This year our Christmas tree shrunk by six feet. Three-fourth of our ornaments never made it out of Birkenstock shoeboxes and we didn’t once watch Flick freeze his tongue to a flagpole or Clarence, the angel, ultimately earn his wings. My uncle and aunt were missing around the dinner table and for the first time in thirty years, we opted to assault the neighbor’s buffet on Christmas Eve instead of drying out the tilapia in our own oven.
It was a season that defied tradition. We did bake gingerbread cookies and my mom’s once-a-year raspberry bars that inevitably burn on the bottom, but they were more out of duty than festive fanfare. There was snow, copious amounts of driveway salt, and radio carols, but somehow the varnish seemed to be wearing thin on our holiday gaiety. It was not a banner year for the Dressel household. There was illness and betrayal, depression and mania. There was adultery, addiction, anxiety, aging, and agoraphobia. There were 401K depletions, moving hassles, sleeping pills, career shifts, leaking roofs, and one divorce in a pear tree. Our 2008 calendar frankly read like a parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
On December 25th when I awoke and peered out across the wintry crust of meringue glazing our backyard, I didn’t feel magical, merry, or jingle-bell jolly. I felt queasy and irritated like a passenger boarding an airplane with an empty stomach. I tapped away at my computer, pretending to be preoccupied with important corporate emails and vital office tasks. The sun emerged, melting the snow banks on the roadsides into a Seven-Eleven Coca-cola slush. The hours ticked by. As my brother seasoned the filets, I dutifully pureed broccoli soup and popped open Cabernets with the cadence of a practiced waitress. By the time darkness descended, I found myself showered, dressed and even blow-dried. I genuinely looked the part.
And then they were here. Family and friends clustering in the doorway, discarding boots and mittens and shedding cold coats onto a mound forming on the leather chair. Suddenly, the house was chattering and alive, flushed with fireplace warmth and cranberry cashmere sweaters. For the first time that day, I relaxed into benign normalcy, calmed by the clamor and frenzy that I have come to recognize as Christmas.
After the meal, we loosened the buttons on our pants and sank into the family room couches. O’ Holy Night was playing on the stereo and I glanced around at the faces of those who share my genes, memories and history. Our modest tree’s colored lights danced off the windowpanes, showcasing ornaments from our annual December treks down to Marshall Fields and pancake breakfasts in the Walnut Room. Despite it’s stunted stature and mangy branches, the tree somehow radiated as the lustrous centerpiece that we had known in Christmas’ past.
My sister played ‘elf, passing out presents and gift cards in dutiful rotation. When the underbelly was bare, she handed me a square oak box with polished borders and an old-fashioned latch.
“This is for you, Em. Inside are letters. I collected them from all the people who wanted to tell you how much you mean to them. This is a box of love and support. From all of us.”
She hugged me. I swallowed and gripped the box with the intensity of a child climbing a tree trunk. My eyes watered and I blinked back the burning of tears.
You see, there are moments that defy articulating the precious privilege of having a sister. Someone with whom you can be naked, self-pitying, and unremarkable. She will offer soul and sweetness in the right doses and anchor you when you are your most uprooted. She is someone who senses when to push, pull, give, or take and synchronizes these needs with the ease of waving ribbons in the wind.
I retired Christmas this year with that box on my lap, reading and rereading messages from friends all over the country from many different phases and facets of my life. I was humbled. I cried, cackled out loud, smiled gregariously, and glowed in recognition. I was tickled by memories long forgotten and touched by eloquence. I can’t recall a time when I felt more whole.
Around 11:45pm, I ventured down to the family room and turned on the television to one of those stations that play around the clock holiday movies. Instantly, the room was filled with Bedford Falls townsfolk singing Auld Lang Syne while George Bailey embraced his family and cradled a copy of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. The camera zoomed in on the inscription, “Remember George - No man is a failure who has friends.”
And then a bell rang.
I looked down at my watch, curled the fleece blanket around my shoulders and gratefully realized, I just got it in under the wire.
Dec 26, 2008
Dec 4, 2008
Baba's Cream Cheese Kolacky
We were so excited for our Tribune debut this past week and my Baba's #1 Holiday Cookie Recipe! Here is the link to the article that ran on 12/4/08 and the essay that accompanies it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-holiday-cookies-3dec03,0,7691018
I asked her once if she ever burned a batch.
