Back In The Day

I am older than my brother by approximately a year and a half.  Which doesn’t mean a lot now. But back when we were kids?

I was THE boss.

When butter and peanut butter are the foundation, you know it’s gonna get good…

He was a pretty decent sport about it, though. He’d let me make the executive decision to play beauty parlor or dress up regularly enough. And to show I wasn’t a heartless dictator, sometimes his teenage mutant ninja turtles would be allowed to save the day when it was time to have adventures with Barbie.

I know. I’m such a giver.

Anyway, little did he know, my power was self-appointed. And little did he know that I really had no idea what I was doing. Like ever.

Probably like most political leaders today. (ZING)

My new mixer! This one hopefully won’t attempt to kill me by having parts of beaters fly all about…

But that didn’t matter. So when I had the brilliant idea to recreate sledding in the middle of summer?

He was down to clown.

So how did we do it, you ask?

Rolling dough into balls… and trying not to eat all the dough…

Well. Our house is on top of a hill. A hill just big enough to have a house on it and that’s it.

Anyway, there’s also a retaining wall built into the hill. It’s hard to explain, but basically imagine a steep hill and a wall at the bottom of it. With a tree was hanging out about 10 feet away from said wall.

I started making the cookies pretty like the traditional peanut butter cookie would be. But then I realized it wouldn’t matter in the end… time efficiency is important!

As a 5-year-old, I was pretty confident in my navigating abilities.

Yes. There was great confidence that I would be able to steer my little red wagon down a hill between two obstacles.

Did I mention I was 5 and also thought I could fly if I closed my eyes and wished it really really hard?

As for the “puppy chow” coating… you know I’m not one to make a dessert without chocolate being involved…

Long story short, the glory of flying down the hill in our little red wagon was a wonderful full 10 seconds before slamming directly into the retaining wall.

As the leader who wanted the best view, I was in front. Because I was in front, I also smacked into the retaining wall. Wagons didn’t have airbags back then.

Dipping the tops of cookies into the peanut butter chocolate coating. The original recipe requires you to dip the ENTIRE cookie into it… but that seemed almost excessive…

No brain damage occurred (shut it, I know what you’re thinking), but boy does the head bleed easily.

My brother was unharmed physically, which further strengthens the argument of why children should not sit in the front passenger seat until the age of 12, however, I think he was a little jarred emotionally as I was screaming and crying about ALL THE BLOOD OMG.

I do feel bad if there was any long term harm done. Sorry, brother.

Anyway… all the blood loss came from a teeny tiny cut in my head, and after a few days, my brother and I were back in cahoots together.

The whole reason I even bothered to tell you this long and drawn out story is that we were like two peas in a pod. No matter what the idea or scheme, I could always count on him as a backup. Whether it be flying down a hill like idiots, or most importantly, stealing as many cookies as possible from the kitchen.

The original recipe calls for way more powdered sugar. But I didn’t really find it necessary, either. The cookies are super rich as-is.

My mom used to make massive batches of puppy chow (muddy buddies- whatever) and leave it out to harden. As soon as she left the kitchen? Game on. In and out of the kitchen we’d go… mouths full of puppy chow.

It’s amazing my brother and I didn’t contract diabetes as children. Because when we weren’t stuffing our faces with freshly made cookies/sweets, we were spooning the dough out of the bowl. Or eating whipped cream out of the container.

Yes that happened and no, we’re not ashamed.

The peanut butter makes them healthy. Protein, don’t ya know…

So there ya go. A double throwback to stories of a more innocent age and cookies that everyone in the world seemed to grow up with.

Those were the days…

For those of you who happen to love puppy chow as much as I do, here’s the recipe. Straight from the Betty Crocker website. Although I did actually make Martha Stewart’s peanut butter cookies on my own. Using the mix just wasn’t going to cut it this time. I couldn’t have eaten spoonfuls of peanut butter that way.

*Shoulder shrug*

And I swear I tried to find a picture of said hill/retaining wall. But alas… there isn’t one. So instead, here’s a picture of me bottle feeding a calf.
Close enough.

Happy weekend!

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