Author Archives: Dr. Bear

About Dr. Bear

Lived many places, love food, unable to not have a conversation, earned PhD in Philosophy.

Cherry Pistachio Bread

Posted on by

Cherry Bread with PB“Some look at the world as it is,
and they ask: ‘Why?’
I look at the world as it is,
and I ask: ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a dark chocolate and peanut butter sandwich on cherry bread?
I wonder how you make cherry bread?'”

 

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/2 cups warm water
  • 1 cup warm milk
  • 2 Tbsp. Cherry Jam
  • 2 Tbsp. Yeast (maybe 3 envelopes?)
  • 1 Tbsp. Salt
  • 1 cup Dried Cherries
  • 1 cup Shelled Unsalted Chopped Pistachios
  • 8-9 cups, give or take, of whole wheat (3 cups) and bread flour (6+ cups)
  • 1 Egg (you need the white)

Step 1, Wet Stuff: In a large bowl (or the mixer bowl if you plan on letting the bread hook to the heavy lifting); whisk in the Cherry Jam into the warm Milk and the first cup and a half of warm Water. Add the dried Cherries, and set to the side.

Step 2, meanwhile, back at the yeast: in a smaller container, whisk together the remaining cup of warm Water, the Yeast, and just a smidge of the Cherry Jam. Let this sit for a few minutes (listen to a pop-song, gather the flour, begin to shell the pistachios; whatever you fancy), and let it start to bubble.

Step 3, mixing and proofing: Whisk the yeast micherrypistachio 001xture into the milk mixture. Next, add in the first 3 cups of flour a little bit at a time, whisking until it is smooth–I usually move from the coarsest flour to the smoothest, so the wheat flour here. Now leave this in a warm place for 5 minutes and walk away. Fold laundry, try to figure out where you put the bread flour, dance, just leave the yeast alone. If, as I found, you cannot find unshelled unsalted pistachios, this is a good time to shell the unsalted pistachios you found.

Step 4, kneading: Come back, Little Sheba. If it is bigger, and a little poofy, the yeast is doing great. If not, either you have bad yeast or a cold spot. Whisk down this living thing in the bowl, and add 1 Tbsp of Salt. Add in the Bread Flour 1/4 of a cup at a time, and thoroughly mix it in; when the whisk becomes impractical, use a big wooden spoon, when this is too hard, use a mixer with a bread hook or turn it our onto a floured surface. It is important to knead the flour in 1/4 of a cup at a time, and after each bit of flour, hook or knead the bread until it becomes one thing again–not a mixture of flour and dough, but one unit. When the dough is a single round thing holding on to itself and not sticking to other things, behaving about like a deflated volley ball, it is ready. The amount of the flour doesn’t matter–getting it to this proper consistency is what matters. Roll it around on the counter for good measure.cherrypistachio 006

Step 5, let it rise: Grease a smooth bowl 3 times as big as the dough. Roll the dough ball in the oil, and then cover with plastic wrap or a wet towel or something that will let it work without drying out. Let this sit in a warm place–in the oven with a heating pad on a different shelf, on the sunny side of the house, just a safe and warm place–until the dough has doubled in size. Usually, this will be about an hour.

Step 6, making loaves: Turn the dough out onto a clean cherrypistachio 007surface, and punch it down (forcefully knead it), which should reduce it to close to its original size. Separate this into 3 portions ( or 4 or… you figure it out). Flatten each of these, and sprinkle with the first half cup of Pistachios. Fold the dough back into itself, knead it slightly and shape each into loaves; make sure that there are not seams or spots the loaf might separate, maybe pinching loose edges and rolling it about a bit–each should be smooth and coherent–it’s own little self.

Step 7, second rising: Grease some baking sheets and sprinkle with corn meal, or grease 3 bread pans, or 2 bread pans and 2 little pans, or some such combinations. Put each loaf into a pan, slit along the top with a sharp knife (this lets bubbles out) and set these into a warm place until they have grown–usually less that the first rise. About half way through this rise (20? 25 minutes?) pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Step 8, prepping and baking: Beat together an Egg White and a little cold water. Paint the tops of the loaves with the egg white mixture, and then sprinkle with the remaining Pistachios. Put the bread in the oven for 30 or 35 minutes, until the top crust is a nice dark brown. Figure out your oven, and see if you need to turn them orcherrypistachio 020 rotate them to get them to cook evenly.

