Baguette & Pizza Cookies

Pretend it's December.  If you want to hire me to make you unique frosted Christmas cookies, you can and should.  

Alexa and I decided we must have an evening for decorating cookies. She had a top secret family recipe, so we gathered the troops for an evening of cookie decorating, Christmas songs, hot spiced wine, and general merriment.

First, Alexa and I did the hard, hard work of making awesome cookie shapes, mostly by hand because we could only find tiny cookie cutters, with the most Christmas-y shape being "star", "bear", "heart", and "hippopotamus" (top left corner).  We made the candy canes, trees, and ornaments (i.e. circles) ourselves.

We played Mariah Carey songs about 5x each on repeat and danced all OVER that kitchen.  Everyone knows that "All I Want for Christmas" wins best Christmas dance song for 10 years straight.  I think there was a point in the song where we threw lettuce in the air and I pretended to dump marinara sauce on my face, but that's neither here nor there.

Traditional cookie shapes are cool and everything, but after 20-something candy canes, you crave a little variety.  Here's the mustache & baguette cookies...

Culturally appropriate!!

And other traditional Christmas favorites, such as the pumpkin cookie, the pizza slice, fish, giant wish bone, and handgun.

There's two baguettes cookies because I might accidentally eat the first one before we can decorate it just because it looks like a baguette, and I'm conditioned to eat baguettes instantly once they are within arm's reach.

I think my pizza cookie turned out really nice...Look, I haven't even touched the bear or the star.  Losers.

Sorry you're not from Texas and you didn't think to make a .40 caliber handgun cookie.  Maybe next year.

Ok let's be for real though. Look at the size of the handgun cookie next to this GIANT ornament cookie.  It's like a chipmunk pistol.

You can barely see Karl in this picture, but he was the one brave male in the bunch.  Way to be!  He and Hanna created my FAVORITE cookies, the Segway & the customer falling off the Segway.  (Happens a lot, ouch.)

And a shout out to Fat Tire

These beautiful cookies sat at work and tormented me for days with their buttery deliciousness.  Worth it!!

My French Thanksgiving

Since we're still in the time machine...let's talk about my first Thanksgiving in France!

Well...I've spent one other Thanksgiving away from home, when I lived in France right after college, but it's when I lived in the middle of nowhere, had no friends, and was sick on Thanksgiving, so my celebration involved eating microwave instant cup-o-soup and watching Thanksgiving episodes of Friends.


So like I said...my first Thanksgiving in France.  Having friends AND a turkey, we are already off to a great start!


Maygan and I ordered a turkey from the butcher two weeks prior, and they said for 20€ extra they could cook it for us. Heck yes. How else would you make any sides if your one tiny oven is stuffed with a turkey all day?

Incidentally, French turkeys cost about $75 in case you were wondering.  They grow up eating nuggets of gold which infuses into the turkey meat.

I made a homemade pumpkin pie and my mom's stuffing recipe. I also provided traditional cranberry sauce, served in the shape of a can.  (When Kelly, Em, and Erin came to visit in October, they brought me all the pumpkin spices, cranberry sauce, and other stuffing spices I needed. Yay!)

I spent all day cooking with our kitchen/back balcony door open while listening to Christmas music.  It was delightful!

When it was time to go over to Maygan & Kyle's, I realized that I didn't have a car and had never attempted to transport hot food across town.  I loaded up my rolly shopping cart, lined it in towels, put the stuffing in (covered in foil), then put another layer of towels, then the pie.  And I rolled my Thanksgiving goods 20 minutes north from my neighborhood, past the Eiffel Tower, and to Maygan & Kyle's apartment.  It was pretty bizarre, wheeling stuffing and pie behind me, but whatever, it works.  It got there.

Maygan & Kyle made mashed potatoes, green beans, & delicious sweet potato fries that were so good we were kicking in the kitchen.

We picked up the turkey at our projected dinner start time...only to discover we had to bake the turkey for another hour (oops)

With aluminum PEASE!  So sweet. They tried to throw us some English.

We decided to have a "first course" of sweet potato fries to tide us over while watching football.  We are certain this will become a tradition in the next two years of Paris Thanksgivings.  M&K had two friends in town, Kyle carved our French turkey, and we all toasted to Thanksgiving in Paris, stuffing ourselves like we were at home.  I could barely waddle home I was so full.  God bless America.