​Rummaging through too many out-of-print holiday food magazines, I recently came across a book that was given to me many Decembers ago by Sibling Sister, Barbara. Newly armed with a Masters degree in Historic Preservation and Urban Planning, Barbara casually mentioned that members of her architecturally savvy office team were participating in a holiday bake-off of some sort, involving baked goods suspended in jello, or what I envisioned a Pacific Northwest Gingerbread House competition to resemble. I was running a restaurant in Philadelphia, which often entailed baking, building, and delivering wedding cakes. Barbara thought it might be a good idea for me to take my head out of Martha Stewart’s Tiffany blue hardcover treatise Weddings, and peruse a different kind of book.
 
What It Feels Like To Be A Building, written by professor and architectural virtuoso, Forrest Wilson, combined succinct explanation with humorous illustration. A far cry from the approach taken by my art history professors in Ithaca and London, Professor Wilson was speaking my language. Without broaching the topic of Wilton plastic wedding cake dividers and snap-in columns, without uttering the words, ‘royal icing,’ Professor Wilson offered valuable insight to those of us dabbling in wedding cake and gingerbread architecture. What Professor Wilson forgot to mention was that one girl’s gingerbread house is another’s Vintersaga, and yet another’s Hexen Haus.
 
On my once yearly visit to IKEA in search of an odd sized/oversized picture frame, I was drawn to the Vintersaga (Gingerbread) aisle like confectioners’ sugar to pasteurized egg whites. The packaging and sentiment of the pre-fabricated gingerbread house forced me to add the $3.99 item to my cart. How could I resist a product that tempted with italicized signage adjacent to the Swedish meatballs and hot chocolate?
 
  In wintertime, Swedish families gather and make their homes cozy by preparing Christmas decorations while enjoying good things to eat. The home becomes a serene shelter from the winter cold.
 
You think I would have known to leave well enough alone, to gather up the picture frame that didn’t fit in the shopping cart and exit the building. Instead, I faltered. As someone who has purchased and witnessed the struggle that is all too real when assembling IKEA home furnishings, I should have known better. I should known the gingerbread house would never be as easy to assemble as promised. I was right.
 
The house was composed of six pieces plus a four-sided chimney. While I rhapsodized over Swedish families cozying up in front of the fireplace with mugs of steaming hot cocoa and bobbing marshmallows, I didn’t think. Of course the IKEA instructions promised easy set-up with minimal tools. Of course the packaging taunted with whimsical illustrations. The truth was, the house was defective upon opening. Beyond the cherry red packaging and the step-by-step guide to assembly was a tidy plastic clamshell. Unsnapping the container and gingerly removing each piece, I noticed a huge fault line running diagonally across the western exterior wall of the house. I wanted to cry. I slathered a generous portion of royal icing across the crack in the foundation and set it aside. The roof was composed of two identical, weighty pieces of gingerbread, whimsically imprinted with a lattice design the folks at IKEA suggested I pipe in decorative icing. One of the two roof pieces was also broken, requiring intricate masonry work. Kicking myself for not purchasing two house kits, I realized that my Vintersaga was  turning into a sad saga. One of the angular pieces of the chimney was broken, making it unsafe for Santa, let alone his tiny reindeer. Just like the light sconce I had purchased from IKEA all those years ago, the one that promised to attach to the wall, shedding a beacon of late night reading light but never did, was my unstable, Swedish-inspired, tabletop cookie house. This was the first, and last time I would purchase a pre-fabricated holiday house.
 
Unwilling to return to the Swedish superstore at the height of the holiday season, I persisted, playing the gingerbread hand I was dealt. Rustling up a batch of Home Depot industrial strength royal icing, I slathered the fixative on all of the remaining broken house surfaces. Anxious to utilize European inspired roofing materials, I painstakingly cut miniature stroopwaffels and Belgian butter waffle into roof tiles. The truth was, the design of my little seasonal house was not what I had envisioned. Not only were the windows uninspired, the front door was short and square and pedestrian. I wanted bow windows to frame the front of the house, and a generous archway to welcome compact ginger people through the front door. It was all wrong, all listing horribly to the side, despite a generous application of royal icing coupled with Dr. Oetker’s tube of baking glue. With one hand, I steadied the precarious foundation, adding interior gumdrop support at every buttress, every beam. It occurred to me that the IKEA design team should include additional cookie two by fours in every gingerbread house kit. It would also serve them well to peruse Professor Wilson’s What It Feels Like To Be A Building before embarking on next season’s Vintersaga.
 
