During the holidays when I was fact checking for my post about Grandma Poss'  sugar cookies, I talked at length with my mom about our family dessert recipes, many German influenced. While I was on the phone, Mom opened up her personal cookbook (a well-worn maroon three-ring binder filled with stained pages recording many family treasures), and read off the directions for springerle, pfefferneusse and anise schnitte. No need for me to write fast and furious as Mom spoke; the directions were rather sparse. That's typical of old family recipes where knowledge was often gained first-hand in the kitchen from one generation to the next. From the minimalist directions contained in Mom's notebook, I summoned forth Great Grandma Louise Marie Knopf Kisker's anise schnitte.

Schnitte means slice in German. Reminiscent of biscotti but lighter and more delicate, anise schnitte or toasted anise cakes are fabulous dunked in coffee, tea or milk. As recorded in Mom's cookbook, here are the directions for her maternal grandmother's recipe:

2 c sugar
8 eggs [No doubt, straight from the hen coop behind the house.]

Beat sugar and eggs for 30 minutes. [This was by hand!]

2 c flour
Anise seed to taste

Add flour and anise seed. Bake as at 350 degrees.

That's it. You're supposed to know how to fill in the blanks, no need to write it all down.

I laughed with my mother about beating the sugar and eggs manually for a half-hour! Surely, Grandma Kisker used a hand beater, I remarked. Mom said, no, I think she hand beat with a whisk. Now there's some exercise to build upper body strength!

"Wow, can you imagine what she would do with a Kitchen Aid mixer?," I asked.

"Probably nothing," said Mom, laughing. " This was a woman who refused to have her wood-burning kitchen stove removed when she got an electric oven. And that wood-burning stove sat in the kitchen until the day she died."

So I'm guessing Great Grandma Kisker's anise cchnitte were baked using a wood-burning stove.

Augmenting the original recipe partly from memory of my mom's cookies and partly from experience, here's my more detailed version of anise schnitte.

Yield: 24 slices

2 c sugar
8 eggs [Alas, from the grocery store, no chicken coop in my backyard and the farmer's market is closed for the season.]
2 c flour
2 t anise seed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (375 degrees F if at 5,000 feet or higher in altitude). Line bottom of two bread pans (4x8" or 4x9") with wax paper. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs until fluffy and light in color: about 10 minutes. At the start, the mixture looks very yellow.

When ready to stop mixing, the mixture will look creamy and thick.

Gently mix in flour and anise seed by hand.

Fold mixture into bread pans.

Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown and center springs back to touch.

Let cool 10 minutes, then run sharp knife around edges. Let cool in pans 15 minutes more. Invert onto cake rack; release cakes from pans. Gently remove wax paper from cakes and let cool at least one hour more. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 12x15" cookie sheet with cooking spray or lightly oil. Using a bread or cake knife, cut cakes into 1/2" to 3/4" slices, approximately 12 slices per cake. Place slices on cookie sheet. 

Bake for three to four minutes, turn and bake second side for three to four minutes. Do not over-bake; the bottoms side browns more quickly than the top so looks can be deceiving. Remove from oven, let cool on cake rack.

Stored in a tight container, anise schnitte will keep for a couple weeks. Mom remembers these cookies as being baked by her mom and grandmother during the Christmas season. Several generations removed from that tradition, I find them so enticing that I may be making anise schnitte throughout my cooking baking season (fall through spring).

Per-cookie Nutritional Profile:
    Calories, 130
    Fat, 2 g
        Saturated Fat, .5 g
    Cholesterol, 70 mg
    Carbs, 25 g
        Dietary Fiber, 0 g
    Protein, 2 g
    Sodium, 50  mg
    Vitamin A, 2% Daily Value
    Vitamin C, 0% Daily Value
    Calcium, 2% Daily Value
    Iron, 4% Daily Value

I have always considered myself an outdoor person. I crave the gardening season and have enjoyed many trips to the mountains and desert for various outdoor activities ranging from camping to skiing to hiking to mountain biking. Yet, I am also attracted to the predictability and repetitiveness of indoor workout equipment. For several years, we've owned a fairly decent treadmill; it features variable incline and speed and courses, and measures heart rate as well as estimated distance and calories burned. So why, despite my attachment to aerobic machines, has our treadmill suffered such a lack of use?

