Not to brag, but very seldom do my recipes go wrong. I know a handful of recipes on the site have been tried by others, with their own individual variations and a seemingly fair degree of success. With a few exceptions, which are noted, I stand behind most all of my recipes as being easy to duplicate with good results.

There are times, however, that the recipes just don’t want to work for me. This is more applied to baking than cooking, as baking is a more precise process that requires specific ingredients and leaves little room for improvisation. That is what I find most appealing about baking; there is a very specific chemical reaction that creates deliciousness. It looks something like A + B = C.

Specific Ingredients + Perfect Proportions + Correct Chemical Reaction = Cookies!

Cookies are guaranteed and absolutely foolproof, until you factor in operator error. There are a variety of things that can go wrong: using eggs and butter that are not room temperature, over-mixing, incorrect temperature settings, handling the batter too much, under cooking, and probably many more that I am not even aware of and most likely do myself.

A couple weeks ago, I wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies. Nothing fancy, just the original Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip baked goodness. My butter was not completely room temperature, but it also wasn’t out-of-the-refrigerator cold either. It did cause me to beat the batter a little longer than usual, but not so excessively that I was concerned. My cookie scooper was a little big, but who doesn’t like a big chocolate chip cookie?

I popped the first batch in the perfectly heated oven and set my timer for the minimum 8 minutes, so I could check on the progress. At 8 minutes exactly, I cracked open the door and to my horror, the cookies were spread out like flat little wrinkly pancakes. Panicked, I threw them out of the oven and attempted to push them back with a spatula. They merely fell apart when I tried to scoop them up and place them on the cooling rack. What had I done wrong?

Hearing my cries of frustration after the second batch of cookies did the same thing, James came to investigate. He tried a batch himself, adjusting the oven temperature in an attempted to salvage some eatable cookies out of the batter, but it was no use. Completely dejected, I pouted and scraped the rest of the dough into a Tupperware container. A couple days later, I tried the dough again, with the same results. Things were not right with the world, I have heard of people not being able to complete a simple recipe, but it had never happened to me…it was a new feeling, and I did not like it.

Stay tuned for Part 2: The Saga Continues…

Last year, I wrote a Holiday Manifesto to vent my frustrations about the premature holiday advertising and shopping. At the time, the presidential election was just around the corner and we were in the middle of an economic freefall. Things went from bad to worse and then some, and in the middle of it all, people were confused, fearful, and angry.

Since then, we have seen some recovery and some set backs. No longer are there daily reports of stocks crashing, but there are not-so-quiet reminders that things are still bleak: unemployment numbers continue to rise, foreclosures are increasing, and companies are still going under. The reports, however, do not have the urgency and anxiety of last year. Rather, it is more like we have accepted the situation and are prepared to continue onward with our lives.

In reading my manifesto from last year, I was struck by the forcefulness of my words. At the time, I did not have the Bitter/Sweet blog, so this posting went on the main page. It was uncommon for me to share such opinions on the website, and it marked a turning point in the type of posts I write and allowed me the freedom to explore other topics. Most things tend to circle back to food and cooking, but every so often I allow myself to wander off subject.

After reviewing the manifesto with the intentions of revising it for this year, I am left with a very different feeling. Almost, I dare say, a celebratory feeling. I am happy to see the signs of the season approaching: fresh cranberries and pomegranates, the crunch of dry leaves on the sidewalk, the scent of muffins baking in an oven, the warmth of lit candles, and festive twinkling lights.

All of this serves as a reminder about the simple things in life and how these subtle things can make a house feel like a home. Perhaps this is because I am a homeowner this year, and spending my first holiday season in my new house with my new husband. This year, I look forward to celebrating the season with family and good food.  As I have said many times before, food is a source of comfort, a product of love, and a means of sustenance.

So here’s to the Sweetness of family, good food and holiday cheer!

