I’m going to a Cookie Exchange Christmas party tomorrow, and I’m concerned. I’m working on losing the 40 pounds I gained during the worst of my headache, and cookies do not seem like the best way to do that. (And if anyone mentions “The Cookie Diet” I will stab your eyes out with my ballpoint pen. The PR company for that product is run by assholes and morons who aren’t competent enough to remove me from their email ist.) But, I want to see my friends, and they are throwing a cookie party, so I’m going. Everyone is supposed to bring a batch of cookies and then we exchange them so everyone gets a plate full of different treats.

Does anyone have a recipe for healthy cookies? Or is that term an oxymoron? If I can’t find a healthy cookie recipe, I figure I should find a recipe for cookies I hate. That way when I’m baking them I will not be tempted to lick the beaters and shove five spoonfuls of dough down my throat. (Just to taste test, I swear! Give me my spoon back!!) Of course, I don’t want the cookies to taste bad to everyone, or else I will get a reputation as the bad cookie lady. “Did you taste those cookies Jennette brought? I think they were made of Elmer’s glue and sidewalk chalk!”

Ideas please! And quickly! I need these cookies by tomorrow afternoon.

It was so windy yesterday, I thought I might see Dorothy and Toto flying around outside my window on their way to Oz. One of the nice things about freelancing is that the most dangerous part of the commute between my bedroom and my office are two cats who try to trip me. Alas, I was out of cat food for one of those cats, so I had to go out into the cold and 30mph winds anyway.

I also had to drive downtown to the public radio station to tape a short interview for this week’s Definitely Not the Opera, a weekly show on Canadian Public Radio. I do not live in Canada, so I hadn’t heard of DNtO before, but I downloaded the podcast beforehand to get a sense of the program and I think I’m going to stay subscribed. Each week they take on a theme and collect stories and interviews with people related to that theme. This week the show is called “Peep Show,” and no, I’m not going to reveal some shady past as a stripper. This week’s show is about our fascination with other people’s private lives, so I got to talk about blogging and why I decided to put my life out there for everyone to see.

When I got to the studio, I noticed that the technician operating the sound equipment (who would have to listen to my entire interview in which I talked about how isolated and unhappy I was when I was morbidly obese) was obese himself. Good thing this wasn’t AWKWARD. I got through it, even though my voice started to croak at moments, either from the cold weather or an impending cold. All in all it was a rather fun experience, even if I got lost trying to find my way out of the building.

If you want to listen to the interview, here’s the info they sent me about it:

As for hearing the item, the easiest way in the U.S. (or anywhere else outside Canada) is via our podcast, which is available from our website here (or in a chaptered version from iTunes here). This week’s podcast will be available there Saturday morning.

And if you’d like to hear it live (or know anyone in Canada who would), we air across Canada on CBC Radio One Saturday afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00 (local time in each time zone)… and there’s live streaming here. Your segment will be on in the second hour of the show, so probably around 3:30 (local time).

And finally, if you know any Sirius Satellite listeners, we’re also on Sirius Channel 137, Saturday at noon and 10:00 p.m. (ET).

Update 12-12-09: The podcast is up! You can download the mp3 here. My interview starts around the 50 minute mark. It came out really well, even though I say “you know” a million times and sound a bit croaky. Oh well, there’s always room for improvement!

“Did something in the refrigerator explode?” my roommate asked me as she stood in front of the open fridge door.

“Oh, no, that’s just my yogurt experiment,” I told her.

About a month ago MelPo left this comment on my Voskos yogurt entry:

Did you know you can make any yogurt thick–like the so-called greek yogurts that are so popular now? It’s just strained yogurt.

I do it by putting a couple of coffee filters in a colander over a bowl–dump the contents of a big yogurt (my fave is seven stars, but any kind, any flavor will work) into the filters. Then fold the tops of the filters over the top of the yogurt and put the whole bowl into the fridge overnight. The next day, take it out and dump the watery stuff from the bowl and open up the coffee filters and enjoy your thick yummy yogurt.

If you want it even thicker you can weight the top with something fairly light–like a can of soup or something and the resulting yogurt will be a cream-cheese consistency. It makes a delicious pie.

Intrigued, I decided I should try this. I got out a cup of vanilla flavored Dannon Light ‘N Fit yogurt, put it in a coffee filter set over a plastic cup, and stuck it in the fridge to freak my roommate out. When I checked it an hour later, the coffee filter was totally soaked, so I had to take it out and add two more filters to the contraption. The next day, it looked like this:

I tasted a spoonful of the strained yogurt, and it was a bit thicker than when I started, but it still wasn’t as thick as Fage yogurt. I looked in the cup, and at least two tablespoons of water had been strained out. Perhaps this experiment would go better if I started with a thicker type of yogurt to begin with. I dunno. I just know that I’m going to let the professionals handle the yogurt straining in the future.

I was scanning old family photos this weekend and came across this photo of me at the beach. I don’t remember that swimsuit. I don’t remember having my picture snapped. But there I am, in a moment, enjoying the sand and the waves. Did people ever get a chance to sneak peeks into their past like this before Kodak came along?

Did PastaQueen’s health assessment reveal that she’s made of sugar and spice and everything nice? Find out behind the jump.

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