HOW Many Calories?!

 
I used to make Christmas cookies: every damned year I'd get out the flour and butter, melt the chocolate, grease the cookie sheets. It was like some phantom held a gun to my head and said, "You have to make Christmas cookies! You're a woman!"

Jerry liked them, of course, but I was crabby and exhausted,  and after several years, I liberated myself.  No more of that.

But now Ladies Home Journal  has started appearing in my mailbox.  I never asked for it and I'm the wrong demographic, but it's free, so I'm reading it.

The December issue just arrived, and there's Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, on the cover.  She's having her first ever Christmas cookie swap with a bunch of women food bloggers in their 30's and 40's:

One recipe, "Chocolate Peanut Butter Globs,"  really tempted me.   It sounds substantial, like something you could sink your teeth into and savor.   Among the ingredients:  chocolate chips, unsweetened chocolate, walnut halves, pecan halves, and peanut butter chips.  No word on how many calories, and who cares?  It's Christmas. 

I was semi-onboard.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Globs

Then I took a closer look, which didn't take long.   I  didn't get farther than the second line in the recipe:  "Line 2 baking sheets with parchment." 

I don't do parchment paper.  No way.

Sigh of relief.