Journal Entries

previous

next

Bon Journal

Christmas cookies - a tradition

The day before Christmas is a day for baking and making cookies. My friend Lemondrops arrived one early December morning in 1997 with a suitcase full of nuts, mixing bowls, and bakeware. She introduced this tradition which I've been following since.

The notions of "fresh", "organic", and "home-made" command a premium value. For truly, who but a time-challenged, online diarist would devote the precious hours of Christmas eve into making cookies for her friends?

The raspberries I had picked from my neighbour's organic allotment have been boiled into jam and now poured into bite-size thumb-print cookies.

Tonight my friend from Holland led the expedition into Dutch butter cookies which, topped with hand-chopped slivered almonds, presented a wholesome taste. We used what limited butter left in the refrigerator to make chewy Australian-New Zealand (ANZAC) cookies, thick gingernut cookies (made from freshly minced ginger and orange rind), and wafer-thin luxury Belgian chocolate macaroons.

These are what I call "adult" cookies. I've reduced the sugar quantity by a third or half. Then I packaged them with colourful tissue paper, for eating is also about presentation, as I learned from growing up in Japan.

24 December 2001 Monday