Baking with big brother & dinner w/ an old friend

Tonight my older brother Alan and I took a cookie baking class at Zingermans Bakeshop in Ann Arbor, MI.  We baked linzer cookies, chocolate macaroons, German ginger cookies, and lime shortbread cookies.  It was a fun class and we learned some good information and tried four new recipes. We were the rebels of the class because we were the only ones who used different cookie cutters for our lime shortbread cookies...we made stars, wreaths, candy canes, bells, and holly while the rest of the class only made stars...they said we could ask for other cookie cutters...so we did...and we would have shared but nobody seemed at all interested in them.  We were festive and creative and the others just followed the rules...oh well for them.

The picture above is me in front of the sign.  I didn't get any pictures during the class because my hands were messy most of the time and I didn't want to ruin the camera.  And yes...those specs in the picture are indeed snow...yipee!

In case you are curious, we ranked the cookies and both agreed on the order (I think - Alan please let me know if you disagree).

• 4th place - chocolate macaroons (coconut is neither of our favorites and they really just tasted like brownies)

• 3rd place - linzer cookies (these are hazelnut cookie sandwiches with raspberry preserves in the middle)
  

• 2nd place - lime shortbread cookies

• 1st place - German ginger cookies (interestingly enough these got the biggest reaction when they came out of the oven and also were the class favorite)

If you are interested in any of the recipes just let me know...am happy to share.

It was great to spend some time with Alan...we don't see each other nearly enough.  We were both a bit tired tonight but it was a nice change of pace.

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Last night I met up with a childhood friend for dinner.  Tina and I became friends when we were young because we both tap danced together.  You may recall a blog post from a couple of months ago where I told you about Tina...she had broken a bowl and was making necklaces out of it and sending you one if you donated money to a local Michigan foodbank. 

We were friends up into high school and then sort of drifted apart.  We were never not friends but just took different paths.  We went on to college and haven't really been in contact since.  Funny enough, last night we were both trying to remember if we saw each other at our 10 year high school reunion and neither of us could remember seeing each other...although we were both there.  Anyway, we caught up with each other this past year via Facebook.  I have a bunch of people that I have reconnected with via Facebook but not to the same extent as Tina.  We've chatted a bit and realized we have a lot in common despite the many years of not being in contact and the now the many miles that separate us. 

So last night we took advantage of the fact that we were within about 30 miles of each other.  We met in Ann Arbor for dinner.  We chatted a lot...about where we are now...about friends from high school...about places we've visited...about places we want to visit...about random topics...all of those sorts of things that make 20 years of very little contact seem like nothing.  It was great and it makes me very thankful for Facebook...I'm not sure I would have reconnected with Tina without it.

She is a great person...she is an art teacher...one of a kind.  I asked her last night if she enjoyed teaching and she said she couldn't imagine doing anything else...she is the type of person all of you with kids want to teach your kids.  On top of that she is an amazing artist herself...I'm not sure she fully realizes her own talent and potential...if I could find a way to become her business manager and get her art more widely recognized I definitely would.  (In case you want to see her take a look at her website: www.artsyt.com)

Anyway, we had a great night and I look forward to keeping in better touch with her over the next 20 years.