Pink Ribbon Blog

This blog is about cookies, pink ribbon cookies. My grandmother passed on a recipe to me many years ago for Italian biscotti’s. Making these cookies became a childhood tradition. The feel of flour on our hands, the roll of dough under our fingers that snaked long as we worked it and using just the right sharp knife to snip off four inch pieces, that then got twisted into a fold over, ribbon-like shape. This memory stays with me and last week when I was preparing for my book’s launch I thought about grandma’s cookies.

A book signing event should not just be about books. What else could I include that might spark conversation and send the message of hope and survival to people walking by or browsing the bookstore? Potential Belly of the Whale book buyers might be hungry and while waiting for me to sign their recently purchased book(s) they might munch on a cookie or two. With these thoughts in mind I baked several dozen biscotti’s.

As a child after the cookies were made, we mixed milk with confectioner’s sugar, drizzled some over the baked cookies and added colorful sprinkles as decorations. For my book signing cookies I made pink icing and no sprinkles. Fight-the-fight is part of the message I like to remind folk about, and for every cookie eaten at my book launch I imagined another battle with breast cancer being won.

Someone at the book signing asked if my grandmother made the cookies. I said, no not these, she’s been gone for almost thirty years, but I’m sure she is smiling down from wherever she is today. That much I know is true.

The biscotti’s and the signing were a success. Looks like I’ll be bringing grandma’s biscotti’s to all my signings. May the pink ribbon symbol for fighting breast cancer flourish in the form of our family recipe. May all who eat a cookie be blessed.

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Linda Merlino, www.lindamerlino.com
http://www.kunati.com/linda-merlino
Belly of the Whale available on amazon