grocery store cookies

            I wanted to start this blog mentioning that old show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” where kids would answer questions presented by the host in innocent, earnest and for anyone who has spent a millisecond with a child, completely predictable ways…Then I thought about who the host was and I couldn’t help but think almost everything that was good and trusted and beloved in the 80’s has come slamming, crashing down to earth in ways that are beyond horrible and sometimes, just frankly seems cruel to any child of the 80s.  And  then I remembered this is a food blog and I should be writing about my most recent visit to an artisanal olive oil farm where my darling husband fashioned farmhouse style cots for free range chickens to rest on from salvaged wood, while my two easily awed children practiced their calligraphy using river stones and petted river otters.  #blessed. 

            LOL, no.  Instead I will complain that with all the baking I do, all the recipes and flavors I pop out of my oven, all the recipe research I conduct and books I pore over figuring out the best way to make anything, my youngest son’s favorite thing in the world to eat are grocery. store. cookies.  Not even ones made with butter- like the going-to-kill-you-one-day-banned-by-Bloomberg shortening filled, neon colored (don’t ever let me down neon, no evil hidden reveals for you, you unspoiled bastion of the 80s, ok?), blah shaped grocery store cookies.  I cave in like once a year and he is like the happiest guy while they last, he checks on them in the morning, takes an accounting of them before bed, and wants to make sure they safe from any cookie stealing intruders through the night.  Honestly, its down-right insulting.  So, when I saw Stella Park’s Bravetart recipe for Loft House Style cookies I was like, hmmm…I might have a way to end this crazy obsession with outsider baked goods once and for all.  I promise I will let my kids date other people when they are older, but losing them to a rival cookie is just too much for me to handle.

            And it actually worked!   These cookies are the stuff kids go to bed fretting about, or dreaming about, depending on how clued in they are on cookie intruders.  They are easy to whip up (they can be piped, but honestly, you can just plop them, too) and the frosting could not be easier.  These aren’t the artisanal sugar cookies with art museum worthy frosting, these are cookies to have fun with, sprinkle the heck out of and just enjoy for the few moments they are in your mouth. 

If it is Halloween time, throw some candy eyeballs on them and make abstract monsters.  This frosting is so easy to just spoon and smear, let your inner Dr. Frankenstein out and let the counter get messy.

Speaking of Dr. Frankenstein, last year we went to a showing of the old 1931 Frankenstein movie and IT IS SO GOOD!  I loved how there were so many moments where a simple de-escalation would have just solved everything, but things just go from 0 to 60 in that movie like no one’s business.  And then things that should be a huge deal, are just like “eh, whatever, this wedding must go on!”  I just loved everything about it and can’t wait to watch the Bride of Frankenstein this year.  I think of these cookies in the same way as I do of Frankenstein’s “monster,” not that they reveal the huge gaping holes in our own humanity, but that they look massive, patched together and something people might need a pitchfork mob to handle.