Stand By Your Plan. Kitsch. Lessons From Roses and Hanukkah Cookies. A Health Warning.

Salted Caramel Krispie Treats

Stand By Your Plan. Kitsch. Lessons From Roses and Hanukkah Cookies. A Health Warning. AND A NEWS FLASH!!

Chanukah Cookies

Inspiration

You will have to admit, that the concept, the  Platonic Ideal, the very paradigm of Chanukkah Cookies has no greater foot-soldier than Elise Meyer. For the better part of my life, (yeah, I know), I have greeted December armed and steeled by an arsenal of blue sugar in my never-ending quest (crusade?) for a small thing, really. A pitiably small thing. A Charming Little Hanukkah Cookie (CLHC). My cookie? Lovely. Of course, tasteful (I politely submit that I have crossed that Rubicon, albeit fortified in that battle by alliance with butter). Sweetly Classic. Defiantly Jewish. Ironically Kitsch, perhaps, I can deal with Kitsch (and quote from Clement Greenberg's seminal essay on the topic.)
I just wanted a signature CLHC. And  I have really been working on it. You know I have.
But you know, not that I am necessarily accepting defeat, I have come to the conclusion that you just can't do that much when you are crippled by cerulean artificial coloring. It is just a crappy ugly color on cookies, and no manner of sprinkle or sparkle, icing or glaze, no piping tip, no cookie press, no secret recipe is going to make a cookie as cute as a gingerbread man.

But for the last two cold, wintry weeks, each time I have gone in or out of my kitchen door, I have been amazed by the little pink rose pictured above. When it bloomed before Thanksgiving, I willed it to live to greet our dear family from afar, and still it blooms, valiantly, improbably, through the fifth night of Hanukah. (Hello, Google, Have you noticed that I have been spelling Hanukka every possible way so... well, you know.)
And that rose is just sticking to the plan. And if it can bloom through Chanukah I can keep making cookies. But. Wait. That's not the only lesson. Want to hear the real lesson? Blue food coloring is TERRIBLE for you. IT IS! It's been banned in Austria and Belgium (they know about cookies), Denmark, France, Germany, and Switzerland. You can read the details, but, you know, I think I am just going to follow the great patissieres of Europe, after all, they invented puff pastry. And Gingerbread Men. What do you think? Blue-matorium? I submit my earnest attempts for consideration.

*****STOP THE PRESSES!!******

NEWS FLASH

BLUE M&Ms can WHAT? Read for yourself!

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