Cookies Rings and Things
A/N Cookie Exchange Challenge created by Mrose. Fic must contain a full cookie recipe. Here is my contribution.
Thanks go to Danese and Joahn for being the wonder betas.
Sara Sidle was a good cook and an excellent baker but she hadn't done either in a very long time. Her mother had said it time and time again but Sara had ignored the older woman, thinking her reasoning was archaic and backward. The words rung in her ears,
"The way to a man heart is through his stomach."
"You have tried shaking your ass dear and it doesn't seem to be doing it for you."
Sara Sidle took offense at the idea that she shook her ass for Gil Grissom. Okay so there had been that Halloween costume. Catwoman should have brought him to his knees but all Roy Rogers did was gave her bored glances and pleasant conversations.
He'd asked her to opera when Catherine had bailed for opening night. The red dress was tight, not ostensibly tight, but tight enough to cause some hip rolling on Sara's part and appreciative glances from everyone but Gil Grissom.
Okay so the ass shaking wasn't working. She opened her favorite cookbook. The pages were stained with vanilla and caked with flour. She used to know the recipes by heart but it had been so long since she had baked. At least four years. Why hadn't she baked anything for her friends? She liked baking. She liked filling the bellies of those she loved.
Her thumb ran across the tabs and landed on chocolate. Grissom loved chocolate. His mother overnighted him fresh batches of chocolate biscotti that he kept locked in his desk drawer. The twice-baked cookies were only to be enjoyed with the 20 dollar per pound coffee that he brewed in his 200 dollar machine.
His aunt sent him dense, dark chocolate brownies that he'd shared with her once. She thought she might be able to duplicate the recipe. Her pallet was keen enough but she wanted something that he would only associate with her. She wanted something that he had to beg her to make. A sweet that he would phone her for if she ever left Vegas. A confection that would breed a connection.
Like a moment from a Harry Potter book, the page fell open and announced itself.
Chocolate, Chocolate-Chip Cookies
1/4
cups all-purpose flour
1
teaspoon baking powder
1/2
teaspoon fine salt
1/4
teaspoon baking soda
1/4
teaspoon ground cloves
8
tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
6
ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2
large whole eggs
1
large egg yolk
1
cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2
teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6
ounces semisweet chocolate chips
6
ounces white chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cloves together in a medium bowl. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove pan from the heat, and add the bittersweet chocolate, set aside until melted.
Whisk the eggs, yolk, brown sugar, and vanilla together in a medium bowl then slowly whisk in melted chocolate mixture. Stir in the flour mixture to make a loose dough. Don't over work the dough. Fold in the chips. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Form dough into balls, about 2 inches or 1 1/2 ounces each, and put on the prepared baking sheets, leaving a couple inches between the cookies. Bake until outside is crackly, but the center is still moist, about 13 to 15 minutes. Cool on a rack.
It was time to exchange Christmas presents. Grissom and Sara did it the same way every year. They went to breakfast. He passed his gift across the table first. She did her second. They waited until Christmas to open them. They exchanged gifts exactly one week before Christmas
It was solid, predictable and reliable, just like them. Only this year Sara was shaking things up. There was a solid predictable gift. A Wynton Marsalis CD. One that was out of print and difficult to find. She'd paid a princely sum for it on Ebay. It was the only one he didn't have but there was a less predictable gift. There were cookies. Born of her own sweat and molded with her own hands.
If she believed in such things as mojo and spells she would definitely think the cookies would do that. She tried not to think of the incantation her mother had delivered via speakerphone while Sara had dropped dough onto a greased cookie sheet. She was only humoring her mother. Right Sidle, that will hold up in court.
Exchanging Gifts
She had gotten to the diner early hoping to steel her nerves, hoping she didn't look stupid, terribly provincial. Less modern. Less Sara. She wasn't surprised that he'd beat her there and had ordered their usual. So much for steeling her nerves.
Her omelet, hash browns and wheat toast arrived with his turkey sausage, fruit, black coffee and pancakes a half a minute before Sara sat down. He waved. She didn't see his gift. That was not a good sign. Grissom's gift usually sat smugly to the right of him. It was always substantial and impressive, a book, large journal, a DVD collection.
She took her seat and slid into their usual red vinyl booth and imagined that the material conformed to her body. She sat her awkward but precisely wrapped gift on the table. Grissom raised his eyebrow but said nothing. He would wait. Maybe.
"How did you beat me here?
He smiled nervously. What was that about? Grissom nervous and was that blushing? This was going to be good.
