Slice of Life: Kitchen Memories

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, and Lanny

 for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Sears Cooky Press box
Memories fill my kitchen
As Spritz cookies bake

Decked in reindeer red

Our musician in training,

Jack, shakes jingle bells

The Sears cooky press box in the picture is the original box of my mother's cooky press (more than 50 years old). And inside the box is the Spritz recipe from my mother's Betty Crocker cookbook. My sister has the cookbook, but I convinced her that this page (loose, like many in the cookbook) belonged with the cookie press. Each year when I open the box and pull out the recipe for holiday baking, I feel the presence of those whose hands have touched this press and those whose fingers followed the lines of this recipe.

My daughter and I enjoy baking together.  The cookies go into the freezer in holiday tins ready for assembling into trays and plates to share with friends.  This year the addition of a certain young man sweetened our time together.  Sara let him have his first bite of cookie, a buttery Spritz cookie made from great-grandma's cooky press.