Step 9, cool it, boy: When they are done, get them out, take them off the sheets or out of the pans, and put them on a cooling rack.

Last Step, sharing: You may have noticed I made several loaves. You can, of course, use division and figure out how to make a smaller batch, but I suggest you make more, and then figure out why you needed more. The bread might be so good that one loaf is eaten before it even cools. Break out the Brown Betty; it is perfect with some butter and a cup of tea. Most importantly, if you have extra bread, you will have to give it away.     cherrypistachio 023 Give it to friends for Christmas, a House Warming or just because. As always, give it to a wandering Buddhist monk, a musician or a college student–all of these are good karma. You might give some to somebody you love, or whom you wish to love, or who needs to feel loved. My mom says it is just as easy to pray for somebody while kneading bread as it is just to pray for somebody; I don’t understand prayer, but I know everybody needs to feel loved and everybody loves good bread.

Post-Last Step, left-overs: It makes brilliant toast, of course. It also makes excellent French toast, bien sûr, if you like that sort of thing.

What to do with Eggheads

Posted on by

My Dearest Jerri,
intellect 1Thank you for your question; I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get around to answering it. I got so many great questions to start (although I seem to be running out) that it took me a while to sort through them. If I recall (or, of course, if I can call it up on-line—do folks still recall?), you asked why American culture vilifies intelligence and critical thinking.

My answer would be: Well, it does and it doesn’t.

If Wode Toad were here rather than on a spring trip gigging rednecks in Kentucky (Shine the light right in his eyes!), he might point out that this kind of ambiguity is one of the many reasons why, since America prefers simple answers rather than a complex sic et non.

I mean, we don’t villify intelligence to any extreme—you guys live most days without a mob of villagers with torches & pitchforks showing up on your lawn, as do bright, intelligent people like Jeff & Debbie who live 3 blocks from you, or I, who live 4 blocks east of you, or all the Banks family scattered south of you and north by the river.

Sorry. I guess I’ve given those mobs a fixed location; sorry about that. Hope they don’t show up during Doctor Who, or you’ll hurt them.

On the whole though, people aren’t bothered by intelligence or intellectual pursuits. When I tell people that I have a PhD in Philosophy, they find it a curious oddity, much like the news that my brother-in-law regenerated his wisdom teeth or that my great-aunt used to dress up like Liberace.

We are a democracy, and we like to think of ourselves as a fairly egalitarian society. We tend to feel that any attempt to “rise above” seems a bit “elitist,” and we tend to mistrust it (unless, of course, it makes money; then it’s OK). The problem with smart people is we fear that they are smarter than we. Even if, on some occasions, as in the case of William F. Buckley, Jr., or Adlai Stevenson, we do let the best and the brightest shine, on the whole we dislike it when other people flaunt their intelligence at us. We prefer to let really bright, well-educated people like Bill Clinton or George W. Bush be folksy and talk with accents, rather than showing off their educations.

Our current culture is also driven by the market place, and with most markets it is best to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That explains a great deal about the current crop of idiot comedies and half-hazard action flicks at the movies, as well as most of the dreck on television.
On a recent Friday night, Wode Toad & I were walking around downtown Johnson City, Tn. We were watching the University kids having a good time with their drinking, smoking, carrying on, music and karaoke (two unrelated endeavors apparently), and other forms of fun, and Toady asked me:  “Why shouldn’t America be anti-intellectual?  The lights, the music, the people, the fun, the drinks? Why should we need a world of ideas as well?”

Of course, there also remains the basic problem that we dislike having our comfortable assumptions called into question. I don’t even, and I live in a state of gray ambiguity; I’m sure that folks with easy, casual certainties don’t.
Classical Athens prized intelligence and critical thinking—hey! It was dedicatedPassage Difficile to the goddess of wisdom—but it still killed Socrates. Renaissance Italy tortured Galileo. John Locke fled Enlightenment England for the relative safety of Holland. Spinoza died penniless and ostracized outside of Amsterdam (his unconventional notion of the divine was a little too radical even for the Dutch). Enlightenment France imprisoned Voltaire. America prefers isolating them to hurting them.
Cognitive dissonance is discomfiting—humans dislike being presented with ideas which conflict with our self-evident truths—and we prefer to isolate or eliminate those who cause it.

Women who think are, of course, even scarier….