Usually, where there is a purpose, there is a re-purpose. Re-purposing is when you take an item, such as pillowcase, and use it for a purpose it was not originally intended for, like placing over a broom like a dust mop. Real Simple magazine highlights re-purposing monthly in a column called “New Uses for Old Things,” which covers everything from using a shoe organizer to store art supplies to using an old ketchup bottle as a pancake batter dispenser.

Who, as a child, did not offer their mother a gift of an old soup or coffee can, painted and perhaps decorated with glitter? I know I did (I believe mine was wrapped in old wallpaper). There is a sense of joy in re-purposing, finding new and different uses for items that might otherwise end of up in the trash.

I have spoken before about my dislike for single-purpose items, like cherry pitters and avacado slicers, so I am always delighted to find ways to re-purpose items like melon ballers or cookie scoopers. The way I see it, if I can find 10 uses for a melon baller, I am getting much more bang for my buck than just using it to ball melon.

Sometimes the re-purpose of an item is for decoration, such as using empty wine bottles as candle holders or turning empty salt and pepper shakers as bud vases. Other re-purposes are more functional, like using a turkey baster to change the water in a vase of flowers. Either way, I am delighted when I find a nifty re-purpose idea that I can actually implement myself. And I am not the only one, check out this blog entry on Waste Not Want Not from Young House Love.

For tons of Sweet re-purpose ideas, check out Real Simple’s 101 New Uses of Old Things.

After months of speculation and harassment, I am finally posting again to the website and blog. Okay, maybe not harassment but some folks were certainly wondering what was going on. James and I had more than a few big life changes over the last six months, including an engagement, buying a house, moving, adopting two dogs, and planning a wedding for this coming weekend! I also embarked on a summer reading project that consisted of approximately 33 books. That’s quite a bit of stuff to cram into a few short months that went by all too fast.

That being said, it is good to be back! I am very exciting to be in the new house and breaking in the new kitchen, which has a new glass cooktop electric range. It is true the absence makes the heart grow fonder, because I certainly missed tinkering around in the kitchen. Now I am making up for lost time by cooking and baking up a storm, and I just started a new special project: Muffin Madness.

Fortunately, my schedule lightens up significantly after this week and I will be able to focus on setting up house and trying out some new recipes. Also, I have agreed to host Thanksgiving at the new house and plan to spice things up with some new takes on the traditional turkey dinner. There are some new recipes left over from summer as well that I never got around to posting, so hopefully I can get those up on the website soon.

I have missed cooking, baking, and writing about life here on the website and blog, so I am glad to be back and hope you can all forgive me for my absence. Every so often, I have taken a bit of a hiatus from cooking, though this one lasted a little bit longer than I expected. In the meantime, I have been scheming up new ideas for special projects, blog posts, and other fun things, so there is much more Sweet stuff to come!

All of the media outlets are frantically reporting information on the current outbreak of Swine Flu, but is their input helping create a mass hysteria? Also, some of the information circulating the Internet is coming from less-than-reliable sources.

CNN ran a report on Tuesday about how Twitter is creating some of this panic, with folks using instant-connect to trade rumors about the flu outbreak (see Swine flu creates controversy on Twitter). The report also mentions that CNN’s own Dr. Sanjay Gupta has traveled to Mexico City to assess the situation and it updated his Twitter throughout the experience.

Dr. Gupta appears to be a fairly reliable source, but why is CNN condemning others for racing to Twitter to post information yet encouraging it one of its own correspondents? The CNN article quotes Brennon Slattery, a contributing writer for PC World:

“This is a good example of why [Twitter is] headed in that wrong direction, because it’s just propagating fear amongst people as opposed to seeking actual solutions or key information…[it is] an incredibly unreliable source of information.”

So, which is worse? The threat of a Swine Flu Pandemic, or the gripping fear the media reports are fostering? Either one looks Bitter to me. Blaming Twitter probably is not going to help the situation either, as most media outlets are now citing Twitter accounts (along with MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites) as “reliable” sources.