I Love 2010...

As I was compiling my year-in-review post for 2010, I cruised back through the last year of posts here at The State I Am In, and was equally struck by the things I did in the past 365 days as the things I didn't do in the last year. I don't have a favorite theater moment, because I only went to the theater once in all of last year, to see Carmen. Although I didn't dislike it as much as I expected to, given my general distaste for opera, I would hardly call that a favorite moment. I don't have a favorite song, because I didn't actively seek out any new music. I didn't try a single new recipe in all of 2010 that wasn't for a dessert, and I didn't start watching any new television shows that I didn't watch in 2009. So, this annual synopsis is going to have to take a different form than the list of likes and dislikes I composed in 2009.

Overall, 2010 was a more insular year for me, in which I focused more on personal growth than the world around me, and although that leaves me a little less well-informed about popular culture, I feel like I've made a lot of progress in placing my life on a positive trajectory this year than in years past. In the past, it was easy for me to distract myself with movies, music, and other pursuits because I was avoiding some of the hard work of personal growth. When I waxed philosophical about my life back on the occasion of my 25th birthday, I wrote about Henri Matisse, and the obsessive editing he conducted in his artistic productions, comparing it to my own life, "Life at twenty-five isn't what I envisioned, but my expectations have changed as well. Like Matisse, I am working on adjusting and honing my situation to get where I want to be, and like any artist, I am taking satisfaction in the act of creation, not just the finished product."

In the past year, I've take three major steps towards putting my life on track, so instead of a rundown of my favorite things from the past year, I'm going to write about the three things I'm most proud of starting in 2010:

• Love -- For the first time, I decided to stop waiting for love to fall into my lap the way it does in movies and books, and actively pursue meeting men, dating them, and finding a relationship. I managed to suppress my fears about putting myself out there and being rejected, and although the path was rocky at first, I now find myself completely in love with an amazing man. Every day, I take time to consider how lucky we were to ever find each other at all, and I am thankful that this was the year I started looking for love.
• Mental Health -- Back in August, I quietly started seeing a therapist to help me deal with some of the stress and feelings of helplessness that I was experiencing in my daily life. I wasn't sure how to take control of my life, and reach for the things I wanted, and that sense of being stuck was bleeding across every area of my life. I have worked with him on being more assertive about my needs, communicating with others in healthier ways, and establishing boundaries with people. As a result, my relationships are stronger, and I feel that I've made some solid progress in figuring out what I want to do with my career -- a major source of stress in my life for the past three years. I know not everyone "believes in" therapy, but I can feel it slowly but surely helping me figure out the best direction in which to take my life.
• Health -- Partially motivated by a fear that this might be the last year I had employer-sponsored health insurance, I decided to take responsibility for my health, and take care of a number of lingering problems I had ignored for far too long. I found an amazing primary care physician who I feel I can trust, and who takes me seriously. After years of doctors who told me I was being neurotic with my concerns, it was a relief to find someone who actually wanted to investigate my complaints. It was through her that I found my therapist, and by her that I was referred to the sleep specialist who is helping me conquer the daytime exhaustion that has plagued me for years. Healthcare may have set me back a small fortune in 2010, but I think it was worth every penny.

All things considered, I'm feeling pretty good about what I accomplished in the past year. I feel better than ever about the progress I'm making in my life, and I still managed to get out and explore the city and spend time with the people I love. My hopes are high heading into 2011, and I already have a "to-do" list ready to go. I'm ready to make the upcoming year into another one that I can feel proud of, and to have plenty of fun along the way. Happy New Year!

The First Cut Is The Deepest...

For the first Christmas of our nascent relationship, I was particularly fraught with worry about what to get Justin as a gift. I was so worried, in fact, that I had a discussion with him back in November about setting a price limit on our gift-giving, so that neither of us would be made uncomfortable by a disparity in spending. As is my custom when facing a difficult decision, I asked basically everyone I could think of for advice on the matter, and finally, with some advice from my brilliant aunt, Lisa, I settled on what to get: a cooking class.

That is not to say that I thought Justin needed cooking lessons; in fact, everything I've eaten that he's made for me has been quite tasty. Rather, cooking is something we both enjoy, and enjoy doing together, so I thought it would be nice to incorporate that into our gift-giving. Also, I've gotten to the point in my life where I don't really like giving gifts of material objects. As evidenced by the Cookie Bonanza, wherein I give edible presents to most of the people on my Christmas giving list, I prefer to give presents that won't sit around gathering dust. I prefer to give people memories instead, whether it be the memory of a delicious cookie, or the memory of a shared experience. So for Justin, I thought the memory of taking a class together, about a hobby we both enjoy, in which we could learn valuable skills to enhance our performance of said hobby, would be a great idea.

