The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

I know many of you are dying to know in the outcome of the Christmas cookie recipe contest, so here’s what happened:

First, thanks to those who sent me cookie recipes when I was in crisis over what to bake for a cookie party I had to attend. All the recipes were totally solid. It was a tough call, but I finally picked one my friend Jenny emailed me, for shortbread cookies that you are supposed to decorate. I found a cookie cutter in the shape of a Christmas tree ornament, bought a sleigh-load of decorative sugary things, and went to town.

The lesson I learned was that I should not attempt to decorate cookies. It’s just not in my skill set. The cookies, although they tasted good, looked like remnants of a nuclear explosion.

I took a picture of the cookies but now I can’t find it, which is probably just as well; without visual documentation I can pretend things went better than they did. The picture you see here is of the other cookies at the party. You can see what I was up against: perfection. I pretended that my sorry entry was, you know, postmodern, hence the unusual presentation (i.e. mess). I was greeted with polite skepticism, but, as I said, the cookies tasted good so my level of humiliation was only about an 8, not a 10.

P.S. Jenny’s prize for her winning submission was a spatula with tiny Santas printed on it. Comes in handy for whacking people who criticize your baking skills.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Just Desserts, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.