Here’s an unusual post for you: a letter I sent to my aunt last month. I enclosed it with the box of Christmas cookies I sent her. She financed our new refrigerator back in 2002, soon after we’d bought the house. She’s an excellent cook, a master cookie baker, and I hoped she’d enjoy reading about some of my kitchen adventures and reflections.
Maybe you will, too.
Dear Aunt Ann,
Merry Christmas!
I hope this letter and package finds you well and feeling warm and satisfied this winter. Twenty-twenty-one!
As I packed up your cookies last night, I thought again of the kind comments you have made about my springerle cookies. Mom told me that you’ve said they were “the best you’d ever had” (or something like that). My immediate reaction was to laugh—to snort out a healthy Pshaw!!—because my dilettante, amateur-level cookie-making “explorations” certainly are nowhere near the level of the cookies made by all the grandmothers, great-aunts, aunts, friends, and family of my childhood (including Mom and yourself).
When I was a kid, it seems all the ladies made a good variety of cookies, using recipes they’d used for decades, which were handed down to them from their mothers, grandmothers, friends, and neighbors. They were sure-handed, confident cookie bakers. . . . At least that’s how it seemed to me. If there were any disasters, I sure never knew about it. (Now I know: cookie-making “disasters” stay at home and are not shared, except with children who are none the wiser. Even if the texture or the shape is wrong, the “failures” usually are still delicious. And if they’re really bad, the squirrels and opossums get a Christmas treat!)
. . . And it seems everyone would try out a new recipe each year, just for fun, and for the variety. Like people sometimes say, “throw a lot of ideas at the wall and see what sticks.” Sometimes one of these novel recipes would “stick” and became a new family favorite. Sue’s mom did that a lot and ended up with plenty of kinds of cookies to bake each year!
I was present, as a child, when the venerable “orange balls” recipe joined the family. I keep that cookie alive singlehandedly today for the warm memories it brings to me. The recipe came from the then-secretary of the MU Geography Department—she must’ve brought some orange balls into the office to share, or maybe she made plates of cookies to give as gifts—and Dad got the recipe from her. He and I adopted it as one of our favorites, a dad-and-daughter activity during the holidays. Not having a food processor then, we’d grind the vanilla wavers on the slick, Formica-topped kitchen table using Mom’s wooden rolling pin. It was great fun to sit there and crush up those wafers with Dad! You can’t go wrong with no-bake cookies!
This year, I’ve tried a new recipe. It’s called a “spumoni” cookie, and it has chocolate chips, pistachios, and dried sour cherries. I first had them a few years ago at Kingston, the assisted-living place where Mrs. Ferber was living. The cooks of the cafeteria organized a cookie-exchange party for the residents. The Kingston residents could invite their families, and everyone got to try a variety of cookies fresh-baked in Kingston’s cafeteria kitchen, with live Christmas music by a local-favorite entertainer and his electric piano. There was eggnog, hot chocolate, and coffee. What a fun afternoon that was! All told, Kingston wasn’t perfect (what place can be?), but it’s the kind of place that I would be lucky to live in one day . . . Unfortunately, the night I made the spumoni cookies, I ran out of almond extract, so it has half the amount it should have, plus I kinda overbaked them . . . but what the heck: chocolate! I really love this combination.
I am lucky to have so many family favorites—from both sides of my family, as well as from Sue’s mom, now—to choose from. I’m one of the few who bakes them anymore. Christmas is about the only time I ever make cookies, but boy-howdy, it’s a whirlwind of cookie baking!
The date-nut bars and spice cookies are two of Mrs. Ferber’s longtime favorites. Other Ferber favorites include pecan puffs (“delectabites”), haystacks (so easy to overcook and turn into rocks), peanut butter no-bake cookies (or, as Sue’s brother-in-law blasphemously called them, “yard sausages”—if you don’t know what that means, ask any dog owner), jubilee jumbles (with that magical browned-butter icing), and green-colored spritz cookies in the shape of wreaths (I’ve never attempted those; I lack the equipment and, probably, the temperament). She was also a big candy maker: Fudge! White-chocolate peppermint bark! Buckeye candies! (Mr. Ferber had a sweet tooth!) Mrs. Ferber used to tell stories of growing up during the depression on North Bass Island in Lake Erie, and how she and the neighbor girls would get together to pull taffy.
I find it so interesting to see how recipes change. Great-grandma Thomas’s lebkuchen recipe was passed down to both of my grandmas: her daughter Edna Schroeder, and her neighbor Clara Renner. I’m lucky to have handwritten recipes from all three, so I can track the changes. Wilhelmina Thomas’s recipe called for lard, and a later version, in Grandma Schroeder’s hand, switched it to Crisco. Grandma Renner swapped citron and lemon peel, raisins, and currants with candied mixed fruit and raisins, and she’d grind the fruit in her hand-cranked meat grinder. These are just some of the changes.
