The Dinette Set by Julie Larson for December 19, 2011

Oh boy, homemade cookies! not…..

Good morning all you jolly Crustwoodians!

I always look forward to Christmas at the Penny house; the smells of baking and Joy’s famous special cookies. She puts so much love and care into them. Sorry, I was fantasizing there for a moment. I’m sure she’s been collecting those cookies for the past six months at the Dollar Store and the bakery outlet. Burl’s already eaten half of them.

Good morning CWoodians, and Ho Ho Ho! (Or is it just Ho-ho’s?) Anybody been naughty or nice? Leaky, don’t answer on the advice of counsel, and Susan, remember the terms of your probation; don’t give ’em anything to send you back.

Good Morning all —

Wow, not everybody would spend all that money to buy you cookies.

Most people would just cheap out and try to make them …. but it’s not the same as getting real Oreos and Chips Ahoy.

I don’t blame Joy for wanting the tins back for next year…I mean, she’s got to cut expenses some place.

And Joy needs Verl cos Burl can’t help…. all this “holiday baking” is women’s work.

He wouldn’t have a clue about how to do it. Maybe he’d better go watch TV and stay out of the way.

Yeah, Mikie…. I….um….er…. I think I’ll …y’know…. take the fifth.

Where’s Leaky this fine morning? Marg, maybe you’d better check with HIS probation officer.

The only acceptable holiday store bought cookies are “Maurice Lenel”; a Chicago area brand. I haven’t seen them (not that I’ve been looking) in a while. They are good to leave in the office lunch area.

Just one item I can’t read on her list “get out old tina” – OK, (just waking up) now I realize that is what Susan meant by having people return the tins. Usually not good enough for gifts, they seem to get a little rust even here in dry air. We had that pot luck breakfast and about 1/2 the stuff was store bought. As I said, I ate one chlli-dog and other homemade stuff as well as my own. Chlli and dogs were kept hot on a little propane burner. My stuff was relatively healthy considering that I used a lot of sugar (white in the natural butterscotch and both brown and white in the oatmeal cookies). At least I used whole wheat flour and a great brand of rolled oats (better than Quaker). One of my friends gave me a whole loaf of zuchinni bread, so now I need to make her something. I did not expect to see her there, but she is a good archer (much better than I) so I should have.

I doubt the Penny’s will ever give out anything like this

Why does this comic always remind me of something? Here is another Pennys’ moment for us:

My wife does always makes a slew of cookies and candies every year. In fact, I haven’t been able to have a decent meal in weeks because all our utensils and apliances are tucked away here and there to make room for her preperations. And yes she always recruits me to help.

Amongst the ladylocks, snickerdoodles, and buckeyes, she also includes chocolate dipped marshmallows. One of the simplest things she makes. It is exactly as it is named, a marshmallow dipped in chocolate.

She puts together trays and decorates them.

Three years ago one of the people she sent a tray to emailed her to thank her for the tray. Included in the email was a line, and I am paraphrasing a little:

My husband especially loved your chocolate marshmallows so much I am thinking of making more for him. Could you email me the recipe?

We still make fun of that one from time to time. BTW: I had to settle for a muffin this morning. I wanted cold milk and cereal but my wife has the directions tucked away somewhere till the baking is done.

Have a good day Crustwoodians! I am letting the recipe out for anyone who wants to send $5, plus postage and handling.

My mom and a lot of the moms in our neighborhood spent lots of time baking cookies cakes fudge and other goodies. We did had a tin or two of some special european cookies too. But the lady next door gave out tins of store bought cookies oreos chip ahoy and the like.That tin sat untouched until jan or febu as did the others she sent out.

I love reading your comments almost as much as the cartoon. Happy Holidays to all. (I better start making my cookies)

ElGuapo said, less than a minute agoSalerno hasn’t made Jingles in years (and I’m one of those who misses them; Santa’s Favorites, currently available, is not at all the same). Is Julie recycling an old strip, or did Burl open an abandoned storage unit once owned by a cookie hoarder?

Except I don’t think they put much thought into it!!

Joy doesn’t seem to know its cheaper to make cookies than to pay store prices even though they are on sale….dumbness reigns….

have a friend who makes xmas cookies for all, smokes like a chimney, so all of her carefully hand made cookies taste like cigarettes

due to litigation liability, home-made goodies are generally prohibited anymore. if it ain’t in a store-bought wrapper, it might be poisioned, i guess. sorta like halloween: see if your homemade stuff tops the garbage cans in your neighborhood…sign of the times.

When I lived in Montreal I used to buy these on the last day of work before Chistmas. I took a couple pounds for my fellow employees (and a couple for myself and gave a Magum to my favorite barmaids & friend. They were the best cookie I’ve ever had.

I haven’t seen anything even close to that here in TX. I’m NOT surprised they have a web site now. I googles a few days ago to see if they were still around, and sure enough they were.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they deliver to the States. If ever you are in Montreal or Toronto, I do recommend you try them though. I’m sure you’ll love them.

I’ll also add they (Felix & Norton) had a location in CN Station, right below the office building where I worked. So all I had to do was stop by and makes my purchases before I went in @ 7:30AM. Yes they were open at that time fortunately. It made our awful in-house coffee taste so much better.

The only store bought cookie I like is the Italian Amaretti. Most other “fancy” imports are stale and icky! I like the Amaretti almost as much as my home made puff pastries with guava paste. I made some of the latter for a desert contest a few years ago (and won, naturally).

Thanks, Dry! I enjoy cooking and just checked out recipes for Amaretti which would take far less time than puff pastry (nearly all day long) and I already bought almond flour on a whim. Good night!

FYI : …. I used my DOS operating sysem…… to Zoom in on one of the labels on Joy’s cookie tin…. and found….“Please return by Dec 26th – Does not have to be emptied”…. ! ! !