The Italian pastry shoppe near my home is famous for it's baked goods and around the holidays, it is nearly impossible to get in the door. I once went the day before Thanksgiving and had to take a number and return two hours later and still had to wait another 45 minutes before my number was called.
People from North Jersey and all over the state make a journey to the bakery prior to the holidays. So, I knew to get ahead of the rush and went in the Monday before Thanksgiving for the delicious pignoli cookies they bake which keep very well when refrigerated or even frozen.
Making light chit chat with the woman behind the counter, who has been there as long as I can remember, I asked how she managed to stay so thin. "I don't really like cookies, " she said, gesturing around her. "After awhile, you get really tired of them."
Nodding, I said, "I can understand that. I worked in a law firm for 25 years. I'm really tired of lawyers."
She cracked up, "Oh, I can just imagine."
"But. . . " I smiled, "I'd much rather pay for a cookie than an attorney."
"Absolutely!" she exclaimed.
The irony was, I had actually purchased a pound of the cookies to bring to my former boss and friend with whom I was having lunch the following day. It had been a long tradition that I would bring her the cookies for the holiday. It was she, in fact, who had turned me on to the bakery in the first place after attending a cooking class where the cookies were served. She told me, "There is an Italian pastry shop near you, you have to go in there and get the pignoli cookies. They're exquisite, like nothing I've ever tasted before, perfectly baked, moist, but not mushy and not overbaked or hard. . ." So, for 12 years since moving here, I would bring her cookies for the holidays and her birthday. Now that we no longer work together, there was no reason to stop.
She and her husband and their son were all attorneys, although she was now retired. She used to hate attending bar dinners. "I am a lawyer, I'm married to one, my son is one. I work with other lawyers and I deal with lawyers all day long. Why in God's name would I want to attend a dinner with a bunch of them?" It would be an understatement to say that she, more than anyone I knew, was extremely tired of lawyers.
But not cookies. Especially the pignoli cookies from that bakery which I would hope to continue bringing to her well into the future.
