Holidays

These cookies taste like a mug of rich hot chocolate. The deep mocha-flavor is followed by a kick of cayenne pepper. Don't let the heat put you off; it only enhances the flavor. 

These are my rendition of my grandmother's sugar cookies, the ones she used to make for us every week, sprinkling the tops of the cookies earmarked for my brother and me with cinnamon sugar and the tops of those meant for our parents with poppy seeds. Actually this recipe is a composite of grandmother recipes, from mine and my husband's (with an Aunt Bertha recipe tossed in for good measure), all of which were written on small recipe cards and fingerprint-stained long before they came to me.

At our house, we call this skeleton soup. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving weekend without the lush aromas of this broth filling the kitchen. My mother says she started making it back in the Depression. "We couldn't afford to waste anything. Besides, the soup is delicious." You could freeze the broth, to use later in homemade soups. But usually, it's so good on it's own, we finish it all up by midweek.

In our house, Chanukah means latkes, potato pancakes. All five of us love latkes. What's not to like about potatoes fried in oil? We always have them at least once on Chanukah; often more, as our kids clamor for them. Over the past decade, my husband, Jeffrey, became our household's chief latkemaker, in part, I think, in response to my tendency to try to make them a little healthier. "Lots of oil is key," he'll declare as I attempt to demonstrate that you can make "perfectly good" latkes with only a thin film of oil or, even worse, with cooking spray instead of oil. I have to admit that, while a minimal amount of oil does make "perfectly good" latkes, a substantial amount of oil makes perfect latkes.

This after-dinner drink is like a little ray of boozy citrus sunshine at the end of a heavy meal and should be served very cold, in little shot glasses.

Ingredients
 

 

From Chef Mark Reinfeld's menu for A Holiday Vegan Feast: