Date Walnut Rugelach (Page 682)

• Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008 -- 9pm
• Location: Bloomington, IN
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Dining Companions: Matty, Emilee, and Brian
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

I chose this recipe because these cookies could easily be transported to California. These rugelach tasted good, but they weren't very cute and they were a huge pain to make. The dough was extremely difficult to deal with -- it didn't hold together well at all. It was dry and crumbly and thus very difficult to roll out and roll up, which also contributed to the not-so-cute appearance of the final product. That said, they did taste good. The filling had a nice flavor and the pastry turned out delicious. It was almost like a pie pastry, but the cream cheese in the pastry added a tenderness and tang to it. The ratio of filling to pastry could have been a bit higher. I don't think I chopped the dates quite finely enough for the filling -- I should have chopped them in the food processor rather than by hand. As it was, my filling was a bit chunky, which made the rugelach difficult to roll. These rugelach were good, but I feel confident that there are better (and easier!) rugelach recipes out there...

Here is the recipe (actually it's a bit different -- the one in The Book calls for two cups of flour, measured without sifting).

Yesterday was a truly unforgettable day. My flight back home was scheduled very early in the morning. I woke up at 5am to two pieces of news: one, one of my flights had been canceled, and two, Emilee was in labor. She went into labor right after we all went to bed Sunday night. I called the airline and they rebooked me for a flight leaving about 6 hours after my previous one. So I spent the morning with Emilee and Brian -- Em wanted to stay at home as long as possible before heading to the hospital. It was amazing how well she did. I felt really privileged to be there with them, and was trying to stay out of the way as much as possible and help in any way that I could. Around 10am they headed to the doctor's office and eventually the hospital, and I was off to the airport. But, the airline canceled my flight again. After an hour on the phone with the airline, it was established that there was no way to get me from San Jose, San Francisco, or Oakland to Indianapolis in time to teach my class the next day. So I was stuck. It's bad to miss class, but it was definitely a blessing to have had this particular travel disaster. Because otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten to meet Sam! Sam was born yesterday a little after 5pm and I got to hang out at the hospital for a couple hours with the new parents and their adorable baby! It was an experience that I will never forget. The picture on the left is me bonding with Sam for the first time, and on the right is a better shot of his cute little face!

I'm not usually a cry-when-I'm-happy kind of person, but yesterday every time I was alone I kept tearing up. I love Em and Brian so much and it was just so amazing to be around for this huge milestone and to meet their baby!