I learned my lesson about cookie gift boxes the hard way—during the first holiday season I decided to give them as gifts. Twelve years ago, I spent an entire weekend baking six different varieties of chocolate chip cookies. My thinking was simple: people love chocolate chip cookies, so variety within that category seemed like the … Read more
Last December, my sister called me in tears — not the happy kind. She had spent an entire Saturday baking her famous lemon sandwich cookies, packaged them in a pretty tin, and shipped them to our cousin across the country. They arrived as a box of lemon-scented crumbs. If you have ever experienced that exact … Read more
A few years ago, my college roommate called me in tears — not sad tears, but the kind that come from laughing too hard. She had just opened the cookie care package ideas I’d spent an entire Sunday assembling: a beautiful tin of decorated sugar cookies, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, nestled in a Priority … Read more
A few years ago, my cousin called me in tears. She had ordered a box of my famous brown butter snickerdoodles as a birthday gift for her daughter in Portland — and they arrived as crumbs. Not broken cookies. Actual, sandy crumbs rattling around at the bottom of a crushed box. That moment crystallized exactly … Read more
A few years ago, my aunt called me in tears — happy tears, she insisted — because the box of cookies I’d shipped her for her birthday had arrived as a pile of crumbs and broken shards. I had sent delicate sandwich cookies packed in tissue paper. They looked beautiful when I packed them. They … Read more
I almost ruined Christmas with a funnel and a bag of brown sugar. That’s the short version. The long version involves my kitchen floor, a very judgmental cat, and the moment I accidentally invented what is now my most-requested holiday gift: a cookie mix in a jar gift that costs about five dollars to make … Read more
I still remember standing in my kitchen at 11 p.m. on a Thursday, covered in powdered sugar, with a sink full of dirty bowls and approximately zero functioning brain cells left — all because I had promised my mother-in-law, Diane, that I would bring “something homemade” to Easter dinner. Diane, bless her heart, is the … Read more
I want to tell you about the year I confidently committed to making thirty — yes, thirty — cookie gift baskets homemade from scratch, announced it to my entire extended family in a group chat, and then completely forgot that December also contains things like school concerts, work deadlines, and the basic human need for … Read more
Let me tell you about the Great Cookie Catastrophe of last December, which is what my sister now refers to as “the incident.” I had spent an entire weekend baking what I believed were gorgeous, perfectly iced sugar cookies — little snowflakes, mittens, the whole festive lineup — and shipped them off to my college … Read more
I almost didn’t give them away. It was the night before my mother-in-law’s retirement party, and I had spent an entire Saturday baking four dozen brown butter chocolate chip cookies — the kind with sea salt flakes on top and crispy edges and a center that stays soft for days. I had flour in my … Read more
