Tag Archives: Dog Tales

Soft Ginger Cookies

05 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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I once thought of these as my cookies.

Not as in … all mine… but more as what comes out of youthful innocence…to keep one unaware of the likes and dislikes of others.  I don’t recall Mom making these as she did her Peanut Butter cookies.  So who knows but that perhaps it was my passion that fed my sibling’s desire for these cookies.

I became aware of our common feeling about this cookie only last summer, when my sister baked a batch for my brother’s birthday, then ended up keeping half the batch for herself.   Recalling the memory of her half and half methodology, I baked a batch of these cookies on her birthday a few days ago, with a plan to keep half —  and with a slight refinement of my sister’s formula — give the remaining half to my sister to share with my brother.

Sharing these cookies is something I’ve done for years.  In part because they are my favorite — but also because they sit pretty on a serving dish, they transport easily and stay fresh for days.  I’ve shared these cookies at church gatherings, work parties and even given them away as Christmas gifts.  I don’t know how many times I’ve given away the recipe.

It was one of the first I gathered from my mother, back when I began my collection in the early seventies.  The recipe was one Mom clipped from a local newspaper — now mustard brown with age, the clipping is pasted into Mom’s favorite cookbook, one of the few things of Mom’s that Christi has chosen to keep.

Like any good recipe, this one is splattered with forty years of  use.  But unlike most, this recipe has also survived a hit and run casualty from a collision with two canines, that began with Max’s foray on the kitchen counter top.

Pilfering food from the counter is one of Max’s favorite past-times that has netted him many tasty morsels.  Unfortunately for Max, the counter was bare that day but for the recipe card.  So when Max swept the counter clean with his huge paws, the card took flight and landed at Cosmo’s feet, who quickly nabbed the prize and ran like mad  for her hidey hole.  By sheer luck, I saw her running away from the scene of the crime and got to the card in time to save it from certain death.  Carefully, I pulled the card from Cosmo’s clenched jaws, extricating all but one small bite that she refused to part with.

Keeping a share of the recipe is obviously something Cosmo subscribes to also.  Or is it just something that comes natural to all dogs?

Try it and see.  From my life to yours.

Soft Ginger Cookies

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. salt

Cream sugar & shortening; mix in egg and molasses. Beat well. Gradually add sifted dry ingredient to form a stiff dough. Refrigerate for two hours or over night. Form into small balls, roll in sugar and bake on a greased cookie sheet — 10 to 12 mins at 375 degrees. Makes four dozen.

Suspended in Time

29 Friday Jan 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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Sugar frosted flakes are covering the world outside my window.

Inside it’s warm – thank God.  No power loss for us, though others are less fortunate.  My husband came to bed last night telling of an entire town, just an hour south of here, going to bed without power.   I wondered how many others were left to huddle in the dark and cold, as I turned over to turn out the light.

This morning I woke to an outdoor skating rink.  Gingerly, I stepped outside to salt down the back porch.  But already the lazy falling snow is blunting the slick ice, and soon it will be safe for even this thin-boned woman to venture out.  I don’t imagine I will; I prefer my experience of winter delights from an inside perch.

Like my mother before me, I do love to watch a pretty snowfall.  Suspended in time, each flake finds its own way to earth, riding an invisible magic carpet of air.  About twenty feet up from the ground, some reverse direction to go up, making somersaults in the air as they fall back to earth.  Some fall and turn sideways while others twist and turn in a spiral of snow ribbon.  Fast then slow; thick then thin, the flakes build to cover the ground in mass.

The dogs can’t resist the snow.  In and out… in and out… inandout… the door blurs in constant motion.  Sometimes they go to answer a nature call, but mostly they go out to play.

I look out to see Max grazing on snow; he reminds me a graceful deer at a salt lick.  Once he gets his fill he looks up and our eyes meet through the window.  I know he expects me to drop everything to let him in, even without courtesy of bark.  And like the dutiful mind-reading canine mom that I am, I open the door and in flashes a dark fur coat full of icy rhinestones.

Replete with snow, the dogs are now napping, insulated from an outside that has gone strangely silent without buses running up and down Walker.  I’m ready to settle into the silence as well.  I’ll carry a good book to curl up in my favorite spot.  And between book covers, and the covers of a warm blanket and the cover of snow that has put the neighborhood to sleep, I’ll enter a new world.   Between three layers of covers, I’ll be suspended in time.

Whether that new world will be one in a book …or one in a dream…. it’s too soon to tell.  But I’ll keep you posted.

Nap Party

21 Thursday Jan 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer

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I admire how easily dogs fall asleep.

Is it their freedom from worries?  Or could it be their lack of preoccupation with tasks that lie in wait for them?  Or perhaps it’s their constant practice at the fine art of good sleeping?

As I contemplate my morning readings, Maddie snores by my side with nary a care.  Her body forms to the sides of the chair, her head rests on its arm.  I look around to see that it’s this way with my other dogs too — all are completely at rest.

I wish I could rest this easily.  I didn’t sleep well last night, though I have no worries or preoccupations that I can point to as sleep-nappers.  Sometimes I just wake up at the indecent hour of four a.m. — and no matter how much I toss and turn to put myself back to sleep, sleep evades me.

Often, Max hears me stirring, and when he’s not already in bed with us, he jumps up to keep me company.  Without need of invitation, Max  drapes all forty-six pounds of his body on top of mine.  I wonder if he’s trying to anchor my tossing with his weight or trying to bring me the comfort of his presence.

Perhaps Max just desires the comfort of my presence, since a minute later, my poodle comforter is snoring comfortably while I lie underneath him hot and wide awake.  I feel Max’s body form to mine, with the full force of his weight shifting to me.

With no intention to do so, I begin to think thoughts.   Thinking removes the last hope of my return to sleep.   But thoughts come and this one was important to me, as I compare Max at rest to prayer at best.  My dark night encounter with Max invites me to grow still, settle into a warm, comfy spot and allow whatever is weighing me down shift to God.

With prayers expressed and forth-six pounds of weight shifted, I shake awake Max to begin my day.  Max is always happy to get an early start, as my day begins with his food bowl.  I feed the dogs, make my coffee and find a comfortable chair to hold me.  And there, resting in God’s word, I too fall sound asleep, in spite of the coffee.  Thirty minutes later, I wake refreshed, ready for the day.

Now, with morning chores behind me and no worries or preoccupations pressing upon me, I’m wondering if I might indulge in a dog nap or two.  Already I’m missing one good nap party behind me.

With the day still young and my dogs true party animals, I’ve no doubt there will be other nap parties to crash.