Cookie Swap 101

If there is one thing I learned from attending my first ever cookie swap, it's don't be the one who shows up carrying the biggest Tupperware container. I was a little nervous about the party to begin with because:

a) I'm really not the best cookie maker, and the one amazing cookie recipe that I make—chocolate brownie cookies from the book The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern by Claudia Fleming is time consuming enough when it's for only five dozen--let alone multiplying the recipe to make 12 dozen, which is what the cookie swap demanded.

b) I wasn't going to know many people there since I just moved into the neighborhood, so I was entering virgin social territory (will they laugh at my jokes? do they like wine like I do? what if I bump into the Christmas tree and break a family heirloom ornament?).

c) I may show up with a garishly large container (used normally to store about 500 Christmas ornaments) while everyone else arrives with dainty holiday tins and whicker baskets, and then they'll look at me like I'm Ben Stiller in the movie Meet the Parents, when he comes down to breakfast in his pajamas and the rest of the family is wearing coordinated LL Bean sweater sets...

Out of the three possible scenarios above, I did c). I arrived with a monstrously large tub that barely fit through the door of the mud room. I was so embarrassed once I saw the festive display of cookies in appropriately-sized containers on the dining room table, that I tried to hide mine in the kitchen, but at that point, everyone knew that the riff-raff Tupperware tub was mine.

As for the actual cookies, my mother had directed me to use her practically ancient copy of the McCall's Book of Cookies—from a special edition series of recipe pamphlets that I believe went out to McCall's subscribers. You can tell theses books were produced in the 70's because all of the food is shot in this hazy amber light, and placed in these odd tableaus, like the photo for Grand-Slam cake—a vanilla cake that presumably you were supposed to serve at your canasta game or something because it is decorated with giant heart-diamond-spades-clubs silhouettes—which is shot in front of a background of playing cards dancing under a green strobe light.

From the cookie book I selected something easy yet intriguing: old fashioned sour cream cookies. They were simple, I added more lemon zest than the recipe required as well as the vanilla, and sprinkled the top with a combination of cinnamon and demerara sugar to give it a nice crust.
Before packing them up I gave some to the critic's corner, aka Belle and Conor, to see what they thought. With some hot cocoa they were well liked—simple, yet tasty.
And I got out of the swap with my Godzilla-sized tub filled to the brim with an assortment of delicious cookies that we've been eating through the holidays. Hopefully, if I'm invited back next year, I will find a nice tin.—Caroline