I like few things better than a big, fat cookie. Really, who doesn’t? So as you might imagine, I am a huge fan of the book Big Fat Cookies by Elinor Klivans. This book is mandatory, people. Find yourself a copy and get ready to dog-ear every single page in it, because it’s that good.

I’ve made almost every recipe in the book, but the one that has emerged as the clear favorite is the recipe for Super-Sized Ginger Chewies. I can’t even describe these cookies in words; I have to resort to muffled sounds instead—mmf. Yummm. Ermmmgobble.

No, but seriously, these cookies are the best. cookies. ever. and you should make them for the holidays. Even if you have barely passable skills in the kitchen, you can definitely make these, and people will be totes impressed.

Here’s the prized recipe, modified just slightly. It makes 12-14 giant cookies, which means 10 for you and 2-4 for the rest of the family to fight over.

Ingredients:
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 heaping tsp cinnamon
• 1 heaping tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp
• 1 cup brown sugar (not packed, just scooped)
• 1 egg
• 5 tbsp molasses
• 1/4 cup sugar in the raw

Bake It:
Preheat your oven to 350 F, and coat your baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Beat the brown sugar and butter together in a large bowl with an electric or hand mixer. Add the egg and molasses and beat for another minute. Ditch the mixer, pour in the flour mixture, and use a spatula or wooden spoon to stir until everything is combined. (Then stick your finger in there and taste that ish.)

Spread some of the sugar in the raw out on a plate. Form 2” balls of dough and roll them in the sugar until they’re completely coated, then put them on the parchment-paper baking sheets. Space the cookies 2” apart.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until large cracks appear in the tops of the cookies. They won’t be brown, but they shouldn’t be raw, either. And that’s that.

You can store these cookies in Tupperware or Ziploc bags for three or four days, but don’t bother—they’re going to be gone within a few hours of taking them out of the oven, anyway.

Whenever I go to the grocery store, I always try my best to load my cart with socially responsible products.  Cage free eggs?  Uh, yeah why not?  Organic lettuce? Sure, throw that on in there.

The truth is, though, up until recently, I didn’t really know what these things meant.  They’ve just been over-marketed so that I think I’m doing good when really I may just be wasting money.  That’s why I formulated a mini label guide for all of your shopping needs.

Hint:  don’t waste your money on the “organic” Oreos!

“Organic”: Now these babies can be tricky.  In order to determine exactly what you’re eating, you have to read the package carefully.  There are 3 basic types of organic labeling that you may see in your local grocery store.
1. 100% organic:  This one is pretty straight forward.  If it says the product is 100% organic, then all of the ingredients, except water and salt, are grown and processed organically.
2. Organic:  Organic is simply the weak-sauce version of 100% organic products.  These products must contain 95% organic ingredients in order to obtain an organic label.  According to the USDA, all other ingredients must be on “the list” of foods that are unavailable in an organic form at the present time.
3. Made with organic ingredients:  This label is just a fancy way of saying “we’re just putting this on our label so you’ll buy it and think you’re doing something good for the environment.”  Under this labeling, 70% of ingredients must be made with organic ingredients, but the law leaves much for interpretation in how the product may advertise its organic-ness.  My advice? Go for the other two if you really want to make a difference.

Fair trade:  Fair trade is built on the principles of respect in trading partnerships, usually through higher wages and economic self-sufficiency for overseas workers.  However, there are no set guidelines for fair trade labeling like there are for organic products.  A fair trade inspection committee, known as FLO-CERT, inspects companies to make sure they have “a quality management system, transparency in all processes, and independence in certification decision making” before giving out a certification.  Although these are vague terms, free trade can be worth it if it has the official sticker on it.  If not, there really is no way to tell whether or not fair practices are in place.

