Sesame Snack Bars

I used to think that sesame snaps - you know, those cracker-thin crispy cookies made of essentially sesame seeds and sugar - were a thing of the past, until I found them in the subway station in a desperate search for a snack to prevent me from eating my own scarf or attacking anyone carrying a bagel. (It had been a long, snack-less shift.) And there they were, nestled among the energy bars and the Larabars, in the exact same packaging as ten years ago, like a well-preserved relic of my childhood.

So after years of sesame snap-less living, I devoured several on the subway ride home (instead of stealing food from passers-by). And I determined on that subway ride that I would create my own sesame snacks, because I've been having a bit of a sesame affair lately, and also, I need snacks.



Being without snacks is dangerous living for me - when nothing is available in the house, I start to make bad life choices, like eating jam straight out of the jar with a fork, or devouring leftover cookies or, god forbid, going to Shoppers after the holidays to buy on-sale chocolate (REGRET. So much regret will come from this decision). So in order to avoid such poor life choices, I try to make healthy snacks on a regular(ish) basis. Because you can't really eat marmalade out of a jar and then feel good about yourself.



And so I made these sesame snack bars. They're simple - only 3 ingredients! - and taste remarkably like the sesame snaps that inspired them, only they're easier and cheaper to make, and healthier to eat. Now that's my kind of snack.

Happy New Year + Cake

So the holidays are over, but I still haven't managed to shake off that feeling of lethargy that comes with the winter holiday season. I still want to curl up with a book in a warm place next to an excessively furry dog, wear ski pants instead of jeans, eat ridiculous amounts of chocolate and spend the daylight hours outside in the snow.



But slowly I'm crawling out of this holiday reverie, back into the real world where I have to buy my own groceries, pay to do my laundry (and lug said laundry up and down three flights of stairs), and do my taxes (oh joy). I guess taking all the Bing Crosby Christmas carols off my iTunes playlist is a good start. His crooning just doesn't fit anymore - not with the slushy city streets and that early new year feeling (you know, the resolution madness that seizes everyone and magically transports them to the nearest gym).



Only a week ago, bursting into songs from White Christmas (however bad the singing was) seemed entirely appropriate. I went back home for the holidays, to small-town northwestern Ontario, and going back, I felt as if I wasn't just shifting into another time zone but into a different pace of living.

Going back home always feels a bit like putting on a pair of old, hideous, and utterly comfortable pyjamas. It's familiar, comforting, and a little bit embarrassing.



But going back home for the holidays also means several very specific things to me: a frigid house, skiing (no matter how out of shape I am), and my mother's baking.

Each Christmas, my mother, like most mothers, goes a little insane. By which I mean, insane with baking.

As a child, she and I used to make sugar cookies together, using the same cookie cutters each year. We didn't use any fancy decorating techniques or any pastry bags to decorate them, just a simple buttercream, food colouring, and a butter knife. (Though Santa did always end up having an outfit that was more salmon than red...) I can't think of those cookies without tasting vanilla and butter on my tongue.

And there have always been truffles, of course, rich, dense orbs of chocolate flavoured with the sharpness of coffee liqueur. My mother rarely makes sugar cookies these days, but there are always truffles at Christmas. Whenever I arrive home for the holidays, I know there will be tins upon tins of truffles stored in the freezer, and each night, a little plate of them will appear after dinner. Really, this is how all winter nights should end: with a hot cup of tea and chocolate.




This year, however, I branched out a little from family Christmas tradition and begged my mother to make The Birthday Cake.

We call it The Birthday Cake out of old habit, despite the fact that my mother makes this cake for any occasion and does not simply restrict its use to birthdays. It's a cake she's made for as long as I can remember. The Birthday Cake has simply always been and always will be.

Yet, in spite of the fact that I have long been established as "the baker" in the household (an obsessive and compulsive one), I have never even once attempted to make this particular cake. There are some recipes that are too nostalgic, are attached to too many memories, that to try and make them oneself would be a kind of sacrilege.

And I know I could simply never make this cake the way my mother makes it. This is her recipe; she knows it, her hands remember it. She might check the recipe book once to reassure her memory, but her hands move with the certainty of muscle memory.

And there are just some things that only a mother's hands can make.

"The Birthday Cake" (Chocolate Mocha Roll) from Liz Mochrie on Vimeo.

(I had the chance to film my mother making the cake, despite having no sweet clue what the hell I was doing. As you can probably tell. Shhh.)