I'm a Cook, not a Baker!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I’m useless with dough. Any recipe that uses a combination of flour and liquid, and requires a rolling pin, is a recipe that I’m bound to screw up. That unfortunately removes all bread products, and most desserts, including pies and cookies, from my repertoire. And let’s not forget chicken pot pies…or any pot pies for that matter. There’s a well documented story of a “pieless” chicken pot pie in my past.

That said, I’m usually fine with my lack of doughbility, until I open a cookbook and find myself staring at a gorgeously food-styled picture of a golden baked sleek baguette, or a crusty floured ciabbatta, or of wafer-like oatmeal cookies, where you can still the bits of oats clinging to the dough….like I saw today. That photo was my undoing. Or maybe it was the title…..“Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies”….Not since I discovered kettle corn popcorn have I been so intrigued by a salt and sugar combination. I could feel myself sinking into the self-delusion that “maybe this time will be different”. Dough-challenged or not, I decided to go for it! So I began to read the recipe, and I began to smile. One thing was clear….I will not fail today.

Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies*

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon table salt

14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
6 ounces good-quality white chocolate bar, chopped

1/2 teapoon flaky sea salt (like Maldon or fleur de sel)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt in a medium bowl.
2. Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula, then add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Scrape down bowl again. Add flour mixture gradually and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add oats and white chocolate and mix until well incorporated.
3. Divide dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons. Roll between palms into balls, then place on lined baking sheets about 2 1/2 inches apart. Using fingertips, gently press down each ball to about ¾-inch thickness.
4. Sprinkle a flake or two of sea salt on each cookie
5. Bake until cookies are deep golden brown, about 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack to cool.

Notes:

- Use a really good white chocolate bar. I used Green and Black's.

- I used Maldon's fleur de sel

*Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

BRUUUUUUUUUUCE!

The first time I heard about Bruce Springsteen, I was in high school and I was 15 years old. My best friend at the time, Christine, had a life size poster of him on her bedroom door, and she was my map into the world of "The Boss".

I, on the other hand, couldn’t really understand what the fuss was about. He was just a guy from New Jersey, with a raspy voice that, to my ears, strained to sing, and an obvious fan of red bandanas, though if the poster on Christine’s door was to be believed to not have been photoshopped, the lucky owner of a pretty nice butt! But I couldn’t really get into him. The Springsteen mystique eluded me.

Fast forward a few years later to my first conversation with DB, and my re-education of Bruce Springsteen began. DB knows every album, every song, and further to that, the lyrics to every song. And I don’t mean the lyrics that you and I can readily sing to, like “Born in the USA”, “Born to Run” or “Glory Days”. I’m talking about “Incident on 57th Street”, “She’s the One”, “Part Man, Part Monkey” – songs that are buried under the commercial machine that is mainstream radio and consumer marketing. He knows those songs.

I slowly began to understand why legions of fans were unable to stop themselves from screaming that now legendary word….”Bruuuuuuuuuuuce”. I’m now one of them. At my first Springsteen concert last year, I screamed myself hoarse along with them. And that raspy voice that I’d balked at as a teen? Well, that voice makes him “Bruce”….that voice makes him “THE BOSS”. I get it now.

So last night, we drove 45 minutes to San Jose, overpaid for parking, stood in a line that wrapped around the HP Pavilion, and spend 2 ½ hours dancing, singing, jumping, screaming, and idiotically grinning to each other, as Bruce, Stevie, Patti, Nils, Soozie, Gary, Charles, Roy, Max, and Clarence, showed us why, in Bruce’s own words, they are truly “the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, earth-quaking, nerve-breaking, history-making, legendary…..E…..STREET….BAND!”