Tulsa's BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie

Well, the great Tulsa cookie debate started as a fun way to celebrate my husband's birthday week. He doesn't like cakes and didn't want any presents for his birthday, he just wanted to go fishing. So, I tried to think of something fun to do for him each day during the week of his birthday to celebrate.

I decided to bring him chocolate chip cookies (his absolute favorite dessert) from all around the Tulsa area each day of the week. I then polled my friends on the best cookie in town via twitter with the simple question, "Where can I find the BEST choc. chip cookie in Tulsa?" Due to the great and varied response, I had more places to get cookies from than a week could handle! So, I decided I'd get cookies from 2 places a day and my husband would have to judge each cookie on 3 things: taste, texture and appearance. Thus, ending up with what HE thinks is Tulsa's BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie! His coworkers also got involved in the tasting and voting!!

Day 1: Old School Bagel and Blue Moon Bakery

Old School Bagel got the most recommendations via twitter. They had 3 different chocolate chip cookie options the day I went in: Hershey Chocolate Chunk, Oatmeal Pecan Chocolate Chunk and Oatmeal Walnut Dark Chocolate. Of these 3, the basic Hershey cookie got the least favorable reviews.


Old School Bagel - Hershey Chocolate Chunk:



Old School Bagel - Oatmeal Pecan:


Old School Bagel - Oatmeal Walnut:

Blue Moon Bakery - Chocolate Chip


The results of Day 1 = Blue Moon Bakery wins all 3 categories: taste, texture and appearance.

Day 2: Ann's Bakery and Merritt's Bakery

These are close to work and I love both baker's cakes so I had to get their cookies.


Ann's Bakery - Chocolate Chip:


Merritt's Bakery - Chocolate Chip:


Day 2 Results: Merritt's Bakery Wins all 3 categories. Merritt's is also winner over Blue Moon Bakery.

Day 3: Caramel and Felini's

Caramel also rated high among twitter recommendations. Their cookie was great, just a little too overcooked to some of the judges' liking.

Caramel - Chocolate Chip:


Felini's - Chocolate Chip:


Day 3 Results: Caramel's cookie wins all 3 categories for the day but Merritt's is still overall winner of the week. (Caramel did have an oatmeal coconut cookie that was phenomenal but, it didn't have chocolate chips, had it, there might have been a different result)


Day 4: Doubletree Hotel


I knew Doubletree ranked high on my husband's list so I had to get him an entire tin. They even gave me my own cookie so he wouldn't have to share!

Doubletree Hotel - Chocolate Oatmeal Pecan


Day 4 Results: Doubletree is outright winner for the entire week and is therefore awarded the title of Tulsa's BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie!! However, the winner of classic chocolate chip cookie (no extras) goes to Merritt's Bakery.

When all is said and done, my husband had a fun birthday week and got to try A LOT of chocolate chip cookies. But, he did tell me that none of the cookies even compared to the homemade cookies my sister makes. You would think he had enough cookies by now...oh no! Not when Ashley makes them. My sister brought him an entire plate of chocolate chip cookies for his birthday to Easter dinner and he finished them all off after only 2 days!!!

Tulsa's Real Cookie Winner: Ashley's Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies


Lesson learned: instead of spending time, gas and money driving all over Tulsa to bakeries for cookies, just pay my sister to make some next year. It will undoubtedly save time and money and end up with a much more satisfied birthday boy!!

Hope you've enjoyed the post as much as we enjoyed tasting all the cookies! Leave me a comment on what your favorite Tulsa cookie is...the contest continues!

UPDATE: I forgot to rank these in order of best to worst so here goes: Ashley Ann's Homemade cookies, Doubletree, Caramel's oatmeal coconut, Merritt's Bakery, Caramel's chocolate chip, Blue Moon Bakery,  Old School's Oatmeal Pecan, Ann's, Old School's oatmeal walnut, Felini's and finally, Old School's chocolate chunck.

Pregnancy Cravings

Frozen custard. Specifically, vanilla concrete with hot fudge and bananas.



Or any frozen treat with hot fudge!






Pancakes!

MMM.

We're having a BABY!!!

Yep! It's true. Baby Z will arrive around July 27th!!!

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati

Long time no post! I could blame it on being busy, but since my sister has 4 kids and updates her blog daily, I thought it best not to blame it on that. Instead, I'll go for just laziness!

So here are a few pics from the last time I posted. I had a conference with work that sent me to Cincinnati, Ohio. I talked Eric into joining me, he did not enjoy the flight:

But, once we landed, we were off to a fun weekend.

We walked all over downtown.

Saw the Bengals stadium while they were practicing.

And headed over to Newport, Kentucky - via the "Purple People Bridge".

