JAM SESSION

Whether you align yourself with poppyseeds, fruit jam or cream cheese, Hamantaschen are cookies of resilience. This year, Purim begins at sundown on Thursday, March 13th concluding on sundown the following day, (coincidentally Pi(e) Day). In many kitchens, Hamantaschen baking is well under way, mine included. 
Recipes for the triangular baked goods are often tethered to food memories. Many of the old guard of Hamantaschen bakers are sadly no longer with us. Regardless, reaching for the cookie plate (pictured above) that for decades, perched on the top shelf of my mother's breakfront, immediately conjures visions of over-filled Hamantaschen and freshly brewed Eight O'Clock coffee. Creating triangles out of circles seems counterintuitive until your fingers, (not your brain), do the not-so-heavy lifting. Adding chocolate chips and Amarena cherries to the Purim party probably never occurred to my grandmother, but as someone who loved a good party, (ditto my mother), I like to think my kick off to the holiday would have been just fine with everyone seated around the table, (except my father who was strictly a poppyseed and lekvaar kind of guy). 
​Like many fiddle-y baked goods, tri-cornered cookies are truly bite-sized love letters. Bake some or buy some, but make sure to share some. Happy almost Purim.