pumpkin spice and all things nice.

In some ways, I am still 10 years old wanting to make cookies just so I can lick the beaters. My stomach hurts and I am sure I gained about 2 pounds tonight from doing just such a thing. I was never known to be a good cook. Together with my closest friends from college, we started a dinner club about twelve years ago. For at least six of those years, my contribution was bread, store bought, not kidding. For the longest time, I was the only woman with a child, so I used that as my crutch. To be honest, I don't think anyone, including me, had faith that I could contribute anything that was homemade and edible. Although I think they will cringe when I say this (even though we all know it's true), not unlike a lot of mid-to-late twenty-somethings, we went through a phase where we were trying to impress each other with our culinary skills. There was a whole incident involving boxed brownies that, as the "Bread-Bringer," I found highly humorous. Somehow they knew I couldn't take the heat in the kitchen, pun intended, so they let me out. I was always the butt of the dinner club jokes, but that was ok. I thought they were right.

By that point, we had been friends for years and they knew that I was the girl who went through my entire childhood without ever having eaten a mushroom. My favorite "foods" were white bread and 7-Up. I never, ever recommended a restaurant, and I certainly never ordered something that we all would share. I never once had a dinner party where others didn't contribute the bulk of the food. I categorized foods that I liked and disliked by texture - avocados, out, melba toast, in - and I still to this day don't like mustard or mayonnaise. I also didn't like warm fruit or banana flavored anything, but I did like bananas, although I preferred them to be more green, less ripe. As you can tell, even to date me was a total nightmare because I ordered like Sally in "When Harry Met Sally," minus the fake orgasm scene, which might have helped my case. Nevertheless, I was a food disaster, I know. One of my best friends has a long-standing joke claiming that I never shared my food either. She attributes that to me being an only child, but in reality I think it's because I just didn't like ANYTHING so I was afraid if someone ate my food, the only thing I liked, I would starve. This, coming from a college kid who easily gained the freshman 15 by regularly ordering late-night pizzas that I could down all by myself if need be. Hardly starving.

So I didn't have the best track record of eating, or ordering, or cooking, or sharing good food. When my daughter began eating solid foods, I was in Heaven because it was easy food - no sauces, no spices, everything was simple and separate. Cool. Then as she got older and her palate matured, I reluctantly started to cook.

This is the point in the story when a beam of light starts to grow from behind this computer and a choir starts singing.

I can cook! This was, quite simply, a revelation. I went from stretching myself to pour a 7-Up, to cooking an entire sit-down filet and roasted vegetable dinner with plated crab and pomegranate endive salad for twelve. Hallelujah! Where had this talent been hiding? Cooking, I have found, is creative. It's an art. Timing, intuition, creativity, orchestration and technique. And all of my skill is genetic, there's just no other explanation for it. My mother is an amazing cook. She is the oldest of six and literally churned butter on the farm where she grew up. Sadly, I didn't know what a good cook she was until after she started to cook for my stepfamily, a family of three boys and my stepfather. It was a decidedly tough crowd having raised me prior to that with my dad who loved his pork chops, tomato slice and Ore-Ida fries on Saturday nights. Finally she had some serious mouths to feed and I was blown away. So by the time I started to cook for my daughter, I just tapped into those genes and the "Bread-Bringer" was transformed.

I made my first Thanksgiving turkey last year and I still have a long way to go in terms of planning the nightly meal, but discovering that I can cook opened up this whole world of good food for me. Today, there are very few things I won't try at least once, and I now have an incredible respect for cooks and chefs of all caliber, including my dinner club friends who are amazing cooks and I now know how to appreciate their talent properly. I have picked and recommended restaurants and my palate has matured right along with my daughter's, who incidentally tried escargot and caviar before she was even ten years old. I now have even more respect for my mother's talent and as usual, am humbly grateful that she is passing along everything she knows. I have learned to love food and to love to cook.

Today I have the confidence to be a rather good baker and of course, cookies are high on the repeat-offender list. I like to experiment with recipes and a couple of years ago, my daughter and I started making our own Halloween shaped sugar cookies that taste like pumpkin pie - a seasonal favorite of hers. This year I added a maple glaze to our concoction and since it seems fitting to share a recipe for this blog entry, here it is (below). Give them a whirl and if you don't like them...keep it to yourself. Fragile chef-ego over here, still in development. (Wink)

(Side note - the last time I publicly shared a recipe, I was in junior high and I had a lead in a local production of the musical, "Babes in Toyland." As a result, the local newspaper featured me, in my costume, as a 'Guest Chef' and they printed my picture with one of my own recipes. Of course, I didn't have any, so on the advice of my now stepfather, I modified a traditional Rice Krispie treat recipe to make it more seasonal - peppermint Rice Krispie treats! Brilliant. Only...I never actually made them. Turns out, when you crush up the peppermint and then stir it into the hot marshmallow mix, the candy melts, only to turn as hard as a rock when it cools down again. If anyone actually made my published recipe, they could use the squares as doorstops. Dozens of years later, when I could actually cook, I just added peppermint oil and, well...sometimes success comes later in life.)

Pumpkin Spice Rolled Sugar Cookies

by...Dot & Dot.

Whisk together and set aside:

3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*

Beat on medium speed until fluffy and well-blended:

2-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

Add and beat until well-combined:

1 large egg

1 tablespoon of milk

2-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

*That's the "I'm in a hurry" method, which is my preferred route, however if you want to go all-in, substitute 1 cup packed light brown sugar for the sugar and add 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice and 1/8 of a teaspoon of ground cloves to the flour mixture.

Combine the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mixture in three parts, mixing each until well-blended and smooth. Divide the dough in half. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut with Halloween shapes.

Position rack in center of oven. Bake at 375 for 6-9 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

While the first set of cookies are baking, make the glaze.

Maple Glaze:

1-1/4 cups confectioners' (powdered sugar)

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine all the ingredients until smooth.

Set up a cooling rack with a paper town underneath to catch drippings. When the cookies come out of the oven, transfer them to the cooling rack and immediately brush the glaze onto the cookies while still warm. Sprinkle with clear decorator's sugar before the glaze hardens.

Happy Halloween and happy cooking! Oh and if you need a doorstop, here's that recipe: