PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
These ‘pastry tarts’ love their holiday cookie magazines By Kathy Dean An appreciation for sweets runs in our family, so my sister Marge Tackes and I came naturally to our love of pastries. We grew up on the south side of Chicago, where we were surrounded by familyowned bakeries filled with the delicacies from their owners’ heritage — Italian, Polish, Czech, Irish. And, of course, there was always baking at home during the holidays. Our mother made cranberry nut breads and Grandma baked kifle, a Hungarian fruit-filled cookie. After a trip to a bakery or
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cupcake shop, it doesn’t take us much time to devour the goodies we’ve brought home, often before anyone else in the house even knows we’ve snuck them in. We jokingly refer to ourselves as “pastry tarts.” Through the years, we started collecting Christmas cookie magazines. “It’s an obsession, addiction,” Marge said. “But I prefer to call it our tradition.” The holiday cookie issues are available only once a year. “They’re pretty and colorful and stir up such visions of ideal holiday moments,” Marge said. “We buy three to five new
DECEMBER 2021 | AtlantaSeniorLife.com
magazines every year. We call each other at the first sighting of the new crop, usually in late September or early October.” The two of us try to get together and bake holiday cookies for friends and family, but the collecting really is less about recipes and more about drooling over the pictures. Marge and I are happy to plunk down $10 to $15 per issue to take them home and pore over them. Holiday cookie magazines are our porn. It all started with a 1981 issue of Woman’s Day Great Holiday Baking magazine. I honestly don’t believe that there’s a
worthwhile recipe in the magazine, but the photos are spectacular! “I swear they sometimes call my name,” Marge said. “Right there on the cover — perfection, sexy. I buy it and hurry home. I sit down and take out my treasure and stare at the picture, a glistening, sugarcovered pinwheel cookie.” To justify the cost, we make a point to try one or two new recipes every year. Sometimes the cookies only grace the table once – like Snowy Pinecones, an acquired taste made from Nutella and fish-shaped crackers, or the Bavarian Cookie Wreaths that were so delicate they crumbled as we tried to decorate them. “We make standards, as well as more exotic cookies, then box them up and give them as gifts to family and friends,” Marge explained. “Sugar cookies? Always a hit. Rosemary shortbread? Not so popular.” We’ve unearthed a few notable keepers: Jumbo Brownie Cookie, Cheddar Cookies — made with cheese and ground red pepper — and last year’s Kahlua Fudge. There are memories that have lasted, too, like one Christmas baking get-together that started with a full bottle of Midori, a melon-flavored liqueur. I don’t remember why we got it; it may have been an ingredient for one of the cookies. Marge and I started sipping it while we were baking. At the end of the day, the bottle was empty and we stood in the kitchen, a bit unsteadily, wondering why there were so
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