Fig and Walnut Biscotti

The wind is wailing this evening. We've come through the first major snowstorm of the winter. Before this, it's been all rain and slush, a few small spits of snow that accumulated no more than three inches. That's all very anticlimactic for a New Hampshire winter, thank you very much. If it must be cold and grey, let it snow, I say!

That being said, I always like baking up a treat for hot tea when the snows hit. SB does all the shoveling and plowing, so my pay off to him is a sweet treat for his hot cuppa when he comes in to thaw out.

Remember Fig Newtons ???

When I was a kid, my mother would pack our school lunches every day of the week. Oftentimes, she'd get Nabisco Fig Newton bars when they were on sale at the supermarket and pop three little cookies in a plastic wrap. They were so delish dunked in milk and chomped in such a way that the little seeds popped between my teeth. Loved that sensory thing ... don't know why, but to this day I love figs for their sweetness and their seed-popping chew!

Helen Allen's Figgy Pudding Butter Cookies

When the kids were little, we had a kid-sized record player and a stack of children's 45's that they slapped on and off the turntable, dancing and singing around the living room at top volume. I would bring out the special stack of Christmas music when we brought out the Advent calendars and the Christmas coloring books and crafts and they would crank up the tunes and their excitement level.