Mostly, though, I am not sure that American culture knows what to do with thinking, and so it is made a little uncomfortable with it. At the time of our beginnings, the “Old World” (Europe) prided itself on the fiction that it was their culture–their high culture, art , literature, & intellect–that made them superior. We have preferred authenticity to culture. This is a false dichotomy, but a simple, useful, and persistent one. Living with this self-view, we have never quite been able to figure out what to do with thinking, especially not with thinking for its own sake, or even with smart people who seem to want to think about things which are out of the ordinary.
Intelligence and critical thinking seem harmless enough, but is there any possible use for it? It there any real place for it? In the past, we sort of set aside places in libraries and universities and New York and San Francisco, but now that all of us have a role in supporting and building our culture (not just Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers), it is hard to see what to do with thought. It can’t be quite as entertaining for most people as, say Music or Theatre (well, it can be the way I do it, but generally).

However, what that leaves us with is an indifference to intelligence. This indifference can at times be stifling, almost as harsh as vilification. Intelligence and critical thinking don’t seem require much in terms of resources or special equipment, so we can still practice them in the face of vilification (your term) or stifling indifference (my prefered term). One would think that we can practice them alone, but that simply isn’t the case. I think that is because using intelligence and practical reason does require a place, and does require some sort of conversation. On this level, indifference limits intelligence as well.
On the other side, the academics have done as much harm to intelligence by limiting this conversation to small places and specialized jargon as those who are openly hostile to it. You and I both know that we have met folks who are incredibly intelligent, yet who haven’t even gone to or haven’t finished college. These friends make us smarter when we have intelligent conversations with them.
Perhaps it would be best not to focus upon getting our culture to provide a place for thinking, but instead to try to figure out just how much we need it, which is the same as figuring out what we don’t know. Although we have explored huge swaths of our planet, and have even taken pictures of space, we are left with an infinity still to explore, a mountain of problems still to be solved, and so much to still figure out—in the words of Kris Kristofferson (or Dr. Seuss or Dr. Pangloss—one of them) “lots of pretty thoughts that I ain’t thunk.”

Regardless of who else cares, as the thinkers of the past did, we must talk together (or write to one another), and reason together, and think critically together. Whether there is a public space for it or not, whether we are vilified or not, thoughts are free.418signature

Die Gedanken Sind Frei, my thoughts freely flower ;
Die Gedanken Sind Frei, my thoughts give me power .
No scholar can map them;
no hunter can trap them
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!

I think as I please and this gives me pleasure;
My conscience decrees this right I must treasure.
My thoughts will not cater
to duke or dictator
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
No man can deny, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
And should tyrants can take me and throw me in prison,
my thoughts will burst free like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble,
and structures will tumble,
and free men will cry, Die Gedanken Sind Frei!
Yes, free men will cry, Die Gedanken Sind Frei! 

What to do with Eggs

Posted on by

Frittata!
Frittata 002

This is my standard left-over-veggie-sunday-dinner-in-a-hurry-go-to-dish.
Nice with a little of my french bread and some wine, but hey! what isn’t?

 

Ingredients:

  • Left over vegetables (brocoli is good, Spinach is good, Onions are a must, carrots are good, cabbage isn’t quite as good–whatever you happen to have ready to hand–about a 1/2 cup’s worth for each person eating).
  • 4 eggs (for 2 or 3 people, more for more)
  • Olive Oil
  • Cheese (a hard Italian is best–I am going to regret having said that–like Parmigian or an Asiago, but a Gruyère or something like that will do as well).
  • Herbs, Pepper and Salt to Taste

Step 1, prepping the veggies: Heat up a small iron skillet (or a big one, if you are making lots of this–you do the math), and saute the left-over Veggies with plenty of Olive Oil (or, of course, butter).

Step 2, prepping the eggs: While they are sizzling, take a large bowl and whisk the eggs with a little bit of water–like an omelet; this mixture should about triple in volume. You may add in the herbs, salt & pepper and whisk some more.

Step 3, the combo: Pre-heat the broiler to High. Pour the eggs over the stuff in the skillet, mixing it a bit, but then just stand back and let it cook. When the bottom and middle start to solidify (two minutes or so? not long), put the cheeses on the top.

Step 4, broiling:  Switch the frittata from the top of the stove to under the broiler to cook the top. When the top is browned (it should puff a bit, so don’t overfill), take it out, let it sit for a few minutes and serve with a green salad.

