Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

•  2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cups brown sugar
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 sticks sweet unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 bag chocolate chip cookies

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the flour, salt, and baking soda into a small bowl and set aside. Mix the brown sugar, and granulated sugar into a larger bowl. Pour the vanilla extract into the bowl of various sugars. The smell of vanilla always reminds me of sitting in my grandma's kitchen in Concord, Arkansas mixing the ingredients together for her famous chocolate chip cookies. We would always laugh together about the news she kept blaring from the living room. Being five years old at the time, I never really knew what was happening, but I never cared. All I cared about was making the cookies and spending time with Grandma.

After you pour in the vanilla extract into the bowl of brown and granulated sugar, soften the two sticks of butter and pour them in with the vanilla. Beat the mixture until it becomes creamy. I would always dance to the sound of the beater, making up the silliest song I could while spinning and jumping just like the electric mixer. Once the mixture was creamy enough Grandma would join in making it even sillier, sending me into fits of uncontrolled laughter.

Once the mixture is creamy, break the eggs and mix them into the bowl evenly. Once the mixture is mixed evenly begin to mix in the flour, salt, and baking soda slowly. This time Grandma decided to let me pour the bowl of dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients. I was so excited I poured it all in at once. All of the dry ingredients made it nearly impossible to mix with the dry ingredients, so Grandma had to stir it by hand. My mother still asks if thats what I'm doing whenever I make the cookies.

After the dry ingredients are mixed evenly with the wet ingredients all that's left is the chocolate chips. Mix the chocolate chips in the same way as the rest of the ingredients. Once the chocolate chips are mixed in its time to begin putting the dough on the pan to bake.

Take a small amount of cookie dough from the bowl and form it into a ball. Be sure to account for the fact that the cookies will flatten and expand outwards. Grandma always used two spoons to get each cookie about the same size. I remember sitting at the little round breakfast table in the kitchen with a baking sheet almost as tall as me with two spoons.

Grandma was trying to teach me how to get the right size. "Do it like this Chickadee," she would say with a warm smile while demonstrating the correct spoon technique. I never really paid attention, and I always got too much or too little. Grandma would just laugh and say, "That one's mine then," or, "We'll give that tiny one to your brother." It always made me feel better about messing it up.

Grandma would always tell me I could take a little cookie dough out of the bowl and eat it, but my mother never approved.

"The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World"

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," is a story about a drowned man that washed onto the shores of a village that thought he was so handsome that they practically worshiped him. Marquez wrote this story very well, using imagery to keep the story entertaining. This helps the story flow through. It also helps the reader keep up with what is going on.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story is about a drowned man who washed onto the shore of a small village. He weighed "almost as much as a horse," and he was so tall that "there was barely enough room for him in the house." The men went to neighboring villages to see if he belonged to any of them while the women stayed to clean him up and dress him. After they cleaned his face they saw how handsome he was and gave him the name Esteban. He was so handsome that the women sobbed over him as if he was one of their own, and they covered him in flowers and holy relics. Before they sent him back to the sea the villagers picked out two people to act as his parents and a few to act as his aunts and uncles.

One way Marquez catches your attention in the story is through imagery. Marquez creates the scene of the "dark and slinky bulge," that washes onto the shore of the. The author also did well in describing the height and weight of the stranger given the name Esteban. Marquez's wording when describing what the women saw in the stranger's face and his body, "They thought that he would have had so much authority that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their names..." Marquez uses the wording in such a way that the images flow together perfectly.

In conclusion, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," is a story about a handsome drowned man that washed onto a village's shore, and he was so handsome that the entire village fell in love with him. The author captured the imagery of the small village and the tall, heavy, and handsome stranger so well that it all flowed together nearly perfect.

"How They Croaked" Cleopatra

Many people believe Cleopatra, the famed Egyptian queen, to have died from a snakebite to the chest as Shakespeare wrote it in Antony and Cleopatra. That is not the case. Georgia Bragg's book, How They Croaked, shows that Cleopatra did not die from a snakebite to the chest, but a poisoned hairpin prick to the arm! Georgia Bragg tells how it happened, why it happened, and still keeps a somewhat casual attitude as she gives you all of the details and background stories.

Cleopatra had fallen in love with Mark Antony, and they were secretly married. Years after the Romans, led by Octavian, waged war on them. Antony and Cleopatra decided to split up to survive, and Cleopatra hurried home to gather all of her valuable treasures and put them in a mausoleum in the royal cemetery. She then took her hairdresser and her lady-in-waiting and locked all of them and herself in the mausoleum with enough kindling to burn it to the ground if needed. Antony got word that Cleopatra was dead, so he stabbed himself in the stomach, but soon after he got word that Cleopatra was not dead. So he went to Cleopatra and he died in her arms. After that Cleopatra was captured and put on "palace arrest." She sent a request to be buried next to Antony, and by the time the soldiers got there she and her two maids were dead with no proof but two pinpricks from a poisoned hairpin.

Throughout the telling of the death of the two lovers, Bragg keeps an upbeat attitude. She keeps the reader interested by adding her own fun facts at the end of an article, and she uses a more casual wording. For example, when Bragg describes Cleopatra she uses words like, "glitzy," and "bling." So the reader stays interested throughout the entire book and not just one article.

In conclusion, Georgia Bragg's book How They Croaked gives some very interesting facts about how a famous person in history died. Bragg's writing style keeps the reader interested by inserting fun facts and by keeping the mood upbeat and somewhat casual. By doing this, the book becomes a more fun read than expected.

Annonated Photo

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