Posts Tagged ‘Christmas cookies’
Cookies Aplenty
The morning after Cyndie’s two days of unadulterated Christmas cookie baking dawns with the results neatly packaged for distribution.
My blood sugar is probably still out of whack after sampling way too many varieties over the weekend. Niece, Althea, and son, Julian, showed up to contribute their energies to the effort yesterday, keeping the festive feeling in full swing.
The head baker decided to repackage the entire inventory before beginning the extra effort of cleaning up a mess that a multi-day baking extravaganza creates.
With that epic effort behind her, it’s out of the kitchen and into the horse chores. Our schedule got doubled up today with a planned visit from the farrier happening on the same day as an unexpected delivery of hay bales that will need to be stacked in the shed.
There will be no rest for the weary.
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Like Dad
Baby, it’s cold outside. The horses had frosty whiskers this morning, to rival all the other deep-freeze overnight lows they’ve endured in their time with us.
While the air was exceedingly crisp outside, the house was toastier than Santa’s workshop with Cyndie’s Christmas Cookie-palooza, Day 1, in full swing. The double oven was working overtime to keep up with all the delectible treats Cyndie and her team of guests were moving through it. The post-bake decorating station was a spectacle this year, with frostings and sprinkles applied to the wafting sounds of a unique mix of Christmas music, courtesy of some algorithm at Apple Music.
Since I was in charge of keeping the fire fed in the fireplace and the dog’s nose pointed anywhere other than at foodstuffs, I let the whole operation pass without taking a single photo. I apologize. That was a total lapse of thinking on my part. I did get a shot of some behind-the-scenes aftermath, though.
I stopped by the kitchen to take a photo of a recent success on my part that had me thinking of my dad. A little of his mechanical ingenuity and DIY solutions were passed to me, along with his exceptional ability to tolerate unfinished projects.
For some 10 or 12 years, Cyndie has begrudgingly lived with a problematic corner cabinet that has a pair of lazy susan shelves where we store pots and pans. When it would get stuck, I assumed it was because pan handles weren’t being oriented logically, or it was being overstuffed. When it became stiff, a confident nudge from my foot would close it just fine.
When the shelves finally collapsed from the top and bottom brackets two days ago, I was forced to figure out how it was supposed to work. How the heck did they install it in the first place? Oh, there are adjustment screws. Hmm.
I discovered there was a detent in the plastic top piece that was supposed to match the springy metal brace. Imagine that.
A Philips screwdriver, ten minutes of puttering with adjustments, and we had a perfectly functioning lazy susan corner cabinet. I could have done that years ago. I suppose Cyndie wouldn’t be quite as thrilled with the results if it hadn’t been an ongoing nuisance for a decade.
The quick fix had me feeling chuffed. Figuring out how it was supposed to work reminded me of my dad’s keen skills in that realm. Realizing I had let something go for years without properly solving it dampened my pride and reminded me that I inherited both good and bad traits from that wonderful, complex, ingenious, troubled man that I both looked up to and feared in the years we were both alive.
I think Dad would have approved of the way I fixed that corner lazy susan by figuring out the way it was intended to work.
I’m going to focus on that and not on how long it took for me to get around to it.
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Feeling Festive
Last night, Cyndie brought out an overstuffed three-ring binder that had me wondering why so many extra pages couldn’t be consolidated into a more manageable collection. When she said the word “recipes,” I understood. Why would you ever reduce the number of recipes in a collection?
Why was she researching her recipes? The same reason I should probably dig up my “Dangerous Consumption Advisory.” The coming weekend will bring Cyndie’s annual Christmas cookie-baking-palooza event. There goes my diet again.
It is certainly beginning to feel festive with holiday spirit, and not just because our landscape scenery is beautifully snow-covered. Yesterday, we took in a matinee performance of “It’s A Wonderful Life” at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, with friends Ann (Herzog) and David Drewiske.
I won’t need to watch the traditional broadcast of the movie this year. I also don’t need to go see more holiday lights because Lakefront Park was aglow with a spectacular display.
It is feeling very much like Ho-Ho-Ho season is in full swing. It’s almost enough to make me ready to hear Christmas carols in repeating loops.
Almost.
Cyndie and I got an early Christmas present in the form of a call from a previous (very reliable) animal sitter who has returned to school at UWRF and is interested in some hours. We can always use a larger pool of sitters to choose from when we need coverage for times we want to be away from home.
We are usually fighting to squeeze some hours out of their packed schedules, so having one of them asking us for work opened up an opportunity to make new plans. A winter trip to the lake place might be in the offing. I think we left an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on the table last time we were up there.
Completing a jigsaw puzzle at the lake would be another version of feeling festive, after the Christmas activities have run their course. A getaway in the north woods in a cozy log home. You might recognize that festivities like that would suit me just fine.
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Calories Galore
How sweet it is. Even though I had been duly warned, there were several instances yesterday when more than the recommended number of cookies found their way into my mouth. Cyndie was a machine of efficiency, cranking out non-stop cookie magic.
