5 days. 13 doughs. 1 bottle of wine. 2 jams. 6 botanicals. 5 fruits. 12 cookies.

And one problem cookie that had to be remade three times. (The thumbprints if you’re wondering.)

I wanted quiet. After months straight of computer screens, zoom calls, and back-to-back events, I wanted to be away from my desk and to do something with my hands. Baking is half science, half art — precise enough to require focus, forgiving enough to allow instinct. So I decided: people were getting Winter Solstice Cookie Boxes this year! The project took the better part of a week, and it was exactly the kind of meditative chaos I needed.

Side note: I’ve only ever baked cookies a few times in my life, so why not start with an incredibly complicated project? Very on brand for me.

I’m obsessed with ’s gorgeous 12 holiday cookies. I loved the ambition, the diversity of the cookies, the textures. I used her base recipes and modified them for Winter Solstice. Follow for the base recipes. My modifications are below!

Like Persephone’s descent to the underworld, the project was a J.O.U.R.N.E.Y. With a project this complicated, I plan A LOT so I don’t devolve into a destructive whirling dervish and give up. I started by dreaming up what a winter solstice cookie box might look (and taste) like.

What makes a solstice cookie? To each their own, but here is where my ancestors guided me…

Winter solstice isn’t red and green and candy canes. It’s the longest night of the year. The sun at its weakest. The moon at her highest. Darkness before the return of light. My flavor profiles:

• Pomegranate for Persephone — underworld fruit, death and return

• Elderflower for the threshold — the in between spaces

• Smoked salt for the fire — what keeps you alive in the dark

• Pine needle for what survives the frost — I used Eastern White Pine Needles. (Make sure yours are food-safe — not all conifers are edible. Some will literally poison you.)

Plus: bay leaf, juniper, rosemary, sesame, molasses, mulled wine, pear, fig, blood orange. So, survival foods. Ancient sweeteners. Evergreen botanicals. What’s in the cellar when nothing grows. Color palette: black, silver, deep red, pale ivory, amber. Not a candy cane in sight.

The 12 Solstice Cookies

1. Cardamom Black Sesame Lace Sandwich Cookies with Black Sesame Chocolate Ganache » Swapped chai for cardamom, white chocolate for black sesame chocolate ganache.

2. Sugar Plum Sandwich Cookies with Cherry & Blackberry Jam » Swapped plum jam for cherry & blackberry.

3. Dark Chocolate Biscotti with Mascarpone Fig Glaze » Swapped tiramisu flavors for dark chocolate + mascarpone fig glaze.

4. Parsnip Bay Leaf Black Pepper Cookie with Pear Glaze » Swapped cinnamon for bay leaf + black pepper, vanilla glaze for pear glaze.

5. Frosted Elderflower Moon Cookies with Silver Luster » Swapped eggnog for elderflower cordial and added dried elderflowers.

6. Smoked Salt Molasses Gingersnaps » Swapped white tea for smoked salt instead of a glaze.

7. Pomegranate Juniper Rosemary Thumbprints » Swapped cranberry for pomegranate, added juniper.

8. Pine Needle Crescent Sugar Cookies » Swapped fig leaf for pine needle.

9. Dark Chocolate Mulled Wine Swirls » Swapped cabernet for mulled wine.

10. Blood Orange Almond Snowballs » Swapped pomelo for blood orange.

11. Fennel Anise Stars » Swapped peppermint for anise.

12. Roasted Chestnut Sablés » No changes. Already peak solstice.

The rhythm of a baking week

• Component prep came first. Jams, reductions, candied citrus, toasted nuts, infused sugars. Things that need time. (I started the mulled wine reduction at 10pm one night and stood there stirring until midnight. Worth it.)

• Then dough batching — this was the most efficient part of the process. Most of these need to chill overnight anyway, so I made them nearly all of the doughs first.

• Then baking days. Music playing, hours alone in the kitchen, the satisfaction of watching something come together. By the end: twelve kinds of cookies, boxed and ready for the people I love.

• Then assembling, frosting, glazing, and topping. I love-hate this part of the process. I love the beauty, hate the stickiness. I got a second wind here, starting to see how lovely the final result would be!

Obviously, my metal Nosferatu sarcophagus was put to use.

A few favorites

The great thing about a cookie box is that there is something for even the most discerning of witches.

Elderflower Moons — Elderflower cordial in both the dough and the buttercream, cut into rounds, frosted white, dusted with edible silver luster. They look like something you’d leave out for a winter spirit. These were everyone’s favorite.

Mulled Wine Swirls — I reduced a full bottle of wine with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, and orange peel until it was 1/4 cup of syrup! Two doughs spiraled together: dark chocolate and the mulled wine reduction. The smell while these bake? Unreal. My whole house smelled like a medieval tavern.

