Holiday Cooking

Thanks to all of you who kindly commented or emailed. . . I am doing better, thank you.  Not quite normal, but better.  And after a particularly wretched stomach bug, the bright side is hopping on the scale when it’s over–woo, hoo!  Sure, I am dehydrated and haven’t consumed a vegetable for 48 hours, but it still feels glorious!

Anyway, Cute W came home tonight and reported that he’d had an awkward encounter at the office today.  Folks were organizing the Holiday Cookie Exchange.  Yeah, here’s the problem:  W & I would prefer not to participate in any cookie exchanges.  It’s just–not to be rude or anything?  But our cookies rock.  We just like them better than most other cookies.  And if we’re exchanging with, say, 6 or 8 different people, maybe a couple of them will contribute delicious items, but we’ll also get slice-and-bake sugar cookies and cookies that are similar to ones that we make, only not as good.  We’re cookie snobs.  And usually, this is okay.  Because, of course, any cookie is better than no cookie.  So if someone wants to offer me one of their cookies, I’ll absolutely take it.  But if you want me to exchange cookies with you, as if our cookies are equal?  Well, I just don’t want to do it.  I’d rather that you just offer me some money, or maybe some flour or pecans or chocolate chips, and then I can make more of my delicious cookies.

I get into the holidays.  I have specific delightful treats that we make every year.  And of course I will share them with you.  But it’s not time yet.  So I thought that I’d share an idea for a project that could be a lovely little set of (theoretically-inexpensive-yet-priceless) gifts.  Last year, I made a family cookbook.  There are tons of different companies that will help put together a family cookbook, but Cute W and I just made a document on our own and put it into binders.  But now’s a good time to start planning if it sounds like a good idea.  You can ask family members for contributions, or ask people to bring recipes along with them when everyone gets together at Thanksgiving.  Of course there’s email or Google documents, too, but I think that it’s easier to collect items if they’ve got a specific deadline and they don’t have to do much work themselves.

Of course my little project ballooned into a 100-page document.  There were recipes, a smattering of stories, and photographs of food and family members with food (although this proved difficult:  it’s tough to find random photographs of people with food that aren’t unflattering).  The cookbook was appreciated by everyone, but I think I might be enjoying it more than anyone.   Besides, where else can all those pictures of your messy-faced babies be so appropriate?