The biggest Christmas tradition around our house is cookie-making. My dad is the one who delves in and is the Cookie Maestro--even the super-finnicky Austrian pastry recipes that were passed down through my mom's side of the family. (This is a far cry from the man who--years ago--was trying to make the American favorite of Peanut Butter Blossoms and started with a cup of flour in the mixer and then added the peanut butter--cement, anyone?) But my dad is also an engineer--if an Excel spreadsheet and some simple math is going to help things run more smoothly, he's all about it. Which is why, last year, he sat down with all of our cookie recipes (I think there are 10 or 12 of them) and made a master shopping list. Our cookie recipes use a massive amount of ingredients--several pounds of flour, almost as much sugar, multiple bottles of vanilla flavoring and enough butter to make even Julia Child proud. So over this past weekend my dad had the list out, trying to figure out what we actually needed from the store--this involved some math on his part, because we do keep some of the ingredients around our house--he just needed to figure out how much more of any given thing we needed. In the process of figuring out how many more bottles of vanilla we needed, he figured out that there were 768 teaspoons to a gallon, offered this information, and looked up at us with a face that clearly stated he thought he was being helpful. =] No Dad, we do not use quite that many teaspoons of vanilla--and even if we did, I don't think you can buy vanilla by the gallon. Welcome to the holidays around our house--it's always a surprise."There are 768 teaspoons in a gallon--is that helpful?" --Dad
"I have gathered a posie of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own." --John Bartlett