Christmas Balls and Hazelnut Rings

My late mother, Paula Tucker, was well known for her baking. While my sister and I were growing up, our elementary school would have bake sales to raise money. People would call the school well in advance of the sales, asking to have put aside anything that my mother made (without even knowing what it might be!). She baked cheesecakes, cream puffs with smooth custard and a made-from-scratch chocolate sauce, light meringue shells, and — once a year for my father’s birthday — a 16-layer torte. But what I remember best is her Christmas cookies. The first week of every December, my mother would begin her cookie preparation. She would make a list of every teacher, neighbor, and delivery person who would be lucky enough to receive a box of her 12 kinds of homemade treats. Then she and I would be off to the market, filling the cart with nuts, flour, sugar, and eggs. I never understood how she could take such everyday foods and mysteriously turn them into melt-in-your-mouth delights. I would come home from school every afternoon to a different cookie cooling on racks on the dining room table. Every holiday season, I continue to try to duplicate my mother’s wonderful confections. — Barbara L. Claflin, Providence, Rhode Island