Eat Me .......................................................................................................


If anything worth doing is worth doing right, then why do people give Christmas baked goods that were made with the flair of an five-year-old? What kind of message does one mean to send when they gift gingerbread that breaks your teeth, unidentifiable blobs covered in shredded coconut, and fudge that never hardened properly?

Maybe I'm being too picky. It's possible that in this Martha-Stewart-crazed world I've come to expect nothing less than perfection--especially in presentation--from any homemade product. But I think Martha would agree that burnt cookies say "I don't have time for you. These cookies are as stale as our friendship."

Today I beheld one of those cookie platters that was wrong on so many levels. First, it was cleverly disguised beneath a sheild of colored saran-wrap. This served to spare the giver from the receiver's scrutinizing eye, because anyone can judge a cookie platter in an instant, and the results of that instant analysis are displayed facially almost as quickly. Beware the plastic wrapped cookie platter, it means the giver knows the cookies it contains are flawed.
Under the plastic (yes, I ventured to explore the platter's entrails), there were clusters of cookie subspecies. One grouping were balls rolled in coconut, which was burnt. Not being able to see what lay under the coconut layer, I counted this cookie unfit for consumption.
Next was a loaf of some sort, wrapped in an additional layer of plastic. The extra plastic may have been used to spare the other cookies from contamination. Loaf: inedible.
Nearby were cookies with Hershey's kisses in the center. Kissed cookies are often delightful treats, but the cookie portion of these were so flat and over-cooked that the sugar had undergone a transformation in the oven, producing a dark and bitter glaze so horrible it would prevent anyone unlucky enough to try and eat it from ever reaching the chocolate center.
And lastly, there was some fudge among this bunch. The fudge was also wrapped in plastic--stay away. I do suspect that if I had unwrapped the fudge, it would have had fingerprints all over it. Fudge is delicate, and should be handled properly.

Here are some tips for those who insist on bestowing their baked failures upon us.

• Spread the holiday cheer with skillful strokes of white frosting, not with gloopy improperly mixed frosting that looks like melted candle wax.
• If your baking is infamous, stick to one kind of cookie, avoiding a platter which only gives people the choice of what kind not to eat.
• Simplify, simplify, simplify. Don't hide bad baking under layers of coconut shreds, sprinkles, discolored frosting, red hots, gum drops, licorice, or colorful plastic wrap.
• And finally, everyone knows you keep the good cookies for yourself. Why not prove to us you really can cook, and that you really do care? Tis the season to share the tastiness.