150. The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman

BOOK REVIEW: The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman

Hail all girls! There is a chick-lit in town that interweaves stories with scrumptious cookie recipes. The author's irresistible debut novel provides the perfect ingredients for a fun and touching read about a group of women who gather each year to share a journey of friendship, hope, heartbreak - and recipes.

Every year at Christmastime, Marnie and her closest girlfriends mark their calendars for the cookie exchange. Everyone has to bring a batch of homemade cookies and a bottle of wine, but this year, it's their stories that are especially important - the passion and hopefulness of new romance, the betrayal and disillusionment some relationships bring, the joys and fears of motherhood, the stress of financial troubles.

On this evening, at least, the sisterly love they have for one another rises above it all. Celebrating courage and joy in spite of hard times and honoring the importance of women's friendships as well as the embracing bonds of community, Ann Pearlman's delightful novel speaks to us all.

Between each of Marnie's girlfriends' stories are short but informative passages of the commonly used ingredients in cookies. Here, I shall share with you some of the information for you to guess the ingredients that are explained in the passages:

• Wheat was probably first cultivated in Turkey about 10,000 years ago.
• Almonds are a fruit related to cherries, apricots,, and plums.
• Baking soda, baking powder, and cream of tartar provide the magic for cookies to puff up in the oven.
• Wild walnuts have been gathered and eaten since prehistoric times.
• Imported from Egypt from China 4,000 years ago, cinnamon was used to embalm bodies.
• It takes between 2 to 3 gallons of milk to form one pound of butter.
• First to cultivate vanilla were the Totonac, who lived in what is now Veracruz, Mexico.
• Dates are still a crucial crop in Iraq.
• In the late 18th century, Europeans begin experimenting with sugar produced from crops other than cane.
• Even though it's crucial for animals, salt is toxic to many land plants.
• The tree that produces the chocolate bean, the cacao tree, is native to Central and South America.
• Henry VIII instructed the mayor of London to use ginger as a plague medicine.

And that's only the beginning of the facts. With so much to learn from a non-fiction book, what is there not to love of this tantalizing novel. Dive in and before you know, you may have developed an equally sweet tooth like the book's characters!