sweet, pink Valentine cookies

Love.  I think of my stepmother and my father who cooed and sent sweet cards and letters to each other, signed ILY.  I Love You. Their late night silly dances to crackly jazz records on the old record player, laughing, my father in a fez he picked up in Turkey, my stepmother wrapped with colorful scarves as they dipped and spun. Nightly talks on the phone with my mother, always a free spirit, but powerfully connecting conversations.

I 'm reminded of the passionate and heart-thumping feeling I had when I saw my son, and my daughter, as they were born, and the everlasting nights when I leaped up and cooled a fever, or just made special pancakes for breakfast.  That is love, too.

At yesterday's birthday celebration for my granddaughter Isadora ( her seventh!), she used her new face pencils to draw two big hearts on her face, one on each cheek , and I thought of the joy our Izzie and her little brother Frankie have brought into our lives.

And then I came home and made these buttery Valentine cookies with a pale pink glaze simply to celebrate Love, recipe from Martha, always special, always delicious.

Martha's Sugar cookies:

Recipe from Martha Stewart's book, Entertaining.

1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 cups King Arthur all purpose flour

1/4 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. baking powder

1 large egg

2 T. brandy ( I used Courvoisier)

1/2 t. vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer bowl, then add the salt, flour, baking powder, egg, brandy, and vanilla and mix until the dough forms a ball.

Pat the dough into a rough rectangle, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes.

When ready to roll out, preheat oven to 375F  (updating 2/11/13:  I am now preheating to 350F, because after the first batch of cookies, the rest of the cookie batches baked too quickly). Cut the rectangle in half, and proceed. You can gather the scraps up and use again - the dough is very forgiving.

Place cookies on foil covered cookie sheets fairly close together.

Bake cookies for 9 minutes, though if your cookies are small, keep your eye on them - they may bake faster, and these cookies should not be browned.

Remove cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.

The icing:

1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 egg white

2 drops lemon juice

2 drops red food color

Beat the egg white until frothy, then add the confectioner's sugar and lemon juice and food coloring. Brush on completely cooled cookies and let dry on racks. When the icing is completely dry, it should be shiny and hard - which makes these much easier to transport or package.