Cooking - addendum/revision

Well I kind of have a switcheroo for both of my dishes - from an old Pilsbury bake-off winner cake recipe to Snowball sandwiches (I couldn't resist), and Amish Friendship Bread to Skip's Favorites. I was planning on making the bread for my home food but I decided against it for the time being.

Amish Friendship Bread takes about ten days to make- you mix milk and yeast together and let it sit out at room temperature, adding sugar and flour as the days progress. (No super processed hygenic white bread here.) I have to admit I chickened out - I was a little afraid of leaving it in the dorm kitchen (what kind of things could happen there..) and I didn' t want to be the roommate who leaves fermenting milk out and about. However, I am glad that this class reminded me of this childhood bread and I would like to try making it again soon. This was recipe was handed down to me from my grandmother, aunt, and mother - they always used to make it when my aunt came down to visit. I remember seeing the bags of starter in the fridge and, as a child, being a little creeped out by the whole yeast thing. "It's alive?!" "...[M]illions of these little worms have been born and have died, and from their dead and decaying bodies there rises a gas just as it does from the dead body of a hog."
Now, looking back, I think it was a pretty nifty bread. The starter batter makes enough for you and your friends and the cycle of making and giving can just keep on going. Additionally, I have never had to cook/bake anything that takes ten days to prepare - so the recipe is kind of enlightening in that way. Instant gratification recipes or food products are so prevalent nowadays. This bread reminded me of the "slow food" movement and mindset - I really want to look into that more. (Plus, it tastes really good - nice and cinnamony:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmP1rAc_KDnL_dfmckQ0mK3f0fVZ_3OhpnODd8uMxd1iLWAyWNQkjo44jaiD2r5FK3iOqUQWczo_3P-QeCgQVKsG2hYGbCFzUGIsQDqs3hGCI1ErTSdYB34PNFKPQ_LQLPE230WQCuiUo1/s1600-h/07-0611_amish+friendship+bread_04_e100.jpg)

So in the end, I decided to choose another old family recipe: Skip's Favorites. This one is also from my grandmother. She picked it up in Korea while she and my grandfather were stationed there. The recipe was from another army wife - these cookies were wildly popular on the base. The woman's name was Loretta and her husband was named Skip, thus "Skip's Favorites." My grandmother brought the recipe back to the states and it has been a part of my family's food culture for as long as I can remember. My father is who really got me into these cookies - he is now the one who makes them almost every holiday since I was very young. The smell of these cookies baking, the taste of the raw batter, and the sprinkling of sugar on top brings back a flood of holiday memories.

(I like how my parents have such different cooking styles. My mom doesn't cook as much as my dad but when she seems to have a knack at making strange food combinations work really well together. Her goulash was a delicious mishmash of whatever the pantry held. This dish makes me think of cold, rainy days, and how comforting and warm her cooking made the house feel. [Plus as a child I always confused "goulash" with "galoshes."] My dad on the other hand, is really serious about cooking - even when he's just making toast. The quality of ingredients is crucial and he is all about technique. It's not that he's extremely fastidious about cooking - he just likes to know the mechanics and science behind it. I'd say he likes to know the rules so he can then know how to make educated improvisations and experiments. I admire his style a lot and his dishes always seem to be great successes. For example, I can follow the same Skip's Favorites recipe but my cookies are never as good as his. I should really learn from him but my cooking style remains somewhat hapdash/hit-or-miss. I'm still trying to imbibe the value of patience - throwing out hours worth of work gets pretty annoying. On the bright side however, my stubborness and determination to give everything a try combined with this experimental method of cooking are slowly helping me develop tastebuds of steel. What is your cooking style?)

So it was fun to make them myself and see how they turned out. Cooking in the dorm kitchen is always a bit exciting - finding and washing all the utensils, hoping someone hasn't used up your ingredients, figuring out what the oven's cook time is like, etc. It's nice to cook in a public kitchen though, because at least one person usually comes in and keeps you company for a time. Taste-testers are always handy as well.