On making sugar cookies:
If the recipe calls for five and a half cups of flour, you might want to take note and consider the very real possibility of producing at least two dozen or so more cookies than you might need.
Even after chilling overnight, the dough is still going to be so sticky that it will require at least a cup more flour on every surface that touches the cookie dough. Eventually, that flour will be everywhere, from the handle of the stove to your clothing to the oven mitt.
Before beginning cookies, make sure you have all the proper utensils, or you may, like myself, find yourself rolling out the cookie dough using an aluminum Ozark Trail water bottle. Now, this may work well enough, but it's just not the thing, if you know what I mean.
Now I have countless sugar cookies overflowing my largest container. They sit on the counter, waiting for me to gather my courage to tackle the next phase: frosting and decorating.
Here's the plan. I will toast the coconut flakes I bought a few days ago on a whim. I will look up and make some kind of delicious frosting. I will frost the cookies and place cookies frosting side down onto plate of toasted coconut. This will produce a very elegantly decorated and scrumptious cookie creation with the crisp white of the frosting contrasting with the golden texture of the coconut in a modern twist. Or not.
That's the plan but I don't mind admitting I'm frankly scared to begin. I mean, what awaits me in the midst of that process, bound to take up an entire afternoon? Doubtless frosting will get everywhere. Doubtless I will not toast enough coconut and will need to toast more half way through the process, slip on frosting and burn the house down. Or something.
If I manage to survive that step and actually decorate them all, where will I lay out the finished product? I don't have enough flat surfaces; I foresee cookies covering every inch of counter, on baking sheets and in nine by thirteen casserole pans, enveloping the dining room table where the dogs will get at them.
And last but not least, what in the name of Pete will I do with all the cookies when I'm done? Keith doesn't really like sugar cookies, though I almost won him over with this recipe. The good neighbors Larry are no longer next door to receive extra baked goods. I have no work to bring them to, in order to fob them off to co workers. Same goes for church.
At least I'm thinking through these things now, instead of half way through. And I'm already thinking about the wonderful layer of memory that will unfold next year, when I pull this recipe card from the box and dust it off.
Suddenly I'll remember vividly that first real Christmas of ours, down deep in the woods in Kentucky, when all it did was rain and we were stressed to the point of bursting by the adjustment to work and a new house. I'll remember the chaos over the gifts and hours spent over the stove, making way too many sugar cookies.
But by then it will be amusing and I'll think tenderly of us, young and bumbling about, trying to make traditions and order, adjusting to one another and the new setting. And that year, next year, maybe I'll remember to halve the recipe.
