A VERY GOOD HOST!

The cookie supply is replenished! Pecan shortbread.
Ladies, you are welcome.

Don't make me eat them all by myself.


This blogger has a fond, though probably insane, fantasy that all the finest young women LOVE cookies. As if they were influenced by the Cookie Monster when they were still small. Other women may adore Hello Kitty, or deliquesce over handbags and Jimmy Choo, but women of taste and discernment -- intelligent and complete individuals -- will have none of that mundane Barbie Doll sh*t. It is shallow, dull, and vulgar. Valueless.
Instead of tacky merchandise, they want cookies.
Clearly, passionately, and sincerely.
It is the mark of brilliance.
And infinite charm.


And I am, in this imaginary world, the great cookie hunter.


I think more than anything else it probably reflects my own appreciation for cookies. We never bought them when I was growing up, despite living in the Netherlands (where the word 'cookie' comes from), because my mother was convinced that there was no conceivable value in them.
In her own way she was a food Nazi.

Bell peppers, carrots, celery, lettuce. Tomatoes, boiled string beans, potatoes. Olives and gherkins. Peas. Occasionally cucumber and mushrooms, despite their nutritive deficiencies.

Cheese, tinned tomato paste, and spaghetti.

Meat, eggs, chicken. Canned tuna.

Some things for sandwiches.

Condimental scarcity.

Coffee and tea.

Cocoa.

No fresh fish, because the only fishmonger in town was a barbarian, and no other vegetables, because her upbringing had scarred her on that score. White folks cooking from the thirties and forties, feh and ick poo.
Protestantism on a plate.


Occasionally, food from Restaurant Peking at the other side of the market square from our house. It was, arguably, Chinese. Sort of.

No carbonated drinks of any kind, just fruit juice (orange), because of the vitamins. No crispy crunchy snax, no salty peanuts, no heathen pastries.

Once a week a dutch Appeltaart (twixt an apple pie and an apple tart), because that baker was a solid man.

My father and I kept a supply of tasty things in the cellar, down whose dangerously steep and narrow steps she would not venture because of her lumbago. Diverse hotsauces. Soy sauce, both sweet (ketjap manis) and regular. Obscure degenerate pickles and condiments. Tins of sardines. Preserves. Polished rice. The liquor cabinet.
Spices and dried ingredients.
No cookies, however.

It wasn't till I came back to the States that I encountered cookies. "What are these strange things", I must have asked to myself, "and how can I get more of them?" Strong-arm robbing a girl scout, though obvious, was not recommended. Apparently they were also sold in stores.
It was a happy discovery.

I haven't been cookieless more than a day or two since.
Cookies are the greatly comforting snack food.
And I have them! Guests can be fed!
There are also fixings for tea.
As well as a throw rug.
Luxury's lap.



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