On a side note, Trader Joe’s also offers a build-your-own Gingerbread House kit. Technically, the house is more A-frame than English Colonial, but it provides many accessories their Swedish competitors do not. For instance, Trader Joe’s Authentic German Hexen Haus offers brightly colored candies and jovial cookies, including an adorable dog. The sturdy gingerbread base features a cut-out that affords easy (and stable) assembly. Unlike the plastic clamshell that unsuccessfully harbored the IKEA building materials, the Trader Joe’s house is packed in an oversized cardboard box with a deep-sided rim. This provides a safe haven for the house as you build and embellish, catching any wayward icing or runaway candy.  
 
The gingerbread people and woodland creatures housed in and on my Vintersaga fear for their little lives. Listening carefully, I can almost hear the fractured wall and roof of the house shifting and settling, causing concern within the small molasses village. Vacuuming up the remnants of royal icing that stubbornly dot the carpet, I remain cautiously optimistic and reach for another sugared gumdrop.
 
 
 

​Seven years ago this week, I started a part-time job at a recently opened bakery in Maplewood, NJ, called The Able Baker. I was hired as a cookie decorator, joining a very small crew around a very long table. Our primary focus at the time was thousands of sugar cookies in varying sizes, sharing the commonality of Christmas.
 
My tenure at Williams-Sonoma and Tabora Farms had provided me with plenty of hours of cookie decorating. I took an open spot around the table at The Able Baker and grabbed a piping bag. In the background, Etta James crooned “At Last” on repeat, occasionally interrupted by Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby. The well-seasoned Hobart mixer droned on, beating quarts of egg whites and pounds of powdered sugar into fluffy submission. The ornamental icing was divvied up amongst half-quart plastic tubs. Drops of Christmas Red and Forest Green transformed the stark white royal icing into an instant holiday piping and painting medium. Blank cookie canvases were outlined, then filled, finally embellished with sugar crystals and edible candy pearls. Santas, snowmen, and tiny reindeer stared back from parchment lined sheet trays.
 
In the beginning of my tenure, the color palate remained fairly traditional, reds and greens with one renegade blue reindeer. In time, things changed, as did the faces around the table. More importantly, social media revolutionized our approach to cookie decorating, affording way too many examples and options to snag from the internet and make our own. It felt like cheating in some ways, a far cry from the early days, when cookie inspiration was limited to a handful of examples provided by the cookie cutter manufacturer and one’s imagination. Imagine that.
 
Seven years later, holiday cookies continue to be a mainstay of the bakery’s business. The baker’s racks are presently weighted down from top to bottom with overfilled sheet pans of everything Christmas, making the racks practically immobile, much like a pesky shopping cart with wheels that won’t turn. We have reached capacity around the worktable, with some new faces and a few seasoned worker bees. Thick royal icing spins around the tired Hobart mixer at a furious rate, splashing bits of stubborn meringue on bandanas and fingertips. There are now far too many food color choices to be contained in one oversized plastic tub. The array of sprinkles, edible glitter, and something identified as ‘disco dust,’  is staggering, crossing the line from whimsical to excessive. There remains one constant however; once you walk away from the oven, out of earshot of the oven timer, that is when the cookies will turn from golden to dark brown to burnt. 
 
It seems appropriate this week to share a little background information on my cookie decorating past. From the early days on the blog, December 2013:
 
You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Man
 
Truth be told, I arrived rather late to the Christmas Cookie/Eggnog party.  The closest our kitchen came to actual holiday cookie baking wasn't a holiday at all.  It knew no specific season, it was simply heralded by Jessie's aluminum Mirro cookie press. Technically, I suppose, you could consider this Christmas cookie-ing, or Spritz cookie-making.  In a somewhat child-like disconnect, it reminded me just a bit of my Play-do Fun Factory, and was infinitely more fun than Mr. Potato Head. The chocolate and vanilla doughs were quick and easy to mix. The challenge was selecting just the right cookie disc. I agonized over the myriad of choices and always gravitated towards the dog, maybe because he shared just the slightest resemblance to the dog in Monopoly.  In hindsight, I must admit that somewhere between going into the oven and twelve minutes later, exiting the oven, the poor doggie looked nothing like the picture in the Mirro-Cookie press recipe pamphlet.  And although Spritz cookies were apparently quite comfortable gussied up for the Christmas holidays, there was nary a green or red sprinkle to be found in our kitchen.

