12.22.2010

jew can do it: a christmas cookie myth busted

My mom sent me this image in an email with the subject line "You can do it." My entire life she's told me that Jews can't make cutout cookies, that it's just not in our DNA. I explain this to my goy friends a couple times a year and it always provokes a bit of scoff and an eye roll. It's an understandable reaction for liberal arts post racial types. I only half-believed it myself. That's what I say. Except that in high school I had a friend who got to write in class essays on his computer because he had clinically bad handwriting, so a genetic predisposition to ugly cookies doesn't seem entirely impossible. Also, early tests of my cookie cutting prowess indicated that she was correct.

She made these cookies on Monday. Note the precision of the snowflake tips, the expressive bend in the necks of the cookie men--they're lovely. I don't know what to believe anymore.


2 comments:

Shawn said...

If I understand correctly, your mom's fight with cookie shapes is symbolic of the spirit's struggle with rationality. I'm gonna steal all your food stories and if you don't use them.

emma said...

Please do. I'd be honored.

I'd bake for you.