X-treme Candy-making

So I'm sitting here and I'm a little hungry and in the mood for some cookies. I'm browsing around and I come upon this site, pastrywiz.com and though I haven't checked out the cookie recipes yet, I have a feeling this is probably the wrong place to look.

I was thinking along the lines of some plain, old-fashioned peanut-butter cookies - these pastry wiz folks are way harder-core than that. There's a whole section here on sugar blowing. I had no freaking idea what kind of radical things were going on in pastry kitchens these days, nor did I know what sugar blowing was...but these people are melting and shaping sugar with a full-on blowtorch and metal tube like a glassmaker and throwing together things like the sugar-swan pictured above.

There are step-by-step instructions for any of you culinary extremists out there who'd like to give it a shot, but remember - The Ends of the Earth and it's proprietor take no responsibility for any third degree burns you may incur by way of your dangerous pastry thrill-seeking. As for myself, I'm going to wait until tomorrow and buy one of those little rolls of cookie-dough - I may not even bother to cook it.