Julia Childs Enters the Delaware County Fair

Through the year, I am sure that everyone remembers that one of my New Year's Resolutions was to learn to cook at a more advanced level than just throwing a Morningstar Chik'n Patty into the oven. It has been a slow process in practicing, but I am getting there! My ultimate goal is to be just as an amazing of a cook as famous chefs such as Betty Crocker, Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, Rocco DiSpirito ... and of course, Julia Childs! (For the record, I didn't just google Anthony, Eric or Rocco. I actually knew who they were from watching tv! They are my favorite chefs!) Obviously, I will never have the skills or sophistication that they have - but a girl can dream!

A week ago, my Mom asked if I could be so kind as to make some cookies for her for a function that she had at work. I thought, sure! It is just one more way of practicing my culinary skills! I had remembered a cookie recipe that I swiped from my friend Jen's house while watching Sweet Baby Autumn on Summer evening from an old issue of Parenting. Million Dollar Caramel Cookies ... how bad could those possibly be?! Spent an evening making them, and they turned out to be the most cakey, carameling, delicate cookies I've ever had! They were pretty amazing if I do say so myself. My mom did let me know that they were a hit, and the company who I had made them for enjoyed every cookie. My skills are getting better...

Last week, I had four days off of work to use up some vacation days that were going to vanish by August 28th. I spent a lot of time up at my parents house helping with my Dad since he had foot surgery and can hardly do a thing by myself and my Mom had to work. In the time that I spent at their house, I decided to start looking through all of my Mom's recipe books that she has collected over the years. She has a library, I mean the size of the Columbus Metro Library, full of cookbooks! I spent probably 2 days going through all of her recipes. As I was looking through them, she suggested that I enter a baked good into the Delaware County Fair this year. She did it for the first time last year, and walked away with I believe 3 ribbons. I thought - what do I have to lose!? Julia Childs would have done it! It falls within my other resolution of "doing new things." It is possible that I could win the blue ribbon for Delaware's best cupcake! Or, even get Delaware's best peanut butter cookie! Or, even better - my name could be in the paper! Sign me up!
I decided upon entering a type of cupcake, and peanut butter cookies. Mmmm! Peanut butter! I better start cooking, and perfecting my recipes. Off to the kitchen I go... I arrive home late one evening and decide to go ahead and start cooking since I have all of the ingredients for recipe #1: Peanut Butter Clouds. I make the cookies, and they are just okay... my Mom thinks that they are good, I think that they need to be more chewy. So - back to the drawing board. Those are good cookies, but they are not at all of blue ribbon status. While cooking this batch of cookies, I decide to be brilliant and grab the 350 degree cookie sheet with my barehand - GENIUS! I am happy to report that the blisters are going away nicely and I am pretty certain that I had 2nd degree burn. Please use this story as a warning to always use an oven mitt! Duh.
This Mickey Mouse Binder, my friends, is the Mecca of my new found cooking skills! This is a binder my Mom started collecting recipes in back in 1976. I totally remember this binder from when I was a kid and seeing it up on the shelf. This is the binder that I am sure my winning Peanut Butter Cookie recipe is sitting in. Though the first batch from this binder weren't the winning ones, you wait... they are just a few pages away! Let's keep our fingers crossed that within a few weeks, I have a ribbon or two to show off for my numerous attempts at being the next - Julia Childs.