Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies
...and some old-fashioned thoughts, M&Ms and the lasting power of the letter.
Dear Reader,
I realized this week that writing my substack to you feels a lot like writing a letter. And as with correspondence, sometimes I have news to rant about, other times it’s just squirrely little details about the day. (Or as with last week’s note, chipmunk-y details.)
I miss real letters and notes arriving in the post. There feels less need for letters as actual delivery systems for news. Now I can go on Facebook and in seconds find out what someone I haven’t spoken to since high school had for lunch, and how well their offspring did in the latest gymnastics competition (very). And so much of what we say disappears. My long daily text exchanges with my friend Kristin about life, the world and iced coffee (there’s a lot to discuss, believe me) will be lost to the ether, instead of becoming the next 87 Charing Cross Road.
My mother’s desk was packed with greeting cards for all occasions, note cards from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for thank-yous or to enclose a newspaper clipping in, and at least three kinds of formal, personalized stationery. Not to mention enough stamps on hand to send Christmas cards to an entire naval fleet if necessary.
When I was away at college, every trip to my mailbox would be rewarded with a postcard written in her perfect block lettering as The Dalton School thought cursive unnecessary, or perhaps an envelope of clippings from the New York Times and sometimes the Summit Herald or the Summit Independent. Our town may only have had a population of 32,000 people and elected only Republican mayors until about 1995, but it had two newspapers. She sent care packages, too, usually with some variety of treat. Few things were better than a trip to the “pigeonholes” as they called mailboxes at Selwyn College, to find a handwritten note saying a package was waiting at the Porter’s Lodge. I particularly remember a box of Keebler short-lived S’mores cookies arriving at university in England and me and my friend Jon trying to toast them on the electric heater in my room.
The best, though, were the letters stuffed with little details about her and dad’s daily goings on addressed to “Toot-Toot,” “Binky,” or memorably, “Porkchoppina,” all nicknames worthy of their own Substack. My mom would tell me who they’d gone out to dinner with and, of course, what they ate (I didn’t get this way on my own, people!), about how there were new owners of the Hunan restaurant in Berkeley Heights and what that meant for the General Tso’s chicken (her favorite), about her trips into the city for work or to meet friends (and where and what they ate), or updates on my Siamese cat, Broccoli (And probably news about how she was eating. I do remember Broccoli had an ability to tear open packets of Tender Vittles with her teeth.).
And do any of you remember the thrill and weirdness of those foldable blue airmail letters? Somewhere I still have lightweight air mail stationery and envelopes from when I was in England. Stationery was done properly in our household. I still have boxes of postcards, adorable notecards, color-banded cards with my coordinated monogram, and somewhere, because I couldn’t throw it out, boxes of my mother’s personalized stationery.
When someone you love dies, there are the obvious things you mourn, like, you know, them not being around anymore. As I moved away from the shock of my mom’s death, the bits and parts that disappeared with her became more evident. For one, going to the mailbox would never be the same. No random greeting cards she saw at the supermarket and thought I’d think funny. No clippings from a magazine carefully taped to an index card so they wouldn’t get rumpled. The thought was unbearable.
So, when 10 days after my mother died, two envelopes addressed to me in her unique hand arrived in the mail, I burst into tears. I will admit to a ridiculous hopeful moment that maybe I’d just imagined my mom’s death. I also asked the postman if he’d just found these hidden in his truck. Could ghosts really exist? If anyone was capable of sending mail from The Great Beyond, it would be my mother.
The truth was, my mother’s well-intentioned house cleaner had gone in to clean one last time after my mom died, saw letters on my mom’s desk stamped and addressed to me and mailed them. Before my mother had the chance to pop them into the mailbox, my husband and I had arrived to take her to the emergency room, just for a “look-see.” She never went home again.
My mother died in January 2019, and the letters sit in my desk drawer, unopened.
Ach, time for cookies! I just finished recording next week’s Secret Life of Cookies podcast with guest Professor Melissa Murray of NYU Law school and frequent MSNBC contributor. We decided after the week of SCOTUS decisions we’ve had, cookies were definitely in order.
Today’s recipe is an old-fashioned one, which goes along nicely with this sentimental journey: Sugar cookies. I populated mine with M & Ms at my daughter’s request and highly recommend this version. In our house we call them “Nem Nem Cookies,” because we’re very silly and try to avoid maturity at all costs.
