Colliemom wrote:Morning. Nice light snow falling softly out my window this morning.
Good morning, Sue, and all who follow. [Sigh] I'm sitting here reading your post, and imagining a soft snow falling here outside my own window. I could really go for that kind of weather right about now, but it isn't going to happen. Down to about 38 degrees last night, probably top out at high 50's/low 60's later today.
Be nice time for a walk, but cookie baking is on the agenda. Going to make the traditional butter cookies. Ned to get out the stuff and dice up some Maraschino cherries. I still have the old cookie press and the one shape I always make. All’s for a piece of cherry in the center. There are other shapes too, like wreaths and Christmas trees etc., but this one I use has always been my favorite.
Oh, Sue, you really bring back the memories. I think that this will be the first year in, literally, decades, that I don't make my favorite cookie-press butter cookies. I made them last year (using my new-ish Wilton cookie press), but decided not to this year - I put on close to ten pounds over the holidays last year due to lot of "bad eating"
, including these cookies. I always seem to gain weight during the winter, but it comes off again during the summer. . . when it is just too hot here to feel much like eating. I think I'll try to skip the annual weight gain this year.
Here comes one of my weird stories.
When I was a newly-wed, husband-and-wife friends of my husband were in town during the Christmas season, and announced they would be able to stop by for a visit. My husband was very happy and welcoming to these friends - they were both many years older than we were, he had gone to school with their daughters, and they were rather wealthy.
I was a bit non-plussed by this sudden announcement, because I had just finished up making Christmas cookies and my kitchen (not to mention the rest of my house) was a total mess.
This was mostly due to the cookies - I had borrowed the stainless-steel cookie press (LOL, this in the days before so many things were made of plastic) from my Mom that the family had used to make Christmas cookies since I was a young child. Mom was very specific at the loan - I was to take good care of it, and return it promptly, which I blithely agreed to do. She still seemed a bit worried about letting me have it, maybe because it had been in the family for many years, was no longer being made, so thus was irreplacable. The thing was very easy to use, and I was happy to have it for a bit in order to make my cookies.
Anyway, these older friends of my husband came for a visit, stayed several hours (during which time he and I had to leave on a short errand) and, so far as I can remember, had a nice visit.
A few days later my Mom asked me to bring back the cookie press if I was finished using it, I said I would bring it over the next day.
And I couldn’t find it.
In a total and complete panic, I looked everywhere, spending hours searching for it. Finally I pulled everything out of all of the cupboards and all of the drawers (leaving the kitchen in a total shambles). . . but it was just nowhere to be found. I was totally devastated and heartsick at not being able to find it – even worse (much worse!) was having to phone my mother to tell her that it was gone. My mother, bless her, who could be quite gruff at times, seemed to sense my level of despair, finally told me to not worry about it too much. As she said, if it was gone, it was gone.
I finally decided I must have, somehow, unbelievably, tossed it out with the trash in my hurry and anxiety to get the house cleaned up before my husband’s friends came (I have always been a bit forgetfull, particularly when under stress). I never forgot, and have always intensely regretted, the loss of this cookie press. To this day.
Some few years go by.
Husband and I eventually move to northern California and are fairly close to the location of these friends of his. One day they have us over for dinner, and as I am helping with wash-up, as I am putting items away into a cupboard I see what I am sure was my Mom’s old cookie press.
How do I know? Of course, I couldn’t know 100% - but my Mom's old cookie press was always kept in it’s original worn green box (that held the press and the various implements that Sue speaks of). And the box that had belonged to my mother had a long tear at one corner, mended with scotch tape. The box that I saw in these people’s cupboard had the exact same tear, in the exact same corner, mended with the exact same worn tape.
I didn’t say anything. . . what was there to say after the passage of years? . . . but I think my hostess might have seen me gaping at it. The next time we had dinner with them, and I was again helping with wash-up, the cookie press was gone.
LOL. I guess this is just my long-winded way of asking, Sue, what kind of cookie press do you have, and how do you like it? As mentioned above, a couple of years back I bought a nice Wilton cookie press but have rarely used it, with my kids grown and gone. And the Wilton press doesn't work nearly as well as the old stainless-steel press that belonged to my Mom.
Thanks for reading everyone. Wishing all of you, and your families, the best kind of Holidays that you can possibly manage.
Merry Christmas to all.
Anne
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I'm also thinking I forgot my BP pills this morning but who knows!
