VERY SPECIAL COOKIES

The phone rang! This was our first catering customer...
Weeks prior we had worked hard to meet all the requirements to obtain a license, created a menu and sent out fliers to likely households and businesses plucked from the phone book.

Now, our reward, a potential customer on the phone. Visions of hors d'oeuvres for a grand cocktail party, or perhaps an elegant dinner, or even a wedding or other celebration were were in our minds...the caller said, "I'd like to try those Greek cookies (Kourabiedes) on your menu." Still hopeful, we inquired whether this customer wanted platters of other desserts as well. "No, just one dozen Greek cookies" ONE DOZEN?! Our first mistake, readily apparent, was omitting a minimum order requirement on the flier..so one dozen cookies it was, to be delivered as well!

Later in the week, the customer asked if she could increase the order. Hopeful once again, "of course", was the eager answer. The order was now for one and one half dozen cookies...

The day of the great Cookie Delivery arrived. It was bitterly cold with a biting, ferocious Northeast wind (not unusual for January in a New England seacoast town). The delivery address was, of course, on a street facing the wild open ocean. It took two of us to protect the fragile cookies from blowing away in the gale!

Disheveled and shivering, we retreated and drove off with the cash from our first sale..enough to buy two steaming hot cups of coffee to savor while planning a new strategy...

My recipe for nutty, buttery, delicate Armenian Sugar Fingers is similar to the Greek cookies. My catering partner is the master of those, but you will find these as delightful and worthy of the story above.