Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful....

But Inside It's So Delightful!
We are in the midst of our first big snowstorm of the season in Southern New England - by the time it winds down tomorrow, they are predicting we, in my area, will have accumulated somewhere around 12 inches of snow. Normally it's great when it hits for the weekend because I love staying inside and feeling cozy when it's blanketed with snow outside. However, this time is different since it's the weekend before Christmas and guess who still has shopping to do! Go ahead, tell me your one of those sickening people that does shopping all through the year and you finished up in October and completed all the wrapping in November.....I dare you! I am actually hoping to stay in most of the weekend b/c as you can see from my photo, I have been baking and have lots more to do....stop laughing, I'm really doing a lot of baking! In fact, that's what most of our relatives are getting for Christmas. What you see in the photo are the "Neiman Marcus" cookies. Now I thought everyone had, at some time or another, received the email about the Neiman Marcus cookie story. When I took these cookies to work for our recent food day, I found out many people were not aware of the story behind the cookies. If you go on www.cooks.com and type in Neiman Marcus cookies, up comes the story and recipe - basically it says a woman ate lunch at a cafe in Neiman Marcus and had their chocolate chip cookies for dessert. She thought it was the best chocolate chip cookie she had ever had and asked for the recipe. She was told it was "two fifty" and told them to add it to her bill. When she got her credit card statement, there was a $250.00 charge, not $2.50 and it wasn't a mistake. She felt cheated by Neiman Marcus and to get them back she said she would send their recipe to everyone and anyone so no one ever paid for it again. I don't know what possessed Mike and I to actually try making the recipe years ago, but we did, and they are, by far, the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever had...they are also a bitch to make! Very tedious, and you have to follow it exactly - no shortcuts...but sooooo worth it! The batch I made the other night made 144 cookies. Now, all that being said, I checked the story on Snopes.com and it's not true (www.snopes.com is a website that looks into the validity of all the stories out there. It's particularly good when you get an email about someone's daughter that has gone missing and it's pulling on your heartstrings to pass it along to everyone you know b/c if you're a parent you would want them to do the same....then you check it out on snopes.com and find out the story is false.) so basically someone came up with this ingenious way to market their fabulous cookies recipe...with one small flaw...they're not making any money off us!