Christmas Cookies 2016

I had big plans to mix up all of my Christmas cookie dough over thanksgiving weekend and then freeze it to bring out, cut, and bake over the next few weeks. That didn't happen Thanksgiving weakened, or the weekend after either, nor the one after that. All last week, I got butter out of the fridge to soften, only to put it back after I ran out of time or eggs or sugar. Finally, Thursday, I went on an epic mixing spree, and whipped up five batches of dough (the secret is to start with the lightest cookie—sugar—and end with the darkest—chocolate gingerbread—so you only have to watch the mixing bowl and paddle once, when you're done. In addition to my three staple Christmas cookies— the aforementioned sugar and chocolate gingerbread and spekulatius—I made two new kinds: chocolate sables, which are my all-time favorite cookie and which I made for the first time last month, and heidesand, which I just rediscovered after more than two decades.

My high school best friend's parents were from Germany, and a generation older than most high schoolers' parents. Her dad was a chemistry professor (retired, possibly?) and her mom did some translating work on the side of keeping a spectacular house. Inside the She was a stickler for rules and details—inside the medicine cabinet were labeled hooks for each person's toothbrush, including one for me; the juice jug in the fridge had a table that said "for breakfast only" and at that meal you were allowed only a tiny glassful. They weren't what I'd call rich, because they did not engage in conspicuous consumption, but they must have had money and they spend it well. They lived in a modest-sized house but it was beautifully proportioned and tastefully decorated; they were thrifty in their food expenditures (her mom bought generic, which mine never did, even at our poorest) but always served multiple dishes at breakfast and dessert after dinner; they drove sturdy but older cars (Subaru and toyota), but travelled to Europe and had a cabin in the mountains. They were intellectual and sophisticated in a way few people I knew at that time were—they listened to classical music, discussed politics, had extensive vocabularies (the first time I heard the word "turbid," was when her brother used it to describe the iced tea). They took me on my first trips to the ballet and the ski slope. I housesat for them when the bicycled around Europe after their children's high school graduation (my friend had a twin brother).

One year around Christmastime, my friend's mother invited me to their house for tea and cookies. Among the many beautiful and delicious cookies arrayed on the tray, were humble brown rounds. They didn't look like much, but they had a buttery, melt-in-your-mouth taste and a sandy texture. Mrs. Stickler told us the German name of the cookie and that it translated to "sandy moor." She also said they gained their sandy texture from browned butter.


My friend and went to colleges on different coasts and over the years we grew apart and out of touch, the way people do, especially back in the days before email and Facebook. I haven't heard from her in many years. I don't know if her parents, who were as old when we were in high school as my parents are now, are even still alive. But I've never forgotten those cookies, and now and then have tried to find a cookie called "sandy moor," with no luck.

Finally, this year, it occurred to me to enlist the internet. I tried Google translating "sandy moor." I tried searching "traditional German Christmas cookies." I finally got a hit with "German browned-butter cookies," which led me to this website, with a recipe for Heidesand—or "heath sand"—cookies. As I read the description and history of the cookies, tears poured down my face. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I missed my friend, and her family, who had opened up my world a bit. Perhaps I missed that time in life when mothers baked cookies and had tea parties. Perhaps I just really love browned butter, sugar, and salt.

I made a double batch, so certain was I that these cookies would transport me back to a time when I was 17. The browned butter came off without a hitch, and the dough came out every bit as crumbly and hard to work as the recipe said it would. I managed to work it into logs by scooping handfuls of dough crumbs into ziplock bags and mashing and rolling them into submission.

The next day I took the logs out of the fridge and attempted to slice them, upon which the disintegrated back into crumbs. I let them warm up a bit and tried again, with a larger, sharper knife, which helped some, though many slices lost chunks on their way to the cookie sheet. The recipe recommends rolling the edge of the cookie slices in pearl sugar. I didn't have any pearl sugar, but I did have some naturally colored red and green sugar, but it refused to stick to the cookies, no matter what I tried (I was tempted to lick the edges to make it stick, but don't worry, I didn't).

They aren't the prettiest cookies on the tray, but they are good, buttery and a little sandy. They're a little tough and don't quite have that melt-in-the mouth quality of Mrs. Stickler's. I think I might have overworked the dough, and sliced them a bit thick. The ones that I managed to stick a little sugar to are better; the sugar adds another texture layer of crunch and just a tiny bit extra sweetness to a not-too-sweet cookie. They're definitely going to become a regular member of the Christmas cookie line-up, though I might try some other recipes, to see if I can hit that perfect sandy sweet spot.

I realized that both the Heidesand and the sables are types of shortbread, and that I really love shortbread. Butter + sugar + flour + salt = yum! I'm thinking maybe I should write a cookbook of nothing but shortbread. I looked online and found that there's one (but only one) out there already (and appears to be out of print), plus a murder mystery and a romance with the word "shortbread" in the title. So maybe, after I finish up a couple of other book ideas, that will be my next project.

Indoor Garden

I used to love to garden. Back when I lived in dorms and treehouses and apartments, I kept houseplants and windowsill herbs. I worked in community gardens and other people's gardens. And then we got our very own house and our very own, lots and lots of, land, and suddenly gardening didn't seem all that appealing to me anymore. At first I blamed the baby. And then the other two babies. But recently I saw a neighbor rototilling with a baby on her back, so that excuse doesn't hold water. Also, those babies aren't really all that babyish anymore. Certainly no impediment in the garden. So I don't know what it is—the busy-ness of May, with three birthdays and baseball season and stuff. The bugs? The overwhelming sensation of "where to start?" on 20 acres? a preference for wild plants and wandering? Sheer laziness?

Whatever it is, I found myself getting back to my windowsill gardening roots last spring when I planted a parsley plant in a little orange pot. It did so well, even while we were gone over the summer, I decided to start a couple more herbs—the ones I always wish I had fresh but never do (basil and cilantro). I don't know if either of them does well as a potted plant, indoors, in the winter, but I'm giving it a try.



Right now they're in the sun room, hopefully getting ready to sprout, but after the holiday decorations come down, I'll move them to the kitchen window, where I can snip off bits of tasty herbs whenever needed. (Maybe that's what I don't like about gardening…the very long walk through the house, down the stairs and around back to collect my vegetables. Maybe it's time for indoor hydroponics).

Finishing Touches

We moved into our house just a little over 14 years ago. It wasn't quite done when we moved in—there was no bathtub (and poor one-and-a-half-year-old M had to take his baths in the tiny Elmo tub of his infancy), there was no kitchen sink (we did dishes in the bathroom for a period of time there). There were no doors on the kitchen cabinets. I think there was no siding. But over time, bit by bit, C finished up most of the major details.

The minor details? Those have necessitated a bit more nudging on my part. I did a major kitchen overhaul several years ago, although this involved more reorganizing and furniture-finishing by me than carpentry by C (though there was a bit of that) and then last year, around this time, C added a decorative shelf along the base of the cabinets, above the backsplash.



That almost finished off the kitchen. There was just the tiny detail of a gap between the tile over the stove and the stove hood (caused by Mr. Energy changing stove hoods after a few years to a more powerful, but also lower-profile model which left an expanse of yellow paint hanging in the air).



At first I wanted him to chip out the top row of partial tiles and fill in the space with whole tiles (we have plenty of extra), but I soon realized that would never happened, and I'd be stuck with the greasy, food-splattered yellow paint (for some reason we used matte paint in the kitchen, which is impossible to clean) forever. So I *let* him trim it out with wood, on which I hung three cute hooks and three festive potholders (purely decorative). It was a good compromise, I think.

