New Stuff
My continuing quest to drain Amazon.com of all its goods continues apace. This week's edition: kitchen stuff. To wit: two half sheet pans. One sold by ReStockIt for about half the cost of the other from Next Day Gourmet. They are nominally not the same size which may be a plus as they nest together perfectly. They are also not nominally the same gauge but I recall that the shipping invoices (which I don't have in front of me) actually have them both as 13 gauge. The significant difference on first inspection is that the more expensive pan has its edge completely rolled over on itself. I can see that this will make a stronger pan. But I felt compelled to follow the dictum of my dear, departed father who said more than once, "If one is good, two are better." He wasn't a cook but he liked gadgets. Very much a guy that way.
All that being said, and I add at this point that up to this point I have had no cookie sheets on which to .... I was going to say "bake cookies" but it seemed too easy.
If anyone wonders why I opt for sheet pans instead of cookie sheets per se, I point the finger in the direction of the great Cook's Illustrated magazine which has determined that sheet pans are superior in performance to thin, warping cookie sheets. When the weather starts to chill down and I'm not running the AC, I'll start baking cookies of many kinds and really put that to the test. I remember my mother making an oatmeal raisin cookie which was mixed together in a Tupperware cake holder (upside down) as the mix had to absorb the oil that was used before the cookies could be made. I'd love to find that recipe in the mass of kitchen papers. And in later years we got a recipe for hermit cookies from a family friend. The link goes to recipes but I don't vouch for them; they're by way of illustration. I do believe that the hermits took first place in my cookie pantheon. I'm sure that recipe is in the stack. Definitely going to make those.
Oh, I also got a wire rack insert for the half sheet pan. It seems just so like something I've seen Alton Brown use on "Good Eats." How could I resist?
UPDATE: Please don't miss the potato chip cookie recipe in the comments. I realize my mistake in assaying anything about baking in the ken of the XMBD NMSE who, along with her mother are two of the world's finest non-professional bakers. But I am not such an old dog that I can't learn some new tricks.