Blog of the Week July 17, 2006

I can't believe I haven't posted about Cathy's My Little Kitchen before now! I've been reading her blog for a few months and am slowly getting through her archives. Cathy is from a Maryland suburb of Washington DC and she's a fabulous baker and cook. What drew me to My Little Kitchen was Mondays with Maida. This is her ongoing adventure with making every cookie recipe in Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies. She fell in love with the book many, many years ago and after making some tried and true recipes from it, along with a couple new ones - she came up with the idea of how great it would be to blog about a new cookie recipe every week. There are approximately 150 recipes in the book and she started this adventure back in 2004! She's still going strong and as I can attest, these cookies look marvelous. I actually get a little excited each Monday morning because I know there will be a fabulous new cookie creation waiting for me to drool over. Cathy has a panel of 4 judges who taste the cookies each week and give their honest opinions of what they liked (or disliked) about the cookie. I love that because it's so great to know what others think.. as every cook and baker knows - it's not always good to just use your own opinion about a recipe you've made.. sometimes you don't think it's that great, but others who try it think it's fabulous and vice versa. Currently, Cathy is on the icebox cookie chapter. I've never made icebox cookies before and now I want to make some very badly! I like the idea of making up a dough, chilling it and slicing them up to bake whenever I want to. She's already baked through the drop cookie and bar cookie chapters, with marvelous results. Although she doesn't share the recipe each week, she gives you page numbers to reference to for both the original Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies and the newer edition of Maida Heatter's Cookies. Cathy says the only real difference in the books are the illustrations. Both are very reasonably priced and I think one of them will be a new addition to my ever-growing cookbook shelves. =) Mondays with Maida isn't the only fantastic reading you'll do on Cathy's blog. She blogs about other recipes that are mouth watering and inspirational, to say the least. Cookie lovers.. rush to My Little Kitchen as soon as you can to check out a terrific blog and some magical recipes!