Dorie Greenspan's Master Recipe for Sables

I made two versions of this cookie. First I made the parmesan, I was hoping that it would be a savoury shortbread type cookie. It was awful! They literally disintigrated in your hand when you tried to pick it up. They were like sand when eaten and had no flavour to speak of. The second version was the lemon. These were absolutly delightful! Working the lemon zest with the sugar released the lemon oils and gave the cookie a lovely lemon flavour. The texture was the shortbread I had hoped to get with the parmesan version.