Free range: In theory, “free range” indicates that livestock are allowed to roam freely instead of being in cages before slaughtering.  The USDA, however, does not have a set definition or any sort of regulation for free-range animals and for egg production.  Thus, free range labeling is entirely unregulated and really doesn’t mean much when it comes to your food.  Save your money on these are look for more meaningful labels, such as “grass fed” (see below).

Grass fed: Unlike free range, the USDA has actually formulated a substantial definition of what constitutes “grass fed.”  According to this definition, livestock must be grass fed for their entire lives – pasture included! That means there are no scary antibiotics or other chemicals in the food you’re about to put in your body.  Although some argue that there are loopholes in grass fed labeling, it sure is a heck of a lot better than free range!

So yeah, this is a lot of great information, but how does it relate to the environment?  It actually has everything to do with the environment!  As a rule of thumb, you can consider everything that takes a step back from our highly industrialized economy a step forward for the good of the environment.  In other words, the more natural our food production processes are and the less harmful chemicals, pesticides, and pollution are used, the happier our planet is!

Sometimes good sex feels like a really tough recipe to me. Now, I love cooking; any good cook knows he/she is only as good as the ingredients they use. This is why I love the process of buying vegetables and other ingredients. I even love peeling and cutting. It’s all part of the process to make a great dish.

And, like a recipe, I think sex is only as good as its ingredients: the people involved, and then the deeper ingredients like connection and chemistry. Here are some ingredients that can help make great sex:

Safe, but threatening

Couples need to feel safe around each other, but sex is fun when it has a bad edge to it. If you can make one another feel “comfortably threatened” it can lead to a steamy experience.

Spontaneity

Spontaneity is a common thread for success in all areas of romance, and sex is no different. Sex, just like anything else, can become routine and mundane. How often do we just grab each other and go at it?

Attraction

I’m not one of those lucky guys that has sex with girls who aren’t attracted to me. Some of my friends admit that they’ve had sex with people they were not attracted to. How do these guys pull this off? I need to learn this secret. Nevertheless, none of my friends are ever thrilled about it, so the sex wasn’t that great.

The Intangible Spark

What is it about that certain someone that gets our blood rushing, and makes us hot? Life would be boring if we could answer this question.

Emotional Connection

People can enjoy sex with a limited emotional connection, but most of us need to have a deep emotional connection to have good sex. For me, unless I am really into a girl, sex is kind of ho-hum, and I’m left wondering why I even did it. Good sex is more than just orgasms and touching-it needs to stimulate the mind and spirit.

Read the rest at Marie Claire.

[I used to think I knew everything…until I found myself stranded in the middle of adulthood with no map and no one to guide me when I got lost. I have learned a lot since then - from how to balance a checkbook to how to sew on a button - and will share my wisdom with you.

Every Monday I will be back to teach you how to do something useful, even if it also happens to be completely random. Because, hey, you never know when you just might need to know how to change a tire…or mix a perfect martini.]

It’s that time of year again—a chill is in the air, you’ll freeze without your scarf, and a salad just isn’t going to cut it for dinner anymore. You need heartiness, and what better way to get it than from soup?

But hold the phone. I’m not talking about Chicken and Stars here. Ohhhh, no. I’m talking about real soup; soup that you make with fresh vegetables and your hands (although please refrain from putting your actual hands in the soup).

Homemade soup is not just something your grandmother makes. It’s a very simple equation: ingredients + broth + flavor = soup. Each of these components can be mixed and matched to create tons of awesome soups, so here are some basics to get you started.

Ingredients

My favorite kind of soup to make is a variety that I affectionately deem “hobo soup”—it involves chopping up whatever I have in the fridge and tossing it in a big pot with some broth. If you are slightly more refined (which you probably are), you may want to decide on a kind of soup before you start making it. Get together the things you need—broccoli and cheese for cream of broccoli soup, pasta and carrots and celery and chicken for chicken noodle, flour for dumpling soup, etc. Basic soup recipes are available online, so when in doubt, Google. Get all your ingredients together and prepare them by chopping, sifting, and sorting. If you want more flavor to your soup, you can sauté certain ingredients (such as onions or celery) before adding broth.

