Try These Lemon Bars -- I Implore You!

The scent of lemon is still on my fingers as I type. I'm letting the unbaked crust of my lemon bars chill, and the filling is made. I had to zest 2 lemons and juice 4 for the filling, and the smell is so fantastic I don't even want to wash my hands.

I can't in good conscience give you the recipe for the bars. It would be against copyright law. More than that, it would be highly unjust to deprive you of the great food writing that comes along with the recipe.

If you have never read Cooks Illustrated magazine, please do! And if you have, but you've never seen the Perfect Lemon Bar recipe, please find it! Though I have 7 years of back issues, I'm happy to say that the recipe is also in The Best Recipe cookbook.

It is big and expensive. It is worth it. But you can easily find it at a library and try some things from there. Let me tell you the recipes that make me weep with joy and gustatory ecstasy:

Perfect Lemon Bars
Best Peanut Butter Cookie (unbelievable)
Best Oatmeal Cookie
Best Muffins
Molasses Spice Cookies (incredible)
and lest you think I only bake deserts,
Salmon with Crispy Crust (The crust is crushed kettle chips, mustard, and dill. Better than restaurant salmon. My friend's husband says "my" salmon, which is the Cook's salmon, is now his gold standard for all salmon dishes.)

There is one other recipe that has literally brought me to the verge of tears -- in a good way, that is. I made the Pecan Sticky Buns in Baking with Julia (another pricey one, but so worth it. I got mine like new at a super used price ). I made them first for Christmas, and they immediately became "the holiday roll." Easter and Christmas have a new traditional food at our house.

To make the buns, you have to first make brioche dough. The recipe is from Nancy Silverton, and if you like cookbooks you may recognize her name. She's Mrs. Artisan Bread. (And she's a mother too.) The dough has to be beaten and beaten and beaten, then tons of butter is added and it is beaten and beaten again. The texture, the coolness, the faint sheen of this dough, coupled with the strenuous, time-consuming labor of making it, had me on a crazed baking high for the rest of the day.

Like to bake? Make this dough!!

These are my all-time favorite cookbook recipes, though I have favorites from other cookbooks as well. In fact, I'm proud to say that I cook from almost all my cookbooks nearly enough to justify the crazy number I own. (I've had a recent influx, so I've got some catching up to do.) I once purged several, but now I'd give anything for my old, worn-out paperback of the original Frugal Gourmet, so now I'm more cautious. Even when I'm making something up, I enjoy knowing that my friends Julia, Martha, Ina, Laurel, Mollie, Deborah, my newest pal Crescent Dragonwagon (!) and the rest are up on top of my Hoosier cabinet looking down and smiling at me!