... a spirited celebration of regional food and culinary craft, season by season, with original recipes by Susan S. Bradley
I’ve never seen a recipe for SWEET parmesan cookies. Recipes for SAVORY parmesan cookies abound, as any Bing Search will reveal. But why not a sweet parmesan cookie?
The inspiration for this unusual cookie comes from executive chef, Gregory Denton, of Portland, Oregon’s Metrovino restaurant. Chef Denton recently shared with me his recipe for MetroVino’s Parmesan Pound Cake, which I fell in love with at the restaurant and will share with you in the very near future.
No Christmas cookie collection is complete without at least one old world spice cookie. The smell of these cookies baking in the oven is one of the joys of the holiday season. Thus, every December, I make a triple batch of my favorite spice cookie in the world, Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor.
But, remember, this year I challenged myself to come up with an all new collection. So no Pepparkakor, unless the Bradley troops revolt at the last minute (when they discover there are no Pepparkakor), and I am cajoled back into the OtherWorldly Kitchen for a final round of baking.
Okay, I have a confession to make. I LOVE maraschino cherries. They make me happy. There. I’ve said it.
They’re kitschy, cheeky, and not one bit sophisticated; all perfect reasons, in my book, to adore them. Especially during the kitschy, cheeky, magical holiday season.
In Provence, the heart of the Christmas festivities extends over three days (December 24-26), during which time the table is never cleared, thus allowing the angels to partake of the festivities and seasonal delicacies. I kid you not! When I am an angel, this seasonal French celebration is going to be high on my list of earthly visitations. I hope reservations are not required.
On the second day of Christmas … my true love gave to me … Mocha Java Hazelnut Cookies.
Every Christmas cookie bake-a-thon should include at least one amazing chocolate cookie. Not only does chocolate add a festive and luxurious note to any celebration, it actually elevates mood and feelings of good cheer. As if this were not enough advantage for a single food source, chocolate is also the richest source of antioxidants known. Imagine! Cookies that bless the mind AND the body.
On the first day of Christmas … my true love gave to me … Rosalyn’s Midwinter Night’s Dream Cookies.
My dearest friend, Rosalyn, and I have danced with a good many wondrous topics over the years, but almost every conversation of ours gets to food at some point. Don’t ask me how the subject of the Lindt Excellence White Coconut bar came up.
I think it started with me saying something about trying to create the world’s best Coconut Cream Pie. As I recall, Rosalyn said I had to get white chocolate into that somehow. Then she told me about the Lindt White Coconut bar and insisted that I get some. And finally there were those 3-4 e-mails asking me if I had tried it yet. I didn’t have a chance.
Last year, LunaCafe’s first annual Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Deck the Halls marathon was all about tradition. Over a few weeks, I baked my way through most of the cookies I have baked every year for the holidays for the greater part of my life. I did, however, up the ante for myself a bit by exploring royal icing techniques for the first time, which added a colorful new dimension to two of the cookies. And I explored a few new-to-me cookie ingredients, such as powdered green tea, rose petal extract, and crushed peppermint sticks. But for the most part, last year’s cookie collection was tried, true, and traditional.
By the time I got back to the kitchen, there was very little time remaining to prepare dessert. Plus, I didn’t have an idea. Frantically rifling through the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, I spied a recipe for Lemon Clove Cookies, which sounded intriguing. As I recall, the suggestion was to serve them with fresh-picked cherries, which I scored on the way to the party from a nearby roadside stand.
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