Pine Needle Crescents — Foraged pine needles ground into sugar until it turned pale green and faintly resinous. They taste like a snowy forest. Big witch energy.

Pomegranate Rosemary & Juniper Thumbprints — This was the problem cookie. I had to redo them THREE times. They kept rising too much, pushing out the thumbprint and the jelly. SEND ME TIPS. Because it was the only cookie disaster, I pushed through instead of scraping it. They ended up being my favorite taste profile. I put so much herb in the jelly it tasted sharp and medicinal. Probably not for everyone but I loved them!

It was a chaotic week, but I’d do it all again. But not until Persephone returns.

12 Cookies for Persephone: 10/10. Highly recommend.

What did I miss? What Winter Solstice flavors would you use?

xo
Alys

This is my favorite time of year. When the chaos of autumn finally feels distant, and the quiet of winter is starting to settle in. As the darkness creeps into the daytime hours, it’s impossible not to become more reflective.

As I’ve been traveling around the Mediterranean, the last few weeks, haunted by the crystalline lagoons of Venice and the ancient ruins of Crete, I’ve been thinking a lot about…

The Internet.

Our digital lives. Algorithms. Living online (or not), the convergence of person and brand.

I’ve been reminiscing on all of my own personal phases of the Internet, from the wild wild west of Live Journal to Tumblr Girlie to new feeds to discovery algorithms. (Fun fact: I wrote one of my grad school admission essays on affinity algorithms back in *gasp* 2007 when algorithm was not a household term.)

In the last few years, I’ve largely moved away from being publicly online for the first time in my adult life, and I’ve been examining why. I’m still just as fascinated by the intersection of art x humanity x technology as I was back in the wild days of the early Internet. So what’s the problem?

First, I wondered if it was simply because I was getting older and cherished privacy more.

Second, I wondered if it was just too ingrained in my personality to abandon things as they crash into the mainstream. In other words, I’m bored of it.

Third, I wondered if it was because I have a zero patience for wading through the cesspool of AI slop.

While all of these points are undoubtedly true, the thing, is I somehow STILL LOVE THE INTERNET. Yes, I loveithateitloveithateit, having a thorough understanding of both its power to magnify and exponentiate the worst aspects of humanity, but also raise its best to the top.

I love the community.

I love the speed in which I can be entrenched in inspiration without ever leaving my house.

But something happened around 2021 when the TikTok discovery algorithm forced the other platforms to pivot. Social media was no longer about fostering community. It became about the FYP. For me, personally, making content for a black hole collided with the love I had for creating (or posting.)

Gen Z became the dominant cultural influencers as new platforms rapidly gained marketshare, and everything became about being raw, in real time, and live (as if this was new, hello, Josh Harris and We Live in Public, circa 2000,) but I digress. Of course this demand for the raw quickly (de)evolved into a form of performative authenticity… And looking back, this is where I mentally dropped off.

Yes, I want to be a part of things online, but I also want to live my life without breaking away from the magic of the moment to quickly edit a video and post it online.

So I’ve been doing that. Living life.

It’s been great. I’ve read an embarrassing number of books. Become a Peloton girlie. I’ve thrown decadent dinner parties. I’ve outlined six different books. I’ve eaten my way through Kyoto. Built a wardrobe. A library. Filled journals with essays on the New Orleans Gothic Condition. Thrown vampire balls, eaten street food in Vietnam, had my aura read in Salem. All the while making content and never posting it.

Why? I don’t know… I guess, I do love the act of creation, but I don’t want to be a slave to metrics, or algorithm updates, or cultural shifts that I have no interest in jamming my personality into.

As a millennial who’s been through all. the. shifts. of. the. Internet— academically, professionally, and now as an author, I realize that I do want to take up (cyber)space.

But I also want to be fully present (most of the time) IRL. I just don’t know if I’ll ever be one of those Internet girls who’s managed to seamlessly integrate things (has anyone really?) and that’s okay.

What does this all mean?

I once long ago had a blog called ForTheArtOfIt, and I’m bringing that philosophy with me in this next phase of my digital life. As person has become brand and brand has become lifestyle, and lifestyle has become (performance) art, I want to be part of the conversation online as much as I am offline.

But I also want to present things on my own timeline, regardless of current trends. So I’m going to start posting content again. Long form. Short form. I want to experiment. I want to play. I want to be a part of the discourse.

But it also will likely never be in real time. And I don’t care if it’s more polished when it’s cool to be raw. I want time to think and to reflect and to examine.

With all of that bullshit said, who’s ready for some Halloween content in December?

xo

Alys

P.S. Yes, I handwrote this on Friday, December 12th. Nearly real time (+ editing). Would love to know how you’re handling (or not) being online these days.

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