Notes on the cookie recipe:
This is a great basic recipe. Roll them in sprinkles. Add chopped crystallized ginger. Put a blob of Nutella on top, or orange marmalade. You could also just sprinkle them with colored sugar.
Change up the flavors. Vanilla is basic. A 1/2 teaspoon of lemon oil, maple flavoring or almond extract would be fun, too. Or lime zest and a cup or so of coconut.
To make “normal” size cookies, roll a tablespoon of dough into a ball, and set the cookies 2 inches apart. To make big ‘uns, use 2 tablespoons of dough and flatten with a fork or the sugared bottom of a drinking glass.
Wanna really go for it? Make an M and M cookie pie:
Make the dough and add in the M and Ms. Press about half the dough into a 9” pie plate. The dough should be about a 1/4 inch thick all around. Lay a piece of parchment on top of the dough, and place dried beans or pie weights on top to keep the dough from puffing while it bakes. Bake for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees, then carefully remove the parchment and weights. Continue baking the pie crust until it’s golden brown. Let cool completely, fill with softened ice cream of your choosing, slather some hot fudge on top and/or sprinkles and freeze for an hour or until ready to serve. I made individual ones of these in some 4-inch pie pans I have…That makes for a fun individual dessert…and a very nice way to stock the freezer.
The stages of cookie dough pie.
Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies
makes about 32 2-inch cookies
aka Nem Nem Cookies
What You’ll Need:
1 1/2 cups (180 grams) all-purpose flour
1 cup (120 grams) whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
8 ounces (226 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup (56 grams or 2 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated usgar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Optional: 1 1/2 cups M&Ms or other add-in of your choice
What You’ll Do:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
With a stand or hand mixer, cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy, for about 3 minutes. Although we recipe writers do tend to go on about the light and fluffy, it’s cuz we really mean it. It makes a difference to the final texture of the cookie. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters at least twice. Oh I do like to nag about this, but it really makes a difference.
Add the egg, vanilla and any other flavorings you desire and mix on medium speed until blended.
Add the flour mixture and stir on low speed until combined, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then raise the speed to medium and mix for 30 additional seconds.
Pour in the M&Ms or add-ins of your choice and mix on low speed until evenly distributed.
The dough will be very soft at this point, so refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours.
Roll the dough into 1-inch balls for normal-size cookies and 3-inch balls for big ones. If making bigger cookies, flatten the dough balls with a fork, or a sugar-covered bottom of a glass.
Bake for 14 to 16 minutes until they are golden at the edges and feel just firm to the touch.
Let cool. Eat. But you know that.
Should we try to bring letter writing back? Maybe you still write letters? Maybe you don’t know where to put the stamp on the envelope like my son (I’ve since told him)? Have you ever had a seemingly ghostly encounter? Do tell!
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I send five postcards every week, with no expectation of replies. I call it my "paper route," because I toss my paper over a virtual fence and never collect anything tangible. The people on my paper route are isolated: by age, by circumstance, whatever. It started when my grandfather had to go to a nursing home. He hated it, but he loved my postcards. "Goofy" he took to calling me. Then his sister. Then another relative's brother in a nursing home. Now, a long ago coworker, a Christmas card friend, who'd become the caretaker for her husband, an aunt who is housebound and another who had to go to a nursing home and hates it, a friend who had a stroke, and the paralyzed and brain damaged brother of a coworker. Even with my more usual three cards a week, I've long since had to make the postcard with index cards, magazine photos and dollar store glue. Why do I choose to do this? True, it's an easy way to feel virtuous. It's an easier resolution to keep than learning French or losing weight. Mostly, though, I do it because it's a win-win-win. 1) The recipients love getting real mail. My great aunt asked me what she'd done to deserve these cards. "Everything and nothing," I told her. One of the few "new" things the brain damaged recipient remembers from the last 20 years is my name, though we have never met. 2) The caretakers of those living in institutions see regular evidence that someone on the outside values this person. Caretakers are human too, and this can only positively influence their interactions with their patients. 3) Me. I benefit. Every week I must sit quietly, reflect upon the previous week and find something cheery and of interest to three to five people. Sometimes pickings are slim, so everyone gets almost exactly the same note. Sometimes not. Doesn't matter; we all win. Kindness wins.
I too had a letter-writing mom. She wrote me all the time in her neat print, sending articles she thought I’d love to read. Little did she know that as a law student the last thing I wanted to read for fun was the NY Times column called At The Bar and what I would have loved would have been a People Magazine. She wrote one of her dear friends a postcard every week for decades. I miss her and her letters.