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the holidays are coming, beginning with thanksgiving in just a few days, and i have been cleaning, prepping, and making lists. when i poll the family about preferences and expectations, the not-so-little-girl reminds me that we alway have cookies for dessert. i guess i have inadvertently made yet another tradition, so tonight and i drag out my old cookbook to make the dough so she can decorate cookies when she comes on wednesday.

the book falls open to the recipe, such a mess is the page it's on. forty-five years of splattered dough, greasy smudges, and messy fingerprints distract me from the familiar words as i follow them to make the dough. after i set it in the refrigerator to chill, after i clean and put away the mixing bowls and spatulas, i sit with choral music and tea to type the ingredients and directions into google docs, my recipe box in the cloud, where all my old favorites these days reside, annotated and ready to share when the time is right. i think to cut and paste it here, where i have not been in a very long time.

Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies

From McCall’s Cookie Collection © The McCall Corporation 1965

...these are the sugar cookies we made every Christmas when the girl was a child,

and later at Thanksgiving when the not-so-little girl was young…

4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon (or more!) nutmeg
1 cup soft butter
1 ½ cups sugar
1 egg
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sift flour with baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg; set aside.
In a large bowl of electric mixer, at medium speed, beat butter, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy.
At low speed, beat in sour cream and vanilla until smooth.
Gradually add flour mixture, beating until well combined.
With rubber scraper, form dough into a ball. Wrap in waxed paper or foil; refrigerate several hours, or overnight.
Divide dough into 4 parts. Refrigerate until ready to roll out.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease cookie sheet.
On a well-floured surface, roll dough, one part at a time, ¼” thick.
With floured, 2 ½” round or scalloped cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Using spatula, place, 2” apart, on prepared cookie sheets. Reroll trimmings and cut.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden. Remove to wire rack; cool.
Makes about 6 dozen (the round 2 ½” ones).

My notes: Pshaw! We never made plain old round ones! We made trees and Santas and reindeers and gingerbread men and stars - and leaves and turkeys at Thanksgiving!! These are very good, especially the ones that get rolled out first - rerolls are not as light. Don’t roll too thick. They taste best frosted and are yummy with eggnog.

Our frosting: 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar and 2 ½ to 3 tablespoons of milk. Beat with wooden spoon, add more milk if too thick. Color with food coloring, of course. Keep a little white for snowmen, and Santa's beard. 

i head to bed now, content in the knowledge that the recipe is preserved for the girl, for her daughter, for posterity. and for tradition. 

baking day

we're baking this morning, the little girl and me. it's a pound cake i've not made in ages and ages. one look at the list of ingredients will explain why! but we are baking today for a crowd and this cake will go a long way. so much learning about fractions and math, letters, reading and writing fill our morning. the only catastrophes - an oozing egg that missed the cup, and someone forgot to grease the cake pan!

food for thought

one of my sisters emails us all - does anyone have our mother's cheesecake recipe? i am the keeper of her recipes, the one with the ancient, stained good housekeeping cookbook and the blue plastic recipe box. i retrieve them both, and search through the meals of our childhood, recipes written in my mother's elegant hand or carefully typed with the old script typewriter from the 60s. scalloped potatoes, meat loaf, oven baked chicken, old fashioned apple pie. tucked into the pages of the coverless cookbook i find yellowed clippings of recipes from the long gone "women's" section of the sunday paper. jordan marsh blueberry muffins, lazy beef casserole, split pea soup, the best ever chocolate cake. turning pages that she turned as a young mother, fingering the white lined index cards she painstakingly copied. smiling at long forgotten recipes, surprised at ones she saved from me. i locate the cheesecake recipe and send it off to everyone. i hold out the card for cranberry fruit nut bread to make for my family, a fitting remembrance of my mother at our thanksgiving table.

silent night

finally its still after a night of family and gifts, food and music and merriment. tonight i wait in the quiet to see christmas come in. tomorrow night i stay up to see it out. i can sleep on the 26th. the kid in me wants to experience as much of christmas day as i can.

an offering from the aformentioned kid: a recipe for a decadant chocolate sauce that i serve only at christmas. here we are full of christmas tradition - and christmas joy. may your days be merry and bright...