August 13, 2008

I've recently relocated house, home, and History Cooks from South Dakota to Minnesota. In fact, I'm still excavating through my boxes and re-organizing my life at most levels. It's all paleocuisineology to me, something I was doing long before my friend, Ralph, declared the word to me. It's the study of all manner of food, dining, and hospitality over the ages. In this case, the study is personal and tactile. It's pushing me and it's reminding me what I love about food, cooking, and sharing that.

On Sunday, a couple of teen-aged neighbors and their little sister lent a hand to the unpacking. They had gone through it just a year earlier next door and know a thing or two about wrestling tacky-backed paper into a deep cupboard and finding a place for the mixing bowls, the wok, the pastry blender.

"Here's some cookie cutters," Caylee called out. After a few more bowls and utensils, I heard, "Here's more cookie cutters." And so it went, piling the half dozen or so gallon-sized plastic bags of cookie cutters together to await their places in a cupboard. "You have a lot of cookie cutters," she observed, fairly.

Ah, yes, I do. They are among the tools of my trade, as well as my treasures. I have my grandmother's scalloped cutter for her ginger cookie recipe, the one with the instruction: use plenty of flour. There's enough animals for a traditional Midwestern farm yard: chicken, lamb, horse, cat, dog, and even a buffalo in three sizes. Some of the cutters, made of tin and by now pocked with rusty edges, belonged to my great-grandmother. One year, my nephew transformed the horse into an eight-point buck. At the same time, my niece dressed a fish as a rainbow trout.

My cutters span the seasons with heavy emphasis on Christmas. The heavenly angel host rises out of my kitchen as does a passle each of stars, trees, and Santa Clauses. Gingerbread people come in several sizes and both sexes. One of my favorite people shapes alas has a weak spot, a slim neck. Often I end up with headless gingerbread, but never mind: The head is just-right bite sized.

The heart-shaped cutter has bittersweet duty. Valentine affection isn't always returned, but it’s worth giving. For Easter there are rabbits and flowers. Then we skip over the less desirable baking months to the Halloween collection of cat, witch's hat, and the bat. I make cookies shaped like Texas and roll out many butterflies for any season.

I'm in a season of making life anew again, emerging from a cocoon into new routines and habits, continued discovery.