Sunday, December 24, 2017

Cookies

In the early 90s I was in Mannheim, Germany visiting my university student daughter and her Finnish partner. His mother had sent some spice cookies. It was all I could do not to grab the box and run back to Switzerland, but I knew that wouldn't be good for their relationship. As it turned out it wouldn't have mattered.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I discovered good spice cookies at Ikea. Sometimes when my housemate was there, she'd pick up a box.

Now no Finish boyfriend and no nearby Ikea when we are in France. Even in Switzerland it is not convenient.

Thus when my Swedish friend, a talented artist, walked in with a Santa Claus (jultomten) box filled with homemade spice cookies for our Solstice celebration, there was no debate...As much as I liked all my guests, I was keeping them for myself -- and Rick.

I am not usually selfish, but rare Scandinavian spice cookies, are so special. Guests could have anything else in the house which was filled with all kinds of savory and sweet holiday goodies, but the cookies are off limits.

I guess as a generous person, my limit is a spice cookie.

1 comment:

Ellen Lebelle said...

OK, I have to admit that I was looking for a mail order address just in case you were in need of actually ordering your spice cookies for lack of a local vendor or visitor. What Google found was lots and lots of recipes: https://www.google.fr/search?q=swedish+spice+cookies&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=BbJEWqbyK6ustgfD1LHgCQ
A few months ago, at the Costco in Villebon (the only one in France, so far) they had tins of excellent ginger snaps on sale. I mean they are really, really good! We've been very good, so there is still most of the bottom layer of cookies left, and they are still very crisp. The last time we went out there, over a month ago, they didn't have these cookies for sale anymore. Since we only go every once in a while, finding specific things is a hit or miss hunt.