Four generations of cookies

I learned a lot about cooking from my mother and my two grandmothers - different things from each, as they each had their own interests, talents and culinary heritages. More on what I learned from them follow the childhood memory recipe - Grandma Tress' Sugar Cookies and Never-Fail Frosting.

Every December, my Grandmother Tress would send a box of her handmade sugar cookies, in every imaginable

 shape: bells, wreaths, stars, angels, trees and more, in every color and decorated with colored sugars, sprinkles and candied flowers. These were cookies for people who really like sugar, and they were eaten by our large family far too quickly, I'm sure. She would also send cookies for Valentine's Day (hearts), Halloween (pumpkins, cats, witches), Easter (eggs and bunnies) and other times just traditional round sugar cookies decorated with whatever holiday was imminent. We loved those cookies ... not just because they were good, but because they reminded us of Grandma in Green Bay (we lived in Chicago).

One on December visit when I was about 6 years old, Grandma taught me how to make "her" sugar cookies. I remember how she mixed brilliant colors with the tiny glass bottles of food coloring, and told me to always add one drop at a time to control the color. Each cookie was individually decorated, each angel had a halo, each Christmas tree had several baubles, each wreath its several holly berries and a bow. I imagine she might not have had time to do this when she was a young mother with five children, but clearly she relished the decorating as much as the actual baking of the cookies. My Grandmother must have been quite patient to do all this with a young child, and I returned home from that trip with a small tin of cookies I had cut, baked and frosted with her help. I remember forcing my siblings to stop and admire them sufficiently before devouring them as we usually did. 

Over the years, I made them with Grandma Tress again and again, picking up pointers from her about how to cut rolled cookies by slightly jiggling the cookie cutters, and how to make special shapes with sprinkles. She explained the "never-fail" part of the frosting, which came from it being made with the new product called powdered sugar, rather than a boiled syrup which required your undivided attention. She also taught me how to make her classic apple pie, showing me how to do "around-the-clock" rolling to ensure an even pastry, and how to roll the pastry onto the rolling pin without tearing and then ease it into the pie pan, even how to do intricate lattice crusts. I made these recipes with my own Mother over the years, and as my Grandma aged into her late 70s and making cookies became harder, we took on making them ourselves and sometimes even sending some to her.

These cookies were an integral part of my childhood, and after college I often made them for parties, where other twenty-somethings were often reminded of their childhood cookies. When my husband visited my family in Chicago and my Mother and I made these cookies, he was amazed at the colors and shapes and the large collection of cookie cutters and decorations we had for all occasions.

So when we had our daughter Madeleine, cooking was a part of our activities with her from an early age. I think we made these cookies with her first in pre-school days for a party. I began to add to my collection of cookie cutters and decorations for various holidays, and we made these cookies at least four to six times a year. Mixing the dough, chilling

it, rolling and cutting and baking, then multiple 

steps of frosting and decorating meant this was a full-day venture, perfect for a rainy Saturday. Madeleine loves making these cookies, and her friends enjoyed making them over the years with us as well, and still do. I've also taught her how to make 

Grandma's apple pie, our Thanksgiving tradition. In 2007, she made pies with me and taught her then-boyfriend Tyler and Revels friend Dave how to make them. She mastered the intricacies of lattice crusts when she made her first summer berry pie. She has learned well.

Since we were late to the digital camera world and not especially organized about our older photos, I found only one photo of the cookies from recent years, included above. Madeleine graduated in June 2008, and for their final homeroom party I made some "2008" cookies. I made a pattern out of cardboard, and cut around it with a knife to make each cookie. I frosted them with green and yellow, their school colors, and added candied mimosa flowers (the yellow balls). The plastic container above is filled with the 2008 cookies, and some lower layers also have candied mint leaves as well as green and yellow sugar sprinkles. As I noted, these are cookies for people who like sugar. And because these cookies combine happy family memories of three generations with my arts-and-crafts tendencies with colored frosting and decor, I really do love making them.

Some of how I learned to cook and enjoy cooking:

My father's mother, Grandmother Jewel, whose parents came from Ireland, was incredible at making main dishes -and the smells from her tiny kitchen were always enticing. She and my grandfather, a housepainter, lived in the same tiny 2-bedroom apartment on Chicago's near North Side for more than 50 years. I enjoyed watching her cook, and she always said braising worked for almost everything ... likely because it was the best way to tenderize inexpensive cuts of meat.

My own Mother, Joanne, cooked a lot ... in part because she was of the generation where mothers accommodated their family's tastes, like one of my brothers who would only eat pasta with butter for what seemed like about four years, and another who disliked anything green. She multi-tasked in our various small kitchens (in apartment and houses) before the word was invented. Though she used some of the new convenience foods of the 50s and 60s, she also knew how to stretch her food budget with from scratch cooking whose herbs and spices scented the whole house. She did love making special birthday cakes and themed parties for her five children. Since my birthday was at the end of October, I always had Halloween costume parties with wonderful decorations that stayed up for weeks after. Here is my Mother from about 10 years ago, making a Halloween gingerbread house with Madeleine and her friend Alexandra, the sort of arts-crafty thing she loved to do.

My mother's mother, Grandma Tress (creator of the sugar cookies, and for whom I am named) was an amazing cook, of French and Flemish heritage, whose specialty was baking. In the homey kitchen of the tiny, 2-bedroom bungalow where they retired, she spent many hours with us, baking cookies and pies. Since she and my grandfather lived in Green Bay, we saw them a few times a year, and every visit included cooking. I feel lucky to have inherited a love of cooking from all these women, and the chance to pass it on to my daughter and share it with others. Madeleine is the fourth generation to make these cookies, and someday I hope I'll have the chance to teach her children how to make their great-great Grandma's cookies, just as my Grandma taught me.