Christmas cookies from the Black Forest Inn

Kate N.G. Sommers

December is here, and that means holiday treats. As a society, food is as traditional as it comes, provoking the digital onslaught of latke recipes, how to cook a turkey in 2,341 different ways, and of course, holiday cookies. Being a traditionalist, I bake the same cookies my mother baked, many (if not all) of which came from my great-grandmother, all of which are published in Festive Foods from the Milwaukee Gas Light Company (where my great-grandmother worked in their test kitchen). I'm not sure peanut butter blossoms and Mexican Christmas cookies speak true to our German heritage, but the cookies I was gifted by the kind folks at Black Forest Inn certainly do.

I love trying the traditional foods surrounding holidays, and these cookies were overflowing with authenticity. The Mixed Dozen Plus box ($15) that I received was filled with cookies of all sorts, half of which speak to the authentic spicy and coffee-ready German tradition, others to please the Americanized palate that prefers a cookie more buttery and chewy.