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One More Cookie Rachel Kilgard
One More Cookie
My grandma’s love language is cookies. I’ve never left her house without a bag overflowing with her signature chocolate chip cookies. They’re crispy from heaps of Crisco and always being left in the oven a moment too long while she’s on the phone. Although she doesn’t use a recipe, the cookies end up the exact same every time. It’s like the process has become ingrained in her, the same as walking or breathing.
When I was younger and would spend long weekends at her house, I would help her bake. Her kitchen was small, tucked off to the side of the house, but it radiated warmth. I would take the ingredients out of the pantry from the cookie shelf, which was low to the ground so that even her youngest grandchild could reach. I would crack the eggs and beat them with her old fashioned manual hand mixer. I learned fractions measuring out the flour and sugar and butter. I snuck extra chocolate chips: one into the bowl, one for me. One into the bowl, one for me.
Once the cookies were in the oven, we would eat the leftover cookie dough quickly, as if someone could walk into the kitchen and catch us in the act. The dough was almost better than the cookies themselves because it was tinged with the edge of faux rebellion. While we ate, my grandma would tell me stories about growing up. Her parents were health conscious before that was even really a thing, and cookies, especially ones like these, were strictly forbidden. Maybe that’s the reason she’s baked so many cookies since and shared them with everyone she can.
The rules were different at her house. I could have a cookie for breakfast or before bed or whenever I wanted. “All right,” she would say. “You can have one more cookie. And then I have to cut you off.” But she never did. A cookie meant something different at her house. It wasn’t just a cookie; it was a piece of her love.