Ginger Molasses Cookies
October 18, 2012 § 1 Comment
I’ve spent the morning in one of the really comfy leather couches of my eating club, drinking coffee and perusing Miss Moss, a fashion/design/photography blog I recently discovered through a girl sitting next to me in seminar. I’ve spent the afternoon pouring through a thrift shop, looking for Audrey Hepburn long white gloves and pearl necklaces, but coming up with an ugly Christmas sweater with jingling reindeer instead. And the evening again, back to browsing through pages of Miss Moss, shopping for scarves online (I’m going at a rate of one new scarf a week, which is justified, I believe, because I wear them every, single day), and drinking Baileys out of an orange Solo cup, courtesy of my British friend reminiscing about Oxford Wednesday traditions of pancakes and Baileys.
Even with all of the homecoming events coming up this weekend, the threat of midterms next week, and countless other activities I feel like I should be excited about, I’m eagerly looking forward to getting off campus for a bit at the end of the month. I’d rather be buying play tickets and making dinner reservations for New York, or day dreaming about the quaintness of Portland, Maine, or just sitting around in Boston with my best friend, so I can stop calling her in panic mode every other day, dreaming of fall sunsets, which admittedly occur here too in glorious colors but lately I’ve been so lost in care that things like this tend to escape my notice. Still, tonight was one of those Halloween type nights, with a glowing moon and shadowing branchy trees cutting the orange sky.
Normally, I love fall in the Northeast, a season I never had growing up in San Francisco. I loved the crackle underfoot and in the crisp air. It felt homey, without ever reminding me of home. This year, there is something unbearably nostalgic about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s that feeling of being so lost in thought that I barely even notice what is going on around me. It’s that feeling that I need to see the water, breathe the ocean, that I can’t shake. This year, homey just won’t do — it will have to be home.
And so home. The Pacific Coast. The sunset hidden by layers of fog and mist that cannot be shaken. Ginger molasses cookies. Because that’s one of the first things I learned how to bake and they will always be my favorite. The only cookies I made in high school after coming home on Saturday mornings, after cross-country practice in Golden Gate Park. Crackly tops, rolled in sugar crystal. Spicy (I grated crystallized ginger into them) and dark sticky molasses. Is it Christmas yet?
Soufflé Days 
Hi Heather,
Really like the looks of those ginger molasses cookies , but can’t find the recipe on your site. Sweet tooth must run the family, still remember eating imperial cookies as kid at granny’s- great granny for you.
All the best.
Mark
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