Dinner and a Cooky

We planned to have a cookie night, based on our cake night, but wiser. We wouldn't need to dispose of 8 whole cakes. So, we planned cookies and dinner about 5 months ago. The weekend passed and with it, a wholly enjoyable dinner party and cookie presentation. The highlight in cookies were Aimee's pumpkin cookies with brown-butter icing. Would you like to try one of her rolls? She rocked the baked goods.

Michelle, a non-cook open to possibilities, presented a taste of her motherland: old German honey cookies. Not too sweet, history in the mouth. Both cookies were spiced, but so nicely one could not identify individual flavors. It was thrilling. I made Alice Medrich's buckwheat butter cookies with cocoa nibs and oatmeal, coconut, and cranberry cookies. The first turned out nicely, the second were flat flat flat. I pretended they did not exist, averting my knowing eyes. For dinner we enjoyed the rolls, soupe au pistou, and cucumber salad.

Topics of conversation: oiling wood, cold cereal, the zoo (and dogs therein), barbeque, baby peacocks, pesto, France, salt, Canadians, Thanksgiving, piping, Baking Illustrated, sudden death, cupboard space, making people wait, pearls for swine, holiday traditions.