Or they have a small amount of something I have to buy a lot more than the recipe calls for, like cream or whipping cream. Or heavy cream. Or lamb. We can't figure out where one gets lamb in Alaska. Or a kumquat. What is a kumquat anyways?

Anyways, a couple of days ago, the December issue showed up. There was a separate holiday cookie issue you had to buy separately. I stared at the cover. I drooled over the things in the issue I had, as that is all I do with "Martha Stewart Living," I simply drool over it. I drool over the food pictures and the decor pictures. I despratly want to paint my front door dark plum, but I don't think anyone would go for that really. Anyways, I sat in bed and drooled, wishing someone would come home and handle raw meat for me so I could have steak.

The Cookie Grail

Then, a few days ago I was standing in a store buying some primer for my face. (Alaska lacks a Sephora and I lack the foresight to order it before I run out.) This little old lady was having a wonderfully detailed conversation about cold with the cashier, so I was looking at the magainzes. I usually just read all the headlines and move on with life, but then I saw it. The "Holiday Cookies." Chocolate, ginger, peppermint, sugar, cream, frosting, ice cream....I was on over load just thinking what was IN IT.

Of course I walked over and picked it up. The moment I saw biscotti in it, I was going to buy it. By the time I had begun to drool in the store, the nice old lady motored away and I walked up silently and set down the face primer and the magazine. After telling me how silent I was, the lady checked me out and I left spending about what I would have spent had I bought the primer at Sephora rather than the special store I visited. The face primer might have been discounted, but the cookie grail was still seven bucks. But I was so EXCITED.

Text picture sent to Pilot Boy

From the Cookie Grail

 I came home and began to really drool over the pictures. I began to send text messages to my husband with pictures of cookies. I was so EXCITED. I was going to become a cookie making machine! I'd make all these complicated COOKIES! Then he got mad at me, as he had no junk food and I was making him hungry and kind of cranky with all the pictures of cookies I was sending his way.

So, two days later, I was like, I'm going to make these Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies. I've got almost everything to make them right?

No. I did not. I lacked cream of tartar. So I was like, welp, I guess I won't make those. We'll do these espresso ones. They look like the Mexican Hot Chocolate ones.
 

How Cookies Should Look

So, I looked at the ingredient list and I was like, "Well, I don't have bittersweet chocolate, but I have unsweetened and I have espresso powder. I'll just put those chocolate chunks in! It'll be fine!"

And I went to work. I actually followed the instructions pretty much. I mean, I didn't use the right sort of baking chocolate and I melted it in the microwave, but I did use three freaking bowls and mix things separately, which I never do because I hate doing dishes. I even whipped the dry ingredients with a whisk like it said. (Not sure why you had to whisk them together, but whatever.) I DID EVERYTHING IT SAID. I followed the directions to a T when putting the ingredients together.

Least to say, for some unknown reason, while Martha's cookies look like round, flat cookies...while mine turned out looking like round mounds. 

How my Cookies Look

Similar things happened the year I decided to make gingerbread men with a Paula Dean recipe. I went out and bought everything (as I didn't have anything except ginger) and for some unknown reason, they were the WORST GINGERBREAD cookies known to man. They were super stiff, almost all of them burned and I had the worst time rolling the dough out to cut the little burnt buggers. This is why I usually do not try things out of magazines. This is why I also just make things up as I go along. When I make things up as I go along, things turn out better. Like the crazy dark brownies I made over the summer.

The mound cookies do taste okay. A little bitter, but at least I'm not consuming a ton of sugar, right?