Thursday, December 18, 2008

Pods, cookies, peace

Cardamom pods. I realized the ones I had in the spice selection were from 2005 (!), so I got some fresh ones. Admittedly, I don’t use them often, but they do remind me of the holidays. My mother made a Christmas stollen that was cardamom flavored. I never liked it all that much because there was never enough sugar and nuts on top. OHS’s grandmother made a Finnish version of this braided, yeast bread that OHS never liked all that much either, for the same reason. It must have been too sophisticated for our junior palates. By coincidence, cardamom was used in Jim’s recipe for spitz cookies.
A Windsor Terrace oven was burning hot last night as six of us made Christmas cookies. From the top clockwise: chocolate crackle, pfeffernussen, spitz, & pignoli. I used a cookie press for the first time. Gun-like, it made me wish that all the guns in the world would shoot cookies. Clearly, I'd had a little sugar, plus Charlie Brown was playing in the background....

3 comments:

amarilla said...

Here's to cookie ammo, or rather, amo! I love those pignoli cookies. They may be the only nuts we get from pine cones, and they are amazing, in my opinion.

Matthew said...

The pignoli were the best of the cookies we made. I didn't know there was almond paste in them. This old dog, besides getting fat, is learning new tricks.

amarilla said...

Good doggy!