First, Serious Eats’ cookie swap:
Pretty much just what it sounds like: a gathering where cookie swappage takes place. It’s kind of like a potluck but multiplied by cookies and since they are especially all the rage during Christmastime (not that cookies are ever not raging) the swaps usually happen during December.
What I liked about this post wasn’t just its etiquette or images, but that Zimmer did a quick analysis: a sort of taxonomy of cookie type, ordered by freezableness. Not even something Cook’s Illustrated is doing.
Next, Gourmet’s best cookie recipes from each year of the magazine’s history. That’s 68 years to be exact — 1941-2008 — illustrating a culinary evolution in sugar. The photos are simply stunning, Gourmet-style.
January 1941 brought the birth of Gourmet, and it came at a somewhat unlikely time: Less than a year later, American soldiers were going off to flight, and wartime rationing began. But founder Earl MacAusland predicted that soldiers would return with a taste for European cuisine, and the magazine’s success proved him correct. … The few cookie recipes that the magazine published included old-fashioned American classics like wafters and sugar crisps, plus a mix of French, German, and Scandinavian treats.
Finally, nothing is quite like the sugar organization seen in Charles Phoenix’s “dessert version of the Turducken.” I’ll leave it at that.
