California Chocolate Cookies

A friend of mine recently moved to California. I'm at that age where it isn't unreasonable of my friends to move across the country. We're not tied down by anything more than a sense of familiarity, and as much as I'm sad to see her go, I hope she finds what she's looking for over there. And starts posting some pictures to Facebook. How am I supposed to know she's doing well if I don't have pictures?

The last time I saw her, I made cookies. They were Martha Stewart's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies, only with white chocolate chips instead of more milk chocolate. But I messed up.



I overbaked them.

I wish I had paid better attention to the site I first found them on. When I first went to take them out of the oven, they seemed so undercooked. So I just put them back in. Then they were black on the bottom, and I was bitterly disappointed.

My friend still ate probably 2/3 of the cookies. But I was upset. I'll redo this disaster sometime, because I can see how delicious these would have been. Nothing tastes sadder than burnt chocolate.



The night wasn't a total failure, at least. We had a lot of fun sending her off.



When I say 'we had a lot of fun,' I mean 'we bought a lot of alcohol.' We also bought popcorn, The Emperor's New Groove, My Little Pony fruit snacks, and ate a mountain of pulled BBQ chicken. Which was absolutely delicious, by the by. I will be recreating that sometime not too far in the future.



But the best part of the night, to me, was when we were all giant nerds. We made colored drinks. Grenadine with Everclear, Blue Curacao with Schnapps, and Absinthe with... a whole bunch of things. Arranged artfully, they made the Triforce of Booze. Power, Courage, and Wisdom. Color-coded and everything.

We are all huge nerds.

And next time my friend is back on our side of the country, I will make her chocolate cookies that haven't been burnt to a crisp.

Today's lessons learned:

• Don't overbake cookies. Ever.
  
• Everclear is vile.