The other small detail in the kitchen that had been annoying me all these years was that he never finished off the end of the upper cabinets. It was just ugly wood with screws in it. I had C add a piece of plywood to cover up the mess and I decorated it with more seasonally appropriate potholders (I ordered them all as a set on Easy) and a clay sun M made in art class some years ago. This is a spot no one is likely to notices, situated as it is in a narrow hallway on the way to the fridge and the bathroom, but I notice it and now it makes me much nappier than it did!

There are still a few very tiny unfinished details in the kitchen—pieces of trim here and there in places that don't even bother me and it would be nice to have crown molding, for no other reason that to stop dust from accumulating on top of the cabinets—but for now it's done enough.

Wild Wednesday ~ Snow Day

Monday we had a snow day.



It wasn't the first snow of the season, but it was the first real snow-snow, where enough piled up for tracks and sledding and canceling school.



It's been a long while since the boys would get up and run outside, snowsuits over pajamas, to play first thing in the morning.



Their electronic devices sing a sweeter siren song than snow and I had to cajole and bribe them to go out and stay out.



One of them, mad at me because I didn't want to drive in the snow to take him to his friend's house, never went out at all.



No one wanted to accompany me on a walk through the woods, so I went on my own. Saw a few tracks—squirrel (first photo) and these that I'm not sure who they belong to. The diagonal arrangement makes me kind of thing weasel family, but they're so close together. Thoughts?



Our river has partially frozen over already, which didn't happen at all last winter. I'll take that as a good sign of a white Christmas and winter to come.

Not-Quite-Perfect Peppermint Bark

For a few years now, I've been working on perfecting my peppermint bark recipe, with the twinned goals of deliciousness and minimal labor. I thought I had the formula just right this time:

• 2 bars Green & Black's white chocolate
• 2 bars Green & Black's mint chocolate 
• small package Annie's chocolate bunny grahams
• a couple of scoops of tiny peppermint candies from the candy store

Unfortunately, I ran into a couple of problems when assembling my ingredients:

• The grocery store did not have G&B's white chocolate, so I had to buy the much more expensive bars at the health food store.
• I accidentally bought dark chocolate rather than mint chocolate
• I couldn't find chocolate bunny grahams anywhere and had to settle for Newman's Own chocolate alphabet cookies, which contain palm oil and left me feeling guilty about the rain forests
• the peppermint candies from the candy store were not as tiny as I had remembered

Undeterred by these setbacks, I forged ahead. My first time-saving plan was to break up the first bar of white chocolate and melt it on the pan in the oven. I pictured the pieces getting all soft and gooey, and easily spread with a spatula. Unfortunately, they turned brown and crunchy and not at all melty.

Not willing to waste that pricey bar of white chocolate,  I transferred the brown chunks to a hot water bath and added a couple scoops of coconut oil to help smooth out the mixture as it melted.


I then smashed up a couple tablespoons of the not-quite-small-enough-to-use-whole peppermint candies and added them to the white chocolate to help disguise the brown color, and spread it all on a sheet of parchment and placed the pan outside in the cold to firm up.

I then placed both chocolate bars in a hot water bath and Z helped me bash up the cookies, right in the bag (with a small hole to let out air) with a hammer. I added several drops of mint flavor to the melted chocolate (a step I could have skipped had I bought the mint bars) as well as the cookie crumbs, spread the whole mixture over the first layer of light brown white chocolate, and placed the tray back outside.

Then I melted the last bar of white chocolate (in a hot water bath, having learned my lesson), added a few more spoonfuls of crushed peppermints, and spread it over the hardened chocolate layer. Over the top, I sprinkled more mint candies, not bothering to smash those up, which I think might have been a mistake, because the final result is a lot for the teeth to handle.

I placed the tray outside one last time for a few minutes and then transferred it to the refrigerator while we all went to go see Fantastic Beasts. When we got home, I broke the bark into hunks and squirreled it away for holiday season munching.

