Pirates and Pastries

Fall is here, folks - as if you didn't already know. Actually, from the sounds of the weather reports, fall has perhaps come and gone for our family and friends back in Nebraska! Snow and cold have ruled your forecasts, while we've been enjoying the mild, mulit-colored fall of the East Coast. Here's a shot from the top level of our parking garage

With fall colors comes fall holidays, the most recent of which was Halloween. Chase's boss had a costume party that I had been looking forward to for a month. Mostly it was just a great excuse to find all the local thrift and GoodWill stores. :) The result of my perusing is below:

Pretty impressive, right? No doubting that we're a pirate pair! Chase was a little... shy about wearing the hat anywhere except at the party. He even asked me to poke my head out and check the hallway before we left our apartment to walk to our car. I refused - unfortunately no one caught us in the hall. About the picture above, I want to be sure you notice the parrot on Chase's left shoulder, Chase's breeches/tight's (you should comment on his facebook wall about them. He was pretty self-consious) and also my brown, velvet, stilletto-heeled, knee-high boots. :) It was fun to dress up and be silly for a night. The party was nice. I finally got to meet most of Chase's coworkers, and we all chatted and ate good food - what could be bad about that?

Other than that, I've been trying my hand at some new recipes, the most recent of which was a carrot cake cookie recipe out of the Martha Stewart Cookie book Kendra gave me. I did everything EXACTLY as instructed - down to buying unsalted butter and letting the eggs rest on the counter for a bit before beginning the mixing process (with the caveat of substituting chocolate chips for the rasins). And the cooked result? A cookie sheet completely covered (no spaces in between) with a brownish-orange flattened goo. I couldn't even get it to come off the cookie sheet in any semblence of cookie-ness.

What is the world coming to when Martha Stewart needs help with her cookie recipes? Fortunately for Martha, it wasn't just anyone making her cookie recipe. It was me. I knew that what was probably needed was more flour, so I mixed in a bit more flour and vuala! A real chocolate chip carrot-cake-like cookie! Above is a picture of the one pathetic, flattened, brown blob I managed to get off the cookie sheet next to the "Steph-variation." I leave you to judge which one you'd rather eat. Martha, for your next cookie book if you need any help, you can call me anytime.