And none of them specified what was meant by “molasses.” Maybe it would change in different years, depending on what they could get their hands on. I’ve read that authentic German lebkuchen (gingerbread) are pretty much synonymous with honigkuchen (gingerbread made with honey). In America, German immigrants—if they had access to honey—sold it for cash. Then, for their own baking, they used the more frugal and readily available sorghum molasses (sweet sorghum syrup), which has a bland flavor unlike that of sugarcane molasses (such as Brer Rabbit or Grandma’s). I’ve read that the honey/molasses distinction is one quick way to tell the difference between a German lebkuchen recipe and one from German-American immigrants.
In most recent years, I’ve gone out of my way to find nice, mild sorghum molasses for my leppies. (It’s a trip to the Mennonite store.) But this year, I was inspired to substitute a bit of Brer Rabbit Full Flavor just for fun. I think they taste better for it.
I’ve had to figure out a lot of stuff that wasn’t written in the recipes that have come down to me. I didn’t learn at my grandmas’ knees. It seems they were never baking cookies when we visited, and I wasn’t much interested in cooking, anyway. If I’ve tweaked recipes over the years (as I’m sure they did, too), it’s because I’m merely trying to figure out how to more perfectly match the cookies I remember gobbling up as a child.
Beside all the smudges and spatters, my recipe cards are full of penciled-in notes: “don’t crowd these on the cookie sheets”; “Mom uses margarine”; “2012: this made ___ dozen”; “DOUBLE THIS”; “2 tsp. 4 tsp. ground cardamom (Evelyn Baur doubles it, Yay for cardamom! :-D)”; “dough has to be really stiff, so it hurts your arm to stir”; “don’t double this and use big pan; instead, make two separate batches in 8 x 8 pans.” (Blah, blah, blah. If I didn’t pencil them in, I’d forget them over the course of the following year.)
This year I finally realized that Grandma Renner scooped her flour out of her flour bin or canister with her measuring cup, then used a knife to level the top; whereas I had learned to spoon the flour into the cup before leveling, which makes it fluffy, not packed, so the amount of flour is different. No one ever writes the method for measuring flour on their recipes—you’re just supposed to know. And if you don’t, then you should at least know how stiff the dough should be, and adjust accordingly as you mix it . . . well. As I said, I’m a dilettante. More than twenty years into this, and I’ve finally figured out a key to getting billy goats right. So the first half of this year’s batch of billy goats, once again, spread out flat in the oven, while the second half, after I’d stirred another half-cup of flour into the dough, finally lumped up properly.
And Grandma Renner’s recipe calls for a cup of butter. But Mom told me that she (Mom) always used margarine. Of course, this affects the texture and flavor. So I, myself, split the difference and use a stick of both, to equal one cup. This year, Mom announced my billy goats are on the dry side and suggested I left them in the oven too long, the way she says Grandma Renner routinely critiqued Aunt Lyd’s billy goats. Ah, the relentless pursuit of perfection! Fortunately, it’s nothing that a week sealed up in a tin with half an apple loosely wrapped in wax paper won’t fix.
I think billy goats are my current favorite (the date-nut bars are right up there, too). I love how the dates, black walnuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla come together to the point where not one of them really tastes the same. It’s a synergistic combination that creates a new flavor, which I like to call “billy goat.” I’ve made “billy goat” pancakes and “billy goat” oat bran muffins. I ought to try a “billy goat” quick bread, too.
While I’m on the subject of black walnuts: as usual, please be advised that some of the nuts were hand-shelled, and even the mechanically shelled ones aren’t perfect. So chew carefully. I’d hate for you to have to make a trip to the dentist.
I’ve recently been paying close attention to recipes in old cookbooks (my favorite bedtime reading) for billy goats and their close relatives, hermits and “rocks.” These chunky-looking drop cookies all have a large proportion of dried fruits (raisins, currants, and/or dates) and nuts (usually pecans, walnuts, black walnuts), and they usually call for at least half the sugar to be brown sugar. They were very popular in the 1930s and 40s among the moms who had taken “domestic science” classes, endured the depression, and viewed themselves very seriously as the manager of their children’s health, as well as the food budget. Billy goats, hermits, and rocks not only taste great but also are relatively healthy, providing actual nutrition, compared to handing your children sugar cookies or candies after school. I see billy goats, hermits, and rocks as the grandmothers of the granola bars and fruit roll-ups so popular today.
Springerles: they’re everyone’s favorite. I was already making them for some years before I found a very old recipe from Great-grandma Thomas, which called for hartshorn (baker’s ammonia, or ammonium carbonate). I’ve never even tried that recipe, though I’ve had plenty of other people’s springerles made with that unusual ingredient—and I think mine are better. They’re lighter. Mine are made from my precious 1949 edition of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book, one of the possessions of Dad’s Cousin Marguerite (Fieker/Donovan/Miskell) that I claimed when the family was emptying her house . . . Although the book’s binding is shot, and the front cover is long gone, still tucked within its thin, brittle pages is the cute, pink-flocked Christmas card from Great Aunt Esther and Uncle Emil that accompanied it when they gave it to her. (What a treasure!) It’s full of great, basic recipes, made with whole foods.