She accomplished a heroic achievement. According to the television advertisements I saw during NFL games, I should reward her with a car, diamond jewelry, and expensive perfume for Christmas. Or beer. Or bundled insurance.
By the end of the day, Cyndie needed to get off her feet to control swelling in her ankle. That didn’t stop her from continuing to work on her holiday treats.
She wrapped homemade caramels while watching an episode of “All Creatures Great and Small” on her laptop.
Julian and Elysa stopped by and did their part to reduce the overload by taking home a platter of cookies each. While Julian was here, we tried tinkering with the software for our driveway surveillance camera. We made some progress so that it seemed to be working to ping my phone when a vehicle arrived.
Unfortunately, it also began pinging me even when there was no vehicle. The camera that cried wolf.
I will need to spend a lot more time tweaking the software settings, of which there are many, including a numerical adjustment of the sensitivity.
It will give me something to do while I’m continuing to taste-test Cyndie’s baking results.
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Sweet Anticipation
This is one of those times when any words I could assemble into descriptive sentences would pale compared to a simple photo to depict the sweet anticipation when Cyndie begins to prepare for her seasonal baking extravaganza.
When the cookie tins come out, and huge bags of baking flower, sugar, flats of eggs, and tubs of butter show up from the grocery run, I know it is time to dig out my excessive calorie warning.
The house is decorated, lights are on, purchased gifts are being delivered by all the acronyms (USPS/FEDEX/UPS), and songs of the season keep popping up.
The only thing missing is a hint that ours might be a white Christmas this year. There’s still a little over two weeks to go, but forecasts don’t sound promising in that regard. At this advancing stage of my maturity, a lack of snow bothers me a lot less than it did in the past.
The problem I keep needing to cope with is that our frozen mornings feel so dang cold compared to the warm afternoons we have been enjoying the past few weeks. The back and forth is more taxing on my body than when it just gets cold and stays that way for months. Or should that be, more taxing on my mind? Probably both.
Asher decided to do his best to contribute to the festive decorations Cyndie has been putting up in every available space of our house.
The snuffle mat Cyndie created out of a sink mat became a colorful spread of fabric and plastic shards this morning. It worked well while it lasted. I suppose Asher was just making sure none of his food nuggets had gotten lodged between the plastic and the felt strips.
He has no clue about the smells he is about to be smothered with from Cyndie’s kitchen this weekend. I have no idea whether it will compare to the animal scent trails he freaks out over on our walks around the property. Given the intensity of Cyndie’s Christmas cookie-baking process, I suspect the sweet aromas from the house will have all the wildlife in the vicinity at risk of spiking their blood sugar simply by smelling it.
Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll survive. It hasn’t killed me yet in the past [mumble-mumble] years.
Now, where is that special excessive sugar warning that needs to be re-issued…?
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Blind Spot
In my opinion, eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as it is generally made out to be. After a recent incident of missing puzzle pieces, I have lost all confidence in my own ability to see what’s right in front of my face.
Upon completing the first of the latest puzzles my sister shared with us, there were two missing pieces. Having knocked plenty off the table while assembly was in progress, my initial response was to search the rug below. I laid down to scan the surface but found nothing.
A day later, we spread out the 2000 pieces of the next puzzle. I assembled all but one piece of the border and started wondering if that last piece might have fallen to the floor. By merely bending over to scan the floor, I instantly caught sight of one of the missing pieces from the previous puzzle.
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Where the heck was that piece when I looked for it the day before? More importantly, how did my eyes fail to see what was laying out in plain sight?
A short while later, between drying baking bowls and utensils, I spotted the last border piece that had been evading my eyes up to that point. I had abandoned the Vikings game after it became an obvious losing effort to join the party going on in the kitchen. Since my skills aren’t in the preparation of food, I make my contribution by cleaning up afterward.
Our friend, Melissa and our daughter, Elysa came for the day to help Cyndie in a second round of Christmas Cookie baking.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t seem to have any difficulty seeing the expanse of cookie options covering our countertops. My A1C levels might not be at their preferred number for a while.
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Cookie Help
A couple of Santa’s Helpers stopped by for a visit yesterday and cheerfully volunteered to assist Cyndie with baking some Christmas cookies. Sara and Althea did a heroic amount of the legwork getting loaded cookie sheets into and out of our double oven. That’s a lot of squats since the bottom oven is at about floor level.
My legs were getting tired just standing around helping with occasional cleanup. I think they baked almost ten different kinds of cookies. It seemed like that’s how many I test-tasted. Cyndie had prepared much of the dough in advance and refrigerated it overnight.
Each oven was set at a different temperature and the multiple varieties of cookies needed different baking times so it was quite a challenge for four people to keep track of pertinent details. I worked on the jigsaw puzzle while using the timer on my phone to track baking times.
Not that Sara really needed help with that. At one point, she asked me how much time was left and when I looked there was 1 second left on the timer. Her intuition was spot on. She also demonstrated a good sense of when the suggested baking time wasn’t enough. Several of the kinds of cookies took a little longer in our oven to reach the desired golden brown.
