RENSSELAERVILLE — Winter is when the "appetite for comfort rises," writes best-selling cook-book author Molly O’Neill. Friday, she’ll help kids decorate Christmas cookes at the library in Rensselaerville, where she has a second home.

O’Neill, formerly a food columnist for the New York Times Sunday magazine and a former reporter for The Times, spends most of her time in New York City — a place where many different kinds of cookies are made: Lithuanian, Mexican, and Swedish. A recurring theme, she said, is sugar and light.

A number of cookies made this time of year recognize the winter solstice — the darkest day of the year towards the end of December. Sugar gives a sense of warmth and gives light, O’Neill said. Sugar is one of the first pleasurable sensations that people feel as infants, she said.
O’Neill believes that December is a time for slow cooking, which embodies the cautious, self-occupied mood of winter. This theory can be applied to baking as well, she said. At Christmas, there is "a lot of activity and nostalgic activity," she said. "People do what makes them feel good."
"Cookies are very American," O’Neill said. "Everyone has some family cookie, a family ritual, and Christmas is a time for family."
"They’re our cookies — who we are, this is us," said O’Neill. Her mother, who is 80 years old, still makes about 30 different Christmas cookies every year. O’Neill has a favorite, but her brother has a different favorite, and each person has one they like best, she said.
While the cookie originated in Germany and Scandinavia, it was a hit in America for two main reason, O’Neill said. Americans like anything convenient, and a cookie can be held in the hand and eaten on the go. And, she said, American’s "get really attracted to things made commercially."

The sugar cookie is popular at Christmas because it is easily shaped, decorated, and personalized, she said. One of the reasons gingerbread is a Christmastime staple is simply because of the gingerbread house, a sweet that can be personalized, she said.

Ginger falls under the category of a warm spice, which complements winter foods, O’Neill said. Her second book, A Well-Seasoned Appetite, published in 1995, through short essays and recipes, looks at the foods of different seasons.

A few of the winter foods she writes about include cabbage, root vegetables, and venison.

The warm spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger—are all very wintry, O’Neill told The Enterprise, they go well with the heavy foods of the winter season, such as a heavy meat. "You wouldn’t put cinnamon in gazpocho," O’Neill said.

While in today’s modern world many foods that used to be available seasonally are now at consumers’ fingertips all year, but nonetheless, in the last five years, O’Neill said, she has seen Americans turn back to eating seasonally.
"It’s a healthier way to eat," O’Neill said. With out-of-season foods, people pay extra for the transport and end up consuming a lot of chemicals, she said. It is much healthier to eat close to the source, and the flavor is better, she said. She compared a piece of asparagus from Chile in the winter to a piece of asparagus from upstate New York in season.
During World War II, O’Neill said, the food and grocery industry grew and people stopped eating seasonally and close to the source. But now, just within the last five years, people are going back to cooking and eating the way of the 1930’s and before. "Price Chopper has huge a organic section," O’Neill said; organic foods are no longer found only in specialty stores, but average people are now drinking organic milk, and eating organic canned produce.

It’s important for children to learn and participate in food preparation, O’Neill said. Youth are continually removed from physical work, so hands-on cooking builds their esteem. After laboring and seeing a final product, children feel a sense of accomplishment and realize they don’t have to rely on McDonald’s — they see they can make it themselves. Additionally, in preparing meals, children have a better sense of what the food starts out as, so they are less removed.

"A science and an art"

Cynthia Nicholson, a recipe writer for Real Simple magazine, who is also teaching at Friday’s event, believes that it is important to pass down family food traditions to children.
"It’s gotten to be an exception to sit down and eat dinner together, let alone spend the afternoon making homemade cookies and candies together," Nicholson said.
Food is a part of her background, culture, and heritage, Nicholson said. "I want my daughter to be exposed to that," she said.
Friday night’s cookie seminar at the library is for children ages nine to 12, which is a great age for kids to learn, Nicholson said, they are still young enough that they don’t think it’s "not cool," and they are like sponges, sopping up something new.

This cookie evening is part of a two-year program of the Upper Hudson Library System funded with grant money to teach students academics through cooking. The intent of this workshop is to teach math and science through cooking, said Rebecca Lubin, Rensselaerville’s library director.
"I think it’s important to learn the basics of baking, such as how to measure sugar and flower," Nicholson said, or that butter comes in one pound packages, which means that one stick is so many ounces.
Nicholson grew up in the South, where everyone made candy, not cookies, for Christmas: pralines, fudge, penuche, and rum balls. She thinks this tradition comes from the Gulf Coast and French influences. New York’s Capital Region has a lot of Italian and Germans, and there is "strong baking in those cultures," Nicholson said.

Cookies are made world-wide, Ruggala, of the Jewish tradition, uses a dough based on cream cheese, an ingredient that was integrated in Jewish baking once Jews came to America. In the old country, they used farmers’ cheeses instead, but, once in America, they found the closest thing readily available was Philadelphia cream cheese to make their dough easy to work with, Nicholson said.
And, while sugar cookies are fairly universal, the cookie-cutter shapes vary, she said, reflecting various cultures. "Snowmen cookie cutters are not in Italy," Nicholson said.

Winter desserts are warm and comfy, she said. She named Indian pudding, bread pudding, and the desserts that complement warm beverages. Hot cocoa, tea, and coffee go with biscotti and scones, Nicholson said.
"To me, eggnog has always been a drinkable dessert, so rich, so yummy...It’s always something I’ve associated with Christmas memories," she said.

Nicholson’s grandmother would beat the eggs by hand, refusing to use an electric mixer, Nicholson said, so making eggnog was an all-day process; she would beat the whipcream by hand as well.
"Baking is a science and it’s an art too," Nicholson said. It’s a craft that takes a lot of time. She said she hopes by participating in a cookie workshop, those children as adults on their own make cookies; love goes into it. Nicholson said she takes to heart what her grandmother always told her, "It’s not going to taste too good if there’s not any love put into it."

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The free cookie-decorating program is Friday, Dec. 9, at 5 p.m. at the Rensselaerville ilbrary, located on Main Street. The program is open to children age nine and up, although younger children may participate with permission from the library director. Registration is required; call the library at 797-3949.