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Show Park Record Thursday, September 22, 1988 Page A13 ooo IVE The Bar X Bake-Off BY TOM CLYDE There are darn few things I can cook that anybody else will ever ask for a second chance at My spaghetti out of the bottle is as good as Sed spaghetti can be, but beyond that, meals prepared at my house are always sort of a gamble. In fact, the only thing that I can ever recall being asked to cook for any special event is chocolate chin cookies. r I started making them years ago as a cheap way to indulge my sweet tooth. Later, I fell into the clutches of Mrs. Fields, and was firmly hooked for quite a while. When I realized that my cookie habit was running about even with the car payment I knew it was time to get professional help. I could have gone to Cookies Anonymous, but instead I got a new mixer and started stirring them up at home again. Besides, it's the dough I really like and there aren't many places that will sell a big glob of dough over the counter. And if eating the dough weren't enough, Dr Bob Evers recently gave a speech to the Rotarians (convincing them all that they would die of heart attacks within the week) and said that oatmeal and walnuts were effective means' of lowering cholesterol. Well, as long as they are good for me, too, I'll whip a batch just about any time. My cookies are from scratch, mixed right in the bowl. The recipe is an old family treasure, brought over on a boat from Norway by Grandma Jensen's mother or grandmother. It has been guarded closely for generations, except for an embarrassing em-barrassing slip about 80 years ago. Somebody joined up with the Quakers, and ever since, the old family recipe has appared on the side of the Quaker Oats box. That's what the old coot is smiling smil-ing about. Ignoring that violation, our family has continued to use the hand-written version. These are good cookies, if I do say so myself, but I am not alone in that judgment. My sister's children, who have been fed tons of cookies over the years, insist that mine are better than their mother bakes. That is a kind of blasphemy that my sister is not willing to tolerate for long. We were so far apart in age as kids that there was never any sibbling rivalry problem, but when I started undermining her children with homemade cookies, things got a little tense. For a while, she was full of lame excuses about the oven being too hot, or the altitude being different dif-ferent from what they are used to, and so on. It is, after all, the same recipe. The differences were not something that could be ignored, and finally she decided that I must be doing something wrong. Never mind that my version was better, I was doing something wrong. A few weekends ago, the whole family was out here in Woodland at the ranch. There were two bowls full of cookies, mine and my sister's. Mine were inhaled, hers hung around for three days. That did it, she threw down the gauntlet, or maybe in this case the oven mit. The great Diamond Bar X Ranch Cookie Bake Off was set. The next weekend, she arrived with all her ingredients, in-gredients, and came over to my house. We set up in my kitchen, with my mixer on one side of the sink and hers on the other. Actually, she was not using her own mixer. She was using one that our mother received as a wedding gift, an art deco, streamlined, pre-war piece of Americana. I wanted to call foul. That seemed like an unfair advantage ad-vantage to me. But I pushed on. My brother's wife sat on the other side of the counter taking notes on the operation, and started it off by saying, "Contestants, start you mixers." She was the editor of the Salt Lake Junior League Cook Boot one year, so I sort of expected her to keep careful notes on the process, and announce the winner at the end. After about three ingredients, our dough didn't even look the same. My sister used more brown sugar. She put things in backwards to my way of doing it. My dough was smooth and almost white, hers was grainy and brown. Little differences were emerging. The dough didn't even taste the same. My sister asked for the baking soda, and I handed hand-ed her the little red can with the Indian on it. "That's baking powder. Where's the soda?" It was there in the back of the refrigerator tasting of pizza and other things that have stayed too long at the fair. "Why don't you use this?" I asked giving her the red can again. "It's a lot fresher." "That," I was told. "Is baking powder, not baking bak-ing soda." "I thought they were the same thing." Well, apparently ap-parently they are not. Both my sister and sister-in-law let me know that confusing those two completely com-pletely different things was pretty dumb, and that anybody who knew his or her way around a kitchen kit-chen knew the difference between them. Whatever. I used the stuff in the red can, just like I always did. We put her cookies on half a sheet and mine on the other. When the timer rang, we pulled out exactly ex-actly what I expected. Mine were thick and chewy, and hers were flat and looked burnt to a crisp. I sat there for a minute, expecting to be declared the instant winner, but nobody said anything other than it was sure interesting mat we could follow the same instructions and end up with such different results. Yup, pretty odd. Although I didn't want to gloat about it, I did expect ex-pect her to graciously admit defeat. My cookies were obviously better, and she could have acknowledged it. No such luck. She packed up her burned cookies and the rest of her weird-looking dough, and said she would go back to the other house to bake the rest of them. Guess who got stuck with the dishes? I saw her again a few days ago, and she just happened hap-pened to have baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Her teenage son said they were almost as good as mine. "Just for variety," my sister admitted. admit-ted. "I decided to try using baking powder instead of soda. They came out a little different. But I'm not about to stir the eggs in with the flour." So, I got her cookies corrected. It's probably only on-ly a matter of time before I can fix her politics. i i Suflmmnmiiit ts QmwmsM COMPILED BY HEIDI WEST Assaulted teacher wins suit The Aspen Times An Aspen school teacher won her case and a $125,000 settlement against former superintendent Jim Burks, but quit her teaching job as a result. French teacher Junee Kirk accused Burks of violating her right to free speech following a demotion to substitute after she vocally supported additional funding for the school's foreign language program. She also claimed the superintendent had assaulted her in conjunction con-junction with an April, 1985 incident in his office. Kirk has taught in Aspen since 1968, and spoke out in 1985 in support of the foreign language program. Her attempts at-tempts to encourage parents to pressure the school board for more money apparently embarrassed the superintendent, whom she claims then demoted her to full-time substitute. The demotion came after Burks asked Kirk into his office of-fice to discuss her future employment with the schoor district. Kirk recorded the discussion on a tape recorder hidden in her purse. At the end of the meeting, Kirk revealed the tape recorder and Burks lunged at her to grab it. "I was very scared," she said. "He was on top of me. I couldn't move. And I think my screams, in turn, alarmed alarm-ed him and he jumped off." . School board member Mardell Burkholder came to the office when she heard the screams, and suggested everyone calm down. Bur Kirk ran to the phone to call the police, and filed a suit in District Court soon after the incident. J . . . Although the school district claimed she should not receive any damages for her assault claim because psychological injuries arising from the incident would be covered by Workmen's Compensation, the court disagreed and awarded her the $125,000. ... Burks moved on to a position as superintendent in Rangely, Colo., and Kirk quit her job as soon as she knew she had won her case. Jackson Hole Guide IBM controversial A Teton County School District Superintendent's decision deci-sion to buy $47,000 worth of IBM computer equipment has become controversial in the wake of claims he was offered a combination of an alternative brand and gifts for $17,000. Roger Amadon of UniLlnk told the District Board that he had offered to donate to the schools a computer system that was of the latest technology and which would ultimately cost the district $17,000. But Superintendent Tom Cusack told the board Amadon's offer of-fer was never confirmed. "We followed through all the way," said Cusack. "We never received the commitment." But board members were angry and embarrassed they had never even heard about the offer until papers were signed authorizing the IBM purchase. "I think we needed as much input as possible," said board member Carolynn Hawtin. "I feel really stupid signing a $47,000 contract (when I) never frsard of other options. We're the responsible body, and I don't think anybody here feels that we looked into the options thoroughly." A second board member, George Thompson, agreed. "Procedurally, we did not handle it right. We spent money we didn't need to spend, in retrospect." But Cusack defending his position, saying "The decision deci-sion to get IBM was my decision. I believed it was the right decision at the time." He added he had purchased the advanced IBM PC2 system through a special cut-rate cut-rate program IBM offers to schools, and that had precluded the need for competitive bidding. H9. Battery to mean lost credentials? A former Tahoe science teacher found guilty of battery bat-tery against a 15-year-old female student will go before the California Commission for Teaching Credentialing in Sacramento to determine if his credentials will be revoked. James Whalen Brennan retains his credentials for now, but has not been given a teaching position this year. He is still under contract with the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, according to Frank Mulholland, superintendent for the district. Details are not available, but Brennan was sentenced to three years formal probation, 30 days in jail and 200 hours of community service after he pleaded guilty to charges of battery against the student in January, 1988. The probation department has since received several letters of support for Brennan from community members. However, teachers convicted of child abuse, molestation, rape or unlawful sexual conduct automatically have their license to teach revoked when the conviction becomes final, said commission staff attorney at-torney Walt Taylor. ram me coas' Fresh Seafood Fettucini Marinara $8.95 Includes salad and garlic bread In addition to our specials we feature Halibut, red snapper, sea bass, swordfish, ahi, sole.. .an exciting variety of delicious delicacies are flown in daily for your enjoyment at the Columbine Dinner Club. The Columbine is now open for the summer months. Join us Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. for the best cuisine from the coasts and beyond. Don't miss Ladies Night every Thursday, featuring free champagne. Each Friday is TGIF Night, complete with specials on set-ups. And every Saturday is Seniors Night with $2 off any entree excluding specials. Early Bird Specials are featured from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday with $2 off all entrees. 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