Imperfectly Imperfect

  
Yep. They were imperfect from the very beginning and I didn’t really even want to make them anyway. Can you tell?  They were miscolored, slightly browned, kinda dry and not too sweet. Want one? 

Charlie wanted to make cookies this weekend. We found a recipe and refrigerated the dough for 4++hours, but we didn’t add the peppermint extract, thinking they would be better as sugar cookies.

The first thing that went wrong was that we didn’t have red dye. Neon pinkish purple is a good, secondary option, right?

Next, Charlie didn’t want to follow instructions for rolling them out and used his own methods, that frustrated me as we had thin ones and thick ones on the same tray.

Eventually we got tired with the baking process and started making flat, circle shapes with the left over dough, that were easier and quicker to make.

Charlie eventually walked away and I was left to finish the task and to wash the dishes.  I got the short end of the stick, I think.

He kept coming back to taste samples again and again and seemed to enjoy the final product, claiming he had homework to do. Maybe they’re perfectly imperfect after all. Jeff enjoyed them when he came home from work, but maybe he was just being nice.

Thank you to all who bake during the holiday season and share your treats. I have such respect for you!

nAMaste

Share Your Sweets

I found the solution to world peace and creating One Love.  We must come together and share our sweets and taste each other’s different versions and interpretations and show up at our communal table.

People across religions and continents bake sweets and cookies and cakes to celebrate life, whether it be a birth, an anniversary, a celebratory dinner or holiday.  We love the smells and creating something good to give and share with our friends and family.  We enjoy our grandmothers’ recipes and repeating what was once good.  Celebrations revolve around sharing food and traditions and creating memories.

Think about it. We share sweets and break bread together and we create intimacy and joy.  We create memories as we practice our traditions and invite others in.  Will you be making Christmas sugar cookies this year?

christmas-cookies

How about the traditional Jewish chocolate covered Matzo?

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Sharing sweets is like a sacred sacrament.

Two stories of humanity caught my attention this week and I want to share them with you, if you haven’t read them already. Both touched me, because fear caused discomfort and yet sharing baklava and mamool brought people together and helped them to smile and see one another.

Image source: http://images.mediaallrecipes.com/userphotos/720×405/21460.jpg

Maher Kahlil is an American citizen who was speaking Arabic at an airport and was profiled and detained and treated as a terrorist. He was questioned and embarrassed, however once he was allowed on the plane and people asked him what was in his white box, he opened it up and shared his baklava.

Image source: https://louanneskitchen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/c2adc-baklava.jpg

Hopefully by sharing sweets, passengers could see he was just like them.  Here are the details from his story:

Maher Khalil Story

Another story is about a woman who understood Arabic and was able to help a troubled, hysterical, older Palestinian woman who didn’t understand English when their flight was delayed: Naomi Shihab Nye Story . The American woman reached out and not only communicated and comforted the Palestinian woman, but also kept her company and helped her to communicate with her family, sharing her phone while they waited and making calls to other friends who shared the same language. As they waited, the Palestenian woman opened her bag and shared her powdered sugar covered mamool cookies. Every woman she offered them to, took one and thus she created a connection between strangers. It was as if she was apologizing for her tears and offering peace to those around her. And everyone chose to share communion in that sacred space.

The world is good. There are good people all around us. Let’s share our sweets and create this one sweet love. One love. No Fear.

If you like these stories of humanity, Frank Somerville KTVU is a great person to follow on Facebook. He is a local news reporter and chooses to share stories like these all the time. I absolutely love his perspective and love reading the comments and reactions from around the world even more.

He’s a lot like Brandon, from Humans of New York that you can also follow on Facebook or on his website:  Humans Of New York. He shares real stories of our humanity by showcasing strangers and sharing their stories, to which we can always relate. Again, reading the stories and seeing the pictures are powerful and reading the comments from his 8 million followers makes the world feel a lot smaller.

So what’s for dessert?  I like chocolate whatever. 😉

Life is Sweet.

nAMaste