Cookies and the Friends They Make

Last Monday night, my sisters and friends gathered together for our first annual Christmas cookie making night.  I brought ingredients, wine, my 6-year old, and cookie sheets.

This event takes place at my Sicilian, outspoken and wonderful friend, Dominie’s, new house.  She has organized the event.  Her brand new kitchen is just waiting to be baked in.

I pictured us up to our elbows in flour, chatting, drinking, and gossiping about the latest and greatest reality shows on Bravo.

One problem. 

No mixer. 

I start to panic.  Oh no.  We have ten sticks of hardened butter, eggs out the whazoo, flour getting ready to be up to our elbows and no mixer??? 

She shrugs casually, leaning back in her chair drinking vodka and Diet Sunkist, and exclaims unashamedly, “Ladies, I am not domestic.  I have my cookies in the refrigerator, ready to go.”  They are ready-to-make chocolate chip cookies.  And here I am thinking we are going to make batch after batch of my mom’s tried and true Christmas cookies recipes. 

I try to act calm.  But, I could kick myself for not foreseeing this dilemma.  Of course my well groomed, sensational, always going out to eat friend does not have an electric mixer!  She has arranged this “cookie making party” to enjoy her friends and create a new tradition.  I have gone into this event with the intent of making a hell of a lot of cookies!   

I can now picture us stirring vigorously with sweat beading on our foreheads. 

But, once I calm down, I realize we are making progress.  Turns out cookies can be made without electronics (with the exception of an oven).  We did it by hand.  We defrost the butter and stir away in the one bowl my friend has.   

I start to have a great time. 

My son is helping out – putting the Hershey kisses on the half baked peanut blossoms.  I am sharing the advice my mother always said about Spritz cookies - don’t overbake them! 

And I realize that cookies are a lot like good friends.  When you have the right ingredients, you don’t need an electric mixer to make it work.  In fact, they are better mixed by hand. 

My mom used to say that good friends are like well-tilled soil.  It takes a while to get it ready to be planted in.  You have to have a history.    

This is what we were doing with those cookies.  We were slowly pouring in the sugar, baking soda, salt and flour, so that it would all mix up well.  We were making history and sharing a tradition. 

As we stir, we learn more about each other.  We have more time, of course, without a mixer, and we can hear each other.    

This is what friendships need.  Time, stirring, the right ingredients put in the bowl in the right order, and occasionally a Hershey’s kiss planted on top. 

As we pull our cookies out of the oven, I realize that each type of cookie mirrors our different personalities.  My friend Megan’s cookies are experimental.  She substituted chocolate chips for chunks and nuts for marshmallows.  (We all thought they were the best.)  My friend, Dominie’s were unconventional, as she decided to forgo the traditional slice and bake method for cookie dough and press the entire slab of batter into a pie dish to make one giant cookie.  She’s always making something grand out of something ordinary. 

My one sister’s cookies were perfectly prepared peanut butter blossoms – petite balls, rolled in sugar and dotted with a chocolate kiss.  My other sisters’ cookie was the famous Spritz cookies – seemingly ordinary dough rolled into a cookie pressing machine and coming out nothing close to ordinary, in perfectly shaped Christmas trees which are then decorated with sprinkles and red hots. 

Hours later we hit a sugar high, enjoying the company and cookies.  I had come into this night with purpose – to make plates of cookies to give away and enjoy at the later date of Christmas.  But, that expectation, along with the one that we needed a mixer, went out the window.  We were chowing down and not thinking about the future.  I think