Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Claudia here welcoming you back after a long, intense month of celebrating women, celebrating creative ideas, and celebrating women with creative ideas. What a month it's been!

Before putting the FINAL punctuation mark on our March Madness, two final announcements... Congratulations Lindsay! Your name was drawn as winner of the second deck of, "Women Who Ride The Trail of Truth" cards. Maybe you and your friends can put them to good use at your next, "I Love Food Club" meeting. Second. The recipients of the women you voted most deserving of the award "Woman Who Take the Cake" received their cakes yesterday. Having said that... Good-bye March and...

Hello April!

I think Heather, Katie, and Cheryl would join me in saying we are excited to return to the free-wheeling format we are used to. New day, new topic. No two topics connected, unless of course we get a wild hair and want to create a theme week. So what's in store for today?

Cookies.

Those of you new to the scene might not know 2008 was the year I learned how to pipe and flood cookies. I love this skill. I think I should be able to add it to my resume. You know, Claudia K. Beeny, Ph.D., Master Piper and Flooder. A sugar cookie is just a sugar cookie until you learn how to pipe and flood. Learn this skill and all of a sudden a sugar cookie turns into a million-dollar looking gift, suitable for the your most deserving teachers, neighbors, and colleagues.

"I'm Watching You" Halloween Cookies

"Luck-o-the Irish" Leprachaun Cookies

"SWAK" Valentiene Cookies

Then I had an idea. Introduce you to my all time favorite cookie cutter website - FancyFlour.com - the place dreams are made of. Here at the home of over 600 cookie cutters, the sky is the limit on creativity. There is not a person or occasion for which Fancy Flours does not have a cookie cutter. Need a cookie cutter in the shape of a wrench? Fancy Flours has it. Motorcycle? Got it. Helicopter? Check. Hockey stick, beaver, bathing suit, or chicken leg? Got it. Got it. Got it. And, got it.

But the introduction to Fancy Flours is just the beginning.

Then I had another idea. Challenge you to challenge me. So here's how it will go once a month for the next year. Each month we'll pick an occasion to celebrate. This month? Earth Day (April 22). Each month you will also be invited to browse the Fancy Flour website for the most outrageous, most unseemly, most ridiculous cookie cutter you can find. My challenge? Use the winning cookie cutter (determined by most votes or random drawing) to bake, decorate, package, and deliver a treat that connects your cookie with my holiday. For example, should we have started last month I might have been challenged to connect St. Patrick's Day to the Ostrich cookie cutter.

It gets better. It turns out Fancy Flours liked our idea too. They're playing along. Each month Fancy Flours will send us two of the winning cookie cutters. One is for me to use in the challenge and the other will go to a lucky reader.

Ready to play?

It's easy. Simply (1) click on this link to the site then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on cookie cutters. (2) Pick your jaw up off the floor and then select the one you think will pose the greatest challenge. (3) Make a post in the comment section letting us know which one you picked. Like the one someone else picked out? Cast a second vote for theirs. Thursday morning we will announce the winner. Now let's cook up some fun...
http://www.fancyflours.com/site/cookie-cutters.html

It's good to be back.

Signing off until tomorrow...