Traditions

Traditions - those little pieces that connect a family, and ripple outward to connect a community, a race, a religion. Tradition.

There was a tradition when I was growing up, that of baking Grandma's Christmas Cookies every year. Ostensibly, the cookies were baked as gifts to neighbors and friends. In reality, very few ever left the home. What didn't get eaten as raw dough and apricot filling, was eagerly devoured by six kids, fighting for the 'perfect' cookie. Grandma's Christmas Cookies are of Hungarian origin, as she was Hungarian. She taught it to my mother, who in turn taught it to me. My recipe is writ in my grandmother's hand, and I cherish it more with every passing year. 

I added another cookie to the Sacred Christmas Cookie List - the Russian Teacake. Oft mistaken for a Mexican Wedding Cookie, the teacake is much more moist, practically melting in your mouth. My Russian Teacake recipe is stained with decades of butter smears from my hands as I roll the cookie dough, powdered sugar tracks embedded in the 3x5 index card. And, by the time the recipe finally resides in the hands of my daughter, she'll most likely be hard-pressed to read it, through the stains and smears.

Traditions.

The tradition shifted slightly from my mother and myself, to the next generation, myself and my daughter. Rather than showing Jordan the nuances of a yeast dough, the simple delight in getting your hands in the dough, watching the marriage of butter, sugar, and flour, smelling the yeast as warm milk is added to activate it, the prep for the baking is done alone. Well, save for my dog. My kitchen is destroyed, powdered sugar flies everywhere, pots nestle dirty atop the stove. And I swear I wash my hands a million times, as I dip in and out of the dough, ensuring it's been kneaded - enough. If you're not a baker, that comment will not make sense. 'Of course it's enough,' the non-baker would say. Ah, but the baker ... the baker would feel for elasticity, fingers cleverly seeking out unblended pieces of yeast, bits of flour that stand alone, when it should all be perfectly integrated to the butter and sugar, a hint of salt where there should never be one. The perfect consistency, something hard to gauge before the cold dough recipe has been thoroughly chilled - yet, if it isn't right, the cold dough, after being thoroughly chilled, will not have the perfect roundness of flavor, perfect flexibility of dough, that it should. Balance .... the baker will tell you it's all about balance. And sometimes, the balance is not in the recipe, but rather in the baker's ability to interpret the recipe correctly.

This is known as 'the night before'. Dough gets made for Grandma's Christmas Cookies and for the Russian Teacakes. My kitchen gets cleaned. And then I usually wash the clothing I was wearing and take a shower, because everything is coated in flour, sugar, salt, egg debris, a bit of warm milk, yeast that is now trying to rise on the leg of my jeans .... I never said I was neat!

Traditions.

The day of - apricots cooked down, board prepared with flour and sugar, cold dough taken out in handfuls. The rolling, the cutting, the stuffing and folding, until the apricot cookie is a small pillow waiting to be devoured. Jordan comes in at some point, sits close enough to snack on the cold dough, nibble the cooked apricots, and sample the finished product. She doesn't roll out the dough, press the top of the pillow into granulated sugar, put it on the cookie sheet, check the oven and turn the cookies as they bake. But .... she is there. We talk, we laugh, she makes fun of me when I mess up. And so December comes to life in my home.

The Russian Teacake has its own ritual, every bit as important to me as the ritual of Grandma's Christmas Cookies. I cannot remember where the recipe stemmed from, I only remember I've been making these cookies for at least thirty years. And the ritual for the Teacakes is wrapped in my daughter. When she went to college, my first visit up to San Francisco included a double batch of Russian Teacakes - her favorite. When she was moving to Los Angeles, one of the last things I made for her in my kitchen was a batch of Russian Teacakes. And every year, the two cookies I make, without fail, are Grandma's Christmas Cookies - a tradition from my childhood, and Russian Teacakes - a tradition from her childhood.

Tradition.

This year, there will be three generations of children related to my Grandmother - my mother, myself, and my daughter - sitting around the table to bake these two recipes. My daughter has already informed me that it will be sheer bliss, just sitting and watching the two of us, eating the cookies as they cool.

For me, it will be a circle of love - from my mother's kitchen, to my kitchen, to my daughter's kitchen.

Tradition.

A heart smile.

May your Traditions resonate with love.