On Baking

Ahh, ‘tis the season for this cookie snob and self-nominated President of the BSC (Butter, Sugar & Chocolate) League.
A week or two before Christmas, I begin browsing through recipes; handwritten ones of my mother’s, others torn from fifteen-year-old magazines, and now those on the Internet. Like a Broadway producer, I assemble the very best cast each year but always, front and center is my star, the Almond Crescent cookie. This pale blonde cookie, rolled in cinnamon sugar, is a crowd-pleasing, melt-in-your-mouth taste sensation. People have been known to swoon, cry, yodel and propose marriage after sampling one of these cookies.
So why didn’t I make them this year?
I was mad at the world.
Actually, I wasn’t, but I thought: hmm, here’s a Norwegian almond-bar recipe that I want to try and since it has almonds in it, maybe it’ll take the place of the crescents this year. So I made it. And the bars were good, in a modest, unassuming Nordic way, but they inspired no howls of delight, no proposals of marriage (not that I would have accepted; I am still crazy, after all these years, about my own husband). But man, a baker, like a writer, like anyone who puts forth something for someone else to enjoy, appreciates a little ardor.
But I made my mother’s fudge and embellished it with bits of candy cane I pulverized with a hammer (that was fun), and the old reliable ‘Peanut Butter Blossoms,’ and Melting Moments, a cookie who always makes me think Salvador Dali’s in the kitchen.
Now there are tins of leftovers which I will eat so that by New Years, I’ll have reason to add to my list of resolutions: Lose Five Pounds.
And to all my friends and family who were deprived of those fabulous Almond Crescents . . . my most humble apologies, and an acknowledgment that in the kitchen, as in life, loyalty matters.