The heat has died down here (even when it has not been hot outside, my house is like an oven inside), so I spent some of the morning making cookie dough. I have not baked all summer, so I felt I was going through baking withdrawals. The in-house heating situation is the thing I dislike the most about my house. Beyond which, I should have enlisted a full-time handyman to take care of upkeep and maintenance when I moved here.

I am looking forward to autumn when baking can and should be more frequent. Coming up on the baking roster: the ever-popular M&M cookie, gingersnaps and thin mints (very thin chocolate cookies dipped in melted, minty chocolate. There will be other things as well, but these are the doughs chilling in the fridge.

I keep having nightmares that all kinds of things are falling apart. It’s sometimes disturbing but more often than not is disgusting.