How to Bake Rugelach With Mom
(by Laura Davis)
1. Dig through the ratty blue file folder where you keep your oldest recipes. Inside, find a lopsided mess of stacked, stained, crispy, ancient papers. They’re not organized into neat categories, or any categories; they’re just shoved in there with no rhyme or reason. But you like it the way it is. You like that it smells musty like old flour and spilled yeast, dried soy sauce and sprinkles of cayenne. Some of these recipes you’ve been carrying in the same old blue folder for over 30 years. Including the one you’re looking for now. You know what it looks like. It’s on a small stained white index card with pale blue lines, written in your mother’s handwriting with a cheap ballpoint pen—and the word "Rugelach" is in cursive at the top.