Iqra’i

My apologies for having been absent from posting the last couple of days. I was in DC, renewing my Left-cred at some Campus Progress events, catching up with some fellow Mafiosi and influential patrons, and meeting people more interesting, intelligent, and generally awesome than I am. My most profound thanks to everyone with whom I got to hang out during my visit.

I’d bake cookies as a gesture of thanks, but I suspect it will be a few weeks before I produce my next successful batch of cookies. See, I’m totally enthralled by this NYT piece on technical secrets of the chocolate chip cookie, but it recommends letting the dough sit for 36 hours for ideal results. What this advice neglects to take into account is that the only state in which the substance known as Chocolate Chip Cookie is more delicious than just-out-of-the-oven is when it is still cookie dough. And asking a would-be baker to let it sit unconsumed for 36 hours seems absurd, especially for those of us bakers who are more known for our generosity than our patience and impulse control. So this baking advice will likely have the effect of provoking me to seek out innovations in the direct distribution of unbaked dough, which is good news for the college-kid “valets” at my apartment building but unhelpful for anyone outside the MSP metro.

_{Yeah, yeah, health risks, I know. But I’ve always had a bit of a subversive streak as a baker: my first batch of public cookies were deployed to diffuse standardized-test-ambition tension among a few of my friends in high school, and a former professor of mine has informed me of his willingness to set up a “shell account” so that he can receive tokens of my appreciation without technically accepting compensation from me. Compared to cookie-laundering, handing out raw dough sounds positively tame.}

_{Also, no, I didn’t get to hang out with Ted Leo. But I did shake his hand and stammer at him for a bit. I’m perfectly satisfied with that.}