1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup butter
In a mixing bowl combine flour and sugar. Cut in butter till mixture resembles fine crumbs and starts to cling. Form the mixture into a ball and knead till smooth.
To make wedges, on an ungreased cookie sheet pat or roll the dough into an 8-inch circle. [...]

3 beaten eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
4 squares 94 ounces) unsweetened chocolate, melted
½ cup cooking oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
Sifted powdered sugar
In a mixing bowl combine beaten eggs, sugar, melted chocolate, cooking oil, baking powder, and vanilla. Gradually ad flour to chocolate mixture, stirring till thoroughly combined. Cover and chill for 1-2 [...]

2/3 cup margarine or butter
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 slightly beaten egg whites
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/3 to ½ cup strawberry, cherry, or apricot jam or preserves
In a mixing bowl beat margarine or butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add about half [...]

1 cup butter
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
In a mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add about half of the flour, the sugar, vanilla and 1 tablespoon water. Beat till thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining [...]

Last Christmas, I received one of my best presents early. My sister Sarah brought her boys over to my parents’ house to make their first gingerbread cookies. The whole kitchen smelled spicy and delicious, and the boys (ages 4 and 1) were running around with the dog and the decorations and their toys – chaos [...]

As I mentioned Monday, Sarah and I were quite the holiday cookie entrepreneurs. But when I first started baking, no one in the universe would have paid for our sweet treats.
The first time we baked cookies was when I was in 5th grade. We lived in Durham, North Carolina, then, and for the first time [...]

Memories of Christmas Cookies, part of a series. Yesterday: Holiday Cookies with the Z Girls.
By the time I was in high school, we were probably producing 10-15 types of cookies and candies: double, triple, quadruple batches each time. We’d start before Thanksgiving, freezing the heartier types like thumbprint cookies and chocolate crinkles. Every weekend we’d [...]

“Ok, we need to make a quadruple batch of sandies.”
“Are you sure that’ll be enough? When Mom finds them, we may not have enough for the gift bags.”
“Well, we’re making shortbread, too – plain and chocolate-dipped with walnuts. She may go more for the shortbread, so we’ll have enough sandies.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget we have [...]

I wish I had not discussed other applicants’ medical success and failures (actually no one admits failures) before walking into my interview. Hearing from the applicant next to me about her masters in biochemistry, and her 11 other interviews she’d had by November (many from schools I had not yet heard from) was slightly counterproductive [...]

Every school is unique in its own right.  Knowing what makes schools different is a good way to figure out what school is best for you, and a great strategy for articulating in an interview what your own interest is in attending that school. I had a great deal of difficulty finding out what each [...]