Broth

The broth is the important base of your soup. You could also call it the stock. If you have leftover turkey stock from Thanksgiving, don’t throw it away—use it to make soup. If you don’t have any stock, don’t worry—you can use canned vegetable broth or chicken/beef/whatever broth. If you’re making a creamy soup, use milk as your broth. And in a real pinch, you can use water. Figure that you need between 1 and 1 ½ cups of broth for each serving of soup. When all of your ingredients are prepared, pour broth in your pot and add the ingredients. Simmer covered or uncovered for at least 20 minutes or until all of the ingredients are fully cooked and at the consistency you want. If you’d like a thick broth, whisk together 2 tablespoons of broth with 1 tablespoon of flour, and add that mixture to your broth.

Flavor

Much of your soup’s flavor will come from the broth, but it’s nice to add a little something extra. Italian Wedding soup will include basil, for example, and you may want to add cheese to a cream soup or a little bit of cumin to kick up a pumpkin soup. Stick with standbys for the first few times you make your own soup, but after that, you should have a good idea of how you can branch out and still end up with a delicious flavor every time.

All right. After writing that, I’m going to go dig into my leftover corn chowder (homemade soup keeps really well, by the way). I’ll share my recipe if you guys will share yours. What’s your favorite kind of homemade soup?

[Image courtesy of whatwereeating.com.]

Breakfast: Oatmeal. Again.

Lunch: My quick-fix meal, a ham and cheese sandwich, is out, so I just munch on grapes, dried fruit, and nuts. I feel like a Greek god, but not at all full.

Dinner: I pull out the big guns for dinner. I go to Whole Food’s and do a massive shopping by following a list I compiled using recipes found on allrecipes.com. The total comes out to $120. Turns out tofu is more expensive than I thought it would be. I get home and I do the unthinkable: I cook for myself. I mix and simmer and stir. I make a total mess, but it actually feels really good to slave over a hot stove for an hour.

The end result? A meaty (thank you, Boca!), spicy, filling vegan chili. I put some of the chili in a tortilla for a vegan burrito thing, and it’s delicious. I pour some in a bowl and eat it, and when I go to put it in a Tupperware container, I end up eating some of it right out of the pot, always a good sign!

Late night: My hunt for dessert in my fridge ends up with me accidentally taking a bite out of a non-vegan friendly Fudgesicle and then spitting it out. Then, my late-night cappuccino run turns into a late-night black coffee when the café I’m at doesn’t have soy milk.

The year I spent as a vegetarian in high school seems like a cakewalk after the last two days. Skipping over the meat dishes on a menu or avoiding those aisles in the supermarket is easy; having to study ingredient lists and constantly be thinking about what goes into the foods I eat every day is much, much harder.

You might think a salad can’t justifiably be called “cooking,” but I’d have to disagree. This salad isn’t just thrown together…it’s lovingly crafted using carefully chosen ingredients that are fresh, yummy, and healthy.

My mom thought up the specific combination, so I have to give her the credit. And okay, even though this salad isn’t figuratively thrown together, it CAN be literally thrown together, which is a great part of its appeal.

Lunch in 5 minutes or less? Yes, thank you.

Here’s what you need for one salad: half of one heart of romaine lettuce (they usually come in bags of three), half a medium-sized tomato, 6-10 kalamata olives (preferably pitted, unless you want an olive tree to grow in your stomach), a few tablespoons of fresh feta cheese, and your dressing of choice.

Tear the romaine-heart half into shreds, and slice the half-tomato into thin wedges. That should take you approximately a minute. Then throw the lettuce on a plate, garnish it with the tomato slivers, throw on the olives, and top with the feta.

Drizzle a nice dressing (vinaigrettes go well with this) over it, and ba-da-boom! Lunch!