pumpkin in a haystack

I needed to find a small pumpkin cookie cutter for a dessert recipe I am teaching in my class tonight at Les Gourmettes Cooking School. I didn’t have to go to the store to buy the cutter.

No, that would have been too easy.

I had to find it amongst the hundreds of cookie cutters I already own. Honestly, getting in the car and going to Sur la Table to buy one, would have been quicker and less frustrating!

I store the cookie cutters in these four jars, which I had just washed after emptying them all in search of the one elusive cutter. It’s a job that needed to be done. I store the jars on top of the cupboards in the kitchen. And we all know how greasy and nasty the stuff on top of kitchen cupboards gets!

Do you want to get a taste of the huge cookie cutter collection that I’ve amassed after teaching children’s cooking classes for 18 years?

Sure you do!

We might as well start big. Not surprisingly, the largest collection is the Christmas cutters. Nearly 100 here, alone.

Animal cookie cutters are always fun. Elephant. Moose. Pig. Horse. Giraffe. It’s a regular zoo over here. When you live in the desert southwest, one saguaro cactus cutter will not do. You need at least six! Howling coyotes, boots, cowboy hats, buffalo, prickly pear, chili peppers, roadrunners, armadillo, longhorn … no cliche is to be missed.

My Valentine and Patriotic collections are actually some of my favorite. Plus the “Valentine State” and a little “of the green” thrown in for good luck.

(On February 14, 1912, Arizona became the 48th state, and the last of the contiguous states, to join the Union. Arizona is nicknamed the “Valentine State” and the “Baby State.”)

Connor was really into dinosaurs, trucks, and such when he was little, so we have to have those thrown in with the fruit and vegetable cutters. Go ahead and ask me how many times I made cookies with the University of Arizona “A” cutter … Never! Sorry, Marissa. And summertime cutters with beach themes are always pop-pop popular!

This final grouping of Easter, Halloween, Fall, and Thanksgiving cutters has what I’m searching for. Right there, in the middle area of the lower-left corner of the photo. There it is! I must say, with the collection I have amassed over time, it sure is a hectic task to get your hands on them when you need cookie cutters, immediately!

Victory is mine!

Tomorrow, I’ll post the recipe I needed it for.

The good news for me – is all the cutters are organized by occasion – and put back on top of the cupboards, in their new clean and shiny jars.