Every year now I make Lebkuchen cookies sometime in the first week of December. Before I began making them in 1998, Mom used to make them every year – and before her, Gram would make them. They are somewhat ‘labor intensive,’ and very good! (Now I make them…)
Soon after the cookies come out of the oven, they are hard as rocks. This is natural, for some reason, or another. To soften them, you put a piece of bread in the cookie tin and after a day or so, they are nice and soft. Magic!
One year when Mom made them, she gave a dozen to my friend Joe. I first met Joe when he was a student at Vance AFB. Then we caught up with each other again when I went through T-38 PIT (Pilot Instructor Training). Joe and I then became very close friends…
So, Mom gives Joe a dozen cookies. Then one day she finds an large envelope in her mailbox addressed to her. When she opens it, a piece of bread, with a large bite out of it, falls out. Looking further into the envelope she finds a note:
“Mrs. Holliker, Your ‘White-Bread Christmas cookies” taste like shit. I don’t know if anyone else you have given them to has the courage to tell you, but I do… I think you might want to look at that recipe a little closer. Your friend, Joe”
Mom took it all in good stride, and as far as I know; and Joe never got any more cookies! LOL!
I would imagine you would really need to have seen Gramma Holliker’s Christmas Lebkuchen Cookie recipe to fully appreciate the humor in this! I couldn’t help but laugh every time I think of Joe……