My first foray into the professional Christmas cookie leagues began when I was hired to work at Williams-Sonoma.  I had restaurant experience which plummeted me to the front of the demonstration line.  Whenever a new product or technique was center stage, I had the misfortune of being selected to "demo" the product.  Unpacking cases of holiday cookie decorating kits, I found myself knee-deep in sugars, icings and sprinkles boasting the titles, "Christmas Red" and "Evergreen Green."  To say this was baptism by fire sums it up rather accurately.  Standing at the demo counter, brandishing my piping bags, I had to  dig deep into my Ithaca College acting skills. I promised the decorating novices they, too, could boast their own cookie glitterati that very holiday season.  I piped red bow ties on terrified gingerbread boys.  I sprinkled crystal sanding sugars with great abandon, temporarily blinding a young woman leaning in a little too closely.  The regulation green Williams-Sonoma employee apron tied around my waist resembled a Jackson Pollack canvas of royal icings.  My audience waved farewell,  clutching their decorating kits with the same  fervor mother's had clutched Tickle Me Elmos a few years prior.  The store manager deemed it a very successful afternoon.  I clocked out and ran for my life. 

With every series of culinary jobs that followed, Christmas holidays found me armed with piping bags and literally hundreds of naked cookies waiting to be costumed. I  navigated angels on the wing with gold sugar crystals as they flew perilously close to reindeer sporting   oversized red non pareil noses. Gingerbread families dodged mistrals of confectioners' sugar, while the houses in which they lived fell victim to  asymmetrical window placement  and  slightly toxic gold metallic door knobs.   Every year, as Christmas slid into New Year's, it became easier and easier to understand  why Santa and Mrs. Claus had a penchant for eggnog.

I miss you, Memphis, and have allowed last week’s pie insanity to overshadow my recent trip to your remarkable city. Flour dusted clogs once again firmly planted in the kitchen, Hanukkah taunts, only to be followed by Christmas and New Year’s rockin’ eve. Assaulted by warm spices, chubby gingerbread, and the threat of year-end resolutions, I find myself day dreaming of a city that unfolds along the mighty Mississippi.
 
After three short days in Memphis, it seems there is no such thing as bad cholesterol; it all tastes incredibly good. The chicken fried steak and the crunchy fried chicken, smoking hot hush puppies, and fried green tomatoes, every bite is positively restorative to someone who inhales clouds of confectioners’ sugar on a daily basis. Late night beignets drizzled with dulce de leche and early morning doughnuts oozing Jack Daniels pastry cream should be approached with caution then abandon. Memphis encourages us to bring our soul but forgets to remind us to bring our stretchy pants.
 
Surrounded by new faces that would soon become friends, our formidable hosts from SAVEUR magazine navigated our food travels. Criss-crossing the city, we squeezed into chrome legged chairs and leatherette banquettes, perched on bar stools, resting elbows and cellphones on laminate tabletops, smooth wooden bars, and linen draped banquet tables. We spiked our meals with hot sauce, laced our coffee with cream. Sugar poured freely and so did the local spirits. Three days provided a tapas of a city brimming with history, culture, and distinctive cuisine.
 
Personally, Memphis reminded me that my diet is severely lacking in anything batter-dipped, anything plumped in dangerously hot oil. Reunited with fried food made me realize that we should never have broken up.
 
The festival of lights is mere days away, affording me the opportunity to rekindle my love affair with foods plunged into sizzling oil. Hanukkah is notorious for encouraging copious consumption of latkes and jelly doughnuts. This season, inspiration stems from two Memphis restaurants; The Liquor Store, who introduced me to the genius that is a biscuit beignet, and The Four Way Soul Food Restaurant, serving up the sweetest yams to ever snuggle up alongside a behemoth serving of fried chicken. The marriage of the beignet and the yams resulted in a sweet potato jelly doughnut, which some folks might consider a sensible holiday indulgence.
 
Memphis is a city I hope to return to, although the next go around will be markedly different. SAVEUR brought together globally diverse creatives, affording us the opportunity to share and consider food cultures and traditions beyond our own kitchens. That in itself, is a gift far more lasting than a deep fat fryer and a new pair of pants with a stretchy waistband. Happy Hanukkah.
 
