Owl done...

I have been looking for an owl cookie jar, having seen them basically everywhere except in stores lately: (1) in a collection of American Bisque cookie jars in the Waverly Bakery, (2) on the show Modern Family, (3) American Bisque, again, in a patient's apartment (right there on top of her fridge). These owls have been taunting me. Vintage owl cookie jars sell on Ebay for $40-$180, and the non-freaky, non-ugly ones happen to be more expensive.

A week ago, we were in the mall, on official wedding business, when something caught my eye in Macy's. At first, I just saw a rather cute owl-shaped serving tray...then some salt & pepper shakers...then a piggy bank...then a COOKIE JAR! On top of that, there was some kind of sale starting a few days later, and they would pre-sell it to me, to be picked-up on the sale start date.

Now, if you have an owl cookie jar, what kind of cookies would you put in it? I thought so too, but owl-shaped cookie cutters are (1) generally only vaguely owl-shaped, and (2) probably only available at specialty stores and online. An exhaustive search revealed some very cute options: one person used frosting to decorate cookies that she cut out with a tulip-shaped cookie cutter, but I can't find a tulip cookie cutter either. Other options are focused on shaping the dough. As soon as I saw one of those options, I remembered my Grama making them when I was little. Seeing the picture of them took me back to my exact feelings about the cookies when I first saw them: I refused to eat them because they had one cashew, standing for the owl's beak. I was convinced that the cashew meant that the whole cookie would taste like nuts.

The cookies are actually made with vanilla and chocolate dough, rolled into a cylinder and sliced. The eyes are peanut butter chips, although I considered using light-colored M&Ms. The beak, as I mentioned, is a whole cashew.


Having finished my last exam on Saturday (hopefully, provided I pass), this is how I celebrated the end of my academic obligations and my birthday, free of exam stress.

-吴碧芙