December 3, 2011: The Date is Set

I can't believe we're already taking about Cookie Day!

The date was set last night at Rocktober, and we're going to move ahead with December 3rd. As soon as the location is confirmed, we'll let everyone know. As it stands now, we're planning on being at the same location. We're just waiting on confirmation of availability from Ruth.

A few suggestions were brought up last night for this year's event, and I'd like to put them out there again for everyone to comment on. First, there was a request for the guy's game day to be held at the same location. Since the rec room area is so large, I don't imagine that this would be a problem, but we can check with the church to make sure. Anyone who may be interested in having their spouse/boyfriend nearby for gaming, check with him to see if he wants to come up and let us all know. If there's enough demand, we'll try to move it to the same location. It's totally acceptable to bribe them with freshly made cookies.

Second, there was a request to not only decide in advance what everyone's planning on baking, but to also limit the types of cookies so we don't have as much overlap as last year (when everything seemed to have almonds in it). So for example, if two people said they were planning on making a cookie with peanut butter as a primary ingredient, that would mean that peanut butter cookie types would then be 'off limits' for the other bakers. The way we can make sure that we don't have the overlap is to list out in advance what cookie types were chosen before a specified date (TBD).

Finally, I would also like to begin a sharing system this year. Since this will now be the 4th Annual Cookie Day, we all probably have a lot of extra baking decorations or equipment that was used in years past. I know I have stuff that I'd be willing to offer up to someone if they needed only a bit of it for their recipe. So when we get to the recipe submission date, list off what you will need that someone else may have to contribute. Maybe that will help us all cut down a bit on costs this year. (FWIW, I have a ton of extracts and decorations from prior years. I also have some utensils and stuff that I'd be willing to offer.)

As we get farther into November, we'll post the final location, list of baking ingredients to share, and equipment bakers should plan on bringing. We'll also set a deadline for listing the selected cookie types and share requests, and depending on the final location, any donations or lunch/dinner/snack money that everyone should bring. If there's something you'd like to bring to the table for discussion, please post it in the comments or email either Tina or I.

Looking forward to another great day of baking!

Diane