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More Thoughts on Cookies from Tony

December 25, 2016 By Philip Leave a Comment

Regular guest contributor, Tony, has this to say on holiday confectionery:

Cookies!

Cookies!

Cookies!

Let me begin by stating that I like cookies. I hope that I do not offend anyone who gave us cookies this year. Please send more next year.

I have been up to my cockles in cookies these past few weeks. My very poor cookie accounting skills show we’ve received somewhere in the neighborhood of nine dozen cookies and I have personally baked nearly fifteen dozen. In this case it is certainly better to give than receive because my ever-expanding ass will soon burst out of my big and tall khakis. Nobody wants that.

I probably owe my wife an apology for all of the complaining I’ve done about my overexposure to cookies this year. I’ve pissed and moaned about baking and boxing cookies. I grumbled about how some cookies turned out, demanding that everyone in the room praise the results and feed my ego. I bitched about the tissue paper my wife chose to go inside the box because flecks of glitter would fall off and poison an unsuspecting cookie eater. Silent F-bombs fell like fluffy, New England snow when I saw the list of cookie recipients. Does the bus driver really need a dozen cookies.

I even whined and felt betrayed by my Feral Cooks brethren. I’ve been planning this cookie post after being inundated with these edible discs and to my surprise I happily open the link to see the newest edition and see a beautiful woman holding a plate of cookies! I immediately ran to wife and said, “How the hell am I supposed to compete with this? I can’t write about cookies now. This woman has vegan cookies! I don’t have vegan cookies. What am I supposed to do? I have to do the byriani post at Christmas. I can’t write about cookies!”

“Why not?,” she mumbled, pretending to listen. For a fleeting moment I considered asking her to be a cookie model, but knowing that would be a tough sell, I quickly discarded that idea.

I decided to make three types of cookies and peppermint bark. I attempted to make festive little shortbread squares. My butter wasn’t cold enough and the recipe yielded wispy, flat, buttery wafers. I also made Nutella snowballs, which are essentially Italian wedding cookies with Nutella. Lastly I made frosted sugar cookies. I have to praise the bloggers who put this recipe out into the world. These cookies are slightly crisp and wonderfully chewy. The ideal sugar cookie in my opinion. Here’s the link because I can’t take credit for it.
Peppermint bark is melted chocolate with crushed up candy canes on top (so exciting, I can barely contain myself). If you can sense my lack of enthusiasm for these cookies/gifts/waste of time and money, with the notable exception of the sugar cookies, then you are spot on.

I made a half-assed attempt to be academic about this posting with a cursory Google search about the history of Christmas cookies. I immediately gave up when someone had the temerity to claim they traced Christmas cookies back 10,000 years when people made treats from grains, baked on hot rocks to give as snacks during festivals. Maybe they were just really hungry and ran out of nuts, berries and wild game or perhaps the mesolithicmart was closed. One can only imagine.

In an amusing addition to Yumi’s cookie party (read her entry, it’s wonderful! ) inspired by The Sarah Silverman Program, my wife was invited to a ladies only cookie affair at a neighbor’s house in which the guests swapped cookies. She returned home with an assorted box of cookies filled with pizelles that tasted like they were re-gifted twice, tasty gingerbread men in karate poses, pink meringues that looked like puppy poop but tasted amazing (I ate all of them before my kids could steal my joy), and near perfect Italian wedding cookies made by our Buckeye neighbor, the chemist (nerd). When I asked my wife what her favorite cookie was she revealed to me they didn’t eat cookies at the party. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of a cookie party where no one eats cookies.

I’m struggling to remember when cookies became holiday staple in my life. I don’t remember seeing the constant stream of baked treats as a kid. This may be due to the fact that my mother was a terrible cook or that my family didn’t value the practice or people didn’t find us worthy of a cookie gift. Whatever the case, cookies are now and likely forever to be a task to perform and consume in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I suppose it could be worse. While out completing our shopping for the holiday season I posed the question one last time to my wife, “What is the deal with all of the cookies?”

“Because Christmas cards fu**ing suck.”

I want to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Karl and Philip and every other Feral Cook out there.

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