Cookies — the kind you eat: an update

If you remember, in the Letter to Aunt Grace #111, I wrote about a cookie recipe Bishop found in Life magazine, which she highly recommended to her aunt. I found the issue from which that recipe came and posted the cover, but didn’t pursue the matter further. John Barnstead, however, located the recipe in that issue and send me a copy of it, which I included as an addendum. John also took it upon himself to make the cookies and he promised me he would send me some, which he most kindly did, along with a delightful tray that displayed the Brazilian and American flags. John was not the only person to try their hand at these cookies. My Utah friend Laurel Cannon Alder also made these cookies and sent me some photos of the results. Her mother, my dear friend Helen Cannon, reported that they are delicious (Bishop certainly thought so, too) and now that I have tasted them, I can say first hand that they are delightful, not too sweet but very flavourful. I have always thought that there should be an Elizabeth Bishop cookbook, based in part on the recipes she shares with her aunt in her letters. I suspect Grace sent Bishop a few recipes of her own, even though Bishop didn’t regard Grace as a good baker!

I thought you might like to see photos of the two batches of actual (not electronic!) cookies, well worth the effort to bake them.

Laurel’s cookies.

 

John’s cookies artfully displayed on the tray.