Hello folks, I’m back with another recipe for @homesteadchronicles​ QuaranTEAM!! This time - edible cookie dough for one!! In all honesty, this technically isn’t my recipe though. See, I have an issue with a lot of the normal edible cookie dough recipes on Pinterest, because they never taste the same as my usual cookie dough recipe. So I took my normal recipe, the standard Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe that you can find on the back of all their chocolate chip bags, and scaled it down. And of course, modified it to make it edible. And after all that math (gross math... the things I do for cookie dough...) I got this!!! A single portion of cookie dough thats safe to eat and tastes just like the normal stuff!!! So here we go!! 

Recipe: Edible Cookie Dough for One

Time: Three minutes (plus five if microwaving flour, you’ll see)  || Yield: 1 serving 

Ingredients

4 tbsp flour

1 tbsp granulated sugar 

1 tbsp brown sugar 

1 tbsp butter 

1 tbsp milk 

1/8 tsp salt 

1/8 tsp vanilla

Chocolate chips

Method

Melt the butter in the microwave

In a microwave safe bowl, nuke the flour on high for five minutes. **Technically this can be skipped, but raw flour can contain E-coli. Doing this eliminates the risk, so if you want to be safe, or are preparing this for kids, don’t skip this. If you feel like living on the edge, ignore it.

While the flour is microwaving, mix all other ingredients in with the melted butter. Add flour last. 

Add chocolate chips. You will note no amount is listed, because I am firm believer that the amount of chocolate is up to you.You feel that shit in your heart. 

A new paper describes how researchers at MBARI, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UH Mānoa), and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution enabled a trio of self-driving robots to locate, follow, and sample a layer of oceanic microbes in an eddy north of the Hawaiian islands.

Open-ocean eddies can be over 100 kilometers (62 miles) across and last for months. Phytoplankton thrive when these eddies spin counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and bring nutrient-rich water from the depths up toward the surface. (Photo by Thom Hoffman/courtesy of Schmidt Ocean Institute.)

Typically, researchers might lower a single sampling device into the eddy to take a snapshot of microbial activity. But the team of three robots autonomously working together were able to locate, sample, and follow along with the microbes as they drifted in the ocean currents. Each robot had a specific job—act like a spy on the microbes in the layer, profile the surrounding water column, or communicate with the humans on a nearby ship.

I started this Tumblr to talk about how Gentleman Jack was helping me get back on the writing track, but then Gentleman Jack actually got me back on the writing track, and I spent all my time actually writing the novel, more on that later.

But now that the first draft of the novel number 18 is done I’m back on the GJ Tumblr train, and I realize that Anne Lister is not just helping me be a better writer it’s challenging me a better wife. Example:

Do you remember that one episode of Gentleman Jack where Ann Walker is having a mental health crisis and she thinks that the horrible voices in her head were coming from inside the clock in the hallway?  

Ann Lister doesn’t argue with her. She doesn’t try and convince her it’s not happening.  She doesn’t make her feel bad, or get her to exercise self restraint or logic. She responds by saying she’s going to fix the clock.  And by fix the clock you get this real sense that she might be about to break the clock.  To be clear Anne Lister knows full well there’s no demons living in the clock, but she also know that being right about that doesn’t mean jack shit in that moment. She knows this moment is not about logic, it’s about the woman she loves feeling unsafe, and instead of trying to convince her those feelings are unwarranted she affirms them and offers to break the fucking clock.

First of all, that’s not totally a sane response either, but it’s the right one, nonetheless. Life is weird, and hard and complex. The world is stacked against them. Mental health is complicated. There’s so many things in life we can’t control, and instead of arguing about things way beyond her comprehension she’s going to fix the thing she can and affirm the woman she loves.

In one of the great sadnesses of my life I am not Anne Lister. 

The other day my wife told me we were almost out of sugar and I was like, “Naw, we’re good.” She expressed again that she thought we didn’t have enough to get through to our next shopping trip and again I disagreed. She sort of wrung her hands a bit and I was like, “Seriously, tell me what you’re going to make with that much sugar?” And she was like “Pancakes, and um maybe scones.” Me: Then we’ve probably got plenty of sugar.  At that point she was like, “Yeah, you're right, I was probably just being silly. I was probably over reacting because I’m nervous. I’m sorry it’ll be fine.”

And the thing was for a few minutes I thought I handled that shit. Logic wins. My logic. Nailed it.  But the thing was my wife still seemed kind of sad. Maybe even sadder than before. Also she’d just admitted she’d been nervous about something much bigger than sugar, and instead of understanding/affirming that I made her feel silly about it.

Well, fuck. We are living in the middle of a global pandemic. We have been in lockdown for 51 days.  I don’t want to be the logic wife during the absurd times. I want to be the passionately, over the top action wife. I want to be the wife who says, “No worries, I’ll fix it.” I wanna be the wife who gets some more fucking sugar. I want to be the wife to calls every one of my neighbors and asks each one for a half cup of sugar until I refill the whole bag. I want to be the wife who puts on a mask and gloves and buys black market sugar at night in a dark alley. I want to be the person who Robin Hoods sugar from the rich ass hoarders. I do not want to be the wife who tries to logic and police emotions through this crazy ass moment in history. I want to be the wife who gets up at two am and breaks the fucking clock! 

Have you heard the word? Today, we are launching our “QuaranTEAM” initiative - an online gathering where artists, writers, musicians, bakers, playlist makers and creatives of all sorts share their work to encourage, inspire and include those stuck in isolation! Wanna know who’s involved?

Please welcome our QuaranTEAM members! º @homesteadchronicles • @lynnafred​ º @alittleyellowdinosaur​ • @quarantinednano​ º @perringwrites​ • @fatal-blow​ º @khymnal​ • @imaginelly​ And more still to come! Maybe even you? Reach out to me if you’d like to help!

But this would be nothing without somewhere to house it all. That is why I am repurposing my Discord Server, aptly named “The Homestead”, so that all can come to find a welcoming community of creatives, see the products of the QuaranTEAM’s creativity, and spread their own work as well! Consider yourself invited to your new home - especially if you’re sick of sitting in your own home.

To join our community, just click the link below and I’ll welcome you on in :) JOIN THE HOMESTEAD: https://discord.gg/8tSFBcX

Whether you decide to join us now or not, please help us impact more people by spreading the word! Invite friends you know need a pick-me-up, share this with those you know who have been down in the dumps since the quarantine started. Let’s work together to bring hope to the people around us!