Six days before.
Artsy Fartsy: Hi ya handsome
BugsBestFriend: You back in California already?
ArtsyFartsy: Artist's boyfriend bought everything.
BugsBestFriend: Why did he do that?
ArtsyFartsy: Um let's see here's a concept, to show her he cared.
BugsBestFriend: Didn't that make her mad?
ArtsyFartsy: I don't know because he bought out the show so he could propose in the gallery that he also bought for her.
BugsBestFriend: What's he do for a living?
ArtsyFartsy :Is that all that you're concerned about, what he does for a living?
BugsBestFriend: Yes, he bough a half million dollars worth of paintings. A gallery in New York. Yeah I want to know what he does for a living. Maybe I'll change my line of work.
ArtsyFartsy: Most of the time I think I did pretty good with you. You are handsome, cultured; smart but you, sometimes Gilbert you are clueless.
BugsBestFriend: I'm not following you. It just doesn't seem very romantic. I mean he's basically saying she can't sell anything on her own so I have to buy her crap and I have to buy a gallery to house it in. I should ask her to marry me too cause she can't support yourself.
Silence
BugsBestFriend: Mom?
ArtsyFartsy: You can't be serious. She was over the moon. What woman wouldn't be?
BugsBestFriend: Sara
Did I just type that?
ArtsyFartsy: Ah Hah. So much for just good friends.
BugsBestFriend: Pretend you never saw that.
ArtsyFartsy: Fat chance buster. I knew it. I thought you went out a few times. What happened?
BugsBestFriend : Nothing.
ArtsyFartsy: Color me surprised.
BugsBestFriend: I'm not good at this Mom and I spent the night at the opera struck dumb.
ArtsyFartsy: Go on.
BugsBestFriend: She had on this dress and it was this color and she had on this lipstick and her hair was done up in this thing with curls and she smelled so good Mom. She smelled like heaven.
ArtsyFartsy: When they sent home the note from school saying they wanted to test you I wouldn't let them not because I didn't want you to be constricted or judged or pressured. Glad I didn't because clearly they were wrong. You are not a genius.
BugsBestFriend: See. I'm not good at this.
ArtsyFartsy: Perhaps you should try a grand gesture of your own dear. What are you buying Sara for Christmas?
BugsBestFriend: I got her VIP tickets to the Advanced Forensics Conference, it's in Vegas this year. Sort of back stage pass to a rock concert. For us it is anyway. Very hard to get even for me.
ArtsyFartsy: Okay
BugsBestFriend: Sara will like it.
ArtsyFartsy: I know she will but your sperm count is getting lower by the day and Sara will be 35 so forgive me if I add bit of wisdom to what is probably a very nice present.
BugsBestFriend: Yeah?
ArtsyFartsy: That was easy.
BugsBestFriend: I am at a loss. I thought it would get better after last year. I thought we were getting close and then everything just stalled.
ArtsyFartsy: After you took what's her face out.
BugsBestFriend: Her name was Sofia mom and it was not a date….exactly. I didn't mean for it be a date it just kinda ended up like that.
ArtsyFartsy: Tell that to Sara. I have nothing against that woman, she only wanted to bed you, Sara cares for you.
BugsBestFriend: Mom!
ArtsyFartsy: Listen.
BugsBestFriend: Listening
ArtsyFartsy: Dinner. Dancing. Jewelry.
BugsBestFriend: Sara's not a girly girl. Not sure how that will go over.
ArtsyFartsy: The dress. The hairdo. You becoming mute. Sounds like girly enough for me.
BugsBestFriend: Point taken. Thanks Mom. Any other advice?
ArtsyFartsy: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe said boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. Begin darling. Begin.
After the Exchange
Gil Grissom was staring at the ceiling and chewing his lip. It was his preamble to getting up, taking a leak and having a cup coffee and a bit of breakfast. The vibration startled him. He didn't hear it so much as felt it. His bear like hand pulled it from the night stand. He squinted at his phone.
ArtsyFartsy: Well?
Gil grinned and punched in a reply.
BugsBestFriend: What?
ArtsyFartsy: Don't even
BugsBestFriend: Worked like a charm. Better in fact.
ArtsyFartsy: Babies and daughter before I die. Too much to hope for?
Sara's warm left hand lay flat on his chest. The emerald cut diamond glinted in the low evening light. She sighed softly and turned her face towards him as her drowsy lips mumbled something about calling her mother.
BugsBestFriend: (He typed the next words with excruciating slowness). Not too much to hope for Mom, not at all.
END