The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap has been going on every December for the past five years. Over 300 food bloggers participated last year, sending each other cookies and posting recipes to raise funds for COOKIES FOR KIDS’ CANCER, a national non-profit organization committed to funding new therapies used in the fight against pediatric cancer. In a small way I can support a great cause, and connect with bloggers from all over the country….
This post is sponsored by Sharp. A big thank you to sponsors that make this little blog possible! All opinions are my own.
June is a very special month in American history. June 12 is Loving Day, the anniversary of the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia which struck down anti-miscegenation laws. Anti-miscegenation laws made interracial marriages illegal in 16 states at the time. Mildred and Richard Loving were Virginians that went to Washington D.C. to marry as it was illegal in Virginia. When they returned home they were arrested for breaking the law and had to move to D.C. in order to avoid jail time.
As a child of interracial marriage, this day is particularly meaningful to me. My parents were married only 15 years after this ruling. Growing up, I knew that the composition of my family was different than most, but I was never fully aware of the challenges that interracial couples had in the past. I was educated on the Civil Rights Movement, but I didn’t know about the Lovings until very recently. It’s hard to imagine a world where my parents’ marriage is illegal and considered wrong, but it once existed in our country.
I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.
-Mildred Loving
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The other day I had a bit of a baking mishap. I had followed the instructions for an old family recipe from a photo I had taken of a quick handwritten note in the back of my mom’s planner. She’d written down that recipe into her planner years ago and every time she got a new planner she transferred this recipe into the note section in the back along with the phone numbers from Korea she’d scribbled down over the years. I don’t know who she got it from originally- it was most likely my grandma (on my dad’s side) or my aunt Cris- but it is something my dad absolutely loves to eat. Anyway, the cake was stuck in the pan and when I attempted to remove it I tore several huge chunks out of it and it was not salvageable. I texted a photo of the sad thing to my dad and of course he offered to take the cake off my hands….
Last year a few bloggers I follow participated in a cookie swap for food bloggers. It seemed like fun (who doesn’t like receiving packages of cookies in the mail?) and a great opportunity to connect with other bloggers. I signed up for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap to benefit Cookies for Kids’ Cancer a few months ago. We received an email with the names of three bloggers and a few weeks ago I shipped out three boxes of a dozen cookies each to three food bloggers all around the country. In the following week I received three boxes of cookies from three other food bloggers, all delicious and beautifully presented. I got Peppermint Chocolate Chip Teacakes from Bake N Quilt, Snickers Surprise Cookies from Dining with Alice, and Candied Buddha’s Hand Olive Oil Shortbread from Culinary Adventures with Camilla. My coworkers really appreciated the many cookies I brought to the office (and my waistline appreciated it, too).
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Whenever the weather cools and fall is no longer punctuated by unseasonably hot days I think about my favorite Korean street snack, bungeobbang (also spelled bungeoppang). These are sweet, fish shaped treats that are made by street vendors that are reminiscent of waffles filled with sweet red bean paste. My first fall in Seoul, I’d get off the bus going home from the elementary school I taught at and before I crossed the road to get to my apartment building, I’d stop by the street stand on the corner selling these sweet treats. For 1,000 won ($1) I’d get three fish in a paper bag and I’d start munching on them before the crosswalk light changed. They’re best when hot and fresh off the iron since they start getting soggy quickly. A crispy, golden exterior encases a molten hot sweet filling that peeks through the crust.
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My office life is not conducive to healthy eating. For the past month we’ve been preparing for the holidays which includes multiple tastings with potential caterers to provide food for our holiday party and gift basket after gift basket full of sugar loaded treats from other companies we work with. It might sound as though it could be delightful, but after the tenth gift basket of stale cookies and strangely colored cheese “food” with tasteless crackers, you get holiday food fatigue.
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Before I became interested in cooking, I had no idea how weightless a cranberry would seem in the palm of my hand, or how smooth and glossy the surface of it would be. I didn’t know that once you cut into it with a knife that it was white inside, with the tiniest of seeds inside its four chambers (the hollow pockets hidden inside that allow these berries to float in a flooded bog at harvest time). Having had cranberries only in odd and canned-shaped sauce forms, or as a “juice” that was often used in my college era cocktails, I didn’t know that biting into a fresh cranberry would make my mouth pucker and my whole face react to the extreme tartness.
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