Gift Guide 2018: Perfect Christmas Cookies

My father moved to New York from Berlin in 1926.  He was twenty-six years old and fairly set in his food ways.  Which is to say that he didn't really consider anything that wasn't German could possibly be real food.

He thought cereal was a strange American invention, had very little use for salad (or anything green, to be completely honest), and wouldn't dream of eating dinner if a basket of bread was not on the table.  And when I wanted to make him happy, all I had to do was bake a Sacher Torte.

The one thing I never could figure out was Lebkuchen. Partly because I didn't know where to buy the strangely innocent wafers that are on the bottom (I always imagined they were large communion wafers).  It didn't matter, because Dad knew someone who kept us supplied with the classic German Christmas cookies.

For years I dreamed about finding another great source for Lebkuchen; there are plenty of commercial brands, but none taste right to me.  And then I discovered Leckerlee. And it was like being a child again.

These are the real thing. Chewy, gingery, spicy, nutty - with that completely tasteless but compelling wafer on the bottom. It is, for me at least, Christmas in a single bite.