Me Want Christmas Cookie!

Cookies!!

When we were kids, my sister and I would meet up with all our cousins in Jordan over Christmas break at our grandparents' house, Geddo Saeed and Tata Fawzia (aka Foz). I remember that time as being the most wonderfully loving, cozy, warm and cinnamon-smelling time of my life! Yeah... cinnamon...vanilla...nutmeg...allspice...

You see, Foz - as anyone who knows her or has met her even once will tell you - is a NOTORIOUS cooking phenomena! She's also supremely talented in so many, many other ways - she's a painter, a wood-carver (if you ever come to our house in Cairo you'll find the most beautifully wood-carved rendering of the Four Gates of Jerusalem made by Foz serving as our front door), a gardener with a fabled green-thumb (literally, ANYTHING can grow under her care, even in climates that are entirely unsuitable; I seem to vaguely recall a story about gigantic African violets growing in her home in Amman being the talk of the town at the time) - but most definitely one of her most notable talents is her genius in the kitchen... but to the power of nine million. 

Foz is half-Palestinian (on her father's side), and half-German (on her mother, Gerda's, side), so she can cook in more than one language, which is kind of awesome and means that her culinary repertoire is vast. Eating at Foz's house was always - and actually remains to this day - a supreme treat. 

(On a side note, her house is also the first place that my sister and I, aged 6 and 8 respectively, were given our fist taste of beer from a genuine beer stein - remember, German? - because Foz and Geddo Saeed had an "it's-5-o'clock-that-means-it's-beer-time" ritual every day and Foz didn't want us to feel left out, bless her. To this day, I still associate the taste and smell of beer with my grandparents... incidentally, I associate the smell and taste of pickles with my maternal grandparents, but that's a whole other kettle of grandparents...) Anyway, so Foz cooks like a rock star, and one of her most famous Christmas traditions was her famous Christmas cookies.

I want you to imagine what your most idealized, romanticized, un-sullied image of "Hansel and Gretel" looks like (you know, before the discovery of the ACTUAL Grimm's Fairy Tales version; the one filled with sinister undertones and cannibalistic old women who eat children... not THAT version, the OTHER one... the one with gingerbread houses made of the most alluring candy and sugar and bon-bons and more... THAT version...) Are you imagining it? Okay, that's what it was like for Christmas at Foz's house. Seriously.

Every year, Foz would spend (or at least she claimed to spend) up to a MONTH leading up to Christmas baking and decorating hundreds - and contrary to common practice, I am actually NOT exaggerating - hundreds of cookies in all shapes and sizes... and Foz isn't one to pussy out and buy any of that pre-made, store-bought Betty Crocker cookie dough shit; oh no, honey, her stuff is 100%, grade-A homemade stuff - the stuff of fairy tales and fantasy... sugar cookies that kind of melt in your mouth, but also last just long enough to develop into a semi-crack-like addiction... but aside from the cookies being delicious and "heroin for children", the decorations on the cookies are the images that continue to stick with me to this day because they were so elaborate and artistic and beautiful - almost too beautiful to eat. I said ALMOST... 

Again, we're not talking ready-made frosting/icing combinations spread onto a batch of cookies willy-nilly, God forbid, and randomly finished off with some glittery sprinkles... no, no, we're talking about home-made icing, made with sugar and egg whites and salt and water... the real deal... and then mixed in batches with food coloring in every color known to the spectrum, and some that may not have been known, too. Then, Foz would get to work, baking and baking and baking; and icing and icing and icing... get this... using a toothpick. Yep. A TOOTHPICK. Not a knife, not even a spreader. Nope. A toothpick so that she could carefully and meticulously cover each and every cookie with icing and whatever other toppings she could find. I tell you, the images and tastes of these cookies are forever etched in my mind, conjuring up the fondest memories and the most destructive cravings (like I said, "heroin for children")... and she didn't stop at sugar cookies that were decorated so beautifully, like pieces of edible art, but she made batches upon batches of traditional pfeffernusse cookies, and gingerbread houses that were so elaborate and awe-inspiring, our parents would take pictures of us kids posing by the gingerbread house and we were NOT the focus of the picture; almond cookies with powdered sugar, and on and on and on... seriously, I'm surprised we didn't all grow up with (a) diabetes, and (b) morbid obesity, but we didn't... instead, we grew up with these wonderfully delicious memories of happy Christmas rituals and traditions that linger and leave us somewhat wistful...

So, to that end, I found myself missing these traditions so much a few years ago and decided to revive them for myself and my nephews and my cousin's kids and, frankly, anyone's kids who want in! It started a few years ago when my oldest nephew was around 9 or 10 years old and continues to this day (he's now almost 15...) and even on Christmases where I haven't been with my sister and her kids, I've kept the tradition alive with other people's children... and between us,there have been one or two occasions where I've found myself alone in my apartment with nary a child in sight, and I've gone ahead and baked a batch of sugar cookies a la Foz (with a decidedly lower calorie count because I want to eat the cookie, I just don't want the fat ass that comes along with the eating of the cookie, you know what I mean? Although, who am I kidding? Cookie? More like ALL the cookieS, with a big, fat, capital, PLURAL, S...)

NOT my nephews' cookies :-)

And I will admit to taking the baking and decorating ritual a tad too seriously, just ask my sister what I was like just two days ago when my youngest nephew and I were on a baking-and-decorating frenzy... I MAY have been a little too possessive and neurotic about my cookie decorating "hobby". MAYBE. And I will confess to having neither Foz's patience nor acumen for making my own icing nor for spreading it on with a freakin' toothpick; come on now, it's 2013, there are easier ways (I mean, there's even an App for that, believe it or not... yeah, see "Tasty Cookies" for hours of fun creating and decorating your own cookie without any of the actual fun of a cookie - so yeah, sure, you may not consume the calories, but it also means you don't get to taste the cookie, therefore, you are not living. Yes. Cookies are THAT important), so I buy my icing and frosting from a store like a normal person (and by the way, what IS the damn difference between frosting and icing, anyway?) and I cut some corners here and there, but still, it's MOSTLY the same thing...

Adam & Hussein's (The Nephews) Masterpieces

That said, every year I've done this, I've loved it more and more and whether they're my kids or not doesn't really matter... it's the tradition that I love, and the resulting nostalgia that is evoked from the aromas and the tastes and the sugar rush and the fun of it all... not to mention the many little stolen hugs and kisses my nephew planted on me throughout our cookie-baking-and-decorating night, which finally ended with him saying "Oh, Lala... thank you SO much for letting me make cookies with you... best Christmas ever!" Cut to: Me on the floor, picking up the pieces of my melted heart (or was that melted butter?), and thinking to myself, "You know what, kiddo? All crappy and shitty things that may have happened this year aside, this may be, indeed, the best Christmas ever..."

As of today, there are 3 days left until Christmas... there were 31 cookies baked and decorated... there are about 12 cookies left. It is possible, although I will not confirm nor deny it, that I MAY BE responsible for eating most of them. I said MAY BE...

If you want the recipe for these Christmas Sugar Cookies (a recipe I've taken from Cooking Light Magazine), you'll find the link on the Useful Links page. Enjoy!

(Oh, and just for visual reference, here's a picture of Foz, the inspiration for all of this Christmas-Yuletide traditional cheer)

"Foz"