sweet?

I recently found a large bag of leftover red and green M&M's in the back of the pantry. I'd made these fabulous pretzel candies (pretzel, chocolate kiss of various holiday flavors, and M&M) for teachers and friends in December and I kept running out of either pretzels or chocolate. Finally I just bought this massive bag. And then I only needed about twenty of them. So, to avoid even more chocolate bingeing around the holidays, I hid them in the back of the pantry. Unlike many people, I can actually live without milk chocolate, especially relatively generic types. (Dark chocolate is a different story.)

Today I decided to bake M&M cookies with the boys, LK and BK. Turns out, BK doesn't like chocolate at all, so he got a few made especially for him. We made Alton Brown's "Chewy" recipe since I've been on a quest for a good chewy cookie for years. The dough had to chill, so I baked them after lunch. I went upstairs while the first batch was cooking, and came down expecting to smell that sweet smell of baking, but instead the house smells like... gardenias.

Last night we had a friend over while his wife is out of town. He thoughtfully brought a bottle of wine and a large selection of gardenias from their yard. The gesture was sweet, but those gorgeous flowers are too sweet. I have a bush of my own in the backyard, doing well after a huge pruning and transplant. It lives next to the compost pile (ha! I wonder if the compost would smell without it?!) enjoying the only rich soil in our yard. It is just getting ready to bloom this year. Maybe I'll bring one little blossom in and float it in a bowl, but a whole vase of them was overwhelming. I just kicked them into the compost from which will come new gardenias next year. Today I'd rather smell cookies baking.