Cold Remedy

Today is a perfect day for perusing cook books and heating the kitchen from the warmth of the oven. It's cold out. Freezing. I mixed up two batches of cookie dough yesterday and they have chilled sufficiantly. The first batch is pfeffernuesse made with Brer Rabbit real-honest-to-goodness blackstrap molasses and freshly ground black pepper. I imagine they'll turn out to be real gobstoppers but they'll be tasty.

The other batch is lemon-poppy seed melts except I used orange zest instead of lemon. I tend to use orange zest in just about everything I bake. I even use it in the soap that I make. What can I say? I like oranges. I have a pan bubbling away on the back burner right now with dried orange and tangerine peels, a crushed cinnamon stick, and a pinch of nutmeg. I keep adding water to it throughout the day and the aroma permeates the house. It smells absolutely wonderful. Makes me think of Christmas year round. *sigh*

Tomorrow is my dd's birthday. She'll be all of nine years old but is so much wiser than her years (cough cough). We already had an over-frosted birthday cake at the party at Brunetti's on Sunday so I'm going to make her some super sticky cinnamon rolls. I made them once before when she was about four years old and she still remembers them. So, of course, I was making my way through my cookbooks trying to find the recipe and got lost in thought. You know how it is. You pause to read a recipe and think "Oooo, that sounds good!" French Baguettes, Pane Casereccio, Pizza Quattro Formaggi. Mmmmmm.... All except the Pizza Quattro Stagioni. Nuh. I had that in Florence. Not good. Definitely not a fan of the artichoke. I'm the same with seed catalogues....so easily distracted.

The cinnamon orange concoction on the stove has me incredibly hungry. The cookbooks added to that as well. There's only one thing to do. Bake!