Holiday Happenings Part 1

From reading the Nero Wolfe books, it would appear that he is not religious. Indeed, when he is called to the witness stand in The Next Witness (part of the Three Witnesses collection), he chooses to affirm that he’ll tell the truth on the stand, rather than swearing on the Bible.

This year, Passover and Easter occurred within a week of each other. Rather than take the Nero Wolfe route of pretending neither holiday existed, I wanted to make sure that both holidays were represented in my cooking adventures. Where else was there to start but with cookies. For Easter, the choice was easy. I made some chocolate cookies and iced them with bunny and easter egg designs.

The bunnies in particular were very cute and I was pleased with how they turned out. As an added bonus they also tasted great!

But I was still stuck on what to do for Passover. Then it struck me: I could make this educational as well as delicious! Inspired by these fingerpuppets, I decided to make cookies representing the 10 plagues of Egypt.

Plague cookies

Do you know all the plagues off by heart? I admit I had to look up what they all were. Now, thanks to the educational value of these cookies, I can definitely say I know them! So for your education, I present the 10 plagues of Egypt, as told in the Passover story, in cookie form. They were, in order:

Blood

Frogs

Lice

Flies

Death of livestock

Boils

Hail

Locusts

Darkness

Death of firstborn

These were made using a simple sugar cookie recipe, although I’m sure they’re not Kosher for Passover! Surprisingly, I didn’t have cookie stencils for all the bug-related plagues, so I made my own using greaseproof paper. As I only needed to make one of each plague, I wasn’t that worried about the stencils lasting for a long time. And even though they look a little scary, I can personally state that locust and fly cookies are indeed delicious!

I’m sure Nero Wolfe can recite all 10 plagues without needing to refer to anything, but in case he gets stuck, hopefully these cookies will jog his memory. Or at the very least, he has a delicious snack to eat while expounding his views on religion.