Community Cookbook: Date Nut Pinwheel Cookies Judy Starzinger from Perryville, Mo.

Recipes tell the stories of communities and the people who shape them. Each recipe is more than a list of ingredients and steps; it is a written legacy of the individual who created the dish, their family and history. This monthly series highlights one of these legacies and gives readers the chance to create the recipe themselves.

Judy Starzinger grew up in Perryville, Mo., as the second oldest of six siblings. With six children, Starzinger says her mother kept busy gardening, canning and cooking, and Starzinger kept busy helping her.

“Whenever you’re the second oldest of six [children], you just learn how to do those things, and it’s expected of you. She was a good teacher,” Starzinger says.

One Christmas, Starzinger’s mother made date nut pinwheel cookies. Her family loved them, so she started making them every year for the holiday.

After Starzinger got married and started her own family, she continued this tradition of baking date nut pinwheel cookies every Christmas, and now, she makes them year-round. She says she keeps extra dough in the freezer, so she can bake a batch anytime.

Starzinger met her husband, Don Starzinger, at a baseball game in Perryville in 1956. They dated and got married 10 months later in July 1957. The newly-married couple moved to a farm near Pocahontas, north of Jackson. There, they raised cattle, hogs and chickens, and grew corn, soybeans, wheat and hay.

One of the farm duties she disliked the most was gathering eggs, because if the hens were in their nests, she’d have to reach under their bodies and risk getting pecked. Eventually, Starzinger found a way to solve this problem.

“I didn’t want to be pecked. So, I’d throw corn cobs at the hen to make her fly off the nest, and then, I could reach in and get the eggs,” Starzinger says.

Starzinger and her husband have four children: three daughters and one son. In addition to raising her children and working on the farm, she worked at multiple doctors’ offices for approximately 40 years.

She says she performed X-rays, completed lab work, assisted in surgeries, put casts on broken bones and booked patients’ appointments, among other medical and clerical duties. She learned everything on the job and never attended nursing or medical school.

Starzinger is now retired and spends most of her time with her family and friends. She makes multiple trips to Perryville every week to visit her sister and friend in a nursing home there. People are important to Starzinger.

“I think the older you get, the more you enjoy having your family to visit, because you know it’s not going to last forever. So, you’re proud of them, and you enjoy spending time with them and cooking for them,” Starzinger says. “It’s just family and love.”

She says she met some of her best friends by walking in the mornings at HealthPoint Fitness gym in Jackson. Just by walking and talking, they all became friends. Now, she says the group of five walk together every weekday and have coffee together afterwards.

“[While we’re walking,] someone says, ‘Are you ready for coffee? Is it time for coffee?’ And we head on downstairs [to the café area],” Starzinger says.

Starzinger says her group of “walking buddies” have a lot of fun together. They recently had a cookout in the woods and rode in an old Jeep through the trees. They also took a trip to Perryville to see the Veteran’s Memorial.

“[Spending time with friends] keeps you sane,” Starzinger says. “We support each other and give each other boosts whenever we need a boost, and it just makes your day much better.”

Judy Starzinger holds a tray of date nut pinwheel cookies that she made. The second oldest of six children, Starzinger learned to cook while helping her mother.Photo by Jasmine Jones

Judy Starzinger holds a tray of date nut pinwheel cookies that she made. The second oldest of six children, Starzinger learned to cook while helping her mother.Photo by Jasmine Jones

__Date Nut Pinwheel Cookies__

(Makes multiple batches)

Dough:

1 cup shortener

2 cups brown sugar

3 well-beaten eggs

4 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

Filling:

2½ cups chopped dates

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup chopped pecans

Combine ingredients for the dough. Refrigerate dough until workable. (Judy says this is usually a couple of hours.) Roll out dough into rectangular shapes. To make the filling, combine ingredients and boil for approximately 3 minutes. Cool filling and spread on dough rectangles. Roll up the dough into one long log shape. Cut into ½-inch pieces. Refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Enjoy!

See Judy make date nut pinwheel cookies at The Best Years Facebook page.