The Holiday That Was
I'm not sure what this holiday was exactly, other than short. I've been out of Illinois slightly more than 48 hours and I'm thrilled to be home again. Nothing puts me off more than the Detroit Metro area. I'm not sure what it is. Perhaps the news stories of people shot in parking lots and the economic impact on the region by more layoffs by the American automakers.
The holiday was pretty good. My gift from my parents this year was a beautiful Roros Tweed blanket. No, the blanket is not plaid as the word tweed suggests but a beautiful cream and brown hand-knit pattern from the depths (errr mountains) of Norway. Well I quite like it. The only other thing I wanted for Christmas was "soft brown cookies"... which may sound ridiculous to you but obviously you have not tasted the soft brown cookies in question. They are my Great-Grandmother Score's1 recipe of a molasses based cookie that she stored in coffee cans (that quite commonly still had coffee grounds in the bottom). I arrived "home"2 to my parents to discover my mother has apparently forgotten the significance of the soft brown3 cookie on our annual holiday festivities. No worries, a little pestering and I had her up early this morning to get some popped into the oven.
So after many football games and cups of coffee with my parents and maternal Grandmother I departed DTW this afternoon on a packed-to-the-rafters Northwest flight with a tin of soft brown cookies. (Hopefully, a similar tin will be making it's way to my brother's house in the next few days.) I wished I had made arrangements to take Thibault home with me. He was, as always, the light of my holiday by being the most adoring dog in the whole of the 734 area code. It didn't help that once I got on the plane a girl behind me was actually transporting her puppy home with her. But I digress...
Several hours later (flight delays eh?) I'm departing the plane and am just dying to get back to the warmth of my home. I make it about half way down the terminal before realizing... cookies. I'd left them on the plane! I turn around (unfortunately, scaring the girl behind me who seemed single-minded on finding the baggage claim) and head back to my gate through the throngs of people apparently hanging out at O'Hare looking for a good time4. I get back to the door to the jetway as my flight attendant is wheeling her bag out and looking for her next destination and PLEAD with her to let me back on the plane. It occurs to me as I'm making this scene that perhaps5 this is not a good idea and that scary Transportation Security Agent standing next to me doesn't want me to go back into an airplane to retrieve an unmarked tin box. Thankfully, the girl understands and comes back onto the plane with me to find my cookies under the seat in 15-F. She does, however, make me open the bag and Christmas tin to show her they really are cookies and I'm not a t-rr-r-st. At least she didn't ask to try one.
So, all is well that ends well. I'm home. I have a new wool Norwegian blanket I can use to curl up on the couch while I'm eating soft brown cookies and drinking a glass of milk. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.
1Grandma herself actually being German but with the Americanized-Norwegian last name of my Great-Grandfather. I can't tell you whether the cookies are Norwegian as most of her cooking skills were learned from her mother-in-law or whether this was the one thing her German mother lent our family. I can tell you, they are divine.
2 It is not my "home". I have never lived there. I haven't even lived anywhere in a 100 mile radius.
3 Strangely enough this cookie is not really soft as it is frequently served frozen or chilled (aka left in a tin outside in the snow). It is however referred to in my mom's cookbook (and the recipe supplied to me by my aunt) as "Grandma's Soft Brown Cookies". I don't get it either.
4 I'd imagine a good time could be had much easier elsewhere.
5 My fingers have a hard time typing the word "perhaps"... and seem to form "herpes" much easier.