Chocolate Puddle Cookies

These past few days have been so fun, my two best friends got to stay with me in the city and we did so much. We went to the Metropolitan art museum for the first time, and woooow is it incredible! I want to take any future visitor to the museum. The Met is like a maze, I felt like I could have stayed there for a week and still have not seen everything. My favorite part was the knight’s armor section; I’ve seen them in movies and read about them in books but have never seen real life armor. The Japanese armor was very intricate and beautiful but they wore masks and they were SCARY. I’d definitely be scared to go into battle with the Japanese. I can’t believe I’ve been in the city for 7 months before I went to the Met. Crazy, but we spent about 4 hours in the museum before we were arted out… and the best part is the price… the recommended price is $20 per adult but of course it’s only recommended so we each paid $2 for a ticket. Not bad, so about .50 cents/hour for a wonderful time.

My cousin Sonya also got to come down from Baltimore and we all decided to go see a Broadway show. Lucky for all of us, me and Sonya got handicap passes (and we each could bring a person) so the four of us got to sit in the front row. We saw The West Side Story and nothing compares to being able to see the performers sing and dance that close. I mean we were so close that we were almost getting spat on. We all developed crushes on some of the performers, what can I say they were all beautiful boys dancing in incredibly tight pants. After the show, we all kind of creepily waited by the stage door hoping to see some of our newfound crushes walk out. Someone finally walks out of the stage door and it was my friend Libby’s crush…. She nearly hyperventilated but luckily I came to my senses and we all got to take a photo with a Broadway star. I guess only in New York the Broadway stars get the movie star treatment.

My friends left yesterday, and I supposed I have the blues. It’s like coming home after a vacation, its tough to go back to the real world sometimes. It feels like the past few days was a vacation and I got to enjoy the city in a whole different way. Blues = baking for me so here is another cookie recipe! These Chocolate Puddle Cookies are awesome and so easy- they have such few ingredients and the result is a fudgy cookie but incredibly light. The best way to describe these is like a cross between a fudgy brownie and a meringue. It almost feels guilt-free to eat these because there is no fat in these cookies except from the walnuts.

Cookies Galore!

I’ve been in such a baking mood lately. It’s been job hunting, bake cookies, job hunting, gym to burn off the baked goods, then more baking. It’s about 24 degrees in the city now, which I know isn’t “that bad.” But for me, who is used to getting myself around in a super heated car in the winter, anything below 32 degrees is pretty damn cold. I finally surrendered last weekend and got myself one of those down to knees puffy jackets (in black of course) that every New Yorker seems to have. In the winter, the city is a flurry of black with people wearing black jackets, black hats, black gloves, black boots…. You get the picture. Luckily, right now the city is beautiful and very festive with Christmas decorations everywhere. People are in a happy mood and in a Christmas shopping frenzy. In January and February, however, the city will not be festive no longer so I will have to find something else to look forward to and that is a NEW JOB!

However, before I stress terribly about finding a job. I'm going to allow myself to enjoy holiday baking and seeing the city in its holiday glory... and spending lots of time in Texas for Christmas, I'll be in Texas a whole two weeks. I doubt I'll be able to do that next year (when I hopefully have my full time job by then), so I might as well enjoy being unemployed now!

Now about the cookies... I've never thought myself a gingerbread cookie fan, but then these Gingerbread Snowflakes Cookies changed everything. I oringinally just wanted to make them so I could decorate; I'm not very artistic but I am pretty proud of myself, I think I did pretty well decorating! I couldn't stop myself from eating them, they were delicious and soo fun to decorate. I decided to mail cookies to a few friends so I could send some Christmas cheer from NY, and these got the double thumbs up from the pals.