Monday, August 20, 2007
How it all started
I come from a very large, loud, loving Italian family. We had a tradition where we gathered every Christmas Season for weekend to make these wonderful fig cookies. My Granny started making these in 1956 with just a few relatives and making about 500 cookies. We stopped in 1989, by then we were busting out of kitchens and making 3000 cookies in one weekend. Many great times were had, lots of cackling laughter, many cold beers, and maybe a few tears thats also went into our cookies. We stopped when my Gramps had a stroke. My cousin Kelly was getting married this year, she got us together, and I am so glad she did. Hopefully we will get do this again in Dec. usually the first weekend for the twins birthday.
Started the Grind
Mixing
Teaching
Forming the Filling
Assembly Line
Rolling
Icing
Here we are icing the cooled cookies. No, all green isn't usually what we do, but that was the Bride's choice. When this tradition first started in 1956 white was the only color that was used. My Granny started using food color in the 70's. By using colors we could keep count of our efforts, 10 pink, 10 blue, etc. Of course through the years our colors got exotic for example Uncle Al made a wonderful shade we named pigeon do-do.
The reason we did it
The finished product
The is us, a small portion of my family, but enough to get together to make this family tradition. We have not made them as a family since 1989. So even though we were not all together, it was great. There was 4 generations making this batch. My Granny will be 89 in Oct. and my Daughter will be 1 on Aug. 29 and there was a few in between. We are planning on doing this again this Holiday season. I'll catch you up then.
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