2025 Cookie Hop

You made it to Edie's Cookie!

Here is one of my holiday favorites, the Oatmeal Butterscotch Bars from America's Test Kitchen. They are easy to make, which is a bonus, but they do take two hours to rest. The wait is worth it though! 

What is better than a fire, a warm beverage and a cookie?

A book to go with it! Please enjoy a free e-copy of "Hand in Handpies," a short story originally published in the Paper Lantern Writers anthology Beneath a Midwinter Moon. It features Bess Abbott as a young girl, who stumbles across a warm fire on the eve of the Frost Fair in Georgian England, and how that changes her life forever. It's a sweet story full of love--for found family.

But wait! I have facts to share!

As a historical romance author, I am long on the historical side. I love researching, and more than anything, I adore stumbling upon all the ways that people never really change. One of those ways is celebrating the Winter Solstice. Christians observe Christmas, Jews observe Hannukah, but they coincide with the timing of the longest night of the year and the shortest day. 

For years, I lived in Alaska, where the nights are longer in winter. Everyone I knew had a Winter Solstice tradition of some kind, whether it be ice lanterns on their walkways, or bonfires with friends and family. My parents have celebrated the Winter Solstice for over thirty years, for the sole purpose of driving of the seasonal depression my mother sometimes felt. In the early years, the only electric lights were those on the Christmas tree, and every other room (including the food tables!) were lit by candlelight. To say everyone looks better by candlelight is not an exaggeration. (Oh, to live before electricity! Just think of the savings on cosmetics and skin care regimes!)

Humans used the sky to help them orient themselves to the world and predict the upcoming weather. The solstices and the equinoxes (when days and nights are equal lengths) were clear signs of what was to come. To keep this calendar, our Neolithic ancestors in the UK built Newgrange in Ireland, where the sunrise on the Winter Solstice shines into an opening in the roof, illuminating the inside of a stone structure. In England, there is the famous Stonehenge, which aligns with the sunset on the Winter Solstice. Every year, celebrants assemble to watch the magic together. 

Instead of slaughtering livestock so I needn't feed them through the lean months of winter (I do not have livestock), I bake cookies for my family and friends, and to give as gifts. Here's one of the recipes I am using this year.

America's Test Kitchen Oatmeal Butterscotch Bars