Gingersnaps / Never Tell a 13-year-old that 1=0

Gingersnaps

3/4 C. butter
2 C. flour
1 C. sugar plus about 1/3 C. in a small bowl for coating
1 egg
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 C. molasses
1 tsp. ginger

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Combine the dry ingredients.  Cream together the butter and sugar.  Beat in the eggs and molasses.  Combine the wet with the dry, kneading the dough a little by hand if needed to blend everything together into a uniform ball of dough.  Break off walnut-sized lumps of dough and roll them into small balls.  Roll each dough ball in the extra sugar and place about 1 inch apart on cookie sheets.  Bake at 350F for 12 minutes, or until the dough has set and puffed slightly.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  They are really done, I promise.  They will fall a little bit after you take them out, but that's normal-- if you leave them in the oven too long they will scorch and also be too hard.
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Never tell a 13-year-old that 1=0.  Okay, let's begin at the beginning.  Why would you never tell a 13-year-old that 1=0?  Because that person could be my mother.

It was the late '60s.  My mom was in high school.  Because she was bright, she was a little bit younger than the other kids.  She was in all the advanced classes.  One of the advanced classes was a science class (if she told me which one, I've forgotten).  In that science class, the teacher informed his class, as a piece of triviality, that anyone could shut down the most complicated computer by programming it with the information that 1=0.  Interesting, my mother thought.  I wonder if that's really true.  And she filed that one away. 

Flash forward to the very special field trip that some of the better students were taken on.  It was to one of the universities that had one of the newest computers in their research department.  My mother was on that field trip.  The computer took up a whole room.  (Remember, it was the late sixties.)  The grad students there were very excited to have these high school students to show around and tell all about their new exciting big fancy computer.  And then they made their fatal mistake.  They told those high school students that, for a short while, they could play around with it.  I mean, what could go wrong?  They weren't factoring in my mother.  All the time since that fateful science class my mother had been hoping to test her teacher's statement.  And so she did, neatly and correctly  entering it into the computer.

The grad students couldn't figure out what went wrong-- one moment there were a bunch of kids barely out of puberty playing with ENIAC Jr or whatever it was called, and then it suddenly shut off and wouldn't turn back on.  Because my mother acted like she had no idea what had happened.  Sadly, the field trip ended early. 

Molto Bene Stracciatella Soup

When I first saw a recipe for (regular-style) Stracciatella soup, I was already sold.   Chicken broth?  Tiny pasta?  Parmesan cheese?  Yum, yum.  Then, when I made it the first time, I discovered that I could not be satisfied with adding the directed amounts of any of the chief ingredients.  I actually have not cooked Stracciatella the way it was intended to be prepared, ever.  But why should I?  I could do it as a creative exercise, I guess, but I like my way so much that I inevitably make it "molto bene" (mo' betta!).  I made it the first time for guests, and they liked it so much they asked for the recipe.

3-4 C. chicken stock or broth*
1/3- 1/2 C. stellini pasta**
1/3-1/2 C. fresh grated parmesan cheese
1/4-1/2 C. white wine
3 whole eggs

Heat the chicken stock and wine together until boiling on the stove.  In the meantime, whisk together the parmesan cheese and the eggs.  When the broth is at a rolling boil, slowly add in the egg mixture, stirring constantly with a fork.  Let cook about 3-5 minutes.  Then, add in the stellini and let everything cook another 3-5 minutes (until the pasta is done).  Serve with a generous amount of additional grated parmesan cheese on top.  Do not feel guilty for putting an ice-cube or two into your soup bowl.  This soup smells so good that you want to tear into it right off the stove and, of course, it is ridiculously too hot to do so.
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*If you're using plain stock, you may need to add some salt for flavor.  But almost certainly not if you're using broth, which is already salted.

**"Stellini" means "little stars".  The original recipe says you can use orzo or pastini or acini de pepe, and I guess that would be fine too.  But why use boring-shaped pasta when you can use STARS?  For "molto bene"-style the stars may work out better in the end anyway-- this soup is very thick.  In fact, after it's been in the fridge for a day it's more like pasta risotto.  Which is fine with me.

How Not to Hostess

When you are about to have friends over, it is important to provide them with an environment that will be both relaxing and conducive to social enjoyment.  This environment is made up of many factors, only one of which is the physical environment, or in layman's terms, your place of residence.  As a hostess, the harmonizing of all of these elements to create a pleasant setting for your guests can be overwhelming.  But don't worry!  Just follow these simple steps to ensure a memorable event.

Of course, your place of residence should be clean.  Guests do not enjoy sitting on piles of trash.  Clear out the piles of trash.  If you do not have piles of trash to start with, begin by obsessively tidying.  If this concept is alien to you, never fear, just concentrate on your nice trash piles.  If you are uncertain what "obsessively tidying" means, here is a guide: did you hide your sanitized recyling bin in the storage closet?  Did you rearrange the sofa cushions?  Did you clean the bathroom?  Did you clean the bathroom again?  You may have been obsessively tidying.

Take a deep breath!  Put on some relaxing music for your guests, such as Alternative Rock From the Nineties.  Or just put your music playlist on shuffle and hope for the best!

Look at the clock. Five minutes to go! Enough time to vacuum. You know, just in case your guests choose to sit on the floor and object to the occasional small piece of dirt or lint.

Decide to embark on a cooking project so that your guests will be greeted by both the overpowering smell of lysol coming from the bathroom and fresh baked goods!

Realize you don't have a key ingredient. Decide to wing it! What's that, you say, pudding usually needs cream and all you have is almond milk? Is this really the time to try and combine a zabaglione recipe with the creamy part of tapioca pudding that you only kind of remember, actually have the recipe for, but haven't bothered to consult? Pish tosh! Guests love the spirit of adventure wafting from the kitchen.

Feed your guests, who are late but you didn't notice because you were busy making

grey pudding. (Yes, it really was grey. I didn't do anything to this photograph to make it look more grey, either. Those yellow things are peaches. You know, just for reference.)