I wish rich people went back to keeping artists as pets. Like when you’re wealthy enough you pick a cool weirdo to do regular commissions for you, and if you really want to flex on your peers, you’ve got several.
And you visit them every once in a while like “hello, I’ve paid for your rent and your tools, have you worked on that commission giant oil painting of me getting sucked off by my political opponent, who is unfortunately still the mayor of this town, like I requested?”
And your favourite feral art person looks up - mouth full of gravel and completely surrounded by art-related trash like “no, but I designed a helicopter.”
And you’re like “that’s fucking lit, the mayor doesn’t have a helicopter. Please carry on as you have.”
A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something called “Norwegian Christmas butter squares.” I’d never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies I’d eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic.
Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that I’ve saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband - they’re fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. I’m skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day.
Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 egg 1 cup sugar 2 cups flour 1 tsp vanilla ½ tsp salt Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9x13″ baking pan in the freezer. Do not grease the pan.
Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy. Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour.
Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and ¼ inch thick. Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar.
Bake at 400 degrees until the edges turn a golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool for about five minutes before cutting the cooked dough into squares. Remove the squares from the warm pan using a spatula.
So I tried this recipe.
And it is GREAT.
It basically makes the platonic ideal of commercial sugar cookies, only in bar form. When I give them to people (which I do a lot, because this is one of those simple recipes where the results seem very impressive), I just tell them they’re sugar cookie bars.
Life hack: add white chocolate chips and sea salt
I made these today for the equinox with sea salt caramel chips and they are simply amazing. Let’s see how long they last with six people in the house!
Noting for later (as we need more butter for this, and probably won’t do a grocery shopping till the weekend).
The OP version of this has become my go-to cookie for basically all things and I have a whole cohort of friends and colleagues who would murder each other to get them. Haven’t tried any add ons yet, since the base recipe is SO GOOD.
[image id: screen shot of tags that read #not to be a lesbian but oh my fucking god. oh my god. jesus fuck #ing christ. oh my god. fucking shit jesus fuck oh my fucking jesus fucking christ. god in heaven. holy fucki ng shit]
I’ve been watching “Babylon 5” seasons 3 and 4. In an episode titled “Into the Fire” of of Sheridan’s Rangers was played by none other than Bryan Cranston!
Let’s make this post even longer because I have even more images saved. Next up, we got:
Tsutsumagushi Disease
Chikungunya Fever!
MERS
Pertussis (whooping cough) with a horrifying (almost body horror) headpiece and flute
Dengue Fever, the image of which literally made me stop breathing for a moment when I first saw it
Japanese Encephalitis (as… idols, maybe?)
And Zika Virus (so pretty! and for what???)
And some higher res images of the ones from the video (Legionnaires’ Disease, Viral Gastroenteritis, and Rubella). Unfortunately, I could not fit Rabies because of the image limit.
The lime disease mech is definitely supposed to be a tick
