READY FOR DECEMBER
Food columnist picks up some new cookie recipes for the Christmas season
We’re on the cusp, almost ready to tumble headfirst into December.
I’ve always loved the Counting Crows’ song called Long December, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a long December as an adult.
For me, December moves at top speed, full of preparations and celebrations. It seems that every minute is spoken for – and I’m not even part of a big family or a party crowd! I’m not complaining; I’d hate to miss anything.
Actually, November goes almost as quickly. Preparations and celebrations begin early because not everything will fit into one month.
Last week I attended a community craft night, an early celebration of the season. Primarily an opportunity for neighbours to get together and learn some Christmas crafts, craft night also afforded a chance to sample homemade goodies. People brought cheese balls, veggies and crackers and dips, cookies and cakes. Many also brought their recipes to share.
The first thing I noticed as I walked into the hall was the aroma of hot spiced apple juice. Warmed apple juice or sweet apple cider, spiced with a few cinnamon sticks and whole cloves, smells as good as it tastes.
While we sipped cider and snacked on treats, one of the activities we did was to assemble a collection of favourite cookie recipes in a little photo album, dressed up with fancy paper and red ribbon. This project that my neighbour, Janet, created could easily be adopted by any group of friends or family. You need small photo albums (ours have 18 pages), index cards, wrapping paper and ribbon.
The project works well if one person assembles and prepares what’s needed before the group gets together. To start, everyone should write a cookie recipe that they’re willing to share on a file card.
Someone needs to make copies of each recipe for everyone in the group; ours are colour copied on index cards that fit the 4x6 inch pockets. Our co-ordinator also made a table of contents page, with a listing of all the recipes included, as well as copies of some quips and quotes about cookies. She cut lengths of narrow red ribbon about 27 inches long, and pieces of wrapping paper 4x6 inches to use as background for the quips, with two slightly larger pieces in