And then, just like that, I decided not to work anymore. It’s weird, I finished my manuscript and I was raring to go — reshoots! edits! let’s talk design! — for about two days and then, almost out of curiosity, I closed the elaborate spreadsheet that owns me tracks all the recipes, photos, intros and progress in the manuscript, just to see if it could close, after being open for more than a year, and it did. And then, I didn’t reopen it. I pulled on my boots and wandered all over the city, eating roasted chestnuts from a street cart, buying glitter nail polish, delighting in the carpet of golden leaves underfoot and being fantastically schedule-free. So far today, I drank a latte — sitting down I might add, and not while rushing to the grocery store because I ran out of flour again — and I’m thinking about making some applesauce. Or trying again to convince my husband that we should paint the living room. Or maybe I’ll take a nap when the kid does? Clearly, I have some tough decision making ahead.





The good news is that being here doesn’t feel remotely like work; I am simply delighted to be back. And so, let’s talk about the gingersnaps that I also made just for the heck of it, just because I could, earlier this week. They’re thin and intensely spiced and quite snappy — buttery crisp at the perimeter, tentatively approaching tender and chewy towards the center, but not committing to it. I know that ginger junkies tend to like gingersnaps that are closer to ginger bombs, with grated fresh ginger and/or nuggets of candied ginger, but these (unless you make a couple tweaks, which I will attempt to suggest) are not that kind of snap. These are the kinds your grandmother might have made, as evidenced by the healthy helping of dark, funky and impossibly thick molasses.





And it was from these molasses that I had an a-ha moment. Way back in 2006, when this site was a newborn (one baby, job, apartment and two cameras ago), the fourth post, ever, contained three recipes for what I considered ideal large cookies for ice cream sandwiches. [By the way, I brought them to a friend’s birthday party that night and they were a disaster — not the cookies themselves but the logistics of eating a massive ice cream sandwich before it melts everywhere on a hot summer night on a Brooklyn rooftop. We all went with ice cream smudges on our arms. Ah, summer.] Anyway, in the lineup was a Cook’s Illustrated recipe for molasses spice cookies. I wanted to see how the gingersnaps I’d made would compare to them and was shocked to find the two recipes to be nearly exactly the same, ingredient for ingredient. I then turned to Google to find more gingersnap recipes and again, discovered that a whole lot of gingersnap recipes agree with one another.





In a different week, I might have fretted over this. I would feel the need to tweak them, to offer you an improvement upon the gingersnap status quo. Not this week, though. This week, it’s clear to me that if many people agree on what Gingersnap Greatness should taste like, I should feel no need to argue. I have a playground date to attend to, after all, and then maybe a nap.

You know what these go great with? Baked Pumpkin and Sour Cream Puddings. Swear it.

One year ago: Creamed Onions with Bacon Chives and Sweet Corn Spoonbread

Two years ago: Creamed Spinach and Gingerbread Apple Upside Down Cake

Three years ago: Olive Oil Muffins, Chicken Pot Pie, Chocolate Toffee Cookies and Chickpea Salad with Roasted Red Peppers

Four years ago: Creamy White Polenta with Mushrooms, Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts in Browned Butter and Nutmeg Maple Cream Pie

Five years ago: Grilled Cheese and Cream of Tomato Soup, Cranberry Sauce, Three Ways, No Knead Bread and Tomato and Sausage Risotto (so perfect for the current cold snap!)