Are you challenging me to a Bake-Off, BOO! Lander?

What you're about to hear is an epic tale full of hardship, passion, willpower, agony, resilience, and ultimate success. It's a story of youthful exuberance, wizened craftiness, spunky creativity, and mirthful gesticulations. It's a saga of untold yearnings, bitter frustrations, remarkable recoveries, and dare devil adjustments. But mostly, it's about baking.

Day One (Wednesday): Masterminds of the cookie marathon, Sara "If It's Brown, It's Burnt" LaBuff and Jeremy "Bet You Can't Eat Just One" LaBuff sit down and make a list of about 8 cookies they want to make over the holidays. Taking stock of the ingredients in the house, they also decide both what they will make that day and what needs to be purchased for the coming task. Not satisfied with a mere eight types of cookies, Jiggity (Jeremy) finds 3 more delicioso recipes online. Later that day, a batch of thumbprint PB cookies, graced in their middle with a Kiss or a Reese's Bell, as well as snickerdoodles, are churned out by the irrepressible duo.

Day Two (Thursday): Undaunted, our heroes concoct a double recipe of chocolate chip cookies followed by some shortbread masterpieces. Several babies are born in celebration. Dorothy Mantooth is declared a saint by the Pope, and a certain someone decides he does in fact like green eggs and ham.

Day Three (Friday, or the Backbreaker): After a delicious night's sleep, and joined by a feisty Carly "After Law School a Baking Marathon is a Sprint" LaBuff, the baker trio embarks on a day that still defies belief in several underdeveloped nations (Texas, for example). Matching their output of the previous two days COMBINED, they output the following: pumpkin cookies with death-by-nostimo icing, russian tea cakes, oatmeal raisin cookies, and (finally) double chocolate shortbread cookies. The warmth produced from the inherent goodness of the baked goods themselves (not to mention the oven) gave rise to several religions in Canada, only two of which died out due to persecution.

Day Four (Saturday, or the Calm before the Stiz-orm): Realizing that Christmas Eve was going to be REDONK-ulous not only in terms of baking, but with shopping, mandatory church, and the Steelers game, the LaBuff siblings planned to return to a sensible amount of cookies. This decision was further supported by the fact that Carly and Jeremy had vowed to cook dinner for the arrival of their older brother, Jesse "Now that I'm a Dad, Cooking is only a Chore" LaBuff, and his family. More on the dinner in a bit. An early batch of lemon squares was followed after dinner by the more adventurous Almond Tuiles. After having ruined one batch by using wax paper instead of parchment, Jeremy and Sara labored on, renewing their efforts with twice the fervor and eight times the common sense, producing perhaps the coolest cookie of the season. (N.B. The recipe called for ground almonds, which could have been achieved by buying almond flour. But instead of being lame-os, our favorite siblings toasted almonds and then pulverized them in a mortar and pestle. Booyakasha!).
The dinner itself was a three-person production. Carly guided the effort, and while she attended to the wild mushroom quesadillas, she oversaw sous-chef Sara in the making of an Arugula-Pear-Blue Cheese salad with Apricot Vinaigrette and sous-chef J-maker as he threw together a black bean salsa and fried up some tilapia. Get off me!

Also notable from that day was the arrival, with his father, of Lucas "I'm Cuter than you AND I speak two languages" LaBuff, who, among his other immortal deeds of the evening, decided that merely hiding one's head under a pillow was acceptable behavior. He's also impervious to his Uncle's attempts at corruption....thus far. I called him over and made him look at our different skin color (he's a wonderful rendition of Slavic Off-White), telling him that this meant we were of different races. He merely scampered off, demanding that I spin him around in this toy meant for his 9-month old brother. Touché, blond asshole.

Day Five (or the Bland Finale): Due to a series of foreseen but underestimated events (Steeler game, Christmas Eve service, the failings of humaty), only two more batches were baked. Jeremy rushed through an amazingly easily and delicious pan of Chocolate Toffee Bars (definitely making them stin Athina) before heading "dahntahn" to watch the Stillers suck. Then, following the church service, the cookie of all Christmas cookies, saved intentionally for last, the cut-out sugar cookies, were masterfully crafted by our intrepid pastry entrepreneurs. Abandoning the traditional cookie cutters after one pan, our heroes carved a number of award-winning shapes, including a unicorn, a narwhale, and Iceland. Oh yeah, and an emo kid. Jeremy also convinced his nephew that he had to sleep in a cardboard box that night. Unfortunately, his grandmother dispelled this noble lie, relegating the young lad once again to a normal (read, boring) night of sleep.

Postlude (or the Big Dance): Ok, dudes, so we have alot to be excited about. Not only have I scored massive amounts of PB, tons of interesting recipes, and a mortar and pestle (which I probably won't bring back since it weighs more than the couches sto saloni), but my sister gave me a travel scrabble game. Friday afternoon's will never be the same! Also, check out my nephew in his sweet new booties!















...and this is my other nephew, dressed up in a $1.50 santa outfit. I felt for him, but at least he had the wherewithal to tear off the hat...