Baking is a regular activity in my house, just as it was in my parents' home and in my grandparents'. And we never tire of time-tested recipes whose simplicity makes them frequent offerings.
One such recipe is for Ethel's Sugar Cookies, from the early Betty Crocker cookbooks (my mother has the 1956 edition). Our cookies are made entirely with shortening so that they're parve, but this basic sugar cookie has been made by at least three generations of my family.
One way to bring variety to these sugar cookies is hunting through the cookie-cutter collection to decide which shapes to use. I decided to get out a Basset Hound cookie cutter I had purchased from a rescue group at one of the BHCA Nationals several years ago, and I decorated this latest batch with chocolate sprinkles.
I inherited several of my grandmother's cookie cutters, and I have a variety of themes I can follow: patriotic, musical, Jewish, even several in the shapes of various fruits (like apples and pears). Some cookie cutters get used more than others, but I have enough to provide seasonal variation throughout the year whenever this classic sugar cookie is made.