I made you some cookies

This is my five hundredth post.

Huh. I've been doing this blogging thing for a while.

To celebrate, I made some cookies. But then I ate them, so you'll have to make your own. I'll share the recipe, though, because it is, quite simply, the best chocolate chip cookie recipe out there. Promise you'll make it, okay?

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the History of Ever

barely adapted at all from Smitten Kitchen

2 Cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for sprinkling

3/4 cup salted butter, melted

1 cup packed brown sugar (I usually use 1/2 a cup and double the regular sugar)

1/2 cup white sugar (unless I halve the brown sugar, in which case I use a whole cup of white sugar)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 egg yolk

1 egg

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Sift together dry ingredients. Set aside. (True confession: I rarely do this. The cookies do turn out better if you do, though. Sift at your own discretion.)

3. Cream together melted butter and sugars.

4. Add egg and vanilla, beat until pale and fluffy.

5. Mix in sifted ingredients until just blended. Mix in chocolate chips.

6. Scoop dough into cookie-sized chunks, and roll into balls with your hands. Sprinkle with salt (this step is key to chocolate chip cookie nirvana). Bake- 10-12 minutes for small cookies, 15-17 for larger ones.

deweyfood

You guys.

Remember my sister, Dewey? The one who's cheerful and stylish and an amazing cook?

Well.

She has started a food blog!

It is currently photo-less, since she lost her camera when she was out dancing on New Year's Eve, (which, seriously, is the best place to lose one's camera, no?) but photo-less does not mean recipe-less and dang, those recipes are good. I've eaten at least half of the ones she's posted. She knows her food, and you should check her out ASAP:

deweyfood.


picture stolen from facebook and taken by the uber-talented Kristine, she of the reindeer cookies with eyeballs and the college cookie business and general fantasticness.

I have finally jumped on the Netflix bandwagon, and my dears, I am in love. I'm spending far too much time these days watching live-streaming period dramas.* After a viewing of Bright Star, I've nearly convinced myself that I would really quite like to live in 19th Century England, even if the movie did have a rather tragic ending. They were just so happy! Until he died, penniless and believing he was a failure, when he was my age. And she was grief-stricken all the rest of her days. Whatevs.

{Images from Design*Sponge, whose Living In. . . Bright Star provided me with much delight this morning}

So, do tell me, what are your favorite period dramas?

(I need to add them to my Netflix queue!)

*(there is something about that that seems hilarious- period dramas streaming right onto my computer! Okay. Maybe it's just me.)

Dear Internet,

I've missed you lately!

I've been busy living life (funny how that happens sometimes, no?), but I promise I'll be back ASAP.

Love,

Abbie

Glee is back, Glee is back! I found myself getting hopelessly addicted to Glee last season, like, oh, half of America. I was borderline distraught when it went on hiatus, and so, so happy when it came back.

My friend Emi came over on Tuesday to watch with the roommates and me, an occurrence which obviously necessitated the making of cake. She'd never been to our apartment, see, AND our favorite show was back. Two things to celebrate. Plus, it had been a year since I'd made busy-day cake.

You all read Orangette, right? If you don't, you should start. Molly's descriptions of food and the stories that go with them are so wonderful, so luscious, so nice, if you will, that I often find myself cooking the dishes she writes about within days of reading the posts. Such was the case with busy-day cake. I will never forget my roommate coming into our tiny kitchen, the one that housed the bunnies and looked out on the most charming tiny backyard in the world, to ask me what I was doing making cake at ten o'clock at night. But, you see, I had read what Molly had to say about Edna Lewis and the busy-day cake, and I had to have it. Once you read that post, you will, too, and you won't regret it: served with sliced strawberries and a glass of milk, it makes a delicious high-school-musical-melodrama-watching snack. The next morning with a cup of tea, it makes a delicious, if indulgent, breakfast. It's all gone already, but I'm already planning to make it again next week. I won't let it be a year in between times again.

Oh yes, I have a blog. Sometimes I forget, and I get too busy doing things like having my mom over for dinner and making valentines and watching Teen Mom reruns to post to AbbieBabble.

Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, I have looked at this post every day for a week. These bedrooms are so inspiring to me- so comfortable and, yet, still absolutely breathtaking. These two both have a similar feel to that which I'm trying to create in my room. (More pictures of that, soon!) I promise.

In the mean time, happy happy friday!

p.s. Want a homemade valentine? Email me your snail mail address and I'll send one right your way. I'm still kicking myself that I was too late to enter Sarah and Angelina's swap. So anyway, send me your address at abigail.cyr{at}gmail.com and I will happily make a valentine just for you!