With the help of the Tribune's annual listing of locations in the city that offer cooking classes, I ultimately settled upon a knife skills class at The Chopping Block, a local chain of combination gourmet shops/cooking schools. The knife skills class would strengthen our fundamental kitchen skills, by teaching proper knife care, and hopefully increasing our speed and accuracy while chopping. Since I wanted Justin to have something to open when we exchanged gifts, I ended up taping a description of the class to a plastic knife, placing it in a box, and wrapping it. It still took a bit of clarification when he opened it last week, but thankfully, he was excited about his gift. We went to the class tonight, and both of us enjoyed it.

The first part of the course focused on educating us about the various types of knives and their functions in the kitchen (with a few thinly veiled sales pitches for the featured cutlery, which was available for purchase in the retail area of the facility, with a student discount, no less), and instructing us on the proper way to sharpen, hone, and clean our knives to maximize their longevity. Most of this material I already knew, from my association with Katherine, who once had a job selling Cutco products and is now an evangelist for proper knife-care, but I was shamed slightly into using larger knives. Apparently, it's common for women to prefer smaller knives than are appropriate for the kitchen task at hand, and I am no different, which is something I'll have to work on.

The second half of the class was dedicated to teaching us proper chopping techniques for common vegetables like carrots, onions, celery, peppers, and herbs, and allowing us to practice for ourselves. For my usual purposes, the ability to chop celery into equally-sized cubes is a bit fussy, but I was enlightened by their advice on chopping carrots -- something with which I've always struggled. However, my main hope for the class was improving my efficiency in cutting onions, easily my most-hated kitchen task, and I'm not sure I learned anything of assistance there.

Nevertheless, it was a fun and educational evening, and I'm happy that I got to share it with Justin. I would definitely take more cooking classes through The Chopping Block -- they had a great set-up, and the instructor was entertaining and very knowledgeable. Their prices are a little steep, so it won't be something I'll get to indulge in on a regular basis, but the next time I'm looking to expand my culinary repertoire, I'll be sure to think of them.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas...

Today, as is our relatively new family custom, the members of the Wyatt clan assembled from across Illinois and Iowa to celebrate Christmas at Seton Hall. It was a day replete with delicious food, fun games, adorable (albeit rambunctious) children, and conversation with family that we do not get to see often enough. Even if the Christmas spirit was still eluding me, it was lovely spending time with my relatives, and I captured the day on film to preserve those precious memories:

We rent a whole banquet hall, yet everyone still manages to congregate in the kitchen. When the cheese dip is there though, who can blame us?

Last Christmas, Mya was only a few days old and I spent much of the weekend holding and napping with her. This year, she was having none of me, but Mom got a chance to hold her.

Dad and I.

Matt is a great sport about playing with the little ones and acting as their human jungle gym every year.

Three generations of feisty, obstinate women. We might not always get along, but our love for one another runs deep.

Although the focus of our celebrations has shifted away from the giving of gifts to family togetherness, Grandma still receives a huge mountain of presents.

Cousin Trista with a captivating headband fashioned from her bingo prize's packaging.

Once again, the attempt at getting all the great-grandchildren in one photo bore mixed results, but they still look cute in their coordinating pajamas from Aunt Brenda. She was inspired by a similar photo of my generation in t-shirts and boxers that were given to us for Christmas by Uncle Pat in the mid-1990s. From left to right: Ben, Will, Mya, Jalen, Avery, Abbie, Braden, and Madelyn.

It was an exhausting, but ultimately sweet day. I wish it were easier for us to find times like Christmas where our family could come together, but such are the realities of life in the modern world. Families are far-flung and burdened with responsibilities, but we are fortunate that we can have gatherings like today's, where almost all of us can be in attendance. I'm already looking to seeing everyone again next year, when our family will be even bigger and crazier than it already is. Bring it on...

Lovely Weather For A Sleigh Ride...

Since we aren't fortunate enough to do our winter traveling by sleigh this holiday season, we've been driving all over the state of Illinois instead. Today, amid the falling snow, we stopped to put gas in the car when Mom spotted this cute little fellow at the gas station and he brightened our day:

I'll Be Seeing You...

When I was but a wee high school student, I did an inordinate amount of handwringing over the decision of which college to attend. Deep down, I knew I needed a change in my life that would not be afforded by going to Northwestern, my top choice school. Northwestern would keep me in the same geographic area, surrounded by many of the same people with whom I had gone to high school. Washington University in St. Louis, which I had only applied to as a back-up school on the advice of my guidance counselor, had the dual advantages of distance, and virtually nobody I knew from high school was going there. I opted for Wash U, but I was terrified. Night after night I would pour my heart out to my parents, fretting that I would be unable to make new friends there, and I would spend the next four years of my life miserable and lonely. They did their best to reassure me, but right up until that first day of school, I was unconvinced.

