got milk?

Baking and decorating cookies for Santa Claus is a big deal in the T&C household, particularly for the kiddos.  I have tried several different sugar, or cut-out, cookie recipes, and, I’ve decided my favorite is Paula Deen’s Animal-shaped Sugar Cookies from Paula Deen and Friends.  As far as celebrity chef cookbooks go, I favor Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa books and the Lee Brothers, but these sugar cookies turn out perfectly every time.  Or, more accurately, year after year.
To see some truly gorgeous cut-outs by a cookie master, visit Pink Martinis and Pearls.

We keep the old cookie cutters in an old tartan lunch box.  My great grandmother’s rolling pin, one solid piece of poplar,

the chilled dough, and the marble slab.

The apprentice.

   I like the airplane and the bell the best.

“He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.”

That’s hardly surprising, is it?