Domestic Zen

My friendship with lovely CD has had two definite benefits, both of which are of domestic nature.
The first is that I have started knitting. I remember I used to knit and crochet with my grandmother when I was kid. She was a tailor when younger and when we were younger a lot of our clothes were sewed or knitted or etc by my mother and grandmother. It was part necessity, part of pleasure but man, I look back at my clothes and am impressed!

My grandmother was also the best cook in the world. No exaggeration! :-) My mum does a pretty good job of following her goodness closely, however (and unfortunately) I have not been able to continue the line. But this is related to the second benefit of my friendship with CD. I have been baking a lot more!!
For Xmas we had a cookie baking session where I made Rosettes which is the same as shirini panjerei in Persian.
You simply need some rosette irons and a cooking thermometer.
I also learned how to use cookie press and (didn't make but ate) a whole bunch of yummy sugar cookies. Cookie presses make such goodlooking cookies! In fact both these cookies have a very high impress-effort ratio. Maximize that utility function and you are gold.

I was also introduced to chocolate crinkles which are easy and delicious. The other plus is that they look pretty good!

Lets end this post with a bit of philosophical soul searching. Since you bake cookies, why aren't they called bakies instead of cookies?
[I heard this from someone but I can't remember who so I can't give them their due credit.]

and the second gem which I attribute to Jessica B is that STRESSED spelled backwards is DESSERTS.

Think about it.