Christmas Crinkle

So my family is asleep and even though I made rows and rows of jars of vanilla sugar in October to share with friends and neighbors so I wouldn't have to bake as much this year, I can't stop. I can't help it. I've made batches of different cookies every day, shortbread, madeleines, choc chip toffee, and a boiled peanut cookie out of my new favorite cookbook that was at best baffling. Tonight it's quiet, finally and my shopping is done (hopefully). I peeled the apples and sliced them and will let them sweat all night in sugar and cardamon and the blueberries are having a bath in sugar and lemon rind. I'll make the pie crust and set in the fridge overnight to chill and then when I'm almost all done, I'm making Chocolate Crinkles.

You know this cookie. Your mom or grandmother made it out of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book, or the Joy of Baking.

I've been thinking about this, the compulsion to bake, why we make things that we know will make people happy. It's not just to show off, although I'm kinda good at that too. It's more than that. It's more than food, or ritual or community. If you have someone's old cookbooks, or recipe cards in your attic of garage and the pages are still sticky with sugar and smeared with flour-- if you flip through their casseroles and pastry dough recipes and see the neatly lined handwriting, blurred with watermarks, bent with use... it means one thing, you were loved.

It may be primal. They wanted to fill you. Maybe it wasn't a perfect family and maybe you didn't always (or ever) get what you needed, maybe you weren't greeted at the door with a hug and kiss or even embraced every time you needed it, but I promise you, you were loved, not flawlessly, but absolutely. Flip through those old books, the old recipes and remember the sights and smells. It will all come back to you. And Happy Christmas. Here's to a sweet, sweet, sweet New Year.