Friday, December 19, 2008

Through a mouthful of meringue

Not that I'm having cookies for breakfast. Really.

Yes, it's that magical time of year: meringue season. My mother is queen of cookies, and we had a steady supply of this awesome cakey coffee version of chocolate chip that has lost favour in the current generation of my family but dominated mine. At Christmas, we had meringues, aka egg white and a ton of sugar with vanilla and loads of chocolate. She was always able to get more lift than I do, and you'd bite in and look at a spelunker's dream, caverns with chips nestled into crevices and ledges. Mine are denser and crisper but still yummy. I'm lucky to be able to make them at all - not everyone can.

They are insanely popular. People talk to me about them in July, wistfully, when it's too humid to pull them off. The popularity means I can make a batch and give most of them away, feeling virtuous for making other people happy and not eating them all myself. Unfortunately I had to make an unexpected batch yesterday (before finishing 3 knit projects, whooo!) and have a dangerous number still drying out in the oven. Thank goodness we're having a big storm today, forcing me to spend hours outside and away from them, shoveling snow, metaphorically clutching my 3 finished projects to my heart as though they are enough to compensate for another lost knitting day. Really though I'd rather be writing. Imagine that!

3 comments:

Kathleen Taylor said...

I've never had these cookies. Now I want them. Badly.

Karen said...

Even mentioning the word "meringue" to me is dangerous. I seriously heart meringues, and yours sound delightful! Almost as delightful as finishing three more knitting projects, go you....

Mary Keenan said...

Worse news for cookie lovers: I've just made a quadruple batch of Nana's shortbread in three flavours: traditional, chocolate chip, and new this year: Skor. With the mixer. Highly irregular of me but I think Nana herself would take pity on my carpal tunnel... and now that it's all rolled and wrapped and stored in the 'frig, I can slice and bake as needed. Which some are right now.

I so wish we could have tea party together, girls, and not just the virtual kind, and not just because it's so risky for me to have so much cookie goodness nearby!