Peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate, oh my

Back to basics: As much as I love elegant confections, there's nothing quite as satisfying as the all-American cookie--plain old grocery store ingredients, no chilling or rolling or sea-salt sprinkling. These little guys hit all the right notes: peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate chip, the holy trinity (can an atheist say that the day before Easter?)

I used this recipe and was delighted to see that the Brown-Eyed Baker suggested using my favorite cookie technique, stolen from Baking Illustrated, which is detailed here. It's only a bit of extra effort and the cookies always turn out magazine-pretty.

These kept very nicely in an air-tight tin for a number of days, longer than most cookies (or maybe I was just happy to keep eating them after they passed their peak. What's the difference?)

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Girl dogs: This last week has been crazy-busy for me work-wise but lucky for Soph, her BFF Ruby came to stay with us, so she didn't even notice my reduced attention. Those two girls! They played and wrestled and snoozed, slurped water and chomped cookies. What a life!

Frances was more of an independent spirit--she liked other dogs perfectly well, but with the exception of a yellow lab named Sunny she saw once in awhile, we never really observed her playing so exuberantly. She was more of a person-dog. Sophie and Ruby are dog-dogs, like littermates, playing in that mouthy, puppy way, making their odd dinosaur noises, then collapsing in a heap. The other morning we woke to find them deeply asleep in the same bed, although they had started the night each on their own nest.

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The Hungry Dog goes abroad...again! Well, it's a bit premature as no flights have been booked, but we're planning our first trip to Italy! We'll go in the fall for two weeks, most likely Rome and some time in Tuscany, although nothing is settled yet. Recommendations, please!