cookies « A Woman Sconed

Cookie of the Month: Comforting with softness and sprinkles

By rahoward, on July 31st, 2021

Nearly every grocery store I’ve ever entered has had some version of a Lofthouse cookie. It seems to be standard to carry these ultra-soft, ultra-sweet vanilla cookies topped with fluffy frosting in an array of pastel colors, embellished with a finish of sprinkles.

I’ll admit that I’m neither much of a frosting nor . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Comforting with softness and sprinkles

Cookie of the Month: Snazzing up the snickerdoodle

By rahoward, on June 29th, 2021

My first snickerdoodle was given to me by a primary schoolmate, not much older than I. The cookie was pale golden perfection, much like its baker, who was, despite her young years, full of enviable poise, confidence and beauty (who later in high school became, of course, quite popular, a cheerleader and homecoming . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Snazzing up the snickerdoodle

Cookie of the Month: Imagining carrots in more than cake

By rahoward, on May 24th, 2021

There are many mystery recipes in my mom’s little cedar recipe box. The sources of many of the handwritten cards remain unnamed, although I know that if my mom took the time to write down a recipe, it came from someone. More than that mystery, I don’t have a firm recollection of her . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Imagining carrots in more than cake

Cookie of the Month: Fulfilling Hamantaschen

By rahoward, on March 29th, 2021

Hamantaschen, another cookie with Jewish heritage, also falls into the “cookie pastry” category. I would dare say that these little tri-cornered pockets, filled with preserves or homemade fillings, almost seem of their own type of “cookie tart” and could find their place rightfully in that role on any teatime table.

I first tasted . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Fulfilling Hamantaschen

Cookie of the Month: Cheering for cherry rugelach

By rahoward, on February 28th, 2021

Rugelach — little bites of buttery, cream cheese dough rolled up with fillings (jam, fruits, chocolate and nuts) into crescent-like swirls and baked to a golden brown — fall somewhere between a cookie and a pastry. I was excited to run across the term “pastry cookie” recently in my rugelach research. I was . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Cheering for cherry rugelach

Cookie of the Month: Seeking peace, via chocolate

By rahoward, on January 31st, 2021

In a year like the last, in a month like the last, what is (still) really needed is some kind of peace. Something to settle us, even momentarily, into a state of calm and content, lifting our worries and maybe even providing a bit of hopeful bliss.

Enter Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies, . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Seeking peace, via chocolate

Cookie of the Month: Remembering a recipe box favorite

By rahoward, on December 7th, 2020

The longer you are around, the more holidays become about memories and missing those who are no longer here.

I could write endlessly about how much I miss my mom at this, a second Christmas season without her. The depth of this loss, in particular, is bottomless. She was a part of everything . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Remembering a recipe box favorite

Cookie of the Month: Boosting flavor in a cranberry slice

By rahoward, on November 29th, 2020

I am big fan of slice-and-bake cookies. Their make-ahead and make-as-you-need-them approach makes me happy in a holiday season crowded with recipes and goody-making possibilities. I’m also a big fan of shortbread, and if the shortbread comes in slice-and-bake form (as many of them do), I’m even more enamored.

I had saved a . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Boosting flavor in a cranberry slice

Cookie of the Month: Looking to THE cookie

By rahoward, on November 7th, 2020

I first learned of black and white cookies the way many Americans who don’t live in New York (where the cookie is well-known), learned about the black and white cookie — from a “Seinfeld” episode. Jerry Seinfeld, waiting with his friend Elaine on her quest for a chocolate babka at a bakery, gets . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Looking to THE cookie

Cookie of the Month: Flaking the familiar

By rahoward, on October 13th, 2020

I miss a lot of things about the gym. I used to go a few times a week, and now, not only are we unable to go to gyms because of the pandemic, the very gym I spent a number of years sweating in filed for bankruptcy. It wasn’t much, this no-frills gym, . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Flaking the familiar

“People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.”
--M.F.K. Fisher

"It was in a yellow limestone church in Stockdale, Kansas, a crossroads town, that I sat dreaming during summer Sunday sermons, not of heaven or hell, but of the good dinner to come."
--Clementine Paddleford