To Make It Easy To Celebrate

 To make it easy to celebrate "Bake Cookies Day", you won't have to go looking far for a recipe.

Our favorite holiday cookie, which has come to have no name but "those chocolate ones."

Melt together one cup of semisweet chocolate chips, two squares of baking chocolate, and two tablespoons of butter.

While that's melting, mix 1/4 cup flour with 1/4t baking powder and a dash of salt (or use self-rising flour).

When the chocolate is all melted, pull the pan off the heat and add 2 eggs, 2/3cup sugar, and 1t vanilla, and mix well.

Add the flour, incorporate, and then another cup of chocolate chips.

If you really want to make it fun, add nuts, chocolate candies, butterscotch chips, or raisins.

Drop by the heaping tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet -- make them big, everyone likes it when they are big cookies.

Bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes.  They should look like a brownie, with a dull and crackled surface.

Cool thoroughly and enjoy.  They don't last long.


Today is:

Bake Cookies Day -- the holiday for everyone!

Eponalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (feast of Epona, goddess of fertility and horses, mules, and donkeys; during the Saturnalia and the only Roman honoring of a Celtic deity)

Flake Appreciation Day -- snow or human, your choice!

Icelandic Yuletide Lad of the Day, Hurdaskellir -- Door-Slammer, a noisy fellow who tries to keep everyone awake

International Migrants Day -- UN

Khoiak Ceremony for the Sokar Festival -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (falcon god; date approximate)

Let's See What We Find In the Fridge Day -- to bravely see if you've left anything in the back that you shouldn't have

National Day / Founder's Day -- Qatar

National Roast Suckling Pig Day
 
National Scrooge Week begins -- at least according to Mr. Ed

Nuestra Senora de la Soledad -- Oaxaca, Mexico (Our Lady of Solitude, Patron of the lonely, of Oaxaca, and of sailors who bring her pearls)

Republic Day -- Niger

St. Flannan's Day (Patron of Killaloe, Ireland)

Tulya's E'en -- Orkney Island (beginning of the Yule season when evil spirits roamed; date approximate, as we aren't sure if they equated Yule initially with Dec. 25 or the 22nd)

Wear a Plunger On Your Head Day -- observe this internet generated holiday at your own risk (and you will be one of the human flakes, i guess, that the rest of us appreciate)*


Anniversaries Today:

New Jersey becomes the 3rd US State, 1787
The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, outlawing slavery, takes effect, 1865


Birthdays Today:

Christina Aguilera, 1980
Katie Holmes, 1978
Earl "DMX" Simmons, 1970
Rob Van Dam, 1970
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin, 1964
Brad Pitt, 1963
Leonard Maltin, 1950
Steven Spielberg, 1946
Keith Richards, 1943
Ossie Davis, 1917
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, 1917
Douglas Fraser, 1916
Betty Grable, 1916
Ty Cobb, 1886


Today in History:

Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic, BC218
Kublai Khan renames his empire "Yuan", officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of China, 1271
The Mayflower lands in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts with 102 Pilgrims on board, 1620
Abel Tasman becomes first European to land in New Zealand, 1642
Thomas Fleet publishes "Mother Goose's Melodies For Children", 1719
Empress Maria Theresa expels Jews from Prague, Bohemia & Moravia, 1774
The first celestial photograph (of the Moon) is made in US, by John Draper, NYC, 1839
William Bond obtains the first photograph of Moon through a telescope, 1849
Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discover the ancient Indian ruins of Mesa Verde, 1888
The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic, 1900
The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is supposedly found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson, 1912
Japan joins the United Nations, 1956
Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker, 1966
Dominica joins the United Nations, 1978
HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium, 1997
The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia, 2006

*Unless this should have been Wear A Brand New, Never Before Used Plunger on Your Head Day, and was started by the plumbing supply industry