At the beginning of Life of Pi, the narrator promises that it is a story to make you believe in God. So let me begin this way: These are macaroons to make you believe in coconut.

I had more people to give gifts to, so I made another round of Christmas cookies this week. I wanted to do a half batch of the icing and tried to wing it with the corn syrup and milk measurements so as not to dirty more dishes, but it didn’t set up quite as [...]

Still, I felt a little…well, like I was approaching the half-assedness I had set out to avoid in the first place. I was supposed to be spending hours and hours aggravating my poor sore wrist and shoulder with the piping. And the last time I’d tried to decorate cookies with this kind of icing in multiple colors…it hadn’t gone well. I remember thinking that those were some ugly Thanksgiving Day turkeys to be putting out on a restaurant buffet…