Timely Virtue

Posted on by

Last week, I sat in on a lecture on Ancient Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. It was really enjoyable to see how well Brian Hook did the lecture, and also reassuring that there didn’t seem to be anything I was missing. When he was discussing Aristotle’s virtues, my mind began to wander, and I began to wonder what the virtues of our age are, or rather, what they should be. What habits of character do we need to cultivate?

For the Ancient Philosopher Aristotle, living a good life, living “well-souled” (eudaimonia) or happily, was a matter of cultivating virtues, or character traits that lead to living well. He describes these virtues as a proper balance between two extremes. This is sometimes discribed as the Via Media or middle path.Middle Road For example, Courage is a prominent Greek virtue—as Alexander the Great’s tutor, Aristotle was in tune with the Homeric warrior culture that underpinned their culture. For Aristotle, Courage is not an ideal like it would be for Plato, a perfection to be aimed at, but instead it was a balance between Cowardice on the one side, and Fool-heartiness on the other. A man shouldn’t run from every confrontation, but on the other hand, he shouldn’t run towards every confrontation, either. A person shouldn’t allow pleasure to rule them, but he or she shouldn’t be numb, either; a virtuous person should be temperate. Of course, part of the problem teaching Aristotle is that the English words—temperate, magnanimous, etc.—we use for virtues are outdated and almost as alien to our ears as the Greek would be.

We live in an age of speed. I can have books at my doorstep within days or on my device withMountain Time 3in seconds. I can communicate instantly with friends in Germany (if they are still up) or friends in on the Pacific Coast (if they are up yet). The town I live in and the town I work in used to be half a day apart, then were an hour apart, then were 45 minutes apart, when I moved here 30 years ago were 30 minutes apart, and now are 15 minutes apart.

Much of this is good: it is nice to be able to keep in touch with Lois or Daniel or Karyn & Rich or Katy or Brandon. I enjoy the fact that I am able to walk the Appalachian Trail outside of Hampton Tennessee in the morning and work at the Johnson City Tennessee Barnes & Noble in the evening. But for many people, this very speed of life has changed how we live. In order to keep up with all the places we have to be, Mountain Time 5 shadowwe spend more time in our cars. Because we can do soccer and zumba and school and work, most families do all these things. And other things become fast as well. As our employers continue to have to cut costs, and we have to do more and more with less and less, even professions which used to be leisurely, like medicine and teaching and selling books, are feeling more and more like conveyer belts. Fast food—either the drive-through joints or food that relies more and more upon processed food—becomes a bigger and bigger part of how we eat. Fast communication—not just texting and Facebooking, but even the quickness of passing conversations—become the norm. We are speed-dating our own lives.

Let me suggest that a virtue we need to cultivate to live well in this time is something between the speed at which life seems to be forcing us to run and an inertia of resignation, passivity and entertainment which seems to be the other alternative. Mountain Time 2Now, anybody who knows me will be amused that I would be the spokesperson for slowness—it does seem so natural. However, there is something to be said for taking a cue from the various slow movements that have started in the last decade.  I have already written about the importance of slow mail. I have friends who are involved with parts of the slow food movement. In particular, many of my friends have taken to preparing food from the ground up. The answer to fast food thrown from a drive-through window is planting (or raising) your meals, cultivating them, and then cooking them yourself. But there are other areas in which we can slow down. We can try to walk or bike instead of driving. Read instead of watching. Knit or sew.

Slowness seems negative, though, so let me suggest another term. In regard to the speed of life, the mean between the extremes of speed and inertiaMountain Time 4 is moving—and living—deliberately. We can cook and eat at a deliberate pace at which we can be aware of the food and cook it well, and enjoy it. We can communicate at a deliberate pace at which we can be aware of the unspoken cues of our partners, children, friends, coworkers, and clients, and take the time to follow up on questions, and—most of all—to connect. We can move through the world in such a way that we are aware of our surroundings, deliberately, so that we are also aware of ourselves.

