Rugelach

There is the delight of a cookie called rugelach. The cookie recipe I use is from a wonderful cookie cookbook by Rose Levy Bernbaum, who borrows her recipe from Lora Brody; there are differences in rugelach recipes but they all have in common that they really are a lot of work to make.

Essentially, you make cream-cheese-based cookie dough and divide the dough into four pieces, shape each pile into a disc shape, and put them into the fridge until the dough is really chilled. Then, you bring the circles out into your kitchen and let them warm up a bit. Roll the circle out into a thin disk. Spread some warm, thinned apricot jam onto the circle. Then choices: either chopped walnuts and plumped raisins (regular or golden) or chopped walnuts and mini chocolate chips. Mix the raisins or chocolate and nuts with cinnamon and sugar. Then spread a nice even layer over your jam coated circle of dough.

Now, you cut the circle in half, then again, and again, until you have eight triangles, each covered with sugar and filling.. Roll each triangle as you would a crescent roll--tightly. Brush the cookie with a little bit of milk to seal and to create a little place on top where you can sprinkle a bit of granulated sugar. Bake, keeping an eye on the cookies so they walk the line between toasty brown and not quite baked enough to hold their crescent shape. Don’t overbake. You will know it’s done when you see it, unless you are a serious direction follower*, in which case, I don't know how to advise. Then, they cool on the tray. Then, they cool on a rack. This is not a cookie walk in the park, if you will, although there are lots of more complicated cookies in the world (see: France).

[*I have a running joke with myself, really, and now you guys, that my mother is so beholden to the idea of a recipe that the dish could be in flames in the oven and she would still pause, check the recipe, and say it calls for seven more minutes so let’s leave it in.]

I’m telling you about this cookie because it is such a beloved cookie that I get requests for these cookies a lot, and I always say yes-- but sometimes my heart drops a little when I hear “rugelach” and I think, I do make a mean chocolate chip cookie you know--I change the brown sugar ratio and bake for longer at a low oven temperature so that the chocolate chip cookies have a nice, even, soft texture --and the making of that cookie takes 1/10th of the time. I make a terrific plain sugar cookie, which I roll to double the thickness the recipe calls for, and allow to bake until just slightly golden at the edge, and then lather with thick vanilla frosting. That cookie, even with rolling and frosting, takes 1/2 the time of the rugelach.

But if someone wants a specific thing I have baked or cooked for them in the past, I want to give it to them. There is no greater compliment--the cookies you made me the time we had Hanukkah at your house and my beau had just dumped me the week before. The meatballs you made me one weekend, with the garlicky sauce that made me feel home again, even though I hadn't been home for months, or maybe had never been home in the way we all want to feel at home, ever. The homemade sourdough bread we ate when we put the dog to sleep (that’s a column in and of itself but might be too painful to put into words)--we tore into it without waiting for a knife and for the loaf to cool so we had crusty brown edges and salted butter melting into the ragged loaf [for me: the bread rising will always bring me to my father’s patient belief that children should know how to make bread, and make me remember asking dad if we had kneaded the dough enough yet, and the answer was always no, because our hands were small and we didn't understand the mysterious properties of dough yet]. I just find it painful and almost impossible to tell someone I will not make them the food they desire. This is why we have several desserts at dinner parties--what if someone doesn’t like chocolate? Conversely, how can there be dessert without a nod to chocolate? Safer to make an apple galette, a chocolate cake, and maybe throw in a cheesecake just in case.

Right now, I am trying to be at peace with the role reversal happening at 915 Curve Street. Every couple days someone appears at the door--sometimes a friend literally shows up, bearing tins of` cookies and casseroles and roast chickens and artisan tomato salads, and sometimes someone from Whole Foods shows up with quinoa-based side dishes and grilled steak. Bouquets of flowers with colored straw circling the glass jars. Handwritten notes tucked into bags with chips and salsa, batches of brownies. I see what you people are trying to do to me. Teach me to accept gifts, not just give gifts. I’m on to it. This food train, this beautiful, sprawling virtual neighborhood. For me, there is also an element of self-love I am learning these weeks that is actually, foolishly hard for me; I feel guilty accepting the entirety of the gift. Last week, I floated the idea with someone that maybe I shouldn’t use up all of the good will right now and maybe I should tell people to stop bringing me food. What if I get really, really sick later and everyone is sick of making me food. Oh her again, with her endless need for matzo ball soup.

Some of it is the backdrop of the hurricanes--the people wading in dirty water clutching children and puppies and favorite pillows. But a lot of it is just that I don't know how to ask for help and accept it without feeling like I should really be pulling myself up by my own bootstraps, and yet I really need it right now and it has shown up so gorgeously and generously. I can barely even talk about this topic anymore without feeling embarrassed at how self-centered this is all sounding.

What I really wanted to say here is thank you. Thank you for the lovely meals, and all the drives out to Curve Street, and for those of you who are too far away, the orders for the slices of kiwi and roast beef and pear yogurts and tira misu from Whole Foods. Thank you for the bright flowers and sweetest of words and wishes. Thank you for the naps you have allowed me to have, and the games of Crazy 8 and Candyland you have allowed me to play, and the late night conversations about Rachel Maddow and Donald Trump, about why reporters have to stand in hurricanes in order for hurricanes to exist and about whether it’s cool to be in the marching band or not. I hope to make you all rugelach for Hanukkah this year.