Cooking Floyd: My Annual Obsession

Finally, it's that time of year when for 3 days running we have to have dinner out.  Why?  Because nothing can get in the way of painting Christmas cookies.  I do them other times during the year but not with the singlemindedness I have when it comes to painting snowmen, holly, and Santa Clauses.

 

2011 Spice Rack Challenge: January/Rosemary

Fellow blogger and ChowHound poster Cynthia who writes Mother's Kitchen invited me to join the 2011 Spice Rack Challenge.  Confronted by her collection of herbs and spices, Cynthia realized she used her favorites regularly but had a lot of other flavors languishing on her shelves.  She decided she needed some inspiration and wanted others to join her.  I admit to having the same problem.  I've got three revolving spice racks that hold sixteen jars each on my counter and two baskets in the cupboard that hold another mumble,mumble number of jars, bags, and boxes of herbs and spices.  Time to use 'em or lose 'em!

January Challenge: Rosemary

I like rosemary.  I have a good sized patch of it in my herb garden and it's been a requirement in gardens wherever I've lived.  In Pennsylvania and New York it grew well forming nice little hedges that grew about shin-high.  In North Carolina I found out how it really grows: wall-out-the-neighbors waist high bushes!  No matter how severely I cut it, it came back strong and beautiful.  I would whack off great bunches of it to throw in the grill to smoke meat.

Here in Virginia the rosemary grows in those shin high hedges again and, to tell the truth, I'm somewhat relieved.  No more gallon jars of dried herb piling up unused.  But I was lax this year and didn't dry or freeze any.  I sure didn't want to buy fresh from the store so I wandered out to take a look at mine after it had been through December's snows and record cold expecting to see forlorn plants.  But to my surprise this is what I found:

A little bronzed and wind blown, but still sticky and pungent.  Now all I had to decide was what to do with it.

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!