HORN OF AFRICA HOLDS NO HOLIDAY LEBKUCHENS

Even before I awakened that cold December morning I had a feeling it was going to be a cookie baking day. I'd been dreaming about baking cookies a very frustrating dream in which I had the ingredients all mixed except for the egg the recipe called for, but I didn't have any eggs. In my dream, I went to the chicken house which has been gone for 40 years. Opening the door there were about 100, naked Somalia children, teeth and bones chattering, bones that I could count with my fingers. I shut the chicken house door and the noise woke me up. The noise was really my bottle of hand lotion being knocked from the night table to the floor.

While making the coffee and toasting the toast, I looked beyond the cardinal bedecked bird feeder to where the old chicken house used to be. I was glad it wasn't there anymore, but I couldn't get the dream picture of the skin-and-bones Somali children out of my mind, all huddled together, unspeaking, some dead, in that non-existent chicken house.

Returning to the living room the Christmas tree was, by now, sunstruck, all tinsel and baubles seeming to tremble with life. I could see myself in the round baubles. I looked very well fed. No skin stretched tightly over any bones.

Turning on the TV to get the morning news, I learned that at last many of the world's countries were going to make an effort to get food to the starving Somali, the U.S. leading the way as usual.

This gave me a good feeling. I decided to make it a cookie baking day after all. But just in case there were no eggs in the refrigerator as in my dreams, I hastened to it and found some. Big ones too. I like big eggs for baking. Brown ones, if I can find them.

What I decided to do was to exercise my arithmetic a little and estimate the cost of every ingredient that went into my cookies, multiply it by three and put the amount of coins or bills into my little blue square box that says, "Global Ministries Distribution." That's about as close as I'm going to get to Somalia to actually hand those children some cookies to supplement that white mushy stuff they eat with their fingers.

So, with this "rationalization pill" swallowed, I rolled up my sleeves and went back to the kitchen. What cookies would I make? Why, lebkuchen, of course. I was already late with them if I wanted to have them "ripen" properly by the holidays.

This year, I thought, satisfying, I really would make them right for I'd have citron. For years it has been difficult, no, impossible, to get citron around here. Some companies will cut up candied pineapple and dye it green in an attempt to fool you, but no one mistakes the taste of citron, which, in case you don't know, is the fruit that comes from an Asian tree. Such fruit has a thick lemon-like rind. I wondered if any grew in Somalia which could be eaten, but, no. After looking it up I found the tree grows in northeast India and some in Italy, hundreds of miles from Somalia.

Earlier in the autumn I'd gathered in the sorghum and honey and almonds and all new spices. Did any of these things grow in Somalia that could be eaten? No. I lined the ingredients up on the cabinet plus the egg I'd taken out of the "fridge" to warm. If you're going to bake with eggs, they should always be at room temperature.

Any chickens in the starving camps in Somalia? If they have nothing to eat, how can they feed chickens? See any chickens, dogs, cows or cats there that come to us over the TV?

Into my best pan, which is dented and stained from years of use, I put the sorghum and honey to boil up into a golden fragrant foam. The color of Somali skin, I thought.

While it was cooling I chopped the citron and almonds a little finer. All this by the kitchen window where I could watch the cardinals, blue jays, goldfinch and doves. Late yesterday, 12 doves were huddled together at the end of the sidewalk. I couldn't figure out why unless there was some kind of organizational dove talk going on. They usually go two by two. In all those pictures from Somalia, you don't see any birds either. Lucky things, they can just pick up and fly away from famine. Nothing with wings in Somalia pictures but flies.

The thing about lebkucken cookies are they are highly spiced. One tablespoon each of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves. Yeah, cloves, the high potentate of spices. They don't go into the dough though until you beat in the three-fourths cup brown sugar, egg, one tablespoon lemon juice and one teaspoon of grated lemon rind. Then the spices get mixed with two and three fourths cup of flour (Undistributed wheat remains on the docks at Mogadishu, Somalia at this writing) and one-half teaspoon of baking soda. Notice, there is no shortening!

This makes a very tough cookie, one you can chew on for a long time. Each tiny bite is like the condensed taste of Christmas. How I wish I could send a dozen railroad box cars of them to those starving children. One cookie could be made to last all day and maybe, since they don't spoil, keep a child alive until help arrives.

The sun was on the other side of the house by the time the cookies were done. The Christmas tree had ceased to sparkle. But Colin Powell was on the TV saying, with such assurance, that this is where and when and how we are going to get food in there. I have such confidence in Colin Powell, I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down to eat one of the lebkuckens. I enjoyed it, almost.

REJOICE!