 
 

​The house doesn’t smell like Thanksgiving this year. Absent is the distinctive assault of sweet onions sizzling in butter, the perfume of fresh thyme and sage, the very specific aroma of matzoh stuffing and an oversized turkey fighting for oven space. There’s the slightest hint of caramel in the air from the Wild Nut pie that seeped out of the springform and pooled along the corners of the baking pan. Burnt sugar is stubborn the morning after, refusing to surrender beneath a sponge and scalding water.
 
A little before nine am, the television remote quickly adjusted from CBS to NBC, Al Roker is brandishing a large pair of shears and my holiday begins.  The ribbon is cut for a parade first launched in 1924; Macy’s legendary Thanksgiving Day celebration. Revelers bracing frigid temps line the parade route snaking down from Central Park West and 77th Street to Herald Square. I’m less cold in my kitchen with the oven turned up to 425 degrees. Three hours of marching bands and Broadway show tunes punctuated by the high kicks of the Rockettes and larger-than-life balloons, serve as background accompaniment to my personal pie baking.
 
Drew’s Wild Nut pie dozes on the dining room table, already turned out of its springform and divvied up under the blade of a commercial serrated knife. History has shown that trying to slice through a pound of nuts with a delicate pie server is torturous for the baker and the dessert seekers. I’m waiting for the ice crystals on the rhubarb to dissipate and the excess moisture from the butternut squash to drip through a fine mesh strainer.
 
Looking up from my butcher block table, I catch the eye of the Pillsbury Dough Boy balloon. In my sleep-deprived-over-pied state, I take this as a good sign. Perhaps the Dough Boy is giving me a nod, indicating I’ve made it to the other side of Thanksgiving. It’s time to be grateful.
 
My year has been punctuated by the luxury of travel, affording me the gift of time with some of my favorite people. It has also opened the door to new acquaintances from far-flung parts of the world. The opportunity to feast upon idle time in magnificent cities brimming with history and extraordinary local food, overfills my Thanksgiving gravy boat.
 
This afternoon, faces will circle a holiday table that extends just beyond the dining room to include a child-sized folding table. There will be too much turkey and a hotly debated sweet potato offering and parsley flecked matzoh stuffing. We will struggle to release the requisite blueberry-studded gelatin from my grandmother’s fluted jello mold and cleanse our palates with After Eight mints that have been smuggled in from the UK. Pie will make an entrance, then an exit, only to reappear Friday morning. The patriarch of the family would have approved of pie bookending his favorite holiday. My favorite holiday, too.

Armed with an unwieldy branch of brussel sprouts and a can of organic pumpkin, I watch Friendsgiving cut in line, right in front of Thanksgiving. Someone should ring the crew member bell alerting the store manager, but it won’t be me. I don’t want any trouble. A few years back I had a falling out with Thanksgivukkah over some decorated cookies, and I'm still recovering. The truth is Friendsgiving and I have never met.

While the appeal of a holiday based on assembling your best pals for the sole purpose of consuming festive eats and drinks is understandable, there’s no room on my plate for Friendsgiving. Ask my co-workers and family, and they will tell you I am not feeling particularly friendly on the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Traveling the narrow path between home and bakery and back again, I am in a constant state of simmer, like a stockpot of sweetened condensed milk morphing into dulce de leche. My temper teeters on explosion, making me an unlikely candidate to attend an event based on comraderie. There's a reason for this and it has to do  with pies and people and pressure.
 
The mental and physical pressures of Pie-mageddon are staggering. Tethered to rolling pins and pie plates, I bob and weave against a steady onslaught of pumpkin puree and unruly apples. I am a liaison between pie shells and fresh fruit, an ambassador of sweeteners and spices, a pie traffic controller, guiding and overseeing hundreds of pies as they embark on their oven journey. Armed with a pair of worn oven mitts that are just the slightest bit crunchy on the inside, I march across a battlefield of butter, flour, sugar, fruit, and nuts. Nuts are not limited to pecan halves and pieces, but extend to the occasional retail customer. The one who needs more chocolate lining the bottom of their pecan pie. The one who wants a smaller ratio of cranberries to apples in their cranberry/apple pie. The individual bad mouthing the oatmeal almond crumb, imploring for a crumb pie without the crumb on top. The person who feels the need to go on social media insinuating there must be another bakery in town where she can secure an apple pie. Friendsgiving? I couldn’t possibly and you wouldn’t want me, so please don’t add an extra place setting. You will be better suited inviting someone who is happy to contribute a pie still warm from the oven, melting the plastic of the Tupperware carrier, the lid slightly askew.
 
