pour some sugar cookies on me

so i went to st. george last weekend with my two favorites, rebekah and heidi. rebekah had a conference there, so we thought to ourselves (actually, we said it out loud) "hey! free hotel! pool! gas! food! pens and koosh balls with various organization's logos printed on them, from the conference! etc!" so we all went and it was fun and everything. we did the expected shopping, lots of eating, some lounging, and a whole lot of critically mocking, but little did we know that our whole trip would end up revolving around the Best Sugar Cookies In the All of the Land.

turns out that last spring, when rebekah and heidi went to Mesquite (i can't remember 1. why they went in the first place, because who goes to Mesquite?, and 2. why i didn't go with them), they discovered these gems at a mini-mart/gas station in st. george. i'm still in the process of forgiving them for not even telling me about them, let alone for not bringing any back for me. but whatever.

so my point is that we ate a LOT of these cookies over the weekend. mostly for research purposes. we're trying to figure out the recipe. you see, although they're friendly folk, when it comes to the cookie recipe, nobody at the mini-mart is talking. we tried every tactic we could think of, including (but not limited to) flirting, intimidating, sneaking into the back room and looking for it...but we were unsuccessful. so the choice we were left with was to simply eat cookie after cookie, trying to taste each ingredient, until we could decipher the entire recipe using our taste buds alone.

while that plan wasn't successful either, we did each secure a dozen cookies (heidi got two dozen because she's smarter than us) to take home. i have since given away three as precious gifts to close friends, expecting them to be met with a combination of shock and unworthiness (they were more just like "thanks for the cookie"--bastards). i have eaten a few (five). there are two left.

since this trip to st george, my whole focus in life has kind of shifted toward cookies. i've been doing recipe research online, i've been asking experienced bakers (i considered letting them taste a cookie to see if they could determine a secret ingredient, but i realized that would require my giving away another cookie, and i decided it wasn't worth it), i went to the store and purchased some ingredients, and i have thought--on more than one occasion--about making cookies myself. i think it's likely that i'll really do it. possibly this weekend.