In the words of the original hipster and inventor of the No.2 pencil (whose name, appropriately enough, is pronounced like “thorough”):

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

In an age where the only two options seem to be to join the frenentic rush or to resign ourselves and drop by the wayside, we must learn to choose our own way, and our own pace. What we choose to do, we can do with care, and do deliberately.315signature

Carrot Salad

Posted on by

Carrot Salad 2In our family, we love salads. My Dad likes to tell the story about how, after a week in England (a lot of boiled beef), we pulled over at a restaurant in France and all five of us ordered salads. It was what I had for breakfast when I came home for spring break my freshman year in college and what my daughter had for breakfast the first morning home on her most recent spring break. This is one of my Mom’s recipes, and one of my family’s favorites. I had thought it was German, but according to her recipe in the Hopwood Memorial Christian Church Cookbook, it is a Russian Carrot Salad. Like most things I prepare, it is savory rather than sweet.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. carrots (about 6 medium sized)
  • 3 Tbsp Cider Vinegar (or another kind)
  • 1 tsp Salt (give or take)
  • ¼ cup freshly chopped Parsley
  • ½ cup chopped Onion
  • 1 dash or grind of Black Pepper
  • 1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Carrot Salad 1

Step 1, great grating: Coarsely grate the carrots. If you want to be fancy (or, I you have way too much time on your hands, like I do, thanks to the 21st century economy) you can also peel them into long strips, using a carrot peeler; this is dramatic.

Step 2, combine: add all this ingredients except for the oil. This is best if the carrots are sweet and full of flavor; if they are dull, you can spruce them up with a pinch of sugar and a little more salt. Taste, and see if it is to your liking. Add Oil last; if you are making them in advance for serving the next day, let the salad pickle a bit and add the oil before serving.

Carrot Salad 3Step 3, serve: I like to serve them as little salad plates with cucumber salad and tomato salad, but you can also serve them in their own bowl. Or take them on a picnic. Or package them in glass jars and send them to loved ones.

April Foolishness

Posted on by

My Dear Abby–
Your recent facebook post intrigued me.
Dr Bear in Vest facing rightYou asked “What fiction narratives shaped your life, and how?”
Strangely enough, the first book that came to my mind was Uncle Wiggily and his Friends, which I read–or, rather, which my father read to me, my head against his chest and his baritone voice vibrating through me–when I was 4 or 5. Of course, I admired Uncle Wiggily’s  stalwart adventurousness, and the rabbit gentleman’s unfailing courtesy, kindness, and old world charm. He certainly did have a sense of fashion and personal style, as well. But what really changed my world was how each story would end.

And, if the loaf of bread doesn’t get a toothache and jump out of the oven into the dishpan, next time I’ll tell you about how Uncle Wiggily Learns to Dance.

And in the next story, if the moving picture doesn’t run so fast that it jumps out of the window and scares our cat soshe falls into the milk bottle, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the Snow Plow.

And if the snow man doesn’t come in our house and sit by the gas stove until he melts into a puddle of molasses, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and The Red Spots.

These statements were just so absurd, so silly, and there they were—in black and white! A book could be silly and crazy! Now, I was used to silliness: my dad and his brothers were silly and witty and droll, as were many of my relativies on both side of the family. However, if I book could be silly, if words on a page in black and white could be silly, then anything was possible. I could be just as silly as my uncles, I could be just as silly as Howard R. Garis or Jim Henson; Life could be relished with a hint of absurdity, its pain dulled with its inherent ludicrousness.

I memorized a book of 101 Elephant Jokes:

What’s the difference between an elephant and a plum?
The color!

What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming?
“Here come the elephants!”

Why do elephants have wrinkly knees?
From playing marbles.

What did Jane say when she saw the elephants coming?
“Here come the plums!”
(She was colorblind.)

I wrote funny plays and drew cartoons in elementary school. I acted all the way through High School and College, my favorites still being Shakespearean Comedy. Although teaching may seem like the ideal stage for stand-up, baby-sitting other people’s kids and then parenting my own daughter were the ideal situations for being silly. The fact is, kid’s are not really that funny or imaginative. However, they can become funny and imaginative if you set a good example. I spent a lot of time clowning and miming and being silly so that my daughter could also grow up to be silly. Besides The Sweet Potato Song, Grace also grew up with tunes like:

Oooooooh The needles are prickley, but the water is fine;
that’s why squid don’t live in the pine!

Oooooooh Opposible thumbs is what they lacks;
that’s why grizzly bears don’t file income tax!

I don’t generally tell jokes–they seem like other people’s stories. I prefer witty or absurdist commentary on a specific context. Occasionally, things like singing about 19th century to a Johnny Cash tune. Or remembering a college friend with a kids’ story. When I do tell a joke, it’s generally something simple like:

Two men walk into a bar. The third man ducks.

It is simple, elegant, almost Haiku-like. It plays on expectations and ideas. And, of course, it has the word “duck” in it, which makes anything funnier.

I also like to tell the story about the unluckiest man in Ireland, but I won’t tell it here because it is too long. It also is the closest I come to saying anything theological, so I only tell it to close friends.

Humor is how I deal with things. By treating big things with a great deal of silliness, it makes them smaller, and takes away some of the fear and power that they have. At my Grandfather’s funeral, my dad and his brothers told old family stories and did Marx brothers routines until we were all crying.

“Talcum Powder, Sir? Walk this way.”
“If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the talcum powder.”

I still use it to deal with whatever the world throws at me. Humor has gotten me through grad-school, losing jobs, losing friends, dialysis, heart-break, and might just get me through the current economy.

Tennessee weather: seldom arctic, but often bi-polar.

On the average, Tennessee drivers are the best in the world–on the average.
Of course, that means for every driver going 90 there is one going 15, and for every driver who never signals, there is one who never turn their signal off, and for every driver who cuts you off, there is one who can’t even merge.
But on the average….

Chicago? It has Hipsters the way new York has rats, which I mean, of course, as another point in New York’s favor.

The Little Red Hen?
It’s a children’s version of Atlas Shrugged.

I told my doctor I was depressed. She asked if I had suicidal or homicidal thoughts. I said: “I’m in retail; of course I have homicidal thoughts.”
She said: “I’ve been in retail; that’s perfectly normal.”

Yes, I do specialize in artisan-made hand-crafted snark and free-range organic wit. Yes, I have co-workers and students who show up just to see what crazy thing I am going to say that day. Yes, it sometimes gets out of hand, and I apologize for that…
But only when it gets out of hand and I forget to be kind. Being funny is no excuse, either.

So, don’t be afraid of being silly. FindSmall Arms 001 humor where you can, and make somebody laugh. Making somebody in elementary school giggle is best, but even if you can make a co-worker smile with a silly visual joke like this one…….

……..that’s good too.

 

…and, unless the iPhone and android forget their social media and are reduced to silence. leaving us to communicate with semaphore ducks, next time we will discuss Slowness and Aristotolian Virtues.

Until next week, I am, and will remain, your silly friend, 44signaturedramatic but funny story-teller, misguided cattle-rustler, loyal knight, obedient camel, elephant, a person who can make you smile, and even LOL, etc.

Peppermouse Cookies

Posted on by

Peppermouse CookiesHey, Whovians! I am finally getting around to publishing my Tardis Cookie Recipe!

This was kind of a Christmas cookie experiment that I played with one day when I was bored. I had had a soup in a Szechuan restaurant that included these spices, and I thought it would be an exotic variation on the German Pfeffernüsse. I needed a wacky recipe because I was making Tardis & Dalek cookies for work, and this seemed good.

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup solid shortening
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup dark molasses
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp allspice
  • 1/3 tsp cloves
  • 1 tsp anise
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp Srirachi sauce
  • Sift in:
  • 4 cups flour (31/2 if not in Tennessee)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp salt

Step 1, cream: Soften the shortening, then beat in the sugar. Add in the eggs, molasses and milk.

Step 2, spice it up: Mix in the various spices. Leave some out, if they don’t suit your fancy, or add some more, but I do wonder: if you don’t trust me, why are you reading my recipes?

Step 3, sifting: put the flour in a sifter and add the leavening & salt. Gradually stir this into the various wet ingredients. Mix well—it should be stiff, but sticky.

Step 4, chill overnight (always good advice): wrap in plastic and store in the refrigerator.

Step 5, roll and cut it and mark it with a tardis: Preheat the oven to 375. Roll the stiffened dough out on a floured surface, perhaps half at a time. Cut out in shapes (I prefer mice, but also have done Tardis (dredel cutters work) & Daleks (modified Christmas bells); ironic mustaches seem like a distinct possibility). Transfer onto a baking sheet. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes.

Step 6, cool & frost: Remove from pan while still warm, cool on a Dr Who Spice Cookieswire rack, and if you don’t know this should you really be in a kitchen unsupervised? I frosted these with a simple confectioner’s sugar frosting.