{"id":2468,"date":"2022-12-24T05:20:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-24T05:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2022-12-24T13:08:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T13:08:41","slug":"cookie-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/cookie-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Cookie Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Picture this:\u00a0 The next day, there were cookie sprinkles in my bed.<\/p>\n

You really can\u2019t make this stuff up.\u00a0 How did the little multi-colored devils make their way from the kitchen?\u00a0 Certainly not because I was eating in bed; I was too exhausted by that time to even open my mouth, much less chew. Most likely they were stuck to the paws of the cat, who jumps on the bed to nudge me awake, no small job on this particular morning.<\/p>\n

Heaven knows the kitchen floor was a virtual garden of sprinkles, topping a thick carpet of flour, dough crumbs, and what-all. It was all there for the strolling after a worn-out grandmother collapsed in bed before she finished cleaning the floor. \u00a0For all I know, the sprinkles were stuck to my own feet.<\/p>\n

It was the morning after the annual holiday cookie-baking extravaganza, with grandkids Buddy, Sis, and me.\u00a0 The kids are competent, trained clean-up staff, but the schedule went awry for this baking session, and I had to hustle them home before they could do their part.\u00a0 So, I was a clean-up staff of one, surveying the damage.<\/p>\n

More evidence of the previous day\u2019s culinary chaos was traveling on four feet. Reaching down on to clip on the dog\u2019s leash for his routine morning stroll, I lightened his load by plucking a small nugget of dried meringue from the fluffy black spikes of hair just above the base of his ear.\u00a0 Not hard to figure that one out; he knows exactly where to loiter under the island counter to catch whatever falls.<\/p>\n

Why is this baking process so messy?\u00a0 For one thing, we make the dough from scratch and roll it out the old-fashioned way. We follow a recipe in my grandmother\u2019s handwriting that attributes the recipe to her own mother. (That\u2019s right, the great-great-great grandmother of my baking co-conspirators.)\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

And truly expert bakers may have other thoughts, but in my experience, the answer to all questions about working with scratch dough is more flour, everywhere and always.\u00a0 Dough getting sticky, or splitting under the pin? Dump more flour on the hands, on the rolling pin, on the dough ball.\u00a0 When this technique is employed by bakers ages 9 and 11, turning the kitchen floors into a decorator’s “Dusty White” finish is but the work of a moment.<\/p>\n

Next comes the decorating phase.\u00a0 Supplied with red, green, and white icing tubes, a box of edible eyeballs, the whipped egg whites for texture, and four colors of sprinkles, Buddy and Sis set to work on holiday masterpieces.\u00a0 A highlight for their G-ma is observing their artistic inclinations evolving as they get older.\u00a0 In a short year, pre-teen Buddy has blown past friendly gingerbread men with smiles and standard icing trim to a tray full of one-eyed cyclops characters and a tenderly crafted skeleton.\"\"<\/p>\n

While Sis opted for some more traditional formats\u2014striped candy canes, and dotted Christmas trees\u2014the concept of excess does not haunt the vocabulary or the thoughts.\u00a0 Gentle suggestions about the thickness of icing or the volume of sprinkles were cheerfully yet determinedly unheeded.<\/p>\n

Happily, the children have matured into a phase where humor may trump heartache when disaster strikes.\u00a0 I feared a hardworking young baker\u2019s disappointment when I pulled a tray of his smaller cookies from the oven.\u00a0 Apparently, decorative eyeballs require a certain dough thickness to maintain shape while cooking.\u00a0 The little cut-outs were not thick enough, and they emerged looking like a pack of forest creatures that had been slain by a mythical cave monster, their eyes plucked out by vultures.\u00a0 \u201cOh, dear,\u201d I mumbled, and before I could utter anything more helpful, Buddy looked over my shoulder at the melted carnage.\u00a0 Hahahaha, he hooted.\u00a0 \u201cThat looks WEIRD!\u00a0 Eeewwwww!\u201d\"\"<\/p>\n

My girlfriends asked maddeningly logical questions about our baking plans when I shared them in advance.\u00a0 Why not just buy the dough, make it easier?\u00a0 asked one.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you want to get a decorating kit with instructions?\u00a0 queried another.\u00a0 How great that you let them do them however they want, said a third, kindly, with only a tiny pinch of surprise.<\/p>\n

Staring at the next-day sprinkles sparkling on the bed linens, I admit I pondered those questions.\u00a0 Is doing things the hard way a family trait, I wondered, not for the first time?\u00a0 Do the cookies really taste better, from scratch\u2014and is that even the point?\u00a0 Maybe I just wanted to focus on one family tradition, and the memories attached, in this first Christmas since my mother died.\u00a0 \u00a0In the company of the children, this one felt so right.<\/p>\n

Observing the wreck that remained for remediation, I remembered one more detail.\u00a0 Sometimes I actually like the sight of a messy kitchen.\u00a0 Sometimes, it is a vivid, aromatic illustration of shared fellowship, creative outcomes, and more than a few unexpected laughs.\u00a0 Even if I am left with melted eyeballs stuck like glue to non-stick cookie sheets and meringue-wearing dachshunds.\u00a0 It\u2019s the best kind of holiday chaos.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas to all. May the chaos reign.<\/p>\n

.\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Picture this:\u00a0 The next day, there were cookie sprinkles in my bed. You really can\u2019t make this stuff up.\u00a0 How did the little multi-colored devils make their way from the kitchen?\u00a0 Certainly not because I was eating in bed; I was too exhausted by that time to even open my mouth, much less chew. Most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10,7,1],"tags":[236,237,235],"class_list":["post-2468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grandkids","category-holidays","category-humor","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas-cookies","tag-grandkids-cooking","tag-holiday-traditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}