I learned that the inside light blinks on when the oven reaches the set temperature. It also emits a little tune, but I already knew about that. Sara conducted most of the orchestrations of the baking while Cyndie consulted recipes and prepped the different doughs for the cookie sheets with Althea’s support in cutting, sprinkling and spritzing.
At about the time maximum baking was being accomplished, I slipped out to feed horses and discovered a gorgeous moon illuminating the early evening. Once the horses were taken care of, I strolled down to pick up the mail. This is an activity that used to always include Delilah and it feels strange to walk down there alone.
Along the way, I took note of a variety of tracks in the snow from a prowling cat and either a fox or coyote. I could see where the snow along the driveway is getting peed on. I wonder if the local animals are noticing that Delilah is no longer marking this territory.
As a punctuation to this thought, last night our motion-sensing light popped on over the deck and I looked out to find a fox on the top step of our deck. We never saw any fox on our deck when Delilah was alive. As soon as I spotted it, it noticed me, did a hasty about-face, and “noped” outta there.
Not long after that, a pack of coyotes started howling up a noise storm from very close proximity. Maybe they were howling at the moon.
Thinking about it, that moon looked a lot like one of Cyndie’s fresh-baked Russian tea cake cookies.
Howl-worthy, indeed.
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Single Week
Less than a week, actually. The holiday season is long but the actual day of Christmas is just a single day and it is now six days away. I am also down to a single week left commuting to the day-job. Three days, actually. It feels like a lot is happening that will hopefully lead up to a period when not much needs to happen, for the rest of my life.
For the last six months, I have only been commuting to the far side of the Twin Cities three days a week. I am already aware of the complexity of noticing what day it is when Saturdays and Sundays become blurred with Fridays and Mondays. When seven days a week all require the same attention from me, I will join the throngs of others who are in the phase of life when every day is simply “today” and not so distinguishable from all the others.
Yesterday was Cyndie’s Christmas Cookie baking day. I failed to provide much warning but the post I created in 2017 is still very applicable. Check out: Advance Warning.
Cyndie invited helpers to contribute to the extravaganza. They captured and shared some images of the frivolity…
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Cookies galore are being shared far and wide. For reference, if you ever have a chance to help Cyndie in the kitchen, you will be stocked with plenty of goodies upon your departure.
Despite this being the second Christmas season under the pandemic, glad tidings and good cheer still shine through.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Enjoy this last week.
I know that I will.
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Baking Therapy
After surgery, most people opt for physical therapy to aid in healing and recovery. This weekend Cyndie appeared to be working on reclaiming her former knee strength by way of baking Christmas cookies of almost every variety. With the COVID-19 pandemic decimating innumerable facets of what we consider normalcy this year, I am awestruck over Cyndie’s motivation to carry on her massive holiday baking tradition without the usual support staff of friends or extended family.
To do it all alone is wildly impressive. To do it alone on a painful wounded knee is rather beyond the call of duty if I do say so myself.
The sum total of my assistance involved taking full responsibility for animal chores, which I was doing anyway so she wouldn’t have to walk more than she already does around the house.
I couldn’t even maintain my reputation as a taste-tester. The batches were coming out of the oven too fast to keep up. I think I exceeded my self-inflicted strict ration of ingested sugar simply by breathing in the smell of fresh warm cookies all day long.
I just didn’t have the gastrointestinal stamina to pound that many test tastes in such a short span of time.
I am curious to find out how the baking therapy worked out for her knee on the day after. She has a follow-up appointment today with the surgeon to check on progress. I wonder if he might suggest eating fresh-baked holiday cookies to help her deal with the residual pain of the excavated bone behind her knee.
It would, at the very least, be easier than working upright in the kitchen all day…
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Cookie Weekend
It’s that time again! Cyndie’s two-day holiday cookie bake-stravaganza commenced yesterday and continues through today. Two years ago Cyndie’s baking intensity triggered a high-level alert from the Wintervale Diet Observation Administration (WDOA).
Cooler heads are prevailing this year due to Cyndie’s smart inclusion of a number of assistants who willingly engage in the intense labor of mass production and, most importantly, take home a plate of the goods to distribute the calories across a wider stretch of midsections. (pardon the pun.)
Don’t worry about me. I will survive this storm of excessive irresistible sweetness using a number of avoidance techniques that have worked for me in the past. My primary difficulty is that I choose not to entirely abstain. I like to sample, so I strive to do so carefully. Small or misshapen specimens are a target of my attention. Convincing willing assistants to break cookies in half so I can have just a taste works well for bigger delicacies.
It may not be fair, but I also bring a platter to work, forcing innocent coworkers to share in the challenge of enjoying the sweet bliss of Cyndie’s incredible effort without overdosing on the amped-up calories per morsel.
Misery loves comfort, you know. Sweet holiday treats and the love and laughter baked into them are a misery I am willing to share.
Luckily this level of sumptuous indulgence only happens one time a year, resulting from Cyndie’s always impressive, “Cookie Weekend!”
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Relative Something 