"I'm always down for a Spice Girls reunion.
I love the Scary hair and platforms."
-- Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown
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| Medusa gingerbread cookie 12-25-13 |
"There's nothing sadder in this world
than to awake Christmas morning
and not be a child."
-- Erma Bombeck
My son Sam and I baked cutout gingerbread cookies together, for two very specific reasons:
1. Sam wanted to eat the dough. He's been overdosing on Starbucks gingerbread lattes and wanted a hit of the real thing.
2. I wanted to make a Medusa gingerbread "man."
Our cookbook that we got the recipe from didn't call them gingerbread men, though. It called them gingerbread "people." So our cookies weren't just delicious, they were also PC. (Which, as you probably already know, stands for "pretty cute.")
Sam likes to bake. He makes really delicious biscuits and beautiful pumpkin pies. He started "baking" when he was steady enough to stand on a chair beside me at the kitchen counter. He was about 1 1/2. I'd fold down one of my aprons and sort of swaddle him in it, then give him a bowl, some spoons and measuring cups, jars of spices, and let him go at it. He could put whatever he wanted into his bowl, and mix and stir to his heart's delight while I made muffins, or pizza crust, or cookies. I'd let him dump pre-measured cups of sugar and flour into whatever I was making. Sometimes it hit the bowl. Sometimes it hit the counter. Sometimes it hit the floor. There was usually a big mess to clean up, but it didn't matter. Being side-by-side together in the kitchen -- that's what mattered.
It still is.
Sam is all grown up. But something about baking cookies together brought back his little kid days, and that warmed me more than the heat coming from the oven or the spices in the gingerbread. While he licked batter from a spoon and piped faces and buttons on the "men," I made my Medusa cookie and cleaned up the bowls, the counter and the floor.
Some things never change.
Of course, I played with my food before I ate it:
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Man. Person. Whatever.
I think I'll just call her a "Spice Girl."
Merry Christmas!
