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June 28, 2009
1875: Peanut butter oatmeal cookies
After a brief test run, using Pete as my guinea pig (he survived!), I made these cookies for Dad on Father's Day. Since they were such a hit both times around, and I've had a number of questions about them, I thought I'd post the recipe.
- INGREDIENTS
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/2 cup softened margarine
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup quick-cooking oats
- DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- In a large bowl, cream together shortening, margarine, brown sugar, white sugar, and peanut butter until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well blended.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Stir the dry contents of the second bowl into the creamed mixture in the large bowl.
- Mix in the oats until just combined.
- Pinch and roll pieces of the dough into tight, gumball-sized balls and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes.
Special thanks: To Britrock for fact-checking!
Posted by ashley at 10:22 PM | TrackBack
June 14, 2009
1874: And what the hell is Disaronno?
The following is just about my least favorite commercial in the world:
I can't say why I hate this so much, I just feel it... in my bones, the very essence of my being, tense with the urge to scream "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" I would truly hate to ever stumble into a bar which was not only as awkwardly lit as this one is, but also improbably stocked with ONLY DISARONNO BOTTLES.
Full disclosure: I don't even know what Disaronno is; in fact, I'm not even sure I'd ever heard of it until this commercial entered into heavy rotation on TV a few years ago. In my mind, it's the sort of liquor that sits on a glass shelf on the bar beside never-ordered things like Frangelico, something I'll never drink because I'm not entirely certain that it isn't Mrs. Butterworth's.
I feel like Disaronno may be the Ferrero Roche of liquors. It seems to aspire to some level of sophistication but ends up in an undefined space of "is-from-Europe-or-something?" I'm surprised the audio even syncs up with the moving lips of the actors in these commercials, though that might actually give the whole thing a Mentos-like charm.
If you're going to push any liquor, familiar or otherwise, it's probably important that you help consumers feel comfortable ordering it -- and this depends on their knowing how to do so. Thus, we're now we're subjected to only marginally better how-to spots like this:
My first thought was that this does nothing to help me understand who drinks this crap, and whether I'm that sort of person -- but it actually does. People who drink Disaronno are...
a) People who enjoy drinking in brightly lit spaces
b) People who are unclear about what "with lemon" entails
c) People who are not me