JOY ALONG THE WAY: COOKIE MASTER INSPIRES

Now comes the special season for spices. So, down from their shelf come the little cans and jars of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice, the Big Four. Others I experiment with from time to time -- anise, cardamom, ginger, mace, etc. are also in the inspection lineup.

I turned the cans and jars upside down or examined the side labels, looking for an expiration date to see if any had died in its container and I didn't know it. Expires means to die, doesn't it? I found, on the bottom of the cinnamon can, a black blob. Someone had smeared a paint-like substance over where the expiration date is usually found. Who had done it and why?

My first reaction was to think I'd been "ripped off" by some retail dealer who had sold me dead cinnamon. Then I began to take part of the blame for not looking for such dates before buying. I softened even more when I thought the dealer suspected, as I do, that spices don't necessarily expire on their appointed dates. Too-early, stamped-on expiration dates and fragility are sometimes built-in devices to keep the economy fast-pacing. What if a pair of women's hose lasted a year? The sales record of hosiery departments would nose dive into near oblivion.

The cinnamon with the supposedly smeared-out expiration date, didn't seem dead. I sprinkled a little into my hand, stuck my tongue into it. Same taste. I put some into a tin pan with some water and set it on a hot stove burner. In less than a minute the house smelled of something good baking. Finally I mixed some with sugar and sprinkled it on buttered toast. Good as ever.

I kept wondering what was under that shroud of black smear. Meticulously I took it off with various combinations of things that would gently remove a top layer of paint but not what might be under it. You think that is easy? I felt like I was working on an ancient piece of art, trying to get down to the original colors. Tedious, but Mother Mosley doesn't like to be fooled!

I finally got the shroud off. What did I find stamped there? The original price! It had at one time, been 10 cents cheaper than a later paper sticker indicated. I couldn't find any expiration date anywhere else. Did that mean it was THAT old? Expiration dates have been the "in" thing for a long time.

Oh well, so much for old dates and inflation. The cinnamon was still good. The cloves and allspice were still alive. The nutmeg had gone to nutmeg heaven, or so the little jar said.

I smelled and tasted and said to myself, "It ain't so" and proceeded with my first batch of autumn cookies.

I, obtusely, thought one had to have a cookie cutter for whatever shaped cookie wanted. I now know a Cookie Master who makes cookies any shape she wants without any such store-bought equipment. If she wants to make a cookie in the shape of an acorn, she draws an acorn on a piece of thick cardboard or its equivalent, places it on her rolled cookie dough and cuts around it with a sharp knife. Perfect sunflowers, daisies, leaves, apple slices, complete with five "raisin" seeds in the center, come from her creative culinary artistry. I suppose she could make perfect octopus cookies if the occasion called for it.

I picked the prettiest leaf I could find from my maple tree, the one with the crimson leaves, and made a pattern. I put it on the chilled, red-colored, maple-flavored, rolled dough and cut around it, being very careful with all the peaks.

The cookies weren't bad, despite the fact that the sharp peaks of the leaves were a little burnt and had to be nipped off. But, I told myself, it is time for leaves to get a little frostbitten, even if that happens in a hot oven!

Now I plan spoked wagon wheels, cog wheels, and oh, mother cookies, of ambition, fancy, filigreed snowflake-glistening white with sugar granules as they come from the oven. Thanks, Cookie Master.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.