The Year I Failed the Christmas Cookie Party

When I was newly married (19!), my then-husband and I moved to a farm between Binghamton and Ithaca, New York. His job was being a farmhand. Mine was reading, watching the only television station available (whatever was playing—whether competitive bowling or I Love Lucy re-runs), and gaining weight.

The cookies below helped enormously in that last endeavor.

We lived far from any neighbors—other than the farmer and his wife, and the farmer’s son and his wife, and their children. When the farmer’s son’s wife invited me for breakfast, I was ecstatic. Finally, a friend! Someone to talk to besides the librarian in Binghamton (where we went on my husband's one day off).

Upon arrival at the farmer's son's wife's house, she offered me a 7&7 (I had no idea what it was—had it been a joint, I might have understood better), a Pop-Tart, and a cup of depression.

This was my introduction to farm life friendship.

At Christmas, the farmer’s wife (not to be confused with the farmer’s son’s wife) invited me to a cookie party—where—she explained— each guest brought enough packages of a dozen home-baked cookies to exchange with all the guests.

My excitement, though a bit measured (based on my breakfast visit to the farmer's wife's daughter-in-law), was high enough for me to spend my weekly library visits foraging for the most exciting and exotic cookie recipe I could find. My life was that much of a farm life void. (My then-husband was busily working 16-hour days and becoming buff as I slowly morphed into cooked, ate, and wondered why all my clothes were shrinking.)

The cookies I made (below) were everything I’d hoped. Complicated, sophisticated, delicious, and . . .  greeted by the farmer's wife's guests with faces of horror. What were these lumpy brown things brought in by the strange-eating Brooklyn Jewish woman?

My cookies

Clearly, they were not what was expected.

I handed out my Plain Jane bags of cookies (no ribbons curling downsides of adorably embellished bags, no cutely painted boxes). My New York bakery sophistication style sweets might as well have been wearing Stars of David, bundled in tiny little yarmulkes, and speaking Yiddish for how much they stood out. Every other bag of cookies was a variation on the Christmas butter cookie theme, cut in the shapes of stars, elves, and Santa, and decorated. Highly.

My memory of their cookies—though my memory must be impaired. I guess these are Easter cookies???

Sparkles! Red and Green Sugar! Glittering Gold Balls! All applied with the skill of holiday-possessed Rembrandts.

My cookies looked like the homely third cousin your mother forced you to invite to the Bar Mitzvah. But damn it, they were the tastiest.

I think.

But if I ever get invited to another cookie party, I'll sprinkle them with white and blue glitter.

French Lace Cookies

½ cup corn syrup

½ cup butter

⅔ cup brown sugar

1 cup flour sifted

1 cup finely chopped nuts

Combine corn syrup, butter, and sugar.  Bring to boil.  Combine flour and nuts w/liquid.  Place by teaspoon 4" apart and bake for 8-10 min in 325° oven.

To add a beautiful and delicious flourish, dip each cookie in melted dark chocolate. If you are talented (unlike me), roll the cookies while they are still warm enough to roll and then dip them in the chocolate—if you are clumsy (like me) simply dip them when they are cool. Lay on waxed paper while the chocolate hardens.