December 16, 2009
Wednesday

Mother turned into a demon baker at Christmas. She made sand tarts rolled so thin you could read through them, and fat almond crescents dusted with powdered sugar. She crushed Kellogg’s corn flakes between layers of waxed paper and rolled blobs of dough in the crumbs, then plopped a quartered maraschino cherry in the center. Her version of Toll House cookies reflected her thrifty nature. She doubled all the ingredients except the chocolate chips.
                                        — Margaret DeAngelis, b. 1947
                                            American writer
                                            Here Are Poinsettias: A Child’s Christmas in Harrisburg

As is so often the case with my Holidailies posts, I find I am repeating myself. The epigraph I have chosen comes from the piece that was the From the Archives link on Monday. But today’s Holidailies prompt asks us to share a favorite recipe that we like to make this time of year. For a number of reasons, I’m not making a lot of this stuff this year, and that has me a little sad. This exercise allows me to at least touch and hold the materials I would use if I were mounting the extravaganzas of Christmas past, and thus to touch and hold something of what made those times so special.

I have two booklets from Pillsbury that contain the party plans I adapted for my Holiday Open House Extravaganza. I keep all of my loose recipes in a red folder that is part of my Gaudete! binder, that repository of the methods and materials and suggestions and notes about how to bring about Christmas in this household. Lined loose leaf pages covered with my handwriting are headed “Notes for the Advent Kitchen” because someday I am going to gather all this stuff into a formal presentation book with pictures and essays and recipes. In my dreams I give it to Lynn, who uses it as the foundation for her own family Christmas, someday telling her children, “Your grandmother, my Marm, just made the best Christmas!”

In my dreams.

Currently, that red folder contains:
1) A recipe for Traditional Croatian Povitica from Recipezaar
2) A recipe for “Reindeer Poop” (a concoction reminiscent of no-bake peanut butter cookies) from CDKitchen, acquired and made in 2008 as a treat for Lynn’s boyfriend, who likes the stuff and who was being subjected to the Ceremonial Watching of the Dragnet Christmas Episode for the first time
3) A recipe for Dried-Cherry and Italian Sausage Stuffing cut from the November 2004 Real Simple magazine that I am not allowed to use
4) Four recipes for sfratti (the saga of Ron’s desire for and efforts to replicate his mother’s sfratti deserves its own blog)
5) A receipe cut from the newspaper in December 2005 for Apple Latkes with Three-Apple Salsa
6) The brochure that comes with a fresh Butterball turkey, retained for inclusion in the imagined memory book
7) A clipping from the local newspaper, year unknown, that contains three recipes for Sand Tarts
8) A page torn from a Martha Stewart Living magazine, year unknown, for Cream Cheese-Walnut Cookies (even typing the name makes me weep with desire)
9) A recipe I typed from Ron’s dictation for Fagiolini alla Giuseppina (“green beans with oil & vinegar the way Nonna made it”)
10) An article clipped from the newspaper in 2005 that featured Ron’s cousin, a popular local restauranteur, and his recipes for fennel salad, seafood papillote Cleveland, and stuffed pears
11) Recipes for baccala alla marinara and zuppa di ceci con acciughe (chickpea soup with anchovies) clipped from the newspaper in 2001
12) Another recipe for ceci soup printed out in 2004 from Chef2Chef
13) A typed out version of Ron’s traditional spaghetti sauce with meat
14) A Collector’s Cookbook of cookie recipes torn out of the Woman’s Day issue of November 21, 1995
15) A collection of variations on a coffecake with suggestions for shaping and decorating it like a reindeer or a poinsettia, from the Family Circle issue of December 20, 1988
16) A booklet, already three-hole punched, from Real Simple of December 2005 with three different party plans
and,
finally,
17) THE recipe, cut from an unknown magazine, on a page containing a coupon for Kellog’s Corn Flakes that expired on December 27, 1998, for my mother’s Cherry Dot Cookies

As I say in the piece, “Alas, I have not inherited my mother’s zeal as a baker of cookies. Pies and cakes and elaborate breads, yes, but not cookies. A cookie baking session for me results in bits of batter stuck in my hair and up my nose, an alarming number of utensils and mixing bowls and cookie sheets to wash, and a yield far below that which the recipe suggests. My sand tarts especially turn out misshapen and burned on the bottom. In recent years I have subcontracted the cookie portion of my party. Schenk’s Bakery on Mountain Road in Linglestown turns out gorgeous sand tarts and acceptable chocolate chip varieties. Nobody makes the cherry corn flakes kind, but I sort of solved the problem by developing a pan cookie version which mixes the corn flakes in with the batter instead of having to roll a sticky blob in a pile of crumbs.”

Herewith, the Cherry Dot Cookies:

2 1/4 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c. margarne, softened
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 c. chopped nuts
1 c. finely chopped pitted dates
1/3 c. finely chopped maraschino cherries
2 2/3 c. Kellog’s Corn Flakes, crushed to 1 1/3 c.
15 maraschino cherries, cut into quarters

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs. Beat well. Stir in milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture. Mix well. Stir in nuts, dates, and the chopped cherries.
Shape level measuring-tablespoons of dough into balls. Roll in the corn flakes. Place on greased cookie sheets. Top each cookie with a cherry quarter.
Bake at 350° about ten minutes or until lightly browned.

Yield: About 5 dozen cookies.

In your dreams.

 

 

From the Archives
December 16, 2004 — Interlude: I have to confess here that I was not looking forward to the event. The day begins at 10 a.m. with an extravaganza of a food spread. It’s a typical all-you-can-eat hotel buffet with prime rib, spiral ham, roast turkey, three kinds of potatoes, a hot vegetable bar, a cold vegetable bar, steamed shrimp, a fruit table, a bread table, and a dessert table. No person could or should eat even some of everything, although I suspect there are people who do.

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