I know the last post I wrote was about a cookie and so when you see a cookie here you no doubt are wondering “Christ, woman, what has gotten into you? Another cookie story?”  And I am gently reminded of my son, Jonathan, who eats the same thing for lunch, each and every day:  cheese tortilla roll, sliced in half and never ever heated.

Don’t ever heat that thing or his world will be rocked upside down.

Don’t.

So, what’s wrong with double cookie action then?

Plus, it’s cold here in South Florida.

Oh don’t go rolling your eyes, you Minnesotans, Bostonians or Europeans.  Just don’t.

If I had to turn on my car butt heater because the morning air chilled to a horrid 47 degrees, then that is cold.  I don’t want to hear ice war stories. Or blizzards.  Or any of that.

Even helicopters were …Read on

I am blowing my hair just like my mother used to.  When I made the mental leap of letting my crew cut grow out into an eventual bob, I knew there would be many awkward moments.  Six months later, the idea is strongly reconfirmed.  I pulled out my dusty hairdryer in an attempt to replicate the glamorous Lady Di do my hairdresser had easily pulled off last week for a party.  In thirty minutes and a spritz of hair goo, she had transformed my lame duck period into one of sophistication and awe.  How hard can it be?

It’s a private affair, my meeting with maintenance.  I am here with my hairdryer purchased in 1989 from a crowded Duane Reed store off of 57th Street back in my New York days when I was a budding adult longing to duplicate the …Read on

Just when you think your blood will freeze over, your nose will crack off, your lips have reached ungodly limits of chapness, you see another poor lad pass you by in the same predicament and you both turn to each other for that split second and nod in communal misery. You may even smile, risking further injury to your taut lips. You don’t know him. He does not know you. But for that instant in the universe, you both share the same moment of cold.

I am a South Florida transplant originally raised in the humid tropics of Venezuela, so, believe me, when I placed myself in frigid weather for a ski holiday in Beaver Creek, Colorado last month, I was more than aware of the shock my mind and body lived minute by minute.

There are days like today when for no good reason things are just off. No one was nasty to you. The weather was perfect. Even your horoscope claimed things were on the up and up. And yet, it was not so. I try not to delve too much into these days, and find that, instead of steeping in their mediocrity, I can nip it in the bud with a batch of good ole comfort chocolate chip cookies. You see, chocolate solves any problem. I may not have a PhD in food biology, but this fact I’ve got down. The chocolate chip cookie poses as the best solution for delicious cake feel surrounded by tiny explosions of chocolate goodness. Eat a few of these with a tall glass of milk (or merlot) …Read on