Kitchen bitchin'

I totally brought this on myself, but these cookies became an all-day project, beginning with a 9 a.m. e-mail exchange with A.J.'s teacher regarding summer-birthday celebrations and ending with packing them up at 11 p.m.

Certainly, I could have gone with cupcakes, or even bought cookies or doughnuts, but I saw this after Googling "fish cookies" and became a woman possessed. Even though I didn't even attempt to do anything as elaborate as what I saw there, I knew I had to have a go at my own version -- never mind that I'd never made glazed cookies before. (I used this shiny glaze recipe, also found via Google. The cookie was from a Land O' Lakes cookbook that now lives conveniently in my kitchen desk cupboard.)

I must give credit where credit is due: This endeavor would not have been possible in the old kitchen. As it was, I had ever work surface covered with various stages of this project, as well as dinner preparations (this is where the double oven came in very handy). In the new kitchen, both prep and clean-up were easy and logical, thereby opening the door for more all-too-involved projects in the future. I'm incredibly proud of the final product and just hope they made it to school (via the bus) intact, and that my role as first-grade Alpha Mom is secure for the time being.