Hello! Hello!
Since my mother was neither a cook nor a baker and decidedly not crafty, I didn’t grow up with a tradition of dyeing eggs for Easter, or making hamantaschen for Purim, King’s Cake for Epiphany or anything special for either Hanukah or Christmas. There were no cookie boxes, no cookie swaps, no recipes for cookies that only turned up for holidays, although there were plenty of cookies — cookies from boxes (Mallomars were our favorites), cookies from the local bakeries (I’d pick the Linzer cookies out of the box as soon as my Mom brought them home) and cookies that my grandmother baked (poppy and sugar made from scraps of dough). All of the cookies were good, but none of them held a place in a tradition and none of them knew any seasons, except maybe the Mallomars, which went out of production over the summer, when the heat wreaked havoc on the chocolate coating.
Even as a grown-up, a daily baker and a cookie lover, cookies were anytime and always treats. I made jam cookies …