I haven’t time for Friendsgiving, because I’m too busy worrying. Worrying about the  pies and whether there will be enough room in the ovens and  the walk-in refrigerators, and whether or not the pies will find good homes.  The seven hundred or so individuals swarming into the bakery next Wednesday are  preoccupied  and distracted. From a safe distance in the rear of the kitchen, I’ll witness a blur of windowed pie boxes launched from metro shelving into kraft paper shopping bags.  Shopping bags that barely accommodate the fragile pies. Pies hot enough to burn through your favorite cashmere gloves with the ribbed cuffs. With the free falling finesse of a tilt-a-whirl, double crusted apples and delicate pumpkin custards will land with a not-so-gentle thud, jostled by the next coffee-clutching person in line. My eyes get misty just thinking about it. The nightmare of watching people mistreat your pies by carelessly tossing them into the backseat of their SUV is real. You wouldn’t treat your baby-on-board that way, would you?
 
A Thanksgiving pie maker's dream is a table surrounded by happily  sated guests, leaning back in their chairs, slightly giddy from that last smidgen of pie. The ultimate compliment is learning that pie is the first thought that crosses someone's mind the morning after Thanksgiving. Drowsy from tryptophan, many will pad their way to the kitchen in fleece-lined slippers and flannel pajamas. Struggling with the French press and fumbling for a fork, they will aim for the nearest pie plate leftovers. 
 
Friendsgiving may find you seated on a folding chair in a tiny apartment, balancing a plate on your lap. It might mean the discomfort of whacking your leg against the leg of an expandable IKEA table stretched between two rooms. It may also require a journey on mass transit, promising  an abbreviated holiday schedule. Regardless, be sure to wear something featuring an expandable waistband and tote along a few empty Tupperware containers for leftovers. As for cutting the turkey without me, I insist, Friends, go right ahead.
​

The TSA agent in charge of lane designation at Newark’s Liberty airport is very specific when he tells me to remain in Lane 3. My crumpled boarding pass falls to the ground just behind a red industrial food service truck overloaded with cases of Adult Assorted Cereal in a Cup, Premium Bananas, and a ginormous tub of Sysco Brand Fresh Fruit Salad. I am reassured knowing the airport’s fruit offerings are indeed, fresh.
 
Lanes 1 and 2 seem to be moving along at a fine clip while Lane 3, (much like the lane I often choose for the Lincoln Tunnel) is at a standstill. The TSA agent has assigned me to a security line reserved for the Elon University men’s basketball team. When I try to bring this to the agent’s attention, he frowns and advises me to stay put. From my vantage point, I am clearly the shortest individual armed with a laptop, an unwieldy leather belt, and a carry-on awaiting scrutiny. Without benefit of my thick-soled sneakers, I am even shorter. As 15 minutes roll into 20, then 25, my teammates and I wonder aloud if we will make our flights, and then, a miracle.
 
From behind an imposing mesh gate, a TSA agent miraculously appears, peeling back the armored divider, promising relief from our security purgatory. In an instant, my newfound friends and I create Lane 3A, emptying our pockets of loose coins, loading up plastic bins with electronic devices and over-sized travel snacks.
 
Hoisting my carry-on towards the conveyor belt, a bespectacled man helming the security scanner glares at me. “I’m with the team,” I state emphatically, depositing my sneakers into one more warped plastic bin emblazoned with the words, “Thank you for flying with us.”
 
Reunited with my sneakers and belt, I notice there is a defibrillator located mere steps beyond security. My heart racing, I run towards Gate 21, wondering if I’ll have time to stop at the mini mart for a  cup of  adult cereal  and some fresh fruit.

​Eyeing the last of the candy corn I pause, debating whether to finish it off or add it to a wastebasket filled with empty fun size candy wrappers. Struggling to recall my last visit to Dr. Stef, D.D.S., I toss the corn syrup/dextrose triangles into the trash. They stare back at me, in all of their Red 3, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 food dye brilliance. Candy corn is well aware that no sooner do we extinguish our Jack-O-Lanterns, we find ourselves three short weeks away from Thanksgiving. Not only does that mean we are officially in the throes of cold and flu season, many individuals will fall victim to pie anxiety.
 