Pictures from House to Home, via Bliss.

I am really embarrassed about my taste in music.

It's not that I have bad taste, it's just that I don't really have any taste.

See, I don't listen to the radio, or even really Pandora, which means that I never learn about any new artists, or I learn about them six months too late (which is sometimes even worse).

That's fine sometimes, but right now, I am so bored of all the music on my iPod.

Internet, help me out.

Who are you listening to now?

What should I download next?

P.S. My favorites are Regina Spektor and Guster and Simon and Garfunkle and sometimes Cat Stevens and Elvis Costello and always always always the most perfect song. And everything I've ever heard by Alexi Murdoch.

Oh, and.

Lest I fool myself into thinking that my life is all lovely things, ice cream and banana bread, it should be noted that on Saturday night, while staying in and watching Titanic because I was sick, I also decided to get ordained.

And now I am.

It took two seconds on the internet. Wedding, anyone?

Every now and then, I think about things

Today at dinner, one of my friends commented that I'm always on my computer. She's right, and I know that, but it got me thinking about what I do when I'm computing, and I realized that the answer is not a whole lot.
I read a lot of celebrity gossip, a whole lot of blogs, and occasionally even the New York Times. I'm constantly on facebook, and I've almost always got at least one gchat conversation going.
The most interesting thing, though, I think, is that I don't add anything to the internet. Does that make sense? I'm always reading things, and on facebook I look at people's profiles, but aside from gchat, nothing I do on the internet is interactive. I don't frequently comment on blogs, I never update my facebook profile, and I don't even write in here that much. I'm taking a lot from the internet, but I'm not putting anything back.
I don't know that I have that much to contribute to the general pool of writing or thinking that exists online, but maybe that's what's cool about it; anything's out there, even the most boring person's thoughts, if you look hard enough.
What do you think? Should everybody write blogs and comment on other people's writing, or would the world be okay with just a couple really good ones? Shouldeverybody contribute to the collective knowledge that is the internet, or are we better off just taking what we can and contributing if we have something especially interesting or helpful?

Coming Up for Air

Sorry for not posting.
Too busy hanging out at home, seeing old friends, and reading this.
How did I not find out about it earlier? I guess it made the rounds of the internet awhile back, when people thought it was real. I like it better knowing that it's fiction. It's like those chick-lit books I'm embarrassed to admit I sometimes love.
Okay, more leftovers, then sleep in preparation for my forty-seven thousand hour plane flight back to San Fran tomorrow.

I LOVE technology

I just set up a wireless network in my house.
This is an easy task, I know. But I still feel very special.

Hearty and Delicious

Hearty and Delicious. That is what I am.
Actually, I think that it is kind of distasteful to use food adjectives to describe people. Lentil soup, on the other hand, IS hearty and delicious. And the other day, I made some.
I started out by chopping up some carrots, onions and garlic:


(I also peeled some potatoes and cut them into half-inch chunks, but I didn't take a picture of that.)
Then I cooked some bacon in olive oil in a big pot, and added all the vegetables to that:


Once the onions were soft, I measured out a pound of lentils (posing with the chicken broth that is going to be added in JUST A MINUTE! Isn't cooking just so EXCITING?)


Then I added the lentils to the veggies, and poured in the chicken broth. ACTION SHOT:


Then I let it cook. And it looked like this:


I decided that I like my lentil soup thick and stewy, so I added an three-quarters of a cup of lentils. This was a mistake, as now I need to add water to the soup every time I reheat some. I also whirled the soup with a stick blender to make it thicker and stewier. This was not a mistake.
Also, I cooked some collard greens and served them with the soup. That also was not a mistake. It was delicious.
Eating this many green beans in one sitting is, however a mistake. And that is saying a lot, since I love green beans.


You can find the recipe for lentil soup here on Epicurious. I love that website. And the internet, for that matter. I added bacon to the recipe, because I like smoky meat in my lentil soup. Next time I might add a little sausage, as well. I also would have added kale instead of collards, but they didn't have any at the grocery store when we went at 11 o'clock on a thursday night.

Discovery

I have talked before about my love for Holly Near. The problem with loving Holly Near is that a lot of the albums that I grew up listening to were never put onto CDs, so I was destined never to get to listen to some of my favorite songs.
UNTIL, the other day on a whim, I googled one of my favorite songs. And then I discovered the Vinyl Preservation Project. And now I can listen to Holly Near! On my computer! And a whole bunch of other artists, too!
Boy oh boy do I love the internet.