Opinion: You are good enough to eat!

By Brennan Kraut, Liberty Health Care Center

In the few short weeks until Christmas, ovens all over the country are going to be chock full of all sorts of scrumptiously baked goods. Recipes handed down from the generations will be dusted off and spread to a new set of bakers, fully armed with whisks in hand. Grandmas will hover, as they delicately bark instructions, the occasional fire alarm will sound and the smell of the holidays will waft lazily through the air.

This holiday season, please bake these sugar cookies and recognize that each ingredient represents a very special part of you.

THE INGREDIENTS

•  2 ^3/4 cups all-purpose flour: This ingredient is your strength, your ability to survive the grind and flourish.

• 1 teaspoon baking soda, the essence of versatility: you are resourceful and adaptable and like baking soda you have: cleaned, scrubbed, washed, shined, polished, odor neutralized, exfoliated, gardened, doctored ailments, deodorized and fluffed up.

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, which demonstrates perseverance, your ability to rise above it all, to expand beyond your limits in order to reach your potential; a little you, goes a long, long way.

• 1 cup butter, softened. This reflects your loving and firmness. The butter-cup can be found in bouquets of love, but be warned, trying to eat the dainty thing, especially unprovoked, will prove to be an exceedingly disagreeable experience.

• 1 ^1/2 dups granulated sugar, which embodies your refined character and the fact you can’t be lumped in with the rest.

• 1 egg, which symbolizes rebirth. You are resilient and have the capacity to reinvent yourself time and again. You are unbreakable and therefore impervious to shellshock.

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, which reveals your harvested grace. Vanilla beans, like human beings, need to be slowly aged to perfection.

THE DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together (your strength, versatility and perseverance) flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together (your loving, firmness and refined attributes) the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in (your unbreakability and grace) egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks

It is the challenges, the fire of adversity set at 375 degrees, that brings out your: strength, versatility, perseverance, loving, firmness, unbreakability and grace.

I pray that, this holiday season, and for years to come, you will share your sugar cookies and your endearing kindness; may both this recipe and your love be passed on from generation to generation, in perfect perpetuity.

Happy Holidays.

Recipe sourced from allrecipes.com