She smiled mysteriously and shrugged her shoulders. “To the moon and back,” she exclaimed, extending her hands from her apron pockets. “That’s how many kolacky I have made in my life.” There was a brief pause as if she was considering if that could be an exaggeration, but then she met my gaze. “That’s a lot of practice.”
My grandma was one of the last War brides from what was then, Czechoslovakia, to sail to the United States before the communists closed the borders. It was winter 1947. “Baba” was 21 years old, thin, feisty, and mopped with curly chestnut hair that she detangled with her fingers in nervous habit. She brought only the clothes in her suitcase, recipes in her head, and the expectant dreams of becoming a young American wife. My grandfather was waiting for her at the port authority when she demanded they marry that afternoon before boarding the train to Chicago. Two sisters en route to the market were plucked from the New York streets to be their witnesses. My grandparents would never know their names.
While my grandfather, a carpenter by trade, renovated their west suburban home, Baba perfumed the kitchen with familiar scents from home. She stewed pork shoulder and sauerkraut, simmered dumpling soup over azure flames, and baked poppy seed strudels on cool, cloudy Sundays. Every few months, she manufactured her own laundry soap out of bacon grease in the basement (which to this day is the only product I am convinced can combat a ketchup stain.) She had nothing written down – no cookbooks or recipe cards. She had grown up with her mother performing these same domestic tasks in their small Moravian village. Baba had simply watched.
Over the years, my family has pinpointed their favorites. Of all the delicacies Baba has mastered, the most traditional, drooled-over, anticipated varieties are her kolacky. Friends insist they trump a stiff drink or scalding bubble bath. Flaky, golden nuggets quilting a dollop of savory apricot, sweet cheese, or walnut paste. Each one, hand-sculpted and pressed so that the corners don’t unravel in the oven like lotus petals. They are the gossip at every bridal shower, gala, fundraiser, or afternoon coffee clutch. They decorated the dessert table at my mother’s wedding and were devoured thirty years later at my own. Every December, at her insistent protests, we help Baba stock up on flour, cream cheese, and butter in preparation to craft dozens of kolacky. The neighbors each receive a tray as do the priest and nuns down the block and the quirky receptionist at the doctor’s office. The grandest cookie platter is reserved for our own holiday gathering, each row flaunting ruler precision and a doily dusting of powdered sugar.
This past May, Baba turned 83. When I bake with her now, my primary goal is to keep pace with her spontaneous moments and carnival of ingredients. My notes are a blizzard of hasty cross-outs, rewrites, and minute scribbles in the margins. I often stop her mid-pour to inquire exactly how much of this or that.
She typically laughs and shakes her head. “You have to just sense it, Emily. The dough will tell you what it needs.”
I always look at her skeptically as if she is reciting some obscure aphorism, but I know it to be true. She whispers to the cookies and they blush with butter cream perfection. I only provide the ingredients and pen in hand, stand back to watch, hoping my Czech instincts seep in like grease on a hot cookie sheet.
Baba’s Cream Cheese Kolacky
This recipe is an alternative to yeast kolacky that require additional ingredients and preparation time. The unsweetened cream cheese dough also pairs well with the variety of sweet fillings that can be homemade or found in the supermarket baking aisle: poppy seed, almond, apricot, cheese, or prune.
Have at room temperature:
8 oz cream cheese
2 sticks butter
2 cups flour
Blend together butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl. Gradually blend flour into this mixture. Finish mixing with your hand, adding more or less flour depending on your need, so that the dough can be shaped into a ball. Refrigerate overnight or 4 hours minimum.
Preheat oven to 350’. Divide dough into thirds. Roll out 1 segment at a time into oblong shape on a floured board to approximately ¼-inch or 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 2” squares with a pizza cutter.
Place 1 teaspoon filling in the middle of each square. Fold each corner into the middle and pinch together in the center. (Moisten fingers with cold water droplets if dough is not sticking)
Bake 12- 14 minutes until golden on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Let cool on wire rack. Sprinkle cookies with confectioner’s sugar.
Apricot Filling:
Cover 8-12oz dried apricots in pot of cold water.
Soak overnight. Apricots will absorb the water.
Simmer over low heat, adding water as needed
to prevent burning. Mix frequently and use a
fork to mash up the skins. Gradually add 1/2 cup
sugar to taste. Cool completely.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-holiday-cookies-3dec03,0,7691018
I asked her once if she ever burned a batch.
