Like eating a candle...

My family took a lot of vacations out west- Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, mostly. We stayed a lot of cool places, resorts, golf courses, the place that Kobe Bryant got in trouble at. However, my favorite was this place:

Triple Creek Ranch

They serve lavender ice cream in the dining room. As in the purple flower famous in Provence that smells really, really awesome. If you've read my little "About me" blurb you know I LOVE Lavender ice cream (enough to include it in my About Me). Seriously, my devotion to the stuff is a little awkward, especially when you're asked "what's your favorite ice cream?" by a 6 year old and when you tell them lavender, they look at you like you're absolutely the dumbest person on earth as they reply (slowly, for effect) "But that's a FLOWER..." Well, no duh, little kid-who-can't-drink-or-drive-or-go-to-the-bathroom by yourself, but it's also an ice cream. According to someone else, it sounds like like eating a candle. This is why I'm married to A. He's open minded about candle eating. Sure, old ladies put it in their granny panty drawer to make the parachutes smell fresh, but they're missing out.

Lavender ice cream is indeed, the best method of eating flowers. But it's cold out, and we don't have an ice cream maker cause it takes up a lot of space and time. But have no fear, there's another, almost equally delicious media available for lavender consumption: shortbread. It's is my favorite cookie, and a great media for all kinds of fun flavor experiments. It's hard to wax enough poetic about just how wonderful shortbread is- flaky, buttery, kind of sweet but not too much so. Even better, it's easy, simple, to the point, and made with things that I would hazard 90% of people who cook have in their kitchen: 1 cup butter, 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar. 17minutes at 350 degrees. This makes a small batch since I don't have any friends to share with, but it's all proportional. You could up the ante to a half- dump truck of sugar, a dump truck of butter and 2 dump trucks of flour if you wanted to bake shortbread for the army. Or a football team.

In order to actually infuse the butter with the lavender taste, I let it get to room temperature, beat the lavender in, and then let it sit in the fridge for a few days. Alternatively, you could put the lavender in the sugar for a week or so and then sift out the lavender for a more subtle hint of lavender (baby steps for the dubious?), or melt the butter down with the lavender in it (which I haven't tried). However, I don't mind eating flowers- when I was little, my friends and I tried making tea out of pansies (they're edible!)- it didn't work, so I just throw them in there. In case you're wondering where to get gourmet quality lavender, McCormick makes some- I got mine at Kroger in the spice section when I still lived in Lexington.

The mixture is super crumbly when you mix it, don't be alarmed! Be sure not to overwork the dough or you won't have flaky shortbread and that is a sin. You can cut it out with cookie cutters- I find it's helpful to stick the dough back in the fridge every few minutes so you can actually get it off whatever you're cutting the shapes out onto...

Finally, you stick them in the over. And they smell great. And you realize that the recipe you were using was wrong, and you shorten the cooking time to 17 minutes and they're perfect, instead of black like they would have been if you followed the recipe. Pay attention to your cookies, people. Because then, and only then, do you get these...

... that you'll eat for the rest of the night instead of a real dinner.