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.

Early Adventures

The signs were all there, but they were not heeded at once. It took years of following another path, another passion, before my real love was revealed..love of cooking and food, that is.

The backyard was my "restaurant", mud, and anything I could find to mix in, was my medium and giant rhubarb leaves were my cooking and serving instruments. Fortunately, I was discerning enough NOT to eat any of the creations, as rhubarb leaves are poisonous...

The first time my parents left me alone in the house, did I try to smoke, or hunt for smutty reading material, NO!
I tried to create a CAKE. Foraging for the ingredients I'd seen my mother use when baking, I put them in a bowl, mixing and stirring with abandon. My parents returned just as the creation went into the oven.
The adventure here, was that I had used a match to light the gas oven...parents were aghast, but the cake was not bad..a bit dense, but it had a lovely flavor of vanilla and almond..just what I wanted!

When I was a college student, my "other passion" took me to study in Italy. All of the American students in my class were amazed at the beauty of Italian clothing and leather artifacts and saved their pennies to purchase what they could. I saved also, and bought a cookbook by Ada Boni, the Julia Child of Italy at that time.

Despite all these signals, it was years before I took a hiatus from studying and teaching and started a catering company with a dear friend. We were The Happy Cookers and thus the adventures began....professional and otherwise...

Stay tuned for yummy recipes and the catering stories behind them.