A common November malaise, pie anxiety affects more than enough folks to spark hotlines helmed by flour and shortening experts.  The simple commingling of flour, butter, sugar, and salt (with just enough cold water to hold it together) creates panic among perfectly competent bakers. On a recent Tuesday morning, I commandeered an unwieldy shopping cart alongside a woman in the frozen food aisle of Trader Joe’s. As she unearthed a box of Gourmet Pie Crusts from the freezer compartment, my eyes involuntarily began to roll. Noticing my disdain, she assured me  the pie crusts were as good as homemade and, she added with emphasis, “I consider myself a very good baker.” Avoiding confrontation, I moved on, working my way towards the end of the aisle. Pausing by the Pound Plus chocolate bars, I chose the 72% Dark Chocolate cloaked in its signature red wrapper. As soon as I finish the Peanut Butter Cups and the Milky Ways, I’m going to focus on good chocolate eating habits.
 
These are stressful times. With less than a month remaining, Thanksgiving will pervade every working moment, prompting heated debates about pie crusts, blind bakes, and pumpkin fillings that insist on cracking. Some of us will agonize more about the dessert course than the butter basted turkey. We proclaim this as the year we will try something new and different, straying from the old reliable fruit, nut, or custard pies. Change is good, but best explored early  in the Thanksgiving game.
 
This very well may be the year you roast and purée your own pumpkin, lovingly toasting the seeds and spicing them just so.  Just make sure that in addition to having the time and the inclination, you also have the cheesecloth necessary to strain the water-logged squash and a can of Libby's on the shelf if things don't turn out as planned.

It's quite possible   your public television station will air a holiday special this Sunday, sparking your inspiration. Do you really  have the time  to bake a pie on your gas-fired grill, while your turkey hums in a vat of deathly hot oil? More importantly, how interested are you in getting to know  your local fire department?
 
When you’re told “This Is the Only (pick one) Pumpkin/Apple/Pecan/Gluten Free/Vegan Pie Recipe You Should be Baking Right Now!” they mean right now, not Thanksgiving morning.  You  can choose to be  daring, but don't overlook the stability of  recipes that are comfortably familiar.

At some tables, a red felt turkey will preside over an overfilled centerpiece of fruit and nuts. We will slice wedges and slivers of classic pumpkin,  reliable apple, and a dangerously wild nut pie.  In an attempt to sail through November 22nd with the  gracefulness of a Macy’s Day Parade balloon, do yourself a favor. Plan accordingly and plan ahead; well before Al Roker is wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving from the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West.

​For many of us, it’s best to wait until the very last minute before purchasing bags of Halloween candy. Squirreling away cello packages of Hershey’s Miniatures and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with the intention of offering them to trick-or-treaters, always ends badly. Not personally, but for those hungry candy seekers ringing the doorbell on October 31st.
 
The bakery has been in the throes of Halloween since pumpkin and chocolate chips wandered into the scones a few weeks ago. Trying to remain current, I pored over a new listicle that popped up in a recent newsfeed, detailing the most and least popular Halloween candies. The fact that peanut butter inspired Mary Jane’s hold the title for least popular, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the most highly coveted, is no surprise. What I didn’t realize, was the disparity between red Twizzlers and pink and white Good & Plenty. Red licorice, which is composed of corn syrup, sugar, artificial flavor, and other dire ingredients, is wildly popular.  Choo Choo Charlie’s artificially flavored candy of choice boasts a whopping “2% or less” of licorice extract, and sits alongside Mary Jane, last pick of the Halloween Candy dodge ball team.
 
A recent casual search for Good & Plenty found me coming up empty handed. Circling the candy aisles in a number of Manhattan newsstands and pharmacies led me to a sad realization. Charlie, the once popular engineer of a train fueled by pink and white candy coated licorice, must have hung up his striped hat and retired. Save for a few lonely boxes buried on the bottom shelf of the Duane Reade on West 48th Street, black licorice real estate has been elbowed out by everything peanut butter and M&M. Such is not the case in London, Holland, and Norway, where licorice, particularly black licorice, is hugely popular.
 
Recent travels afforded me time to peruse candy aisles in foreign supermarkets and airport news sellers. Not only is black licorice available straight-up, it is often showcased with chocolate, marzipan, hot pepper, and salt. I can only vouch for the chocolate version, a chocolate bar called Nero. Dressed in dark chocolate, filled with a soft-jelly of black licorice, the candy bar is surprisingly appealing. It hints at the freshness of a Junior Mint, but much hipper, much cooler, very Viking. Although the full name, Lakrissjokolade is easy for Norwegians to say, I found it wiser to point to the sleek black wrapper emblazoned with silver letters, than stumble through an abominable pronunciation.
 
