It’s that time of the year again – cookie party time. This party/marathon of confectionery was my second abroad, though this year I was blessed with more backup: Dan and Erin, my fellow Americans. Last year I flew mostly solo, so I didn’t take them for granted. More important than their labor (which was nonetheless herculean) was having my people around me to listen to Christmas music with and crack jokes in English. Though we did take some time out for Curso dandalu (Curso de andaluz, the accent we live in now).
One and a half kilos of butter combined with only one lonely and hardworking cookie sheet can produce a shocking amount of cookies with enough time and patience. And arm strength, since I still don’t have a stand mixer here in Spain – and probably never will since those cost upwards of 500 euros each. I.e. most of my monthly salary. We ended up with about 450 cookies: two batches of spritz, one batch of gingerbread, two batches of chocolate chip, two batches of oatmeal raisin (right off the top of the Quaker Oats lid, though my oats were bought from my miracle workers at the herbistoría), and of course, two batches of Swedish teacakes.