In our previous home, we placed the treadmill in our family room facing the TV. I figured it might guilt the occasional couch potato into a stationary walk instead of zoning out in front of the tube. But when we moved nearly two years ago, the treadmill landed in the garage and there it's sat ever since.

Garages have the innate, boundless capacity to demonstrate the principle of entropy. And the treadmill's presence in our garage made its own special contribution to the growing chaos therein. Another handy feature of the machine, which I neglected to mention earlier, is that the tread portion of the device folds ups. In it's compacted state, the treadmill quickly became a storage unit for the leaf-blower bag, buckets, extension cords and the like. Leaves blew into the garage and lodged themselves under the frame. The top of the machine whitened with sawdust from from a home renovation project. My husband started talking about listing the treadmill on Craigslist. Things were looking pretty bleak for the future of the exercise gadget. But the prospect of losing the machine was just too much. List the treadmill on Craigslist? Now, them's fightin' words.

So when my husband led the charge for a frenzied, no-holds-barred garage cleaning over the holidays, thereby unearthing household archeological treasures, including the treadmill, I started to regain the urge to reconnect with the device. In New Year's Resolution ritualistic fashion, I cranked up the machine on January 1. Despite months of disuse, the treadmill still runs like a charm. And I am very much enjoying my garage exercise time. An arctic blast has cooled down the garage this week, ensuring a fast-paced workout.

In case you're wondering what could possibly be so motivating about repetitive aerobic equipment, here are the top 10 reasons I get excited about my garage treadmill experience:

10. I'm in close proximity to my lawn and garden tools and equipment. I can just feel the energy; I'll be weeding in no time.

9. My Golden Retriever, Buddy, likes to be in the garage with me. Quality time with the dog.

8. No hot flashes in the 50-degree garage.

7. No one else in the family wants to be on the treadmill. Go figure. I can exercise any time I want without standing in line.

6. I can't hear the phone ring, and I can't use a laptop on the treadmill. It's my very special Calgon moment, right there in the garage amidst the trash, recycling and compost bins, camping equipment and tools.

5. I'm a number person. There's nothing like staring at liquid crystal displays giving instant feedback on minutes, miles, calories and heart beats.

4. I can catch up on mindless magazine reading...and find it so engrossing that I forget I'm on the treadmill.

3. I can feel my leg muscles getting a good workout. I'm doing something for my health.

2. I feel hungry. Yet I'm more focused on eating well.

And the number one reason I get excited about my treadmill...

1. I can cook while I'm on the treadmill! Yes, it's true. I scheduled today's workout during bread baking. On the menu for tomorrow' workout: Soaking split peas.

We've cozied up to the fireplace. Outside, the temperature is eight degrees F and dropping. Tonight, the thermometer is supposed to drop below zero. With yesterday's snow came a blast of frigid air that crystallized the landscape. Beneath the white blanket, carrots are still in my garden. They're nestled under fall leaves with small dirt mounds buttressing the ends of the row. When the weather breaks and the snow melts, I'll be able to dig a few more for soups and stews.

My carrots are not destined for summer salads. I rarely pull any before October. They're always the last crop to be pulled from my garden and a steady reminder of recent harvest season and the not-too-distant-future planting season.

A couple weeks ago, I pulled carrots for chile verde con carne, using some of the chile verde sauce I froze into cubes earlier in the fall. Here's what the crop looked like mid-November. With fall leaves mulching the row, the carrots are barely recognizable.

But clear away the debris and you find gorgeous orange roots.

Fresh from the garden, my mid-November carrot harvest.

Orange beauties cleaned, peeled and diced, ready for the chile verde con carne.

After I sow carrot seeds each spring, I let the plants grow haphazardly. I don't bother thinning seedlings. At harvest, I pull plenty of full-grown, plump carrots with just a few misshapen or stunted. Thus, I hardly think the thinning is worth the effort. Every so often, I pull out surprises like these two intertwined plants, which I must admit were a little more challenging to peel and slice than the straight versions.

Now that must be carrot love.