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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Spring is my least favorite season.
It wasn’t always this way. When I was a kid, the arrival of spring heralded warmer weather and a countdown to summer vacation. When I was in my early twenties my immune system decided that tree pollen is my body’s worst enemy and I developed seasonal allergies. When I moved to South Korea at the age of 24 I experienced another level of discomfort — yellow dust. Dust from Central Asia floats towards East Asia every spring, mixing with things that are horrible for your health. When it’s particularly bad the public is advised to stay indoors as much as possible. You see people wearing face masks and a heavy presence in the air. Outdoor surfaces are covered with a yellow layer of gunk.
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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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One of my favorite aspects of cooking is the opportunity it gives you to be creative and inventive. I didn’t really start getting interested in cooking until I was in college, and even then I was still very timid about venturing outside the limits of recipes. But things like hunger and snowstorms will give you that little push you need to think on your toes when supplies are limited. I attended Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia and being a southern city outside the mountains, you expect a few snow flurries but not snowstorms, but one winter I was stuck in my apartment in the middle of a snowstorm with hardly any provisions, no restaurants open and no take out joint delivering.
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There is a bit of family lore involved in these cookies. When my grandfather was still in the military, my grandmother had her recipe published in the U.S. Army’s 77th Special Forces Group Officer’s Wives cookbook under the title “butter bars”. While I always thought my grandmother to be the inventor of these cookies, she gives credit to her sister (my great aunt Betty) who claims to have never made them. Cookie origin mystery aside, they are indulgent and delicious and something to be shared with the whole family (or risk eating all of these babies yourself at once, not that I know anyone who has done that…).
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