Revenge of the NaNoWriMo

Very low word count today (sub 1000, actually) because most of the day was taken up in The Great Annual Holiday Cookie Baking Event. Part One.

It's become something of a tradition for my mom and I to get together at the end of November and spend the weekend baking our family's Traditional Cookies. By which I primarily mean spritzkuchen. (I would love to put a link for that, but apparently no one on the interwebs can agree on what the meaning is. When my family uses the term we are talking about a very delicate, buttery, traditional German cookie, made from a recipe of my Oma's. Usually we just call them "spritz"...)

Anyway. It started out as a way for us to get together and make spritz, and we just sort of started adding to the list. Now we also make gingerbread (we have two competeing recipes for that and as of yet neither has emerged a clear victor), chocolate chip cookies, and spitzbuben, a delicate hazelnut cookie (again, or German origin) filled with delicious raspberry jam . We have in the past also included peanut butter cookies (one of Nathan's favorites) and brandy balls (which are not techically cookies but which go over awfully well). And this year we thought we'd try experimenting with some sugar cookies, but so far that's been a bust...

I love spending time with my mom, especially in the kitchen, and I always start out the weekend in such a chipper mood. And inevitably I think to myself, "I remember being in a bad mood last year? How could I possibly have been in a bad mood?" Well, gentle reader, by the end of hour nine, I sure as hell remember how I might have been in a bad mood. And much of it has to do with aching feet. The other part is primarily how ill I feel after samping cookies all damn day, and hating sugar straight down to the core of my being. And then there's the whole, knowing-it-starts-again-tomorrow part. That doesn't help, either.

But I'll feel better in the morning (I always do) and I'll make an even greater effort to keep from sampling (and fail) and I will remember how much these memories will mean to me someday when I no longer have the luxury of showing up on my mom's doorstep to bake "our cookies" together. And it will all be worth the tiny hassle of a pair of aching feet.