In Our Holiday/Winter 2017-18 Issue

Kinda regretting the cookies
 

It is with a certain element of regret that I write this letter to you. Having adopted the Edible Communities mission of promoting a healthy lifestyle, featuring meals with lots of leafy vegetables, I am troubled with what I am about to write.

For heaven’s sake, the name of this piece is called “Eat Your Veggies.”

As I write this, the time is approaching when I will ignore the scale. I know if I step on it, it will only bring me frustration and anger. Many have maintained that what they don’t know won’t hurt them while ballooning up in front of the bathroom mirror.

The holiday season is notorious for adding a few pounds, and more often than not the culprits are cookies. You can blame the Dutch, who fi rst introduced them to the New World in the 16th century.

It didn’t take long before Santa Claus was requesting them on his annual gift-giving binge. We know what happened to Santa’s waistline.

“Many have maintained
that what they don’t
know won’t hurt them
while ballooning up in
front of the bathroom mirror.”

I’m sure many of you will have or had cookies, depending on when you read this piece. I can pretty much assure you that I will, and it’s more than likely there will be plenty of them.

I can’t blame the Dutch, since it’s my wife who is responsible for the cookie binge. I’m not complaining, because she bakes some amazing cookies, but as the holiday season approaches she gets that look in her eye and you know that soon the stockpiling of cookie ingredients will begin.

The number of cookies varies to some degree, depending on when she gets that look in her eye. Some years it comes early, days after the last of the Halloween candy has gone. Thank goodness we have more than 300 trick-or-treaters who hit our house and clean out the rest of the Twizzlers supply that I have been nibbling on for a couple weeks. Come to think of it, the kids should come back for cookies.

In those years we have had more than two dozen different types of cookies. Yes, we have one of the fi nest collections of cookie tins in Northeastern Wisconsin. Most, if not all, are called up to active duty by early December.

Many cookie bakers rarely wander beyond the traditional decorated sugar cookie. Leslie never makes those, which isn’t bad because I don’t like snowman-shaped sugar cookies. She prefers a diverse collection of choices that really don’t look like Christmas cookies, but it really doesn’t matter because they all taste good. When’s the last time you had someone turn down a cookie because it wasn’t exactly holiday themed?

We’re including the recipe for one of Leslie’s holiday favorites, and because it doesn’t really look like an angel, feel free to give it a try after the holidays. As for me, I cut back on cookie consumption after the holidays right along with avoiding the scale and only looking at the mirror from my neck up.

Jon Gast
Co-Owner/Editor of Edible Door