So DTD stopped by today to taste the new meatloaf. Her comment: What is in this meatloaf, it tastes like fish. FISH??, I said, You have got to be kidding me, I worked 6 hours on this meatloaf. I suggested it must be the mushrooms, I'm down on mushrooms ever since I served those frozen spongy ones, all stems, with my horrible leftover Thanksgiving turkey dinner, which I wish I could get over, but I can't. I wouldn't put it past mushrooms to exude a fishy essence.

So, I came home from my hair appointment all pepped up to make a new recipe (this was before the fish remark, but the effect of hair appointments is that they cancel any discouragement for the forseeable future ). There is a recipe in Frugal Luxuries by the Seasons, by Tracey McBride. It's called Mysterious May Day Chocolate Chip Cookies. Tracey was on the prowl for a good choc chip cookie recipe. She does yard sales and bought an old cookbook and, there you have it, on a hand-written card slipped in the book was this recipe. Well, she said it was the best ever. And you know KEM and best evers.

So, it's an odd recipe and I'm not sure about the mysterious part exactly, nor May Day either, except Tracey suggests putting these cookies in May Day baskets, which we have hand-made for friends and neighbors, you know, since we all do that. Is the writer of the old card a mystery? Is it that the flour measurement is 3 - 4 cups? Or is it that the directions say to bake 7 - 9 minutes and mine took 13 minutes? Oh, I know, it's that she said you scoop up a teaspoon of cookie dough and place the tiny blobs 3 inches apart and that the recipe makes 2 dozen cookies. Okay, so I made 47 cookies using heaping huge blobs and have single handedly eaten MANY of them. Did you get that? MANY. So, did I use too much flour, what with the vague amounts, was I supposed to use less flour and have soupy dough that would spread and fill up all the 3" spaces? The recipe had a cup of oil and a cup of solid shortening and a cup of brown sugar and a cup of white sugar. And 1 tablespoon of cream, which sent me into orbit. Now I know. The mystery is that I'm still alive to report this. And therein the May Day mystery is solved, after eating a plate full of these, our last whisper will be, May Day!

DTD ate cookie dough, after picking out all the choc chips, as she said she didn't like my organic choc chips, which she had opened on a previous occasion. I know this because when I couldn't find my choc chips I asked, DTD, do you know where my chips are? She certainly did. Thankfully she hadn't eaten too many, by virtue of the fact that she hated them. Nothing like going to the pantry and your main mystery ingredient is mysteriously gone. She said the cookies had no taste, that she could taste my organic all-vegetable solid shortening, meaning, mechanically pressed organic palm oil. I have to admit, palm oil doesn't strike me as terribly appealing. Paul Bragg, the famous nutritionist and braggart, he stated in a book that palm oil was not fit for human consumption. Oh, dear. I knew I should have used half palm shortening and the other half butter, but I was giving Mystery Cookies the full benefit of the doubt.

For cookies having no taste, DTD did a fair job of grazing on them. I, obviously, think they have taste. What they really have is texture. I think it was the oil you pour, gave them a crumbly texture, kind of like short bread, only crumblier. So crumbly, in fact, that I was on the verge of temper fits moving them with my spatula. And how they crumbled between the wires on the cooling rack. And how they crumbled if you barely flirted with them.

Anyway, Ms. McBride says they are the "easiest, tastiest, and most reliable choc chip cookie recipe I have yet to find." I shall see what Mike and stepson think. We know what DTD thinks, if you don't know, just ask her, she won't give you an inflated head. It beats all to think they all three like my 10 minute children's cookbook meatloaf better than this fancy chef BH&G meatloaf. Mike said fancy meatloaf was not worth all the extra trouble. I would give up on new recipes, except if I did that, then I wouldn't have my famous chicken pot pie recipe, from the newspaper. And that would be very sad.

Okay, end of today's blog. Mike likes my shorter blogs. He can't absorb my longer ones. Ain't that pitiful?

Tub of Lard KEM

Oh, my piano teacher, who was known for her tartness, well, once we attended a recital and afterwards she referred to one of the young woman pianists as "that fat tub of lard." Mike still thinks that's the funniest thing he's ever heard. I hope he's gonna be glad he's now married to one. Don't worry, tomorrow I'm going to eat spinach and roasted beet salad at Nordstrom's, Lord willing. I have a theory that cabbage and spinach and beets eat up all the other calories and fat. Millions of Mystery Cookies will be but a blip on the radar, because we're also having cole slaw for dinner, have to use up my fresh ingredients, you know.