Happy Memorial Day!

I don't usually post recipes in this blog, but it's a holiday. Straight out of the Betty Crocker Cookbook (which my mother gave me when I set up housekeeping):

Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened (I use margarine for this recipe)
1/2 cup peanut butter (I prefer smooth for cookies)
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon soda

Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients. Scoop a generous teaspoon amount, roll in granulated sugar, and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flattened slightly with a fork dipped in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-10 minutes.

Variation: Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Substitute 1/2 cup Nutella for the peanut butter and decrease cooking time by one minute. These cookies will be slightly larger, thinner, and crisper (more crisp?) than the peanut butter version.

Out of the Blue

I just received an email from a milliner on Etsy from whom I had bought a hat a while back. She was convinced that she owed me a free hat, because I wasn't happy with the hat I bought before. I wasn't unhappy; it just wasn't exactly what I expected.

It happens.

Anyway, she's offered me my choice of one of her fascinators, $25-50, for free! I'm not going to accept, of course. But if I was, I'd take this one:



It's called Ladies of the Night. :-)

ETA: Belle insisted that I choose one. I caved. Soon, Ladies of the Night will be mine.

I have my issues with "Sex and the City"...

...but these photos by Annie Leibowitz of SJP and Chris Noth in Vogue are fabulous:

Are these not the most amazing photographs?

Melvin Sokolsky, Bubble on the Seine, 1963









I discovered them over at All Things Bright and Beautiful.

FYI

You can now sign up over at amazon.com to be notified when the American DVD of "Blood Ties" becomes available.

Monday Morning Pic Spam

Here I am, sitting inside Honor Harrington, with my boyish new haircut.



My hairdresser BTW gives really great shampoo. If he wasn't gay and half my age, I'd marry him.

Here I am in yesterday's church hat.



I'm standing in front of my fireplace, and the pottery on the mantelpiece is part of my collection of vintage McCoy pottery. I collect mostly the white, although I have a few colored pieces.

And this is privet.



I have had two privet bushes come up wild in my yard. I was charmed, at first, because they're pretty, and they smell nice. But then I learned that privet is a non-native, invasive species, so the privet's got to go.

Another Steeplechase Pic.

Tracy and me with the track in the background. She borrowed one of my hats to wear, and it looks so much better on her than on me that I may give it to her for her birthday.