The pendulum has swung back

I think that generations experience cycles. For example: my mom didn’t change her name when she got married, but all of my friends are changing their names. Seventies clothes were THE WORST when I was thirteen, and now they’re all the rage. The fifties are back on television.

I feel like we have come full circle, in a way, this past Cinco de Mayo.

It was the pinata cookies.

The pinata cookies appeared on my Pinterest early last week. Oh, how cute, I thought. But I can’t believe someone would go through the trouble of making them. I mean, just look at those multi-colored stripes.

Then, I went to a Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday, where I had been promised a “surprise dessert.” Surprise! It was the pinata cookies!

Holy smokes, I thought, I know some SERIOUSLY crafty people!

Then I went on Facebook this morning and found another photo of the homemade–from a friend of mine. That’s right, I have two, count ’em, TWO friends who made pinata cookies. From scratch. Starting with the insane steps of making and dying cookie dough, baking and cutting out cookies, gluing them together and magically getting the M&M’s inside. You bake 40 cookies–you read right, 40 cookies–and you get 7 or 8 pinata cookies. That’s what it says in the recipe. I can’t believe one person did this who wasn’t Martha Stewart, and yet I know two.

I see this incredibly anecdotal evidence as a sign that we have swung away from Martha Stewart when we rebelled with our punky grrl crafts, and have now swung back. We are totally willing to spend hours in the kitchen making (let’s admit it) awesome cookies.

I don’t think this is a bad thing–I think the pendulum kind of swings in a spiral. So we spend a lot of time in the kitchen, but only because it’s cool and fun. Part of it may have to do with the economy–making cookies is a pretty cheap pastime. Kitchen craftiness is a pretty awesome phenomenon, especially if you’re friends with someone who’s hopped on the bandwagon. Because the cookies, they are amazing. They are a feat of pastry engineering majesty. I can’t stop looking at them. They’re so CUTE. Also, they were delicious.