So, no hartshorn in the springerles—this is a modern recipe from 1949!—it calls for sifted cake flour, baking powder, eggs, powdered sugar, and grated lemon rind. For anise flavor, it tells you to sprinkle anise seeds on the trays and lay the freshly rolled and cut cookies on them. I soon learned, for a punchier, less haphazard flavor, to use anise extract. Then, a few years ago, shopping at a Mennonite store, I unwittingly purchased anise oil. (You’ve got to read those labels carefully!) That year, they tasted like black jelly beans! (Though . . . some people really liked them that way, so there’s no accounting for taste!)
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I should probably end this meditation on Christmas cookie baking, but I want to add one more thought—something that’s been on my mind the last few weeks, as our refrigerator that you bought for us back in 2002 became intermittent, seemed to recover for a week, then finally chilled its last. I’m sure Mom has told you of its demise, that white Frigidaire side-by-side that has served us so well. We picked it out at Lowe’s about a year after buying Grandma’s house. I don’t remember what was wrong with Grandma’s old fridge, but it must have been going south. Our new fridge, though fairly basic by 2002 standards, nevertheless had an ice and water dispenser, and it has always seemed like a luxury to me, a real treat.
I think I recall that when we bought it, it had come with a projected lifespan of about 15 years. (Today, fridges are projected to last for a mere decade, while my parents still have their General Electric from 1965 in their garage as their soda-and-extra-stuff fridge; it’s still going strong!) We have another Frigidaire in our first-floor kitchen that we bought in 2009, when the one down there quit. It’s a no-frills, freezer-top version that has been invaluable as our main fridge has gone kaput.
Mom probably filled you in on some of the details of our finding a new refrigerator. Being very careful to look for fridges that were no larger than our current one, which had been a headache to get up the staircase, we finally ordered a new, very similar Frigidaire, of about the same size, from Lowe’s. Then we had to wait for it to be shipped to Jeff City from their warehouse. Finally, on delivery day, the moving guys (after making several measurements), expressed concern that they wouldn’t be able to get the new fridge up our stairway, so they shook their heads, apologized, and drove off. We never saw the new fridge, and now our old fridge just sits there, silent and empty, in our kitchen.
(I’ve started to put our magnets back on it. I may start using it as extra storage space for pots and pans.)
A few days after the aborted delivery, a Lowe’s appliance manager called and told me they’d scolded the mover guys and said they’d “make” them deliver the fridge—also, that the fridge had a ding in the right side, now, and that’d garner us a 15 percent discount. Or, they could order us a new, ding-less fridge. Hmm. So now the moving guys have hard feelings, and there’s no sign that a manager would accompany them to oversee the job? What about our walls? Also, they wouldn’t be doing any installation (again, Lowe’s). We decided to go shopping again.
We ended up at Columbia’s Downtown Appliance, a locally owned, longtime business that (hooray!) now finally delivers to Jefferson City. Installation included. We picked out a GE that is indeed smaller than the one we have now, and therefore more fitting for our small kitchen, anyway. It still has the ice maker and ice and water dispenser. It’s a French-door model with bottom freezer drawer (which is trendy, but whatever). It’s stainless steel, which doesn’t particularly go with our kitchen, but I recently realized that it’s only our stove that’s white, anyway; our other two appliances (microwave and toaster oven) are stainless, so . . . what the heck. We’ll cover it with magnets, clipped-out comics, and dry-erase “do lists,” anyway.
Given COVID-era supply problems, our new refrigerator won’t be manufactured and available until “late January or early February,” so until then, we’ll be leaning heavily on our first-floor fridge. It’s inconvenient to run downstairs for some eggs for breakfast, but it’s annoying to climb back up to the second-floor kitchen with the eggs and realize I forgot to grab the butter! We are lucky that this happened during winter, since we can use the unheated sunporch for things that are best stored in the cold but don’t require refrigeration—nuts, breads, seeds, sodas, and so on. Mom and Dad have offered to let us put some of our sausage and other frozen meats in their garage freezer. So we’re doing well.
Anyway, it kind of blows my mind that the refrigerator you bought for us has come to an end. It performed well for us, and I’ve never forgotten your kindness and generosity in paying for it. It makes me rather frustrated that something that seems to be in great shape (except for the ugly buzzing the compressor makes if you plug it in) is kaput. It still feels like “my nice new refrigerator.” But it also seems like only yesterday when we moved here! The years have gone by quickly.
But here’s the point I really wanted to make: even though I’m forever grateful for your financial gift in the form of the refrigerator (and all the other gifts you’ve given me over the years, and never properly thanked you for), the gift from you that really touches me most, the one that will never wear out, the one that I cherish above all others, is your kindness and your positive appraisal of my cookies. That means the world to me, coming from you, and I just wanted you to know it.
I hope this holiday season is filled with all your favorite things. Merry Christmas!
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