Summer Breezes

Today I am baking cookies and it is such a lovely summer day that I have all the windows in the house open wide. We have lovely windows in our little cottage and lots of them so the breeze is wonderful.  As I work in the kitchen, I can hear the unique sound that a breeze makes as it blows through a screen and I feel the air moving on my skin. And the smell of the air, fresh air, oh my!  Especially after living in the Los Angeles area for 10 years where you could smell the air but it didn't smell like 'fresh' air. I used to have the sniffles all the time in LA due to allergies and here in Nebraska totally surrounded by nature and I don't suffer at all. I think I am finally in balance with nature. This fresh air is also motivation to get my clothesline painted and strung with new line. Just thinking of the smell of those fresh air dried sheets and towels is pure pleasure.

That fresh air mixed with the fragrance of cookies baking in the oven is another pleasure of life.  Mark is a cookie lover, especially oatmeal raisin, and he was OUT of cookies! OMG! So I baked 98 today and froze 6 dozen. That should hold him for awhile.  For months I have been experimenting with different sweeteners and oil subsititutes to lighten up the cookies. Mark ate them but I think they kept getting less and less delicious.  One day a friend and his son came by and I gave the boy a cookie. He smelled it, licked it, licked it again and then held it without taking a bite. Now, that isn't any way to relate to a cookie. So I thought long and hard and decided that cookies should just be cookies - not health food.  So I am using Ina Garten's (Barefoot Contessa) recipe for Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies from her Back to Basics cookbook. I add walnuts AND pecans to the cookies and they are divine and worth every calorie. We eat so healthy most of the time with fresh vegetables, fruits, healthy proteins and very healthy homemade bread that dessert will just be allowed to be dessert in my house.  Great decision --- I feel much better.  Now it's time for a cookie and tea.