Happy Valentine's Day!

[Beth]

Beth,

You're an amazingly good writer (and very experienced in life) for someone in 5th/6th grade - good job!

buffcoat

Thanks. It's been a little awkward, since i'm nearly 3 times the age of everyone else, but I aced the spelling test last week!

[Emily]

Thanks, they were pretty good!

Sarah I used hazelnuts, actually. i had to blanch them, (acc. to the directions) so they wouldn't be so red, i think (since their skins are red). but that made them (obviously) wet & annoying to mix with the flour mixture. oh and if a recipe ever instructs you to grind hazelnuts in a food processor, use chopped nuts, whole nuts don't really work well (though it might depend on your food processor blades).  then there was a lot of freezing and re-freezing of the dough (so you can use the cookie cutter without the dough gooifying), which was a pain in the buttocks, esp. since i have a very narrow freezer & couldn't fit a baking sheet in there. so that was a bit clumsy, since i was using parchment paper in lieu of the cookie sheet, and i quickly ran out of paper. and then it seemed to take forever to re-roll and then re-freeze my dough. people have been like "i don't re-roll my dough more than twice" and i'm all, "i don't waste food, so there" none of them turned out nasty or anything. i guess you're not suppose to re-roll some doughs.

i might make them again for all the poor souls who didn't get to eat them. they were bigger than Polish thumb prints though, or so I assume, since thumb prints are small, in general. and i dont think poles have freakishly big fingers (since my great-grandmama was polish and i don't remember anything out of the ordinary).

anyway, for president's day i may not actually bake anything, though i am intrigued by the prospect of carving a block of cheese into the likeness of Abraham Lincoln. but i might not actually do that, since i don't have the proper tools. but ! if i pursue it, i will post of photo. (i'll also get my own blog so i can post my own crap there).

anyway, happy president's day eve!

[Sarah]

I think your food processor must be wonky, emily.  My workhorse of a Cuisinart--almost thirty years old--has no problem with nuts, even the harder ones.

You didn't have to peel the hazelnuts?  You're lucky.  Every now and then my sister will get it into her head to peel a quantity of them, and she always curses herself for it.  And if you ever make this recipe again, may I recommend toasting after blanching to make the nuts grind and mix more easily?

Did you use raspberry jam/preserves?  Or something else?  I have some lovely cherry preserves in my fridge right now that I bet would be tasty in a cookie, and I'm also intrigued at the notion of using marmalade (I'm a citrus lover).

I think I'm baking vicariously through you, emily.  Years ago, I used to be an avid and, if I say so myself, rather good baker; now I barely make anything except bread. 

P.S.  Perhaps Poles just have freakishly large thumbs, like what's-her-name in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues{/i]?

[Emily]

toasting makes sense, will do. thanks for the tip. they didn't say anything about peeling them. some of the peels fell off in the blanching stage, but nothing significant. and i did use raspberry preserves. you could probably use marmalade though, why not?

i haven't see that movie.. (i'll put it in my queueueueueuueueuee)

you should bake some cookies! they'll taste so yum and your house will smell scrum-diddily-umptious!

[Sarah]

You'd be better off reading the book.  I didn't like it all that much--I find Tom Robbins too cutesy--but the movie was worse.  In fact, don't bother with either.

[Emily]

ok, i won't.

:-)