December 17, 2020

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!

By roads-rus

Christmas cookies are seasonally big. I was amazed at the number of websites specializing in just Christmas cookies by the score. One promised 60+ Easy Christmas cookies. Another enticed with their 50+ Best Christmas cookies. Then there was one that offered 100 best Christmas cookies. The champ was Taste of Home, a magazine we used to subscribe to, that made it possible to access “150 of our best Christmas cookies”. How many different Christmas cookie recipes can one make? I’ll have to ask my daughter-in-law.

The next sub-heading that got my attention was a 2019 holdover by Ellen Gutoskey. Representing Betty Crocker, whose image is now owned by General Mills, Ellen divided the 50 United States by each’s favorite Christmas cookie. What a clever idea! No company is more responsible for making Christmas cookies a holiday staple than General Mills, and that holiday map got my total attention for a long time as I learned the most popular cookie for the holiday in each state. Peanut Butter Blossoms, those kiss topped yellow yummies, proved to be the most popular nationwide. They are the favorite Christmas cookie in California, Nevada, Wyoming, Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. It is the most visited recipe and the most popular cookie for Christmas. Understandably, it used to be our son’s favorite.

#2 is something I’m not familiar with called Sugar Cookie M&M Bars. It’s the top cookie in 5 states–Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Massachusetts. Only one state chose Buckeye Delights. These cookies reminded both Ruth and me of a former neighbor from Ohio named Nancy Kraft. She was from the The Buckeye State and an excellent cook. In fact, we had her Chinese Stir Chicken for dinner last evening and have enough left over for tonight. Idaho is the only state that goes for Candy Cane Cookies. I don’t normally think of Hawaii in connection with Christmas, but its statewide favorite is humble Gingerbread Cookies. The Hottest Holiday Treats Mapped kept me entertained and lusting for cookies far too long.

Even the venerable New York Times gets into the Christmas Cookie Game. One website I visited listed its 25 most popular Christmas cookies, proving conclusively that this is a lousy time of the year to diet.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2020 at 9:56 pm and posted in desserts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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