If There's Hot Chocolate in Act I...

... somebody better drink it before Act IV. So I mentioned Ibarra chocolate. We did have it, as planned, on Friday morning, and it was lovely. There's more there there than in coffee. I think Chef's purpose in suggesting hot chocolate (besides keeping us warm, and well-fed) was to ensure that the milk in the refrigerator got used up before the weekend. We also completely emptied out the walk-in refrigerator before we started working, so that we could use, combine, discard as appropriate. It's a good habit, one that I could actually begin to use in my own kitchen.

I was telling some friends yesterday that I try hard not to ask the questions aloud that will further define me as a "housewife" (which is what Chef Allen said, snarkily, when he saw those poorly cut lamb racks: "That's housewife butchery!") I am constantly thinking about how this will translate to my kitchen, but in theory, we should be thinking about bigger kitchens, much bigger kitchens.

So then I went and undoubtedly further reinforced my housewife status by bringing in cookies this morning. They were actually leftovers from Super Bowl, but seriously, I can't have two dozen cookies in my house or we will eat them. I got these recipes from Epicurous.com (a great site even though they are usurping my blog idea, which is mine) and all three of them are keepers: Ginger Spice Cookies, Apricot-Orange Shortbread Bars, and Chocolate-Chunk Cookies (I doubled the cherries and skipped the apricots, because of the shortbread). Chef admired my cookie tin. I'm doomed!