What I Learned From Cookie Eaters

So if you want to be radically hospitable for Christmas, make cookies.

I can still hear Grandpa’s voice as he taught me cookie making. He read the recipe slowly and clearly. He read one ingredient, then made sure my measurements were precise and read the next one in a recitation voice that I’ m sure he learned in a one room school house.

Every time I make cookies it’s a nod to him, the best cookie baker and eater.   

He favored Ranger cookies. They are the granola of the cookie world. Imagine forest rangers pulling Ranger cookies out of their old kit bags, and eating a cookie that helped them trek on through trackless trees.   

Soccer players like chocolate chip cookies. I made cookies for all David’s away games.  I made somewhere between five and six thousand cookies, eagerly eaten by the Tunkhannock Tigers boys soccer team. Chocolate chip cookies mostly, followed by peanut butter, then oatmeal.  

Of course since it’s Christmas, fancy cookies are required. The favorite fancy cookies among cookie eaters of my acquaintance are shortbreads. Elegant and easy! Butter, sugar and flour, that’s it. Use a big glass for a rolling pin and a little glass for a cookie cutter, roll them on a sugar-coated counter top, and throw on some read and green jimmies. Looks like you’ve been slaving for hours.  

 People are thrilled to get something homemade. And only Scrooge and the Grinch don’t like cookies.

Put Christmas cookies on the top and the standbys on the bottom. You have a full plate and people are just as excited to eat chocolate chip cookies as they are to eat something with red and green sprinkles.

If homemade cookies are just too much for you, come on over. Tell me all your news while I bake cookies and I’ll give you hot cocoa and a plate of cookies to take home.