Warm Fuzzies #5: Votes for Cookies

My last Warm Fuzzy was a compliment on my baking capabilities and, somewhat unsurprisingly, this one is too.

To get into the holiday spirit—and because I felt like experimenting with cuisine that other people would be willing to eat and enjoy—I decided to bake this weekend. After some searching, I came across a curious recipe for Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies. This sounded intriguing and quite delicious, so I decided to try it. (Needless to say, I did not invest in good quality white chocolate, despite the author’s insistence.)

Below is a message received from one coworker, who, as part of our lunchtime running group, received first dibs on the cookies when I sent out a message letting everyone know I had brought in treats for everyone. I don’t know what he was voting for, but if the next president of the United States has a bake-off as part of the competition, watch out Martha Stewart!*

Crunchy, tasty, airy, delicious- you have my vote. All I needed was one for the perfect after lunch desert.
Thank you.
*Ironically enough, I just discussed Martha Stewart with my two Chinese roommates and their Chinese friend. They seemed to be in awe of her, as if she were the white Oprah or something. I tactfully reminded them that Martha Stewart has been to jail, but this did not phase them. As far as they were concerned, she may as well have been Hillary Clinton. Amazing, how American Consumerism and its media-generated popularity can span the globe.

Functionality

Taken from the recently reviewed Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver:

“I’ve about decided that’s the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you’re a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.”

Boss #1 returned from his conference today, where he has been since last Wednesday, and suddenly I have a whole new flurry of assignments to do, invoices to fill out, and mailings to send. It’s almost relieving to have to think again.

Can stress be like medicine? I think I now understand the college students who wrote their term papers “better” under the pressure of those few hours right before the assignment was due. I find that I function better when people expect me to be productive, to turn in work, to give them what they ask for. It doesn’t matter what these things are—an email, a fax, a list, an analytic report—just these expectations make me feel useful.

It’s when I get an inane assignment that no one really cares about, one that takes little-to-no brainpower and that is of absolutely no consequence to anyone that both my mind and my body begin shutting down. I literally begin to fall asleep as I try to accomplish the task. Either that, or else I begin to panic. What am I doing here? Am I settling for this job? For this life? Shouldn’t I be aspiring for higher purposes? Aren’t I meant to be doing better things? Is this what I really want? Will this get me to what I really want?

Feeling functional and at least the slightest bit important is soothing; it is pacifying. That is the key to a happy employee, I think. Every company could be full of satisfied, productive employees if only that company made each and every one of them feel 1) essential to the company and 2) capable of contributing to their position. I am sure the most successful companies out there take this to heart. However, as I make this observation, I wonder if I am meant for the management-type position everyone is supposed to aspire to. After all, if I want to be given tasks to complete, I can’t be the giver of those tasks, can I? And being a manager means relying on other people to get work done. Heaven knows I abhor doing that.

Where oh where is this life is this going to lead?

Warm Fuzzies #4: More-ish Cookies

Warm Fuzzies #4: More-ish cookies

Maybe I really should give up on publishing and go to culinary school.

Several weeks ago, I baked cookies to thank my mentor, a young British chap named Damian, for "showing me the ropes" and basically helping me learn the basics of the job he had vacated and into which I had been catapulted without instructions manual. The cookies were oatmeal raisin, and they went over quite well--so well in fact, that Damian, in his packaging ignorant manner, asked me where I had bought them. (I had delivered them to the office kitchen in a shoebox lined in cling-wrap, with a handwritten "help yourself in honor of Damian" -type sign propped in front.)

About two weeks later, I needed Damian's help shelving a journal: I simply could not find where to place it. Most of the journals my boss, Joe, received, were located on one particular set of shelves in front of my cubicle-mate, Sarah's, desk, but this one was not there. Obviously, having held my position for over a year, Damian would know where other issues of this journal were hidden, so I decided to pay him a visit at his cubicle across the office.

Upon my describing the predicament and showing him the journal, Damian informed me that it was filed in front of Sarah’s desk. I, in turn, informed him that I had just spent five minutes staring at the journals arranged on those shelves, and this journal was most definitely not among them. He insisted otherwise and suggested we “go have a look.”

On the way to the shelves, he asked if I would like to make a bet. He had probably only asked in jest, but I was so frustrated by my inability to do even the simplest task without his help—filing a journal, for heaven’s sake!—that I said sure; what were we betting? He had no suggestions, so I made the terms: if the journal’s companions were there, I would bake him more cookies. If they weren’t, he had to come running with the lunchtime group more regularly. (I went a few times a week, mostly for the companionship, and I like Damian’s company, so I wanted him to come along.)

Of course, the journal was there.

Thus, I found myself rolling sweet sticky balls of dough in cinnamon and sugar, baking snickerdoodles the following Sunday afternoon. I didn’t know what kind of cookies Damian would want, so I just guessed at what I thought might be popular and easy to make, and went with my intuition. Yesterday, I received the sweetest confirmation that my intuition was, indeed, accurate.

Good Lord,
These are simply some of the most more-ish cookies ever devised by man. I will be enormously fat by the end of the week,
Damian

I wrote back, however, asking: what does more-ish mean? I did assure him, however, that it being Thursday and with only one day left in the week, he still looked trim and spry to me.

I do love baking for people.