Orange Melaways from Gourmet Magazine - (Holiday Cookies)

Something about sweet-tangy citrus and the holidays.  I made a batch of Orange Meltaways this week, and they do melt on your tongue.  Couldn't find the exact recipe on the 'Net, so here is the one I used, which looks to be from an old Gourmet (RIP) Magazine.

In a large bowl cream together 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter, softened, and 1/2 cup sifted confectioners sugar.  Into a bowl sift together 1 cup sifted flour (you are a sifting fool) and 1/2 cup cornstarch, stir the mixture into the sugar mixture, and add 4 teaspoons grated orange rind  (do not skimp). and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix thoroughly!
Chill the dough, covered, for 1 hour, or until it is firm enoug to handle.  Form the dough into a 10 inch strip on a doubled sheet of wax paper, roll it rightly into a 10-inch roll, using the wax paper as a guide, and chill it, wrapped in the wax paper and foil, in the freezing comparting of the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Roll the dough in granulated sugar and cut it into 1/4-inch slides with a sharp knife.
Arrange the slice on  lightly buttered baking sheets and bake the cookies in a preheated moderately hot oven (375 degrees F) for 10 minutes (my oven took longer) or until the edges are golden.

  Makes about 40 cookies. Like many  cookies, these are better the second day.  Make sure to cut into 1/4 inch slices or they will be too fragile and break.

Yummo!

Where Are The Snows Of Yesterday?

More snow, after drifting flakes came down all day yesterday. A trip to the store is in order, and also the bookstore, the beleagured Border's, for last minute gifts. Books make great personalized gifts. So hie thee to a bookstore with the remainder of your shopping list.

Yesterday, another marathon of baking. Some cookies with pine nuts and cardamon, a great Christmas spice, then more of Martha Stewart's cranberry short bread and the one disaster of the season, the granola bars. First, they stuck to the (so-called) non-stick pan, then they crumbled. Actually I have a dozen in individually wrapped plastic. The problem is, they are way too sticky (did someone say treacle?) to eat in the car, which is what I like them for. So---scrap that idea. The bars do taste delish, and I rounded up all the little crumbles to sprinkle on our cereal. So the bars have been more or less salvaged, but I won't make them again.

We ate more leftovers from the company that didn't come last night and tonight, too. Then it's on to something else to eat. I still have a meal to freeze. Criminy, I did get carried away with extra portions.

Mostly now, I have a case of the holiday blahs, which will maybe dissipate when the rest of the family arrives. One hopes. Right now, each upcoming meal seems like a high hurdle, and the impossibility of catering to people who don't like meat, cheese or fish has me under a cook's cloud. I mean, how many meals of potato pancakes can you fix? They're delicious but they destroy the kitchen and have to be cooked at the last minute.

So this is my bah, humbug post. And I think I have a stomach virus. Or I've been eating too much raw egg in the various batters. Or sticking myself with the cat's insulin needle has not been a cool idea. Or I haven't written a word for a week. That's probably it. Ya gotta write.

Here's a New Year's Eve poem that I wrote a few year's back. It's bleakness cheers me.

The Ramblin’ Rose

New Year's Eve and the Ramblin' Rose
Churns up and down the Inland Waterway
Delray Beach to Boca and back.
Buffet, booze, and other accoutrements
of First Night included.

The heron skulks in silence,
Roosting on her lone piling as we
Glide through manatee mating grounds
Imagining the churn and roil of water
Docile fat bodies thrashing and thrusting.

Stage curtain clouds part to reveal
A sober late December moon.
Diamond-belted Orion arches his bow
Toward apathetic stars.
Indifference is our guide.

This Last Night, no nymphs or dryads
Cavort inside the glitzy glass-facaded palaces
That line our watery road.
Captains of industry and cocaine conquistadors
Gone forth to hidden revels.

Cleopatra dazzling the Nile
Ahab chasing his white whale
Huck and Jim rafting broad river
Kurtz plunging toward the heart of darkness
Dreamt and dared upon the water.

Our placid eve's cocooned in make-believe
Of paddle-wheels. Sustained by party hats
And plastic leis, a slosh in margaritas,
Our pilgrimage to nowhere drifts across the night.

©

Gloom & Doom in Publishing

Today's Galley Cat had one sob story after another about the publishing business. Everything from Border's going under next year (maybe) to a writer saying let's have fewer stupid books, and some riffs about e-books.

I feel like a veteran of these wars. Published an e-book. At the time, you couldn't give them away. Publisher went under, got back my rights and took The Shadow Warriors to a POD outfit. No respect. Tried to find my book on Amazon by its title yesterday and there were something like 103 books with Shadow and Warriors in the title or blurb and somehow The Shadow Warriors was coming up 104. Merde, she said. Wrote a stupid rant on Amazon. With Amazon the owner of the POD company, you'd think they'd bump it up a bit.

Why does one bother? Because there are still a few people who believe in me. That's all I need.

The Christmas baking has begun. I have mini-cheesecakes just out of the oven with some cranberry topping, and savory cheese sticks ready to bake. Glazed spices pecans ready to glaze. Lots of activity in the kitchen tomorrow. Bustle, and good smells.

The tree is up but not decorated. It is huge, large enough for any number of cats to snooze under it. Drinking water like a fish.

Shopping almost done. Cards almost ready. Wrapping not started. Preparations progressing apace. Ho. Ho. Ho.