Licorice is not limited to confectionary lovers, it also commands space in the baking aisles of Norwegian and London supermarkets. Serious bakers swear by a square black tin of Lakrids-pulver (licorice powder) for enhancing baked goods. Several years ago, Nigella incited a run on the high-end larder staple when she featured a licorice and blackcurrant chocolate cake recipe in her book, Simply Nigella. Might I add, Nigella, there’s nothing simple about explaining to customs officials the critical importance of bringing the little black tin out of one country and into another.
 
Black licorice is clearly more popular across the sea, with Americans lukewarm, or in many cases, downright hostile, towards the confection. The red twisted candy we seem to prefer boasts no licorice at all, but makes a splendid movie-watching companion. It also serves as a tasty distraction when tasked with filling a commercial freezer with several hundred pies shells, and then several hundred more. For those dire late night shifts, I have a lone box of Good & Plenty buried in the bottom of my handbag and a few stray Hershey’s miniatures. If we weren’t a peanut-free bakery, you can bet your licorice I would be popping peanut butter cups from now until Thanksgiving.
 

I hear the appeltaart calling my name the minute I step off the train in Amsterdam’s Central Station. The barkeep at Café Bozz seats our party of five at a table within view of a cake pedestal weighted down with something clearly baked in a springform pan. With one eye I’m watching the steady parade of market-goers wandering through the unpronounceable De Pipj neighborhood; with the other, I’m fixated on the cake pedestal. My patient travel mates don’t even miss me when I casually leave the table in order to get a closer view of the dessert beneath the glass dome.
 
The barkeep, also our server, nods when I ask him about the cake. “Appeltaart,” he replies, subtly rolling the “r” in t-a-a-r-t.. His command of English is quite good but as is the case in most romanticized travel instances, everything he says sounds intoxicatingly European.
 
“The appeltaart is made here, in this kitchen,” he gestures with the one hand void of a beer glass. “All apples,” he says. “And raisins, and vahlnuts and…” his voice almost conspiratorial, “ruhm.”
 
“Rum?” I ask.
 
He nods solemnly, indicating with his free hand a sizable pour over the top of the cake. “A good rum, and then plenty of custard, or maybe slagroom. Whipped cream.”
 
I shake my head no and then yes and before we’ve emptied our beer glasses, a behemoth wedge of appeltaart has claimed the center of our table. The slice is accompanied by an enormous sidekick of slagroom, and five dessert forks. The dessert instantly conjures a ruddy-cheeked grandmother, her apron dusty with flour, taking the taart out of the oven before resuming apple peeling. I am conflicted; am I eating a cake or is it a pie? Dousing another forkful in slagroom, I decide it’s quite a lot of both.
 
Appeltaart in Amsterdam is one of those highly debatable topics, sometimes talked about in hushed whispers, other times causing voices to escalate, fingers to wag, hands to gesture wildly. Locals assure me it is one of the first things a youngster learns how to bake, usually under the tutelage of a grandmother. Sometimes the taart boasts a lattice top, but often it is double crusted. It should not be confused with what we often call ‘Dutch Apple Pie’ in the states, which is more Germanic in origin, often swimming in cream, and much shorter in stature.
 
Traditional Dutch appeltaart stands tall, usually about 3 inches in height because it is baked in a springform pan. Lined with a sweet cookie-dough crust, the pie is overfilled with apples and studded with raisins spiked in some kind of spirits. There’s a slight crunch from walnuts and the apples are flavorful from a spice mix known as ‘speculaaskruiden.’ The spice mix is available in Dutch markets and grocery stores, but customs officials frown on anyone toting it back in their carry-on luggage. Trust me on that.
 
Chalkboards strategically posted outside cafés pepper the streets of Amsterdam, tempting with hand-drawn illustrations of appeltaart mit slagroom. Served with cups of strong, dark kaffee, it is similar to Vienna’s kaffee kultur, forcing people to pause for a little caffeine and a little cake.  I’m still not convinced the Dutch taart falls strictly under the pie category, thinking it’s more of a pie/cake hybrid, one of those crazy turducken-y desserts incorporating fruit and crust with a splash of tipsy.
 
