Christmas Cookies NOT from Alton Brown

While I wait for Alton Brown to have a change of heart about granting me an interview and not lumping me with the vile bloggers who lack intgrity--hey, even the Grinch's heart grew and it is Christmastime after all--I want to share the latest article about a cookbook I have written. This fall, I was blessed with obtaining a few interviews with other cookbook authors who do appreciate getting some exposure on this site; therefore, I want to share with everyone here as well.

This time I was given the change to review The Christmas Cookie Cookbook by Ann Pearlman. Her book is a companion to her first fiction work, The Christmas Cookie Club. Pearlman was a Pultizer Prize and National Book Award nominee for her memior.

The cook book offers tips on starting a cookie exchange and many recipes for a varity of cookies and some candies.

Author Ann Pearlman Shares About Christmas Cookies
Dec 6, 2010

Lisa Hechesky

Cookies are nearly synonymous with Christmastime. Whether leaving them for Santa Claus or the original purpose for the animal cracker box (to hang as an ornament on the tree), it seems everyone enjoys the little sweet treats and make an extra effort to find, bake and eat them for the holidays. In her latest book, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee Ann Pearlman offers cookie aficionados a fun way to enjoy the little baked delights.

Before the Christmas Cookie Club

The Christmas Cookie Cookbook both a handbook for starting a cookie exchange and cookbook filled with recipes for cookies and candies. The cookbook stems from Pearlman’s first fiction work, The Christmas Cookie Club a story detailing the lives of a group of women involved in a Christmas cookie exchange.

Pearlman, a practicing psychotherapist, lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., is a mother of three, grandmother of four and has penned several non-fiction books. Her book Infidelity: A Memoir exposes the effects of men’s extra marital affairs on the women in their lives through three generations of her own family. Nominated for the Pulitzer and National Book Award, it became a movie for the Lifetime cable network in 2004.


Q&A with Ann Pearlman
Your background isn’t in food and your previous book, The Christmas Cookie Club, wasn’t necessarily about food, did that make it challenging to write a cookbook?

I often wrote kitchen scenes and narratives of recipes in my fiction so that one of my readers commented that reading my books made her hungry. Being in a kitchen and cooking is one of the things I remember most about my childhood. My great grandfather was a baker and my grandmother made complete from scratch meals every day and enlisted everyone to help. So, whether it was experimenting with curry powder with my Mom or baking a coconut cake to look like a lamb with my grandmother, I associate love and fun and, of course, delicious food with cooking.

How is the process of writing a cookbook different/similar from your other writing?

The research is different! For example, I made several recipes to come up with the most perfect almond cookie. Instead of bugging people to read various chapters I shoved food at them, requesting, “Taste this please and tell me what you think.” You get an immediate response from tasters, while it takes time to get feedback from readers. I tried to capture that research in the story about the molasses cookie bake off that is included in the book.

With both food and stories, there’s a wide diversity and variation in all our tastes and opinions!

Read more at Suite101: Author Ann Pearlman Shares About Christmas Cookies

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