Treasure in the mailbox!

A possible explanation for the prolonged silence...


Luckily, she did not wait for me to get back to her.


I feel so much better, but I will truly rest easy once the handwriting analysis comes back.

The letter I did get today

Dear Parents:

We're almost half way through First Session and looking forward to welcoming you to Visitor Day.
You will have time to tour the farm, see your child's living unit and meet their counselors. We will be serving a delicious lunch, having an assembly and then ask that you plan to depart at 3pm so that we can get back to our regular camp schedule and activities.
Please do not bring the following to Visitor Day:
Please no pets. We cannot allow pets of any kind out on the farm, even with a leash, and cars parked in the meadow will become far to hot to leave an animal inside. There are concerns for diseases coming in with your pets as well as things they may pick up on the farm and take home. Please respect this request.
Please do not bring sugary snacks, soda or candy. We provide homemade desserts on a regular basis and it is only a week and a half until they can enjoy candy and soda at home.
Please go not bring small toys or toys/games with small pieces. At the end of the summer, camp returns to being a farm and animals will be grazing in the meadows. Packaging and plastic parts are dangerous for the animals and we appreciate your cooperation in keeping their pastures safe.

Now, I ask you...what self-respecting parent brings a dog, a six pack of Coke, M&Ms, and Legos to Visitor Day? I'm bringing a companion plane ticket and a stun gun.

Sigh. Time to break out the chocolate.

Grandma's Brownie Mix Cookies*

Buy a box of brownie mix, preferably Ghirardelli Ultimate Fudge Brownie
Follow the directions on the box to make the dough.

Heat oven to 350. Drop dough into roughly tablespoon sized rounds onto a parchment or Silpat covered baking sheet, leaving at least 2 inches around each one as these spread quite a bit.

Bake for 8-9 minutes, or until edges are crisp and tops of cookies are dry but still shiny. Incredibly easy! The transformation that comes from cooking them this way is just amazing. They are thin, just a tiny bit crispy on the edge, and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate heaven in the middle. When you serve them, no one ever guess how you did it.

* My mom invented this. There was a special on brownie mix, plus she had a coupon, so she stocked us both up.

Cookie shown here being enjoyed by the older brother who is reveling in both his sister's absence and my culinary response to it.

The letters I did not get in the mail today

Dear Mom,

I love camp! Thank you, thank you for sending me to this awesome place. I have made 28 new best friends, and my counselors all want to adopt me. I said no, because I love you so much. Sorry I haven't written sooner, but I've been busy helping bottle feed the baby kittens and learning to identify edible plants from the meadow. Don't worry, I'm brushing and flossing extensively every day, and we all read aloud to each other every night after the campfire songs. Even though I am having the time of my life, I think about you all the time and miss you like crazy. Can you bake some cookies and save some for when I get back?

Dear Mom,

Get. Me. Out. Now. Cow bit me yesterday, and I had to weave my own band-aid while the blood was clotting. They made me eat raw squash. Can't say more...evil older kids stole my flashlight and the dark is not my friend. No one is. Hate this. Hate you.

Maybe no news is good news, after all.

Tomato! Tomato!

One of my favorite true life stories, ever:

A young woman goes to an audition, and the casting director asks her to sing the very famous Gershwin song, "Let's call the whole thing off!"



She takes the sheet of lyrics, and proceeds to belt out happily
(phonetics added by me, since I can't sing aloud here):

You like to-may-toes, and I like to-may-toes
You like po-tay-toes, and I like po-tay-toes
To-may-to! To-may-to! Po-tay-to! Po-tay-to!
Let's call the whole thing off!

She did not get the job.

I like tomatoes. Especially when they are ripe from the farm stand, like the ones we had tonight.

Easy Summer Tomato Salad

Ripe, juicy tomatoes, preferably from a great produce place or your yard
A few basil leaves
Good olive oil
Good balsamic vinegar
Cracked black pepper
Crumbled blue cheese

Slice the tomatoes. Put on a plate. Tuck the basil in around the tomatoes so it looks nice. Drizzle with a little olive oil and vinegar. Sprinkle generously with pepper, and finish off with a nice amount of blue cheese crumbles on top. Serve immediately.

The Devil is in the Details

The message of the week in class today was "Pay attention to the details." I was inspired. When I got home, I noticed the following little things that might otherwise have escaped me:

The dog is overdue for a bath.
The clock in my car is running about 2 minutes fast.
The baseboards need dusting.
My daughter is missing.

I decided to pay attention to the recipe for peanut butter cookies instead.

Peanut Butter Cookies
Recipe adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

1/2 c. (1 stick) of butter, softened
1 c. chunky supermarket peanut butter*
3/4 c. sugar, plus some extra for sprinkling
1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 Tbs. milk
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. peanut butter chips, optional

Heat oven to 350. With an electric mixer, cream the butter and peanut butter together until fluffy, then add the sugars and blend until smooth. Add the egg, mix well. Then add the milk and the extracts. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, and then blend into the butter/sugar/egg/vanilla part. If using, now's the time to stir in the peanut butter chips. The dough will be soft. Drop by rounded teasponfuls onto parchment or Silpat covered baking sheets, leaving plenty of room for them to spread during baking. Using a fork (dip into a glass of cold water if it sticks as you're doing this), form criss-cross patterns on cookies, but don't flatten too much. Sprinkle cookies with a little sugar. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are just beginning to turn brown. Do not over bake! Cookies might look underdone, but they are not. Cool on the cookie sheets for a bit, then finish cooling on wire racks.

* Don't use the goopy all-natural organic stuff. It's OK for the lunchbox at your granola school, but it just won't cut it in these cookies.

Tough day at the office

My son has his first "job" this summer. He's a Counselor-In-Training for the day camp at our local park. I was dying to know how his first day went.

Me: So? How'd it go?
Him: OK.
[Typical]
Me: (Restating the question): What did you do all day?
Him: I was with the five and six year olds. I watched them make bead art, and then, since it was water day, I just sort of squirted them a lot. But you're not going to believe this, Mom. There were these two kids in my group. The whole day all they did was complain about the other one!
[He gestures and makes faces to demonstrate as he quotes.]
"He pinched me!" "He hit me!" Like all day they did this. Seriously!
I'm not kidding! And then, when they had to pair up...
[here he is practically sputtering with incredulity]
...THEY PICKED EACH OTHER! What's up with that?
[I struggle to look appropriately mystified by this bizarre behavior.]
Me: Hmm. That is strange.
Him: I know, right? Kids. They're just nuts.

Mother's intuition?

My mom was spot on, yet again. Sadly. RIP Michael Jackson.