trinity
12-18-2006, 09:56 AM
Such an innocent-sounding activity, say it sweetly. "Cookie exchange." It conjures fond memories of a fuzzy blue monster, crunching cookies on the screen, and you, safe, warm, 7 years old in your pajamas. That's how old I was when I got this book from Scholastic, The Cookie Book. Meant for children, it has easy instructions and 12 recipes, one for each month. Animal cookies, 4th of July cookies, Christmas cookies. All so pleasant and homemade. It does in no way sound like the marathon of horror that it actually is.
Fast forward to 30 years later. Signed up for a cookie exchange where nuts and chocolate are disallowed due to allergies, I search the book for a recipe that includes neither. I have a vague fond memory of some tasty molasses cookies that my Grammy used to make, so I first set out to make a batch. The finished product, of which I fortunately only made one tester batch, does not resemble the moist, sugary cookies she made, mine look like dung balls and I burned the second pan. So I decide to try the sugar and spice cookies, but before I do, I decide to call work to see if any more people have signed up for the exchange. When I left there were 8 names, including myself. At a half-dozen each, that's 3 1/2 dozen. I can handle that, I thought. Just double the batch, it makes 2 dozen. The voice on the other end of the phone at work says there are now FIFTEEN names on the list. 15? How did that happen? We only have 18 people who work there in total, one is in China, one is on vacation, and one is just starting so she would not even have known about this, this... travesty. So that means EVERY OTHER FRIGGING PERSON has signed up. Now I need 7 1/2 dozen. I had to put on real clothes, go out and get more sugar and flour, I had foolishly thought the half bag of sugar and tiny bag of flour would be enough. Nope, not for a quadruple batch of cookies. It is now almost 11 pm. I am floured, sugared, and exhausted. My kitchen is wrote, my glasses are spattered, and we had to order out for dinner because every surface was covered with cookies in every stage of preparation from bowl of batter to cooling, cooled, sugared, and bagged. (tried to post last night)
Fast forward to 30 years later. Signed up for a cookie exchange where nuts and chocolate are disallowed due to allergies, I search the book for a recipe that includes neither. I have a vague fond memory of some tasty molasses cookies that my Grammy used to make, so I first set out to make a batch. The finished product, of which I fortunately only made one tester batch, does not resemble the moist, sugary cookies she made, mine look like dung balls and I burned the second pan. So I decide to try the sugar and spice cookies, but before I do, I decide to call work to see if any more people have signed up for the exchange. When I left there were 8 names, including myself. At a half-dozen each, that's 3 1/2 dozen. I can handle that, I thought. Just double the batch, it makes 2 dozen. The voice on the other end of the phone at work says there are now FIFTEEN names on the list. 15? How did that happen? We only have 18 people who work there in total, one is in China, one is on vacation, and one is just starting so she would not even have known about this, this... travesty. So that means EVERY OTHER FRIGGING PERSON has signed up. Now I need 7 1/2 dozen. I had to put on real clothes, go out and get more sugar and flour, I had foolishly thought the half bag of sugar and tiny bag of flour would be enough. Nope, not for a quadruple batch of cookies. It is now almost 11 pm. I am floured, sugared, and exhausted. My kitchen is wrote, my glasses are spattered, and we had to order out for dinner because every surface was covered with cookies in every stage of preparation from bowl of batter to cooling, cooled, sugared, and bagged. (tried to post last night)