I have been growing out my hair for a solid two years now. I’ve never had long hair in my life. By long, I mean past my shoulders. Even when I was little, I always sported the bowl cut, thanks to my fashionista parents. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

Yup, that’d be me in the middle with my two sisters by my side. Now that I’m old enough to make my own decisions, I caught on quickly to see that the bowl cut wasn’t coming back anytime soon (not that it ever was in) and that I needed a new hair-do… pronto. Let me tell you, growing out your hair is not an easy task.

I tried a couple years earlier growing out my hair, but gave into the sudden urge of chopping it all off… not to mention dying it blonde:

It’s been a long way since then, and now I finally have it at a decent length:

Now, I want to get a loose wave/spiral perm. Nothing too crazy, just to get some waves now that my hair is long enough. Problem is, my hairstylist doesn’t do perms! She’s AMAZING with everything else, though. So the question is: who do I go to? This is what I’m going for without having to curl it everyday:

Does anyone have any suggestions for a hairstylist to go to that can do a loose spiral perm in the LA area? Or anywhere by LA is fine, too. I don’t mind driving. A little change is good!

Which leads me to these cookies; I’ve baked many chocolate chip cookies, but this one’s changed just a bit. A little change to spice things up. The addition of salty pretzels is actually quite brilliant and I don’t know why I didn’t do it before. My boyfriend didn’t care much for them, saying that the other chocolate chip cookies are better, but I’ll leave that up for you to decide.

I used pretzels from this GIANT bucket from Costco. Everything in our house is from Costco, but that’s another story.

Recipe is from Sugar Cooking and makes approximately 24 cookies. Check out the dough!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 1/4 tsp. of baking soda
• 1/2 cup of butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup of tightly packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup broken up pretzel pieces

Directions:

1. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugars together until well blended. On low speed, slowly add the beaten egg and vanilla extract until combined.
3. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture until the batter comes together. Stir in the chocolate chips, and pretzels. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 350F. Form the dough into balls and place on baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

As if there aren’t enough chocolate chip cookie recipes already, this one’s a little bit different. I know they’re titled “Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies,” but I’d call them “Just a bit different chocolate chip cookies that have major potential.” Okay.. so maybe that isn’t the most ideal name for them. These come from the guy who cooks and have just a bit of a kick to them. I do adore the addition of malt milk powder since I’m a HUGE whopper/maltesers fan. I think with a bit of tweaking, this recipe could be a real standout (perhaps adding another egg yolk would help give it a chewier rather than crumbly texture).