Bourbon

By: Lauren Young, Founder of Sweet LaLa’s Bakery

As we enter the holiday season, I invite you to reflect with me. What recipe holds a special place in your family traditions? What food, beverage or scent evokes treasured memories? 

For me it’s the scent of bourbon. 

Some of the fondest memories I carry with me are the days of Sunday night dinners.  For years, my grandparents hosted us for spaghetti supper.  We came around the family table each week like it was our family religion.  My cousins and I ran the hallways and the yard, making up games and chasing fireflies.  My grandfather and my uncles played cards sipping Jack Daniel and Coke. I’d sneak the butter cookies stashed in a metal tin by the handfuls before dinner. Food and family go together, and I loved those days of indulgence.  It’s how bourbon’s familiar scent evokes the fondest memories of my childhood.  

With both my grandparents gone, the traditions have changed dramatically, and I now have a family of my own. I began working bourbon into my own cookie recipe to channel the best of the smells of my childhood past.  

Baking is how I express a part of me.Sharing cookies is about sharing love, sharing a part of someone’s story.  My grandfather was an entrepreneur, and I inherited that part of him right in the cookie we call the Praline.  It is the best of butter and bourbon, and it holds a nutty warmth bundled in a single bite. It’s the taste of the Sunday nights I won’t get back, but I can honor the memory of good times passed.

Recipes are all about putting unlike things together to make something memorable. I put my passion for the kitchen, my love of family and my own heart for second chances in the community and created a family bakery.  

Sweet LaLa’s Bakery is a place where you become family when you work with us.  We built a table in the center of our store big enough to hold all of our conversations, to hold all of our stories, and to hold a space for family.  I believe we all belong, and we all should have a seat at the table.  

A lot of the products in our store tell a story, but this little Praline cookie tells one of the best of mine.