She smiled mysteriously and shrugged her shoulders. “To the moon and back,” she exclaimed, extending her hands from her apron pockets. “That’s how many kolacky I have made in my life.” There was a brief pause as if she was considering if that could be an exaggeration, but then she met my gaze. “That’s a lot of practice.”
My grandma was one of the last War brides from what was then, Czechoslovakia, to sail to the United States before the communists closed the borders. It was winter 1947. “Baba” was 21 years old, thin, feisty, and mopped with curly chestnut hair that she detangled with her fingers in nervous habit. She brought only the clothes in her suitcase, recipes in her head, and the expectant dreams of becoming a young American wife. My grandfather was waiting for her at the port authority when she demanded they marry that afternoon before boarding the train to Chicago. Two sisters en route to the market were plucked from the New York streets to be their witnesses. My grandparents would never know their names.
While my grandfather, a carpenter by trade, renovated their west suburban home, Baba perfumed the kitchen with familiar scents from home. She stewed pork shoulder and sauerkraut, simmered dumpling soup over azure flames, and baked poppy seed strudels on cool, cloudy Sundays. Every few months, she manufactured her own laundry soap out of bacon grease in the basement (which to this day is the only product I am convinced can combat a ketchup stain.) She had nothing written down – no cookbooks or recipe cards. She had grown up with her mother performing these same domestic tasks in their small Moravian village. Baba had simply watched.
Over the years, my family has pinpointed their favorites. Of all the delicacies Baba has mastered, the most traditional, drooled-over, anticipated varieties are her kolacky. Friends insist they trump a stiff drink or scalding bubble bath. Flaky, golden nuggets quilting a dollop of savory apricot, sweet cheese, or walnut paste. Each one, hand-sculpted and pressed so that the corners don’t unravel in the oven like lotus petals. They are the gossip at every bridal shower, gala, fundraiser, or afternoon coffee clutch. They decorated the dessert table at my mother’s wedding and were devoured thirty years later at my own. Every December, at her insistent protests, we help Baba stock up on flour, cream cheese, and butter in preparation to craft dozens of kolacky. The neighbors each receive a tray as do the priest and nuns down the block and the quirky receptionist at the doctor’s office. The grandest cookie platter is reserved for our own holiday gathering, each row flaunting ruler precision and a doily dusting of powdered sugar.
This past May, Baba turned 83. When I bake with her now, my primary goal is to keep pace with her spontaneous moments and carnival of ingredients. My notes are a blizzard of hasty cross-outs, rewrites, and minute scribbles in the margins. I often stop her mid-pour to inquire exactly how much of this or that.
She typically laughs and shakes her head. “You have to just sense it, Emily. The dough will tell you what it needs.”
I always look at her skeptically as if she is reciting some obscure aphorism, but I know it to be true. She whispers to the cookies and they blush with butter cream perfection. I only provide the ingredients and pen in hand, stand back to watch, hoping my Czech instincts seep in like grease on a hot cookie sheet.
Baba’s Cream Cheese Kolacky
This recipe is an alternative to yeast kolacky that require additional ingredients and preparation time. The unsweetened cream cheese dough also pairs well with the variety of sweet fillings that can be homemade or found in the supermarket baking aisle: poppy seed, almond, apricot, cheese, or prune.
Have at room temperature:
8 oz cream cheese
2 sticks butter
2 cups flour
Blend together butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl. Gradually blend flour into this mixture. Finish mixing with your hand, adding more or less flour depending on your need, so that the dough can be shaped into a ball. Refrigerate overnight or 4 hours minimum.
Preheat oven to 350’. Divide dough into thirds. Roll out 1 segment at a time into oblong shape on a floured board to approximately ¼-inch or 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 2” squares with a pizza cutter.
Place 1 teaspoon filling in the middle of each square. Fold each corner into the middle and pinch together in the center. (Moisten fingers with cold water droplets if dough is not sticking)
Bake 12- 14 minutes until golden on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Let cool on wire rack. Sprinkle cookies with confectioner’s sugar.
Apricot Filling:
Cover 8-12oz dried apricots in pot of cold water.
Soak overnight. Apricots will absorb the water.
Simmer over low heat, adding water as needed
to prevent burning. Mix frequently and use a
fork to mash up the skins. Gradually add 1/2 cup
sugar to taste. Cool completely.
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