"Icebox Cookies" news and stories

Icebox butter cookies. Photo: Little Miss Amanda, Flickr.

• An easy slice-and-bake variety perfect for last-minute holiday gatherings and as gifts for friends, icebox cookies are "a boon to busy holiday bakers."
• Milagro's Dominican Cuisine in South Beach is "Caribbean comfort food at its homemade, belly-filling best."
• In the "Desperation Dinners" column, spiced nuts -- particularly, Pumpkin-Spiced Whiskey Walnuts -- make excellent stocking stuffers.
• Writer Fred Tasker provides a list of vino libations for the holiday celebrations.
• Ratatouille from the South of France and cornmeal-crusted chicken make an easy meal during the busy holiday season.

• Sometimes pricey-tasting wine doesn't have to have a big price tag, like Priorat, "the Sidney Crosby of wines."
• Old cookbooks, history, and orange/almond Icebox Cookies.
• If you have lots of money to spare, and would like olllld wine and rare, futuristic wine storage perks with your charity donations, how about spending tens of thousands to help the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine and getting a Porsche Design Studio wine fridge full of vintage selections date back to the '50s?
• The ins and outs of "aromatic whites."
• Recipe: Grilled Tuscan-Style Rabbit with Olive, Thyme, and Tomato.
• KFC Canada not only works towards fixing chicken issues, but gets into some "vegan chicken."
• West Restaurant and Warren Geraghty's move to Vancouver.
• Halloumi -- a cheese that doesn't melt.

I failed geometry in high school. Miserably. I don't even like typing the word because it brings back bad memories. Luckily, as a writer, I don't come across many times where I have to think about geometry.

This is one of those times though: Christmas cookies! Geometry is one of the inspirations for the cookie recipes in the new issue of Gourmet magazine, along with color and texture. Though I think that "nature" would be the better theme, since they say they're dealing with "what we see in nature, whether frost in a field or gemstones gleaming in the sun."

Check out the recipes for Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies, Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies, Tea and Honey Crisps, and several others. Some of these might look great used as ornaments for your tree (especially the Gilded Sesame Cookies).