Meringues For Lisa

Author: Betty Winslow

Every year at Christmas, I bake batch after batch of Christmas cookies―to the delight of my husband and children. Some of the cookies are standards: coconut macaroons (my husband's favorite), wedding cakes, gingerbread cut-outs, rum balls, and seven layer bars. Others come and go: lemon drops, oatmeal bars, brownies, honey cookies. But one cookie always appears, and has ever since my oldest daughter, Lisa, was a small child of four years. We call them Christmas Meringues, since that's the only time I make them.

Christmas Meringues are a hassle. They take a lot of time to whip and leave a sticky mess behind. They have to bake for an hour, at a temperature so low that nothing else can be put in the oven with them. They can be difficult to remove from baking sheets in one piece―even if parchment paper is used. And when everything is said and done, there is a bowl of egg yolks that still needs to be made into something else, like gingerbread cookies or chicken a la king.

But no matter how I feel, or what's going on, I always make Christmas Meringues.

Christmas Meringues have always been Lisa's favorite Christmas treat. As Lisa once said, "Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without Christmas Meringues!"

When Lisa joined the U.S. Naval Academy, she insisted I send a batch of Christmas Meringues in her Christmas care package―even though it meant sharing them with her roommates. After all, she knew that when she returned home for the holidays, there would be another batch of Christmas Meringues waiting for her. So, with great care, Christmas Meringue care packages became a new part of our Christmas cookie tradition.

Every year, while Lisa was in the Naval Academy, I sent her a Christmas Meringue care package. Then, in Lisa's last year at the academy, just weeks before Christmas, she died in a car accident. And that year, I almost didn't make Christmas Meringues. How could I make a batch with Lisa not here to enjoy them? How could I make a batch without breaking down into tears? "It would be just too hard," I thought.

But Lisa loved Christmas so much―everything about Christmas made her shine―and Christmas Meringues have always been a part of what she loved about Christmas. Lisa wouldn't have wanted me to stop making them just because she wasn't going to be here to enjoy them. She would want me to share her favorite Christmas treat with the rest of the family, so I made them...and have done so every year since. Lisa would expect no less.

I still only make Meringues at Christmas, and when I do I always think of Lisa. Sometimes, it makes me cry. I still miss her, even so many years later. I always will, I expect. But making Christmas Meringues also makes me smile because they remind me of the little girl who loved Christmas so much, and because that little girl now gets to spend every Christmas with Jesus.

Merry Christmas, baby!

Christmas Meringue Recipe

Ingredients

4 egg whites (1/2 cup)
1 1/4 C sugar
3/4 C coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
1 Tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Lightly grease cookie sheets or line with heavy brown paper.
In a large, grease-free mixing bowl* add egg whites and allow them to come to room temperature (about 1 hour.)
Beat egg whites at high speed until soft peaks form when beaters are slowly raised.
Add sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until you can raise the beaters slowly and produce stiff peaks.
Slowly fold in extract (and nuts**).
Drop mixture by heaping teaspoons-full onto prepared cookie sheets one inch apart.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the Meringue is set and the top is no more than a tiny bit tan.
Cool on wire racks and store in an airtight container to prevent them from getting soft and sticky.

* A copper or glass bowl is best since plastic is hard to get completely grease-free.

** I don't add the nuts, but I have been known to add 1/4 cup finely crushed and 1/8 cup coarsely crushed peppermint candy canes in place of the vanilla extract to produce another Christmas favorite: Peppermint Puffs. Lisa always preferred the vanilla version, though.

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