And the best part about the bark being not-quite-perfect? We'll have to eat it all ourselves, in the privacy of our home, where no one else can see the brown layer, or break a tooth on the over-large peppermint bits, or notice how the chocolate cookies end up a little more soggy and less crunchy than the bunny grahams would have.

Getting Our 16th Tree

As we prepared to go out and get our tree Saturday, it occurred to me that this will be our 16th tree that we've gathered off this land—the first one being when M was just a baby and our house was just a shell covered in silvery house wrap. So of course I had to go in search of photos from Christmas Trees Past—these are from 2006:

Our tree-getting ritual has looked pretty similar all of these years—only the babies get bigger and bigger, and move from slings to backpacks to sleds to their own sturdy feet. 

This year they trouped ahead, in search of their own vision of the perfect tree, each of them casting their vote for a hemlock here, a spruce there.

As always, however, we keep up the search until the perfect balsam fir appears.

And then another and another.

We argue the merits of each, until our toes get cold and we get thirsty for hot cider.

They're taller now—the boys and the trees—and we pick one that towers over us a bit, cutting it down and then trimming it to the top seven or eight feet. 

This makes for a sturdier trunk, than the old saplings we used to bring home, and often (though not always) denser branches.

This year we aimed for a tree whose angled upward, hoping that, laden with ornaments, they would end up more horizontal than droopy.

We said our words of thanks to the tree, for bringing light and life into our home this dark and cold wintertime, and E and Z did the honors, sawing it down and then cutting it to length and clipping away extraneous branches.

We take the tree home and set it up in the space we've cleared and cleaned in anticipation. And then we put on Christmas records and decorate, a process that everyone loses enthusiasm for far too soon.

This year's tree is big and sturdy enough that it holds every single one of our numerous ornaments, including the "normal" ornaments that E specially requested—a box of gold glass balls that I bought at Kmart, back when C and I didn't have enough ornaments to fill out a small tree, as hard to believe that there ever was such a time. 

Finally we place the elf in his place of honor, at the top, hugging the glass star, ready to preside over our festivities of the season.

Easing In

Over Thanksgiving, I watched as my Instagram feed exploded with Christmas trees springing up in home after home…almost as if everyone was desperate to bring whatever light and cheer they could into the tale end of a very rough month. We, though equally in need of a bright spot, spent that weekend lounging, eating, and playing board games with our house guests. Which felt exactly right. And then December came. And then I noticed on Sunday that we only have two more weekends between now and Christmas. Yikes! Did Thanksgiving come late? Or Christmas early? Or does this happen to me every year?

We still don't have a tree—I like to wait until there's a bit of snow on the ground (which we got yesterday!!)—but I spent the weekend deep-cleaning the living room, so that when we do bring in the tree we won't be setting it up on top of six inches of dust and junk. And we've watched a couple of holiday movies and went to see a theatrical performance of A Christmas Story.

I un-decorated our fall stuff and then put out a few festive items that happen to be hanging around and didn't involve brining up the holiday boxes. I sort of like the minimalist feel—Austerity Christmas (kind of fitting, no?)—and wonder if anyone would notice if we don't actually decorate (yeah, they probably will).

We're also doing a couple of low-key advent-y activities: I bought one of those tiny German advent calendars, and put out a perpetual advent calendar that I got last Christmas. And, of course, the Christmas Book Countdown. I thought the boys might be getting too old, but, as Z says, it's tradition. E's first response, when he got home from school on the 1st and saw the books I'd only just moments earlier finished wrapping up and numbering: "Oh, we're doing that again?" He's gotten into, though, once we got through Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas (all my fault for practically naming him after that book).

I also got a catalog from The Preemptive Love Coalition, which had this pull-out in the back of 25 Days of Peace activity guide. I admit to not being 100% on top of keeping up with the activities, but the ones I've done I've appreciated, and I am 100% behind the idea of peace.

I approach the holidays the way I approach the Atlantic Ocean, that is easing in, one inch at a time, rather than diving off the dock. The only trouble is when the big wave hits before you're ready.