And, since Eric is part German, we decided to try out a cool German restaurant called Hofbrauhaus. This is our German sampler, featuring fried zucchini, soft pretzels, potato pancakes and sauerkraut balls. I liked the pretzels and zucchini.

And, this is Eric dancing with a German woman. I asked him what they talked about and he said he had no idea because she didn't speak English! Apparently she did a lot of "ooooohing."


I had conferences all day but we ventured out to Oktoberfest during my lunch break - the world's second largest Oktoberfest was going on the weekend we were there. 500,000 people in a 7 block area and our hotel opened up to the heart of it all! It was nutty, even at 12pm!

Some sites we saw:

And, the crowd from above:


I had a blast and I think Eric had fun too, just not so much the airplane part!

Our Kansas City Adventure

Eric and I took a weekend trip to Kansas City this weekend in search of good food and free fun...mission accomplished! As you know, when we go on vacation food is usually the main attraction so the hunt for the best barbeque began. I did a lot of research before we left and found our top two places to try. I narrowed it down to Oklahoma Joe's and Fiorella's Jack Stack, although Gates was highly recommended, their's is supposed to be more Memphis style so we nixed that one.

First on the agenda was a stop in Kansas City, Kansas at Oklahoma Joe's Barbeque. Anthony Bourdain (No Reservations guy on tv) wrote an article in Men's Health, "13 Places to Eat Before You Die" and OK Joe's came in at #13. He also stated, "It's the best BBQ in Kansas City, which makes it the best BBQ in the world." That said, we had to try it. We waited in line for about an hour, oh, this place was located inside a corner gas station, and the wait was well worth it. The ribs were the best restaurant/gas station ribs I've had to date. This place lived up to the hype. The other bbq place we ate, not so much.

My meal:

Then is was off to Kansas City, Missouri.


We happened to go on the weekend of an art festival downtown so we checked that out (free).


Then we went on a photo adventure through downtown. Eric in front of the AMC followed by the legendary Drum Room.

Then we headed off to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (free). This place was awesome. You could spend hours in this place and not see everything. I'm a big fan of sculptures and oversized art, so I had a blast with the shuttlecocks!

We also did some shopping (not free) in the Crown Center and there just happened to be a LEGO exhibit going on so I had to check it out for my nephews (free). There were over 30 sculptures completely made out of LEGOS!

Then it was off to try the second barbeque joint, Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbeque. This place was voted Best in 2008 by VisitKC.com. I thought it was good, not the best. It was a fancy restaurant (nothing like a bbq joint) and had fancy prices to match.

For our final day, we hit the Crown Plaza shopping district and picked up a new car.

Okay, we didn't get the car but the owner did let me hop in it for a photo op after he saw me through the restuarant window posing by it. (free)

So, if you haven't thought about Kansas City for a weekend getaway, I'd say it's worth the drive.

Stuff the Bus

Fishing at Flint Creek

Eric and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed out to Flint Creek for a day of fishing. We caught crawdads, sunfish and smallmouth bass - it was a blast.

This is where we fished: (see eric in the lower left corner?)



A little sunfish





Me and my fish. I think this picture is funny because it makes my arms look massive, watch out!





And the snake with his prey:





I wish I would've got a picture of the crawdads, but oh well, maybe next time.

Sketch-A-Day

In an effort to de-simplify my life (can you feel the sarcasm?), I decided to try to do a "sketch-a-day". I am almost finished with my photography adventure of a photo-a-day, today is day 357, and as I near completion, I decided to challenge myself with a daily sketch.

According to many people that do this, it's supposed to stimulate creativity as well as keep your mind sharp and you may find that you become a better artist after all's said and done. By definition a sketch isn't supposed to take more than 15 minutes so they are supposed to be quick and painless. I've decided to sketch something I come into contact with on that specific day.

Here are some of the first attempts...try not to be too critical, they are merely sketches (some colored sketches!)

You Grow Girl

I came across a really fun gardening site: yougrowgirl.com. Not only is it super informative, they also have a store where you can buy...wait for it...


That's right, Garden Hoe t-shirts. I need to set up a wish list on this site.

So, since I'm a girl that grows things, here are some pics from the garden.





And, totally unrelated, a photo of the Mother's Day Meatfest

Spring Garden Salad

Spring Garden Salad - 334/365, originally uploaded by lesleyraez.

I love spring! With spring comes fresh veggies from the garden! Here's a simple salad recipe that's sure to please.

Ingredients:

• bowl of mixed greens (cut into strips)
• sliced radishes
• sliced green onion
• shaved carrots cut into pieces
• quartered grapes
• crumbled feta cheese

Top it off with the dressing of your choice, I'm quite fond of White Balsamic dressing.

Enjoy!