Jeanette vs. Ice Cream – Sarah’s S Cookies
As little kids, my brothers and I must have been a grave disappointment to our maternal grandmother, Jeanette.
She lived in a garden-style low-rise apartment complex in the decidedly non-glamorous section of Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. As tradition had it, we frequently visited for dinner on Friday nights. The meal was always virtually the same: chopped liver on a bed of iceberg lettuce with Ritz crackers, cornflake crumb-crusted chicken, and coleslaw. She usually served either sweet rice strudel or potato or liver knishes. I assume there was some accompanying vegetable, although maybe the coleslaw filled that role. She was an excellent cook.
But where Jeanette really shined was baking; dessert was her specialty. Some recipes were back-of-the-box sweets popular in the 1950s and 60s, while others were traditional Jewish desserts, the recipes handed down through the generations. I remember her homemade apple and plum strudel; Kamish or Mandel bread, a dry cookie similar to biscotti; Schnecken, German yeasted pastries with sour cream, rolled and filled with raisins and nuts; Hamantaschen; Brownies; and Lemon Squares. She baked all manner of cakes and cookies. My favorite was her Seven-layer Bars.
After dinner on those Friday nights many years ago, when others were eating her baked goods, my brothers and I would often forgo her handmade creations for other sweets. While she cleared the table and did the dishes, we walked across the street to the nearby shopping plaza for ice cream. What an affront to her baking skills. And to add to the insult, it was not even good ice cream; it was Baskin Robbins. Today I can’t imagine skipping Jeanette’s perfect, homemade desserts for anything, let alone low-quality ice cream. But we were kids.
To make it worse, I got an unthinkable flavor that only a child could love – pink bubblegum. Shockingly pink in color with pink Chicklets imbedded within, I was so happy. I’d push the pieces of gum further down into the cone with my tongue, a chewy reward for when I was done. I assume my rationale was that I got two treats for the price of one; ice cream for dessert and then a wad of chewing gum to savor for the rest of the evening (or at least 5 minutes before its flavor ran out). I don’t know how Baskin Robbins pink bubblegum ice cream beat out Jeanette’s desserts, but as a kid there was no competition.
Our grandmother must have been so disappointed that we did not appreciate her baking prowess. I am not arguing that ice cream should be banned from the dessert menu, but bad ice cream in an unthinkable flavor has no place on the list at all, especially when a grandmother is serving you delicious fresh-baked treats. My palette has matured over the years. I am much more selective about the quality and flavors of ice cream that pass my lips. I no longer waste time on Baskin Robbins, and pink bubblegum wouldn’t be on my radar even if it still exists in their ice cream freezer today. And I would never pass up any of Jeanette’s tasty offerings.
Sarah’s S Cookies
These cookies are dry and crumbly (in a good way), somewhat like biscotti. With a scent of almond and orange, they are perfect with a cup of coffee or tea. As soon as I mentioned them to my wife Marci, she stated how much she loved them, even though I had never baked them. It turns out that she recalls a Stella D’oro brand cookie in a similar shape, with a slight anise flavor.
My grandmother had five separate index cards, each with the same recipe for S cookies in her recipe box. This leads me to believe that she loved them, and I assumed the recipe was from her mother. However, it turns out that it came from my father’s side of the family. His aunt was the Sarah of the recipe title, and apparently my father was a big fan. Perhaps that’s why my mother’s mother made them after his Aunt Sarah passed, to make my father happy.
makes about 2 dozen 2-inch cookies, about 40 minutes
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. almond extract
½ tsp. orange or lemon extract
½ tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. poppy seeds
3½ cups all-purpose flour, more as needed
- Preheat oven to 350 oF.
- Combine oil, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl.
- Mix in vanilla, almond, and orange or lemon extracts, salt, baking powder, and poppy seeds.
- Stir in flour until well combined. Add additional flour a tablespoon at a time, if needed, until dough is about the consistency of Play-Doh.
- Break off a walnut-size ball and roll it into a 2½ in long snake, about the thickness of a finger. Shape it into an “s” and place it on a parchment or silicone mat-lined sheet pan. Continue with the rest of the dough, placing cookies just over a half inch apart on the sheet pan.
- Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn golden. Transfer to a cooling rack until cool. Store in an air-tight container for up to a week.
