Cooking Floyd: Cookie Notes

Virgina's Blue Ridge Music Festival held a pre-festival benefit concert last Thursday at the Floyd Ecovillage's Celebration Hall.  Natasha Shishkevish of Natasha's Market Cafe catered the reception and asked me to provide cookies.  Here are some of the results.

Cooking Floyd: Cookies!

When I was little the weeks preceding Christmas were full of excitement.  After Thanksgiving the lighted street decorations would go up in town, the stores would transform with glittering interiors and handpainted windows.  Homes would begin to look like full size gingerbread houses.  Snow would frost everything.  Dad would bundle us into the car for the annual night time tour of lights which always seemed to include at least one instance of getting stuck in the snow.  We'd go out to search for the perfect tree and if I promised to be very careful I'd be allowed to hang the delicate glass ornaments and drape tinsel.  But best of all, Mom would get out flour, butter and sugar and her box of cookie cutters and make cut out cookies.  I loved sitting at the table with her as she mixed up all different colors of icing and laid out sprinkles and jimmies, dragees in silver and gold, red hot cinnamon dots and nonpareils.  Then we would begin icing, painting, sprinkling, sugaring while we shared hot chocolate and she told me stories about Christmases with her parents and brothers and sisters.

Even though my kids are all grown up and moved away with families of their own I still love to make cut out and painted cookies.  Michael (who can be a teensy bit grinchy) says, "I don't know why you do this but I'm glad it makes you happy."  I do it because I'm sentimental and nostalgic, and I really miss my mom during the Christmas season.  I have all her glass ornaments and cookie cutters and handling the ornaments and making cookies brings back sweet winter memories.  I love giving the cookies to folks and watching their faces light up with delight at receiving the colorful, sparkly confections.  Everyone loves cookies!