Biography of the lepp cookies
Lebkuchen recipe!
Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Cookies and a nostalgia for a childhood I only read about
Growing up I had a slight fascination with other “outsider” cultures. Perhaps it was because I was Asian, or “Oriental” as they referred to it back then, living in the Midwest surrounded by white people.
I have specific memories of asking the one other oriental girl in my grade school if she spoke Chinese at all.
Pennsylvania dutch lep cookies
She looked at me as if I were crazy and emphatically said NO with derision as she stormed off (later I would discover that Janet Kim was, in fact, Korean not Chinese). I was fascinated by anyone that identified as “other” and read young adult books voraciously whose themes were about growing up different.
Looking back, this is pretty much the theme of EVERY young adult novel (who doesn’t feel different and alienated growing up?) but I loved my books.
That’s me in the middle. Apparently I learned to smirk at an early age.
The Girl with the Silver Eyes talked about a kid whose mom t