The most talked about appeltaart in Amsterdam is sliced up at a café called Winkel 43 located on the Noordemarkt. The café sits on the edge of two farmers’ markets, and is a great place to people-watch, if you can snag a table. Again, the taart is baked in a high-sided springform pan and served with an obscene amount of whipped cream. Many smaller off-the-beaten-track cafés offer equally tasty offerings with shorter lines and humbler prices.
 
Baking your own appeltaart is less daunting then it seems, and an excellent way to battle lingering jet-lag. Once you’ve peeled four pounds of apples you can let them lounge in a splash of lemon juice while you take a nap. Or you can soldier on and bake the pie/taart, set it to cool on the kitchen counter and go to bed. When you wake up in the middle of the night thinking it’s time for breakfast or lunch, you can sneak downstairs, emancipate the dessert from the springform, and slice yourself a nice wedge. It may not be taart time in the states at that exact moment, but it certainly is in Amsterdam. And as long as you’re in the throes of jet-lag, you might as well take advantage of the opportunity.
 
I’ll leave you with the recipe for the Amsterdam-inspired Appeltaart. I’m going back to bed.
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the midst of a quiet hotel dining room, they found me. Three travelers from Gotham City began rearranging tables and chairs, trying their damnedest to create a three-top from a deuce. A well-meaning server attempted to intervene, only to be side-swiped by an incoming chrome-backed chair. A breakfast inquisition followed.
 
“We need coffee,” two of the three insisted before perusing the concise menu. The third diner emphatically announced that she did not drink coffee, demanding a comprehensive list of herbal teas. I leaned closer into my French press and ‘full English’ breakfast sans sausage. The grilled tomatoes on my oval porcelain plate shuddered, seeking refuge beneath a sunny-side egg and slice of toast blanketed in orange marmalade.  
 
Agonizing over the menu’s omission of egg white omelettes, the conversation at the next table shifted from fruit to yogurt to porridge. “It’s a totally different experience than Quaker Oats…” the woman seated closest to me insisted. “You have to forget about the oatmeal memories from your childhood. This is more of, more like,” she grasped for the appropriate word while I mumbled “gruel” under my breath.  Coffee Drinker #2 agreed, “It’s an English thing, porridge.”
 
Tea Drinker continued to grill the server, asking how the porridge was prepared. Coffee Drinker #1 drowned out the server, insisting the breakfast cereal was sometimes prepared with milk, sometimes with water, but “thinner than Quaker Oats, nothing like steel cut."
 
“Oh,” Tea Drinker replied. “I’m a little lactose intolerant. Can you make it with half water and half milk?”
 
“You don’t want it with water,” Coffee Drinker #1 insisted. “Trust me.”
 
“I’ll take a check,” I whispered to the server.
 
Wednesday, October 11th was World Porridge Day in the UK, a fundraising event with the primary focus of providing a daily meal to school age children in the world’s poorest communities. Throughout London and Scotland, proceeds from porridge sales are dedicated to this charitable cause. I was happy to participate, tucking a spoon into a bowl of hot oats dotted with banana slices and sticky Medjool dates. True, the porridge was thinner, silkier than its US counterpart, but enormously satisfying. London was not the only place where I encountered   serious porridge-ing; Norway boasts its own version.
 
Rømmegrøt is a Norwegian cream pudding, more of a celebratory porridge than a morning breakfast cereal. Thickened with flour and packing a cholesterol wallop courtesy of sour cream, whole milk, and butter, the pudding/porridge is served at special occasions such as weddings, christenings, and Norwegian Constitution Day celebrations. Tradition encourages gussying up the white-on-white dessert with generous pinches of cinnamon, sugar, plump raisins, pats of butter and splashes of heavy cream. My Norwegian porridge experience was a far cry from a package filled with instant oats spiked with brown sugar and faux maple flavoring. Also absent from the experience was a smiling Quaker fellow in a black hat.
 
The Rømmegrøt served at the 19th century lodge Frognersteren Hoved-Restaurant boasts all of the trimmings necessary to fully dress your bowl of porridge. It also includes a drop-dead gorgeous mountaintop view overlooking the city, fjords, and forests of Oslo. Located near Oslo’s famous Holmenkollen ski jump, it is well worth the journey, unless of course, you traveled all the way to Europe in search of herbal tea and an egg white omelette.