Pride Found In An Old Round Tupperware And A Sunday Hat

 

I don’t use my mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. Not because they aren’t great—they’re somewhat legendary, actually. Her’s are just perfectly flat and crisp, but still magically dense and gooey. I have fond memories of early Sunday morning drives to church with a round Tupperware full of her famous chocolate chip cookies sitting on my lap. She baked them every single week to feed dozens and dozens of families in the interim time between Sunday school and church service.

She would stand in the kitchen and hand out her perfect cookies with cups of red kool-aid to every passer-by. I was the daughter of the cookie lady who met the crowds each Lord’s day with warm, gooey chocolate chip treats–always while wearing her Sunday hat. And I was proud to be that daughter. I am proud to be that daughter.

So why don’t I use her recipe? For one, I could never duplicate it even if I followed it to a “T”. Secondly, I wouldn’t want to duplicate them, because what made my mom’s cookies so special was that they were made by her hands.

Chocolate chip cookies are a rainy day thing. And a sunny day thing. They are a hope your day gets better thing. A bring to friends with a new baby thing. A perfect end to a picnic thing. They are a “My mom makes them the best!” thing.

 

 

The Perfectly Executed Cookie

 

There was always a bit of commotion when my mom was making chocolate chip cookies. Along with the warm, sweet aroma wafting from the kitchen came a distinct “whack!” “whack!” “whack!”; the telltale melody of cookies coming out of the oven and being dropped onto the counter top.

This was how my mom executed her cookies to make them just right. Hovering the hot pan just a foot or so above the counter top, she would drop them hard, allowing gravity and force to play their parts in flattening the cookies just enough to leave them entirely dense and impossible to put down after eating just one. You could never eat just one.

A More Wholesome Treat

 

Chocolate chip cookies are one of those things I’ve been trying to master for a long, long time with little success. Mostly because I wanted them to be wholesome.

And then finally a couple of weeks ago, the waiting and the persistent endurance through batch after batch of dryer-than-the-Sahara cookies finally paid off.

I happened upon that one batch of perfectly executed cookies made with wholesome ingredients that will change our family’s legacy forever. I had that “Eureka!” moment as I bit into the dense, chewy morsel of goodness, and I knew in that instance that I had discovered something golden. Something life changing. And it happened to be something wholesome!

 

 

They’re Good, But They’re Not My Mom’s.

 

When my husband came home and popped one of these cookies into his mouth, although he agreed they were very good, he also commented that, “Chocolate chip cookies are something my mom did very  well.” In other words, they’re good, but they’re not mom’s. They’re just not the same. They’re not what he grew up with.

And that’s ok. Because although the making of chocolate chip cookies are passed down from generation to generation,  each venture they make from one mom down to the next changes them just a bit.

These cookies are not my mother in law’s cookies. They are not my mom’s cookies. But they will be my son’s mom’s cookies.

Yes—these are the ones. These are the chocolate chip cookies my boys will grow up on. These cookies will be engrained into their beings; finding there way into those childhood memories that will define forever how they think about home. About mom. About rainy days. About chocolate rimmed mouths.

 

 

What My Mom Taught Me About The Perfect Cookie

 

Without ever saying a word, my mom taught me all about making the perfect chocolate chip cookies. She taught me that you should always make enough to share. That it’s alright to eat them while wearing your Sunday Best. Most importantly, she taught me that beyond the ingredients, the recipe, or the technique, chocolate chip cookies are a “just because I love you” thing.

And so now days when my boys come in from outdoor play covered in dirt, mud, sunscreen, and hose water, they’ll be met at the door with a warm, sweet aroma accompanied by a telltale “whack!”, “whack!”, “whack!” of mom’s perfect chocolate chip cookies coming out of the oven. And when they ask me why I drop the hot pan of cookies on the counter top each time, I’ll explain that it’s because that’s what the pretty lady in her Sunday hat did. And her cookies were always perfect.

 

The Most Important Ingredient

 

When my boys visit either one of their Grandma’s houses and are met with chocolate chip cookies, I hope it confuses them. I hope they find themselves in a conundrum over whether mom or grandma’s cookies are better. I hope they begin to grasp that they’re just might be more than one perfect chocolate chip cookie in the world.

And I hope that this realization will show them that it’s not the flour, the sugar, the butter, the chocolate chips, or even the “whack!” that makes a chocolate chip cookie perfect. I hope with that one bite of Grandma’s cookie, they will understand that what  makes a chocolate chip cookie perfect is the hands that made them, and the heart behind those hands.

The heart of a mom saying, {just because I love you.}

 

{Happy Mother’s Day to the Pretty Lady in the Sunday Hat, and also to the Mama who, in my husband’s heart, will always have better chocolate chip cookies than mine!}