A Cookie Apart

Ivins Spiced Wafers

If it’s autumn and I have visited my hometown, then it’s a good chance I’ve returned with no less than four boxes of Ivins Spiced Wafers.  Ivins (and their lesser counterpart, Sweetzels) are the one treat I used to get in Philadelphia that is still not available in North Carolina.  They are hard to get because they are only produced for a few months between June and December and because they are available only at ACME grocery stores (aka “Ack a Mee” ref link ).  Ivins are easy to find once you enter the ACME because of the black and roadsign orange box.

Ivins have been part of my memory of autumn for years.  They are spiced with ginger and nutmeg and cinnamon.  They are practically autumn in a cookie.  When I taste these cookies, I know it’s almost the end of the year, and I can vaguely smell the warm aroma of roasting turkey, feel the chill of a crisp, woodsmoke tinged, Pennsylvania-autumn evening, and faintly hear the shake of sleigh bells approaching.