Saturday, November 24, 2007

A family tradition...


These chewy spice cookies have been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember (and even before I can remember, since these were being made long before I was born). They're just the right level of chewiness, and the combination of molasses and other spices makes the flavor absolutely incredible. I have wonderful memories of making these with my mom and younger sister when I was little...my mom would always let us take turns rolling the little balls of dough in sugar at the end. The scent of these cookies alone brings me back to those days, so perhaps that's why they're one of my favorite desserts, especially with a glass of milk. My friend Amanda recently hosted a holiday cookie-baking party, and this was the dough I brought to make. I'm so glad I did, because now I have a batch in my freezer just waiting for the next time I miss being a little girl.
Well, Thanksgiving is over and I have officially cut myself off from leftovers today (my mom's stuffing has been calling to me from our refrigerator all morning, but so far I have been able to resist). This was the first year that Dariush and I hosted Thanksgiving, and I was VERY excited about my table setting (I know, I probably have WAY too much time on my hands to think about these things!). Above is our Thanksgiving table, in all it's brown and blue splendor. I'm kind of sad to be taking it down today. This:is what I was most excited about - the birds! Somewhat obsessively and unnaturally, I LOVE THESE BIRDS. When I saw them in the home and garden section at the store, I thought they were cute, but a bit expensive and nothing I had any use for, so I passed them by. I couldn't stop thinking about them though, and that night while I was laying in bed trying to think about how I wanted to decorate our house for Thanksgiving, I started to think about these little birds again and it came to me - place settings! They have tiny little clips on their feet, and they worked perfectly to clip place cards to my guests' napkins...so cute! DR thought they were kind of silly, and if I hadn't said a million times how much I loved my birds, I'm sure he would have been happy to remove them from the table, but I think he knew the wrath that might have unleashed. Anyway, I bought two sets of birds and I think I might go back to the store this weekend and buy a third set...you know, just in case some of these ever break. Always good to have a back-up right? Thanks to my friend Amanda for the pretty blue and brown place cards - she's so crafty! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

2 comments:

Erika W. said...

Elisabeth your table is stunning! I'm sort of jealous that you had room for centerpieces and such...we had no more room, not even for a candlestick. I love the birds- what a unique idea.

Elisabeth said...

Erika...thanks for the compliment! We didn't have any room on our table for food with all my other stuff...I just set up a separate table in the room with all our food on it and people got their food from that table and sat down. It worked for us. :)