Cookie creation

Although I love to cook and bake, I am hopeless at presentation. I just can never seem to manage making things look delicious.

Last week I went to a cookie exchange party. For those of you, like me, who have never baked Christmas cookies (since I don't celebrate Christmas), I had to ask what this entailed.

You bake a dozen or so of your personal favorite cookies and bring them to the party. Everyone else does the same. You all enjoy tasting each cookie, drink tea (or wine) and have a pleasant visit together. Then everyone brings home a sampling of all the cookies.

Well, there were so many cookies that I had to share them with friends. Here is the beautiful cookie platter --

I take credit for baking the (parve) chocolate crinkle cookies from The Seattle Times and the heart-shaped rosemary shortbread from The Herbfarm. The rest came from the cookie exchange (lemon bars, Russian tea cakes, pumpkin cookies, jam centers with white chocolate icing) and from a few of Rik's students ("candy canes", frosted sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies).

We also ate a new kind of fruit salad: pomegranate seeds mixed with toasted nuts and tossed with honey. It was scrumptious, if I do say so myself!