Jackpot Drop Cookies

Ah, summer time.

Sure, there is nothing like playing and doing whatever you want to do. That is if you are not in 4H.

My kids are having fun and playing with friends. But they also have to get ready for the County Fair at the beginning of August. Or sooner if you took on a cooking project which my daughter did. So on July 5th she has to present three cookies she made herself from a recipe in the Cooking 101 manual.

So the family is going to be forced to sample the cookies she makes. By herself with no help from me.

I am there in the kitchen giving helpful hints as we go through each step.

Be quick with the non-stick spray and do not over load the pan with that stuff.

Turn on the mixer on after the beaters are firmly on the bottom of the bowl.

Keep the dog out of the kitchen at all costs during this cooking adventure.

It is ok to sample a few chocolate chips.

After sifting flour and mixing it with the baking soda and baking powder, we move on to the next step.

Cream together some other ingredients.

Egg, softened butter, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla

 

Next comes the mixer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at her technique! No splattering!

 

Time for the dry ingredients to be added.

So now is when the mixer can still be used but it gets a little harder. Once the nuts and chips are added, she has to use a spoon to stir the rest of the ingredients in the dough.

 

This is the part where we do not talk about the taste testing. One must make sure the dough is ready for baking. Using two teaspoons, dough is placed on the pans. Pans are placed in the oven for ten minutes and then taken out.

 

 

 The book says to put them on wire racks. I prefer using newspaper but I guess this way is better. By the time the second pan came out, we were able to sample the first batch. This was when I taught the fine art of picking the ugliest cookies for sampling.

 

We plan to make another batch on Thursday before our Friday Fun night and again on Sunday. On the fifth, she will have to have a plate of three cookies, a copy of the recipe and a day’s menu with the cookies as a component of one meal. This year I think she is getting a blue ribbon for her efforts.

 

Are your kids doing any special projects this summer?

 

 

Quiet On the Set

Getting REady to be the Ghost Girl

This past weekend I had the pleasure of watching my daughter take part in a movie. It is a thriller and she is the ghost girl.

Granted, this is no Hollywood production with big names and potential for superstardom. It is as about as indie as you can get. Once it is done the movie will only be about 10-15 minutes long.

This is how people get started if you cannot leave your hometown and go to Hollywood. Want to know something even cooler? The producer/director has a listing on IMDb.com.

Let me start at the beginning.

We have known Shannon Feaster for several years as our boys have been in school together since kindergarten. They share this interest of movies. When Johnny Depp came to our town to shoot a scene for Public Enemies, Dakota and David were first and second in line for hand shakes.

Dakota has been making small videos and made his first horror short last winter. It was really good, scary, unsettling.

So Shannon and Michelle (wife/producer/makeup artist/actress/whatever is needed) belong to a collective of people making horror movie shorts. They are given a prompt and put together their own scripts. The one my daughter is making an appearance in is called The Keepsake. It is spooky and scary with a bit a realism.

A director with his actor

Shannon is filming it in a friend’s house and on a local street. If you have never been on a film set, it is a fascinating process. I have been on the set of Prison Break which was really interesting with multiple cameras.

One scene that lasts a minute can take several hours as cameras get various angles. Perhaps the actors figure out a different way to do a scene that works better. Someone does a look in one scene they don’t do in another. Or after several scenes of doing the scene the actors get a case of the giggles.

I was fascinated. While the genre is not one of my favorites, I loved seeing the creative process play out. The need to get several takes of the same shot. The need for the rest of us not to move or make a sound as the mike catches everything. I felt the same way with the TV show I watched.

It was a great experience. I only hope my daughter appreciates it later.