A tradition in my family's house at Christmas is for us to make cookies. Or rather, to watch my mom run around for fourteen straight days making dozens of cookies from each of her ten to twelve recipes. I usually sat on the couch and licked the spoons and said things like "needs more sugar" or "I hate nuts." The piece de' resistance for the cookie baking chaos was my mom's fudge. She made it as she was winding down the baking and making the fudge was the closing ceremony. Everyone that she gave it to melted when they tried it; it was her most famous cookie on the trays she gave away. Every year I was never allowed to help her except to chop the walnuts. As I grew older I asked and then begged to help, but she loved the fact that she did it herself. And by the time she deemed me worthy enough help actually make it, I'd spend my days sleeping because the semester had taken so much out of me. So for twenty-three years, the fudge was all my mom's.
But not this year.
This year I called. And groveled. And laid on the sap. "I want to share the goodness with my loved ones down here! They'll never get to taste your version, but I can try to make it myself. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!"
Maybe it's because I'm a grown-up now. Maybe it's because she's my mom and she loves me. Maybe it's my charm. Or maybe she got sick of all the messages I left on her machine. But it worked. I obtained the recipe.
And then Christy called me to bake with her.
A recipe for chaos...
50 + ounces of chocolate,
6 hours in a not-so-large kitchen,
5 pounds of sugar,
4 or so recipes that we naively but festively decided to tackle (including my fudge recipe!) and
3 twenty-something adults (me, Christy and Nate)
I learned a few very important lessons that night:
1.) make a list of all your ingrediants. Otherwise you WILL make more than one trip to the store. With us, it took four trips, including one where Christy and I were freezing and caked in flour because we were in the middle of attempting to make the cut-out cookie dough. Lists are no longer under-rated in my world.
2.) non-sweetened chocolate is gross.
Scene: I've just melted down unsweetened chocolate. It looked good, but Christy said it was gross. I dared Nate to try it. He does.
Nate: EEEW. This is SO GROSS.
Me: Good, I'm glad you tried it and not me. What does it taste like?
Nate: Like chicken stock and semi-sweet chips.
Me: GROSS! Now I HAVE to try it. Gimme. *tries it* Ok, you're right. Now I'm gonna puke.
3.) I am the queen of melting things. Especially chocolate things. I have a promising future in fondu-ing.
4.) Christmas music has a magical power over me. It makes me break into a doofy grin and even dorkier dance. Awesome.
5.) If you sample all the different doughs and cookies as they come out of the oven, you'll come dangerously close to going into a sugar coma. But the most important, super-number one lesson from cookie baking with Christy and Nate? My fudge fucking rocks. It does. Oh, does it.
I think I officially have my very own holiday tradition. And that makes me feel even happier than the carols or sugar could.
Ciao, dahling!
~*Krissy*~