M&M Cookies (with walnuts!)

by Grace

(pictures by Sophia)

     Most of us know that on the back of m&m packs, we are presented with a recipe on how to make m&m cookies. 

     Sophia and I decided to actually take this recipe suggestion. We did not, unfortunately, have enough M&M'S (due to my eating quite a few of them - although, in my own defense, that was before I knew we were going to bake cookies for the blog).  
     Because of this lack of M&M's Sophia had the idea to include walnuts. My dad is allergic to walnuts, so we had to split the batch and put less m&m's in the batch with walnuts. I think it turned out pretty well.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) Butter
• 2/3 cup Brown Sugur
• 2/3 cup Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups Flour
• 1 1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1 3/4 cups M&M'S Brand Milk Chocolate Candies (or dark)
• Approx., optional 1 cup of Walnuts

*Words in red are not from original ingredient list. 

Instructions:

It's always good to have two bowls when baking: one for the dry ingredients and one for the wet. I don't know why. That's what my grandma said. 
Text in quotations are taken directly from the back of the m&m bag. 

1. "Preheat oven to 350 degrees." Well...later in the recipe, we are told to let the dough chill for either one hour or overnight. So it's going to be one of those times where you should just use your judgement on when start preheating.  
2. "In a large bowl, cream butter and both sugars are until well blended. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix to combine." We had to put the butter into our microwave for 20 seconds to make it soft enough to cream. After that, we cut them into large dices. 



Slice the butter to make it easier to cream. Easier=better in this case.




3. "In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together. Slowly add these ingredients into the butter mixture and stir until combined."



Sifting is too mainstream for us...at least until we find our sifter. "Slowly add these ingredients" were instructions also ignored, but only by accident.


4. "Fold in the M&M'S Brand Milk Chocolate Candies [or dark chocolate, if preferred]..." For those of you including walnuts - include them now! Chopped is better. You decide the size of the pieces. If you have to split the batch like we had to, go ahead and do it now; split the batch in half or however you want to split it, and fold in your M&Ms in both batches, and only mix in the walnuts with one. We used about 1/2 cup of walnuts or more for half the batch.



Grace with a knife...proof that we don't actually know what we're doing.









5. "...and chill the dough for 1 hour, or overnight."Initially, this is where we realized that we had forgotten to preheat the oven - and we were glad of it. You can put the cookie dough in cellophane.
6. Now we wait. Alas! We have cookies on our mind, but we must wait. Sophia and I played improv games while waiting. We may not be chefs (or even actresses), but we know how to have fun. 
7. "Drop dough by rounded tablespoons tablespoons onto a lightly greased tray, about 2 inches apart."
8. "Bake for 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies, or 12-14 minutes for cripsy cookies. Enjoy!" We have an old oven that doesn't seem to take normal oven-time suggestions very well: for us, it was 8 minutes and the bottom rack of cookies were crispy and very slightly burned. But that's the way we like it anyway.
9. Allow to cool for a bit. We like warm, freshly-baked cookies, though. 
10. NOW EAT!!! *OM-NOM-NOM-NOM*

"Yes, I'll have all of them, thanks."
Bon appetit!

Thank you for baking with us! Coming soon: "Melt-in-your-mouth muffins!"

Pi is an irrational number - Star Trek

In celebration of Pi Day, here is a Star Trek reference of the eternal, irrational, mind blowing number.

We are just so entertained by you, Spock.

COMING UP SOON - Baking with the Moore Sisters:

• m&m cookies
• "melt-in-your-mouth" muffins

Audition for Carnegie Hall

Post by Grace

This is my first shot at auditioning for Carnegie Hall. It's not a perfect performance, but I know that whatever happens is God's will.

International Competitions

by Grace

At the beginning of August, I won my first international competition that I made to the finals. (The only other time I even entered was last year.)
The competition was LA Young Musicians International Competition. They generously gave me 1,000 dollars for winning in my category.
Also, I was shocked to see that I had won a special award for Best Contemporary Music Performance. This was not previously announced and thus, a surprise - and a delightful one at that.
I was so nervous before playing in this competition. I couldn't even eat before the final round (which, if you know me, is surprising). However, Jesus helped me get through it.
He helped me play amazingly for the semi-final round - better than I had ever done before. I was able to express the right feelings: the pain of Ravel hidden under the waves of his Une Barque Sur L'ocean, occasionally coming out in a pained G-sharp. And then I played my contemporary piece, and I was able to portray a lonely, solitary, silent feeling of being alone outside on a snowy day, reflecting on death. At the end was a warm light from heaven.
I bowed. Outside, my mother and I were giddy with delight.

I messed up on my pieces for the final round. Forget the tauntingly long row of judges. There is nothing worse than being surrounded by a room full of your competitors and their vicious mothers, and messing up in front of them. I was lucky to be able to finish my Bach. Angela Hewitt, a specialist in the interpretation and performance of Bach, said, "Playing Bach can be like playing a tongue twister." That was how it was to me.
But I did my best. I tried to show Bach's reverence for God in it. I then played my Debussy. I tried to show the fairies in the woods.

