Writing this post made me reflect on missed opportunities. I never got to meet Jim Baen in person. I would have liked to, and to take him pecan sandies, which I knew were his favorites. Sadly, I couldn’t travel, and then, he was gone.
But he’ll never be forgotten and I wanted to pay tribute to him, so I asked Toni Weisskopf if it was ok, and she said to go right ahead.
And I baked, and thought, and tasted, and talked to a friend who did know him. A sense of loss, but also the happy memories of the books, the Baen’s Bar, and the people I met there. That number includes my First Reader, who I met there years before he earned that title. Which was Jim’s gift to me although it wasn’t his intent and he never knew. What he wanted to do – and succeeded admirably at – was to sell books. It was his vision that created something extraordinary in Baen Books. His revolutionary ideas about ebooks, the Baen Free Library, and the community that I found in Baen’s Bar, those all added up to a fierce loyalty to a publishing house, which isn’t a common thing. In fact, I think it may be unique.
I suppose that if I put this in other words, you’d better be ready to curl up with a lot of cookies and milk or your beverage of choice… Because there are so many good reads with Jim Baen’s name on them.
Better start baking!
Notes
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (1 cup) butter
- 1 c powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 c flour
- 2 c pecans
Instructions
- cream together the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
- Beat in the water and vanilla, then slowly add the flour a half-cup at a time.
- Stir in the pecans – I actually kneaded in about half of them, as the dough was very stiff at this point.
- Make a log of the dough, about 3 in in diameter, and wrap it in wax paper. Refrigerate for a couple of hours, until firm.
- Preheat the oven to 325 deg F
- Slice the log into 1/2″ thick slabs. You can dip the slices into powdered sugar for a sweeter cookie.
- Place the cookies on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until they are just starting to brown on the bottom.
Pecan Sandies are a variation on shortbread, so they should be flaky, crisp, rich, and delicious. These met the criteria. It’s not the first time I’ve made them – my Dad loves them – but I did up the proportion of pecans to make them delightfully nutty. The First Reader declared them tasty. They aren’t hard to make, and I highly recommend a batch to nibble while you explore the Baen Free Library. Just remember Jim Baen’s philosophy concerning that… ‘the first taste is free!’
As a matter of fact, I consider myself an adherent of the Baen school of marketing. It was from his forums that I learned the trick of snippeting, to hook in a reader. And content marketing, which I knew by concept, came to life with the Free Library and forums full of fans who could interact with authors and the man himself. Prior to the Bar, I didn’t realize a lowly reader could talk to an author. The idea!
But it was through that community that I gained the courage and encouragement to write. He had been gone for some time when I finally published. I’d hoped to offer him a manuscript… but that was not to be. Instead, I’ve made my own way, and been inspired by him in many ways. So these are special cookies, and reader cookies, at that.
Happy reading!
You can find the index page for ETWYRT here, and the facebook group where we talk books and food here.