All morning I have been thinking of Jean Cocteau's cab. I want to catch it. I want to step out my window--my robe magically turning into straight-legged pants, my fuzzy slippers into tall boots--and whistle. There it will be: the cab: yellowed, metered: a well behaved sonnet.He is writing about seeing, writing about the role that poetry performs. He is Cocteau, and seeing, seeing is, well, "All of a sudden we see," he writes, "a dog, a cab, a house, for the first time," and it gets us; it hits us; in that moment, it--strange pup--is nothing that we have ever imagined, while at the same time, exactly as we have always imagined. Cocteau goes on about that moment of seeing: "We are overpowered by the unique, the crazy, the ridiculous, the beautiful features of each object. The next moment, habit, with its eraser, has rubbed out this vivid picture. We stroke the dog, hail the cab, and live in the house. We do not see them anymore." O, dirty Habit, shame on you.
And shame on me. For lying. Confession: All morning, I have been thinking more of cookie recipes than of Cocteau's cab.
(I sometimes worry that I will die very happy and loved and with something delicious baking in the oven, but cab-less, poem-less, not even a bird to call my own. Please send your recipes to help assuage slash cement this concern.)
4 comments:
I love this. You will not die poem-less. You are a walking poem. You might die if you go to sleep with something in the oven though, so be very careful beauty.
Oh boy, oh boy, have I got a recipe for you! Cream cheese sugar cookies--perfect for holiday cookie decorating (in my family we make 'em for halloween, christmas and valentine's)! HERE IT IS:
Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 ¼ cups flour
In a large bowl, combine everything but flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour until well blended. Chill the dough for 8 hours, or overnight. Preheat oven to 375 º F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough 1/3 at a time to 1/8 inch thickness, refrigerating remaining dough until ready to use. Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart on un-greased cookie sheet. Leave cookies plain for frosting, or brush with slightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with candy sprinkles or colored sugar. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until light and golden brown. Cool cookies completely before frosting.
If you have a cookie press these are perfect. Natalie's family makes these mother scratchers and she says they're awesome, easy, and fun to modify... enjoy.
Spritz cookies
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Heat oven to 400F. In large mixing bowl combine sugar, butter, egg, salt, and vanilla. Beat with great abandon at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until mixture is light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add flour. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed, 2 to 3 minutes. Place dough in cookie press. Form desired shapes 1 inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.
Note: Can also color dough with food coloring, and decorate with dragées and colored sugar.
Not so much a recipe, but a quick fix nonetheless...maybe not so quick from Brooklyn and definitely not so quick from Atlanta but delicious all the same!
http://www.levainbakery.com/
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