Afterwards, I cried on the way home. I was disappointed by my performance, but I wasn't that sad because I had done my best. Also, I was exhausted, and my body was sore in random places - as if I were seventy instead of fourteen!

We got the call. Before we received the results, my mother and I talked about it. Usually, people who mess up are immediately dropped, or given Honorable Mention. We were hoping that the judges would remember how well I did in the semi-finals and give me third place.
They told me I received first.

And then there was the Hong Kong international competition that I participated in a few weeks ago. It is officially called Alice and Eleanor Schoenfield Strings Competition. The awards were, in order of descent from best to worst: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Outstanding, Excellent. Sophia and I both won the "Outstanding" awards. We thank God for this.

It was a very good experience. And that is the thing about all international competitions, and all competitions in general. You gain experience that will only benefit you in life. You grow. You learn what to do and what not to do in the future. You discover your mistakes, new things about yourself, and even realize things about your relationship with God and other people around you.

I learned in my competitions that if you really do your best, there will always be good fruit to your labor, even if the outcome wasn't what you wanted.
When I did my best in the LA competition, I wasn't even that sad that I had messed up. I was proud of myself, and that I had kept going forward.
I also learned other lessons (that I'm sure will have to be repeated in my life), like humility and patience. Most of all I am realizing more and more, that all the glory is truly to God.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

Grandma Paula's Tip for Getting Jars to Open

Ever had a jar lid that was so tough to twist you just wanted to throw the whole thing against a wall and let it smash? 

Cue the Sherlock reference: 

          Grace (Sherlock): *throws jar against the wall*

          Sophia (John [/Jawn]): *runs into the room* WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!

          Grace: I couldn't get the jar to open.

          Sophia: *stares at mess, groans at damaged wall*

          Grace: *continues* I was going to look up a way to get it open, but I was too frustrated and lazy.

          Sophia: So you took it on the wall?

          Grace: Oh, the wall had it coming.

Anyway, that was a little extreme. A little.

So here is the scientific way to get your jar lid to come off. Run the lid under hot/warm water. This makes it expand, therefore loosing the lid's grip on the jar. 

Now here is my grandmother's more efficient way of getting the job done. *Flip the jar upside-down and bang it on the counter several times. 

**Always works.

~Grace

*Maybe put a towel on the counter before you do this. I doubt the jar will break. Not sure about the counter. Honestly, you don't need to bang it that hard.

** IT REALLY DOES.

CANADA - Arrival (Day 1)

GRACE: THIS COLOR

Sophia: this color

Grace: Well, thanking God we're here safe and sound. The plane ride was smooth - 

except for the turbulence - yes, and well, we're so glad to see our grandparents and their lovely new house. Vancouver is lovely. Their house is lovely. *dreaming* Sophia and I will live here someday. 

The Vancouver airport was lovely- way better than LAX. 

Yeah, I liked the sculptures and the natural colors to decorate the place. And there were waterfalls travelling down next to the staircases. Anyway, enough about the Vancouver airport. 

Now, my grandparents' talented African grey parrots. They are Baby and Coco. We're not sure how old Coco is, but we're sure he's just as old as Baby, if not several years older. Baby is 20. THAT PARROT IS OLDER THAN ME. 

Baby is a show-off. He's the social parrot out of the two. He likes to dance, especially when you're dancing with him, and he's the one that talks more, singing "lalala" and doing perfect impressions of my grandmother. It is comical the way he flips upside-down and bobs up and down. Just tell him to dance.

Now, to teach him the Mendelssohn Concerto...

Now Coco, has LAID THREE EGGS. Not at once. Unfertilized, yes (like a chicken), but still. EGGS. No, my grandparents did not eat the eggs. They are both very adorable and witty! They can imitate beeps, and even the sound of an electric brush! Beep beep, brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!

Hopefully after the dinner my grandma and mother is making, we're play Mexican Train Dominoes. 

Bach Festival 2013 - Why Bach Was a Mastermind

The yearly Bach Festival has arrived, and I (Grace) will be competing this Sunday. My piece is the French Övuerture.

The piece makes me wonder what Bach was like. I wish I could've met him - he was so brilliant. It must have been dark times for him when he composed the French Overture, or at least the first part of it. The piece makes me able to visualize Bach, saying "God...look what's happened." But he isn't crying. It's just pretty dark. Actually, Bach did lose a lot of close people. He had twenty kids, most of whom died. His first wife died. His second wife died as well.

If you heard even the first chord, you'd understand what I'm rambling on about. It's direct and straight to the heart. It's the sensation that you kinda want to cry and you kind of don't but you're a bit too tired to anyway. 

My piano teacher said, and I agree, that it's like a man who has a lot of inner pain but still maintains a strong outward look.
She also said, that to play my piece, there must be:

• nobility
• gracefulness
• glory
• humility
• gentleness

And I think also, the image of Jesus on the cross. 

The piece is in a sharp, dramatic b minor. Not a warm F Major. Not a wet, sad b-flat minor. B minor.
Yet throughout the whole piece Bach wove hope. The piece is so sad, yet the last chord (which is also sad) is so full of glory. Glory to God.

Bach said it better - "Ad majorem Dei gloriam."