The Cookie Crumbles
Gloria MacKay of Trilogy at Redmond Ridge is a writer of poetry and essays. She shares her thoughts and reflections with her fellow Trilogy members through her Sense of Place article series.
I have reached the point where I would trade all of my Christmas cookies for one piece of fresh strawberry pie. ‘Tis the season is no longer a reason; it’s ‘twas the season for me.
Cookies don’t lift my spirits anymore. The last time I stopped at my bank I wanted to walk over and fold up that table they put by the door – the one with the snowman napkins and the candied cherry meringues, beginning to drip. Nothing untoward about that, I suppose, but it does not take much to cookie me out.
When I had four young sons and a house big enough to hold them, and worked outside the home, as well, I conjured up enough energy every December for hours of frivolous baking, including climbing the step stool for my krumkake iron and making sure my vanilla extract was pure.
I baked more batches of Christmas cookies than Martha Stewart at her prime, and then hid the five star ones (suitable for sharing) in the vegetable crisper, camouflaged by a few leaves of romaine. The imperfections, good enough for the kids, sat in on the counter as decoys. This strikes me now as a pretty weird game I was playing.
I did this every year, my theory being that once a “nice woman” starts a Christmas tradition she has to do it for the rest of her life, otherwise people will be disappointed. Besides the recipes “everyone” counted on – chocolate crackles, Mexican wedding cakes, spritz with no sprinkles, and biscotti, which I had discovered long before espresso was even a twinkle in a Starbucks eye – I varied my cookies from year to year so people would be surprised. Think up surprises? Just another task assigned to nice women during the holiday season: gingerbread people, luscious lemon bars, thumb prints filled with homemade jam, and “just in case” (in case of what I don’t remember), a batch or two of chocolate haystacks or ting-a-ings.
I’ve gone through more periods than Picasso: my year of the peanut butter blossom, my dalliance with cherry winks, interludes with slivered almonds, white chocolate, pine nuts and dates. When time ticked too quickly for perfection, I learned to let the chocolate chips fall where ever they wanted to go.
Once I got my head out of the oven (one of the kids must have hollered “fire”) I saw that there was no one keeping track of my cookie production except for me. Everyone else was playing “you are what you eat” games with cookies. Thanks to a psychological study I found online before I was all cookied out, I could play, too. This involved a preference test grouping personalities into five cookie groups: Chocolate Chip, Mint, Oatmeal Raisin, Sugar and Ginger. After answering a battery of personal questions, one is told what type of cookie personality he or she is.
Wouldn’t you know! I turned out to be a Chocolate Chip, the prototype traditionalist and nurturer. A person who, presumably, fills every tin she can scrounge plus the vegetable crisper with Christmas cookies every single year and always tucks in a few surprises. Been there. Done that. Boring. If I took the test now, the real me would surely be Mint.
Mint personalities, so the test affirms, are cool and sophisticated, wear chic clothes, try trendy new foods, sip fine wine, go to artsy movies, and gather with friends to talk about “important” things. “If you are a Mint and were a magazine, you’d be The New Yorker.”
You betcha! I want a subscription for Christmas. Finally, I could invite my friends over during the holidays for meaningful conversation. All my friends seem to have “issues,” but I’ve never had time.
One last crumb of news about cookies: A new test based on Oreos has been developed, which particularly interests me this year since I am tempted to buy lots of them to share with my family and friends, sit back for a change, and watch the show.
Some psychologists think the way we eat an Oreo cookie provides insight into our personalities. They came up with a list of ten different methods of eating an Oreo, describing ten different personality types. To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning: How do I eat thee? Let me count the ways.
• The whole thing at once • One bite at a time • Slow and methodical • In little feverish nibbles • Dunked • Twisted apart, the inside, then the cookie • Twisted apart, the inside, and toss the cookie • Just the cookie, not the inside • Lick them, not eat them • I don’t have a favorite way, I don’t like Oreo cookies.
For example, those who eat the whole cookie in one bite consume life with abandon, are fun to be with, exciting, carefree, reckless and totally irresponsible.
Slow and methodical? You follow the rules. You’re very tidy and orderly. You’re very meticulous in every detail with every thing you do. Stay out of the fast lane if you’re only going to go the speed limit.
Those, like me, who respond, I don’t have a favorite way, I don’t like Oreo cookies, never did, never will, are described with hostility: “You like to be pampered. You are a prima donna.There’s just no pleasing you.”
Oh yes there is. Bring on the fresh strawberry pie.