Cookie season! It doesn’t feel like the holidays until I’ve made my first batch of gingerbread cookies, which was yesterday. I used A Cookie To Celebrate by Jana Douglass, and went crazy with edible glitter and a new recipe for royal icing. This book teaches about piping and flooding (verbs I had no idea had anything to do with frosting cookies until now). Lots of beautiful pictures for inspiration!
Royal Icing Recipe
4 lb powdered sugar
1 cup powdered egg whites
¾ cup water
4 TB vanilla
Mix ingredients together slowly in mixer with paddle attachment. Can take up to 10 minutes, watch very closely for the development of gloss and peaks. I underdid my first batch, too dry and paste-like, almost unpipe-able, but then I added water and we were all good. I won’t pretend I have any gorgeous food calligraphy skills, but I do sincerely love all the ladies who came to brunch, listed by cookie name-tags below.
What an extroverted time of year. The houses are loud with lights, trees are glittered up and strung with metallic bulbs and florals. The craving to wear more and more velvet.
As the holiday train starts to pick up steam, perhaps you are feeling a bit peaked and wan? Too much holiday boozing already?I’ve been testing out various supplements, which, I will say I am trying as a regular human and not recommending as my doctor self (consult your own doc before dabbling in supplements!) BUT, a little B vitamin and N-Acetyl Cysteine always seems like a good idea to me when trying to mitigate the damage to the liver during the holidays, and Purple Tree has put together just such a remedy. I’ve tried these and can report that I did not turn into a violet or have any sort of wild toxicity that I know of yet. And maybe I metabolized alcohol a little more swiftly.
Then there is Synergy’s line of organic supplements, blue-green algae for your chlorophyll and buku vitamins and Omega-3 fatty acids, Cell Protector packed with superfoods and microgreens.
Zatik has Black Seed Oil which has some evidence in lowering blood pressure and in making your cholesterol numbers look better on paper. I like those little nigella seeds on my home-made naan, happy to hear that the seed oils have some added benefits.
And then who doesn’t love to eat gummies after a long day of feeling pressured to eat kale and walnuts? These gummies from Vitamin Friends are fun and probiotic. Tasty too! With Vitamin C and echinacea for a little immune boost.
You know, if you’re going to overdo it a bit this holiday season with cookies and cocktails, maybe you should think about overdoing it a little bit in the vitamin department too. Or just alternate fistfuls of broccoli sprouts and salmon and buckwheat groats with each cookie. I know you’ll make good choices. Listen to your body. Stay in touch with your primary care provider. And move, as much as possible. Join a parade, perhaps. If you can’t find one, come to NOLA.
