Italian Rainbow Cookies

Eight hours of light and climbing. The body waking up. A pediatric burn case Tuesday. I came home and made adobo and did not write a blog post.

Lourdes is 74. She is in the kitchen. She is luminous.

I made puto bumbong this week. The purple rice cakes. The Christmas dawn dish.

I skipped the blog this week. Some weeks the kitchen is enough.

I sat at the kitchen table Sunday night with the bowl in front of me. The bowl was warm. The bowl was the prayer.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

I took inventory of the freezer Sunday. The freezer had: twelve quarts of broth, eight pounds of adobo in vacuum bags, six pounds of sinigang base, fourteen lumpia trays at fifty rolls each, three pounds of marinated beef for caldereta, and a small bag of pandan leaves Tita Nening had sent me. The inventory was the proof of preparation. The preparation was the proof of love.

The salmon in the freezer is from August. Joseph's catch. The bag is labeled in his handwriting — "for Grace." I will use it next week.

The break room had cake Tuesday. Someone's birthday. We ate the cake. We did not ask whose birthday. The cake was the cake.

Auntie Norma called Sunday to ask if I had a recipe for a particular merienda from Iloilo. I did not. I said I would ask Lourdes. I asked Lourdes. Lourdes had it. The chain.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced the Saturday gathering. I will be on lumpia duty. I am always on lumpia duty.

I drove the Glenn Highway out to Eklutna on Saturday. The mountains were the mountains. The lake was the lake. The body needed the open road. The open road did its work.

A reader from New Jersey wrote in about her grandmother's adobo, which used pineapple. I had never heard of pineapple in adobo. I tried it. It was strange. It was also good. The strange and the good are not opposites.

The neighbors invited us over for a small dinner Thursday. They are an Iñupiaq family — Aana and her grandson Joe. We ate caribou stew and rice. I brought lumpia. The kitchens of Anchorage have always been the small UN. The food is the proof.

I sat on the balcony in the cold for ten minutes Sunday night with a cup of broth in my hands. The cold was the cold. The broth was the broth. The body held both.

I made coffee at six AM. The coffee was the start. The start was always the same.

I read three chapters of the novel Saturday night before sleep. The novel was about a Filipina nurse in California. The nurse was being undone by her work. I knew the unraveling. I had lived the unraveling. I read on. The reading was the witnessing.

A blog reader sent me a photograph of her grandmother's wooden mortar and pestle, used since 1962. The photograph was holy. I wrote her back. The writing back is the work.

I had a long phone call with Dr. Reeves on Wednesday. We talked about pacing and rest and the way the body keeps a log of what it has carried. Dr. Reeves said, "Grace. The body remembers. The mind forgets. The cooking is the bridge." I wrote the line down. The line is now on a sticky note above the kitchen sink.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. I wiped the stove. I scrubbed the sink. I reorganized the spice cabinet. The cleaning was the small reset. The reset was the marker. The marker said: the week is over, the next week begins, the kitchen is ready.

I made puto bumbong because I needed color and something ancient and something that remembered Christmas for me when I could not remember it myself — and when I thought about what to share here, I kept coming back to layering, to the patient work of building sweetness one stratum at a time, to food that is bright without being loud. These Italian Rainbow Cookies are not puto bumbong. But they are made the same way the week was made: one careful layer at a time, pressed together, held, and then — finally — cut into something whole. Lourdes would approve. The colors would make her laugh.

Prep Time: 40 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes (plus chilling) | Servings: 48 cookies

Ingredients

1 (8 oz) can almond paste
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Red food coloring
Green food coloring
1/2 cup seedless raspberry or apricot jam, warmed and strained
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips or 12 oz semisweet chocolate, melted

Instructions

Prepare the batter. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line three 9x13-inch baking pans with greased parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat almond paste, butter, and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in almond extract. Fold in flour and salt until just combined.
Divide and color. Divide the batter evenly into three bowls. Tint one bowl red with food coloring, one bowl green, and leave the third bowl plain (white). Spread each portion into one of the prepared pans in an even, thin layer.
Bake the layers. Bake each layer for 10–12 minutes, until just set and the edges are barely golden. Do not overbake. Let layers cool completely in their pans on wire racks.
Stack and press. Invert the green layer onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Spread half the warm jam evenly over the green layer. Carefully invert the white layer on top of the green, pressing gently. Spread the remaining jam over the white layer. Invert the red layer on top. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place a heavy cutting board or baking sheet on top. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, pressing the layers together.
Coat with chocolate. Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring until smooth. Remove the chilled layered slab from the refrigerator. Spread half the melted chocolate evenly over the top. Refrigerate uncovered for 15 minutes until set. Flip the slab over carefully and coat the other side with the remaining chocolate. Refrigerate another 15 minutes until firm.
Slice and serve. Using a sharp knife, trim the uneven edges from all four sides. Cut the slab lengthwise into 1-inch wide strips, then crosswise into 1/2-inch slices. Wipe the knife clean between cuts for clean edges. Store in an airtight container between layers of parchment paper at room temperature for up to 1 week, or refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

Nutrition (per serving)

Italian Rainbow Cookies — When the Bowl Is the Prayer