29 November Wednesday

I’ve often thought that if I ever became a film or tv director or playwright or novelist or something that requires you to create titles to things, I would try to come up with titles that may be stories in themselves but have nothing whatsoever to do with the story behind it. Now, with novels, you sort of expect to the title to not really tell you anything about the story, that’s part of what intrigues us. For instance, Gone with the Wind really has little to do with weather, and The Sun also Rises is not about advances in astronomy. But with movies you kinda expect a film called Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure wouldn’t be a documentary meditation on old-world beekeeping nuns in Minnesota. I’ll start with this blog post. It’s not about biscuits, and who Barney and Boo may be is anyone’s guess. But I bet it piqued your interest. What is this post about?

Christmas baking. It’s that time again. I will confess something to you: Baking Christmas cookies is not a thing I like to do by myself. You need kids to put sprinkles on things, spill milk on things, flour flying through the air, the hot oven taking tray after tray, dad eating them with abandon still steaming hot, the sweet, avuncular croon of Burl Ives crackling forth from the ole’ Victrola. Too sentimental!!

In my sunny San Francisco bachelor pad, I will explore the cold, stony North in my seasonal offerings. I am going to work with sweet yeast doughs in fruit dribbling braids, brushed with egg wash and baked to a shiny brown. I will make the complex design for Swedish Saffron Buns for St. Lucy’s Day. This is a curious Yuletide celebration in Sweden, when young girls serve things to people while also doubling as human candle stands. I don’t mean to say curious, but I do think young people would feel very different about Christmas here in the US if they were forced to have their heads weighed down with flaming wreaths, hot wax dripping onto their eyelids, carrying heavy trays of dainty sweets, eaten by the elders right in front of them. Good thing their eyes are singed shut!

Yes, I did this.