Although I don’t like to admit it, I share a few things in common with Martha Stewart. We both grew up in New Jersey, we both love holidays, especially Christmas, and we both are obsessed with Christmas cookies.
I blame it all on my Mom. Every Christmas Mom went a little wild. She’d spend the weeks leading up to that most wonderful holiday baking not one, not two, but at least a half a dozen different kinds of cookies, the recipes for which came almost exclusively from the kitchen “bible”, The Joy of Cooking. There were Spritz cookies with colored sprinkles, Jelly Tots imprinted with the thumbs of her children and then filled with grape jelly, Mandelplattchen, an almond cookie that was shaped in the form of a horse shoe, Snow Caps, a mint meringue that was the favorite of my sister and I, and Gingerbread Men (and Women) that the four of us carefully decorated with way too much colored icing and hung on the tree. Each cookie was carefully packed in its own tin and desserts throughout the season consisted of various assortments of those cookies placed decoratively on a Christmas plate. Even Santa got a sampling of those cookies and apparently he liked what he tasted because every Christmas morning the plate was empty.
We all helped. We baked on the weekends, as I recall, and it took the whole day. Even my brothers got into the act and after we were done the kitchen was awash with food coloring, sprinkles, crushed nuts and red hots. Things haven’t changed much.
For as long as I’ve had my own oven, I’ve participated in this traditional ritual. Like my Mom, I started out with recipes from the “bible”. They’re tried and true and I knew they worked. Over time however, I’ve deviated a bit and have collected my fair share of cookie recipes from friends, colleagues, cookie cook books and yes, even my friend Martha Stewart. I have an entire kitchen binder devoted just to cookies and that binder is subdivided into sections denoting occasions suited for the particular cookie. (Did I mention it's an obsession?) Of course, the Christmas section is the fattest.
Not every cookie is worthy of being a Christmas cookie. At the risk of sounding like a cookie snob, there are every day cookies and then there are Christmas cookies. Chocolate Chip cookies are every day cookies, Gingerbread Men are not. Oatmeal cookies are every day cookies, Pizzelles are not. Lemon Bars (one of my favorites, I might add) are every day cookies (but best in the spring when there are lots of lemons) Mandelplattchen are definitely not. You get the idea. There are cookies that you make when the kids have to bring cookies to school or the girls are coming over for tea or your realtor husband is hosting an open house (see Frances Rivetti’s blog) and there are cookies that should be saved for a special occasion, when you want people to ooh and ahh, cookies that merit the title of “present”, cookies that leave people looking forward to next year.
Those are my kind of cookies. The only problem is, I have too many to choose from. The kids and the husband have their favorites, as do I, but so do the various teachers, secretaries, and colleagues who have come to expect them over the years. Just the other day my neighbor handed me a CD of Christmas music from a former boss of my husband. “He wanted me to tell you not to feel obligated to give him cookies this year,” she said, conveying his message with a big grin.
“Gee thanks Mom,” I think to myself as I put yet another pan in the oven long after the kids have gone to bed. I'm definately a chip off the old block.