Cookies

This box is at least 43 years old. The rubber band is not. 🙂

Inside this box are these tins.

My mother gave me these tins, in this box, the first Christmas I was married. I have used them every year for the last 43 years to make

sandbakkels, a Norwegian sugar cookie. I have written about them several times over the past nine years (link to a post). They are the one cookie that is made no matter what or where I am. I have been known to pack my tins when we go visit my son for Christmas.

They only have five ingredients. It is a simple batter. A batch does not take long to stir up (if your butter is at room temperature). Of course, the pressing the batter into the tins is time consuming. I divide the tins into three piles. That way one set is baking, one set is cooling, and the third set is getting the dough pressed in. Sometimes I feel like I am juggling, but the reward is the sweet buttery taste that is Christmas.

This weekend I will make my cookies. Wish I could share them with you. 🙂

Memories

Here’s a memory, which like most memories is imperfect and subjective – collected long ago like a beach pebble and slipped into the pocket of my mind.

Michelle Obama (becoming)

Memories are the essence of several books I’ve read recently. In Everything Sad Is Untrue: (A True Story) by Daniel Nayeri, he shares the few memories he has of family. He escaped from Iran as a child with his mother and sister. He counts and hold the memories of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins close.

Michelle Obama’s words resonated with me. Memories are imperfect and subjective. They slip into a pocket in the mind and when probed they jiggle, wiggle, and bounce to the forefront. That’s what Ruth’s suggestion today did.

I am laying on my bed totally absorbed in the book I’m holding. Barely breathing, heart racing to learn the fate of my friend Nancy or perhaps it was Trixie. (Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden). They were so smart, they could solve any mystery. I was always on the lookout for possible mysteries in my life, but usually any mystery was caused by brothers or the family pet.

Today, I am still enamored by mysteries, however, I am not laying on my bed devouring the words of mystery writers. I prefer to sit in a patch of sunlight in my backyard. Since the weather won’t cooperate, I am forced to snuggle down in a recliner, covered by a dark brown plush throw.

I am still a fan of mystery, but I have expanded my net of preferences. Historical fiction is filling in gaps of history. I just finished Kristin Harmel’s novel, The Book of Lost Names. Now I want to know more. Ruta Sepetys is a master at writing about history that has slipped through the cracks.

As a child, I always had a book close by to take me to places in my dreams. As an adult, I am still transported by the words of authors. Not a lot has changed.

Don’t you have a story to share?