I’d be telling a lie, which is chancy this time of year with Santa watching and all, if I said I love getting old.
Some say we’re supposed to not mind aging. “Age is just a number,” they tell us.
And the subtitle of this blog is indeed “Encouraging Words for the Menopause Roller Coaster.”
But wrinkles and saggy thighs and creaky feet can sometimes outshine the bravado that comes with aging. So I look for that bravado wherever I can.
In honor of the season, I present you some upbeat cookie thoughts on getting old.
Cookie Aging Point One:
My menopausal eyes spotted this slick bottle in the baking aisle four days ago. A new kind of squirt icing!
I’m not sure how well it works, but being a lover of icing, I’m looking forward to giving it a whirl and a swirl.
How cool to live long enough to see good, new stuff: computers and other useful inventions, medical advances, innovative works of art that reflect the times we live in, AND a new system for making dots and squiggles with frosting.
Cookie Aging Point Two:
It’s neat to have lived long enough to remember the stuff of yesterday: the expression “neat,” record players, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, troll dolls, wooden rings on our fingers, hip hugger skirts and poor boy tops, Almond Smash, AND our moms and grandmas rolling out cookies oh so thin and oh so delicious (and storing them in metal tins).
Cookie Aging Point Three:
Finally, how lovely to have recipes you make year after year, first given to you by a friend or relative. That person abides in your thoughts while you cook!
Here’s my friend Cathy’s shortbread recipe as I wrote it down twenty-some years ago.
You don’t need squirt icing or cookie cutters. You don’t even need to grease the pan. Sugar is 1/2 cup. (I know it’s a little hard to read.)
Take the shortbread out of the oven when it’s lightly browned. Dust with colored sugar or confectioner’s or leave plain. Cut into squares or other shapes.
Neat-o!
Friend For The Ride 
The new gadgets are cool – although occasionally perplexing. But I love the comfortable things from our past, esp. those neat cookie cutters!
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I wish we’d saved more of the treasures, esp. the Christmas stuff from the fifties and sixties.
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Yum!!
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Such fun memories! Haven’t thought about trolls in ages. Loved them and collected them.
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I had two. I wish wish wish I still had them!
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And i LOVE cookies. Will choose a cookie over any dessert…..well maybe brownies too.
🙂
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I got out my cookie press last week (passed down from my mother-in-law), for the first time in 5 (maybe 10?) years and was amazed that I could still make “spritz” cookies that looked pretty good! Took me back to when my older sister led the cookie-baking process when we were kids.
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Gosh I have one too! Deep in a cabinet, I think. I should give it a whirl. They used to be such fun to make.
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Good for you– trying a new product with an old recipe! I tend to make the same things over and over unless asked to do something different. For New Years , we have dinner with friends and it’s an elaborate event, themed dinner. I’m given the recipes weeks in advance and have to search for ingredients. Fun to be challenged!
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That’s kind of fun–to be given the recipe. Deciding for me is sometimes half the battle. (and yes, I stick to the same ones–each year i plan to branch out cookie/candy-wise and then I get too busy.
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I didn’t know until college when a fellow Baltimorean and I were discussing Almond Smash that it is a local soft drink. According to what I’ve read, it’s still available at a local supermarket chain, although some reviewers say the taste is different than they remember. And I still have a pencil-topper troll wearing a little dress my youngest brother made!
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It was such a huge deal when Almond Smash came out. We were allowed to have it on Friday nights when my mom popped popcorn. Sure didn’t know it was made in Baltimore though.
Sweet Tom made you a troll!
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