The Sweetest Hangover

Roll my hair and call me Betty Crocker. I have been a baking fool today. While I can't clean for spit, I am a pretty decent cook. I love to bake, and I'm so addicted to the Food Network that Hubby has considered a twelve step program for me. I dream of Bobby Flay showing up at my house for a hashbrown casserole throwdown. Every year right before Christmas I am overcome with the urge to bake every cookie and sweet treat lurking within the pages of my 200 plus cookbooks. I never know for sure when the holiday baking binge is going to hit, but I always know it's coming, so for the last month, I've been stockpiling sugar and butter like a wartime widow with six hungry kids. I felt it coming on yesterday. It's kind of like going into labor. You're not sure if that first twinge is the real thing, but in a few hours it's rolling over you in unstoppable waves. By noon today I was ready to give birth to several dozen goodies.

In the last few hours, I have mixed, rolled, kneaded, cut and baked. I've drizzled, swirled, iced and topped. I've washed my KitchenAid mixer bowl six times. And let's just pause a moment to praise Jesus for the KitchenAid stand mixer. I love my KitchenAid. Adore my KitchenAid. Can't live without it. If it dies tomorrow I will buy it a memory box. It's the Cadillac of mixers. Now the Bosch is the Porsche of mixers, but the KitchenAid is not too far behind. Sometimes I pat it when I walk by it, just to show it some love. For you men out there who don't get into cooking, it's like holding a Dewalt cordless drill in one hand and a chili cheese dog in the other while watching the Super Bowl on a 52" HDTV. Mmm hmm. That's what I'm talking about. Thank you Lord for the Kitchen Aid mixer and forgive me for all the sugar I'm about to put into my body this week. Amen.

Today I have used all six of my measuring cups, both sets of measuring spoons, and just about every pan I own, including the big muffin pan and the mini muffin pan. I have used up every stick of butter (salted and unsalted), every crumb of cocoa powder, five pounds of sugar, five pounds of flour and the last drop of vanilla from a very large bottle. There were pecans, homemade caramel sauce, miniature peanut butter cups and golden drops of Bailey's Irish Creme. White sugar, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, powdered sugar and even peanut butter. It was one of my biggest baking binges evah, and I will share the results with my family and my coworkers. However, I will NOT tell them how many calories are in each of those chocolate sandwich cookies with the Bailey's filling (120). As my friend Yvonne used to say, I might as well rub it on my butt because that's where it's going!

It was great fun while it lasted but now comes the food hangover. I have tasted, checked and sampled so much dough, filling and batter, that I can't eat another sweet. I am full, done, finished, ready for a nap and ready for something savory. Hey, I have a party later this week that requires appetizers! Lord have mercy! Is that another pain I feel?