It's big, it's ugly, it's Christmas. Download it.

The cookie photo filled me with the spirit of giving, so I made a downloadable Christmas card.

Merry Christmas, you fat bastard.

350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Mom's recipe needs more ginger and cinnamon, at least a teaspoon and a half or two of each.

My stalwart dry ingredient mixer is a big Austin Powers fan; as she took these guys out of the oven she noted that they look like Fat Bastard. Too bad I didn't have plaid frosting.

We made too many cookies yesterday, including Pecan shortbread and spicy chocolate cookies from our friend Martha Stewart; peanut butter brownies, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies filled with fig-orange preserves and hermits from Fannie Farmer; and Nanaimo bars from some prissy museum cookbook. The batch of Nanaimos tastes much better than it looks, and requires practice or perhaps another recipe with firm custard.

Technical notes: I watched Alton Brown and Santa make cookies the other night, and followed Alton's advice about rotating the cookies halfway through baking, as well as switching the sheets from top to bottom oven rack. I used parchment paper to keep the sheets clean since I had umpteen batches to bake. I noticed that the shiny sheets made for a better cookie, and didn't burn the bottoms the way the dark teflon coated sheets did, so I'm getting some more of those. Even when I put a Silicone mat down over the dark sheets, the bottoms still got too brown. Shiny is good. I baked the brownies and the hermits in Pyrex pans, which work ok. I didn't have any cream of tartar for the hermits so I replaced it and the baking soda with baking powder.

geoff's 20 minute risotto

it takes at least 40 minutes. don't ask.


soak 1 cup of dried chanterelle mushrooms in enough chicken stock and sauvignon blanc to cover, preferably overnight.

cut the tops off 6 red peppers and clean out seeds. save the tops and set the peppers aside for roasting later.

chop the red pepper tops, one yellow or orange pepper, 4 shallots and 3 cloves of garlic and saute in olive oil until peppers are soft. set aside.

remove the mushrooms from the liquid, and finely chop. save the liquid and add it to

6 cups of chicken broth and 1 1/2 cups sauvignon blanc then bring to a boil. meanwhile,

saute 1 1/2 cups arborio rice in 1/4 cup olive oil for 5 minutes in a large pan.

pour 1/3 of the broth into the rice, reduce heat to simmer until liquid is 2/3 absorbed, about 10 minutes covered, repeat process until liquid is used and absorbed

after the rice has cooked about 30 minutes, add the chopped mushrooms, then 5 minutes later add the pepper/shallot mixture. finally stir in 3 cups of baby spinach



stir the spinach into the rice then turn off the heat. let the rice sit covered, while you

grill or roast the red peppers until soft, with lovely grill marks.

stuff the peppers with the risotto; place the peppers on top of a mound of risotto and serve topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

be careful, the peppers can be warm to the touch.


see how hot they really are....