In the end, I need not have worried. Not only did I make friends, I made amazing friends, with whom I am still close, despite having scattered to different corners of the globe. Although I do not get to see them nearly as much as I might like, I try to see them whenever I have a chance, and luckily for me, Christmas usually affords me the opportunity to visit with my friend, Abel, who returns from Japan every year to be with his family for the holidays. His family happens to live not too far from my grandma's house, where we travel every year for our own Christmas celebration, so Abel and I try to set aside time to catch up.

Every year, it seems hard to believe that so much time has elapsed, but in spite of the time and the distance, we always seem to fall back into an easy rapport. Although I certainly wish I got to see my college pals more often, I am thankful to have such relationships in my life. The chance to reconnect with even just one of them makes my holiday season a little sweeter, and is yet another reason why Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

Hallelujah...

At long last, the day for which I have been preparing myself for the past three months has come to pass -- after a week of prep work and two solid days of baking, I have completed my 2010 Cookie Bonanza. The seven types of cookies that I tested and tweaked were lovingly crafted in my kitchen and boxed to be given away today, all before eleven o'clock last night. I even had all the dishes washed as well! In the past two years, I've usually stayed up until the wee hours of the morning completing everything, so in some regards, my efficiency this year could be looked upon as a type of victory.

However, it is difficult for me to celebrate a full night of rest, when I could have stayed up late adding an eighth cookie to the lineup, which would have meant that I had outdone myself relative to last year. At least I tied last year's level of production, and I feel like I satisfied most of my goals for this year: I had a good balance of cookie types, including cutouts, pressed cookies, drop cookies, bar cookies, and refrigerator cookies; and I had a good balance of flavors, including citrus, spice, chocolate and peppermint among others. If I had to identify weaknesses in this year's lineup, it would have been a lack of something nutty, something caramel-flavored, and perhaps a sandwich cookie. Still, although I was unable to surpass myself this year, I still feel good about this year's giveaway, which consisted of the following:

• 3 Iced Hermit Bar Cookies
• 3 Decorated Sugar Cookies
• 5 Vanilla Bean Spritz
• 2 Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies
• 3 Lemon Poppy Seed Thumbprints
• 4 Cranberry Orange Pinwheels
• 3 "World Peace" Chocolate Sablés

I was not quite as pleased with this year's packaging, which came from the Container Store. The festive Martha Stewart boxes that I used in previous years were square, and easier to transport.

Now that I am done, I plan to take a hiatus from baking for the forseeable future. Butter, flour, and sugar have lost all allure to be for the time being, and I'm sure my waistline, and those of my friends and colleagues who have been the test subjects for all my trial baked goods in the last months, will thank me...

Give Peace A Chance...

Going into this weekend of baking, I had filled every slot in my line-up except for one -- the chocolate cookie. Last year, I fused the peppermint category with the chocolate one, choosing to bake chocolate peppermint cookies, but this year, I wanted to focus solely on the unadulterated flavor of chocolate for my selection. I thought seriously about going with my chocolate brownie cookies, which are a perennial favorite, but ultimately, I was swayed by my interminable desire to experiment with new recipes.

I didn't even have to hunt through my recipe archives, cookbooks, and magazines to find something I wanted to try; Dorie Greenspan's "World Peace Cookies" have been floating around the food blogosphere ever since I started getting interested in cooking and baking after college. The cookies get their name from the assertion of an early recipe tester that if everyone were fed one of these cookies daily, there would be no more war or conflict, because everyone would be too blissed out on chocolate. Every blogger from here to the other end of the world has raved about them, and I was curious. Plus, as a slice-and-bake cookie, they would save me valuable baking time in a weekend when I was already feeling strained for time.

The cookies were definitely simple enough to put together. In fact, the recipe warned against over mixing, so I just mixed them up by hand with a wooden spoon. While the results were certainly tasty -- an ethereally tender crumb, studded with bits of rich bittersweet chocolate -- I'm not sure they would solve all the world's problems. I actually think my humble brownie cookies, taken from an advertisement for Baker's Chocolate, are more intensely flavored than this wildly popular recipe from one of the world's foremost baking authorities. Sometimes it pays to stick to what you know...

World Peace Cookies

adapted from Dorie Greenspan

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.
Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)
To Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about one inch between them.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.