One Christmas season, my sister (whose 5 years younger than I am) and I were left home alone on a Sunday afternoon. We lived in an American four-square with the typical breakfast room and back porch off of the kitchen. We decided to make Christmas cookies--and thought green cookies would be really grand. I think we got the recipe from one of my Mom's Woman's Day magazines. We thought mom would be so proud and surprised that we could do this by ourselves. Things went well enough--until we tried to roll the cookies--which were about the consistency of thin cooked cereal. Things kept getting worse by the minute--and we were fairly sure that we would be in trouble for wasting eggs and butter. So, we decided to hide the evidence. It was winter in Western NY--and snow was deep enough that we couldn't get to the trash barrel. So, we threw the deep green dough out one of the side windows in the breakfast room. It was on the back of the house after all--and no one went there in the winter. By Spring, we thought it would blend in with the grass. We tossed the dough and cleaned the kitchen. Things went well enough until our neighbor called to ask why the side of our house was green. Oops! My mom was not pleased but the punishment was to learn how to roll dough--and keep rolling until we knew how to handle it--and what to do if it was mush or if it was crumbly. We probably would never have learned the art of rolling pastry (or cookies) if it weren't for our "punishment". Of course--after each rolling we had to sit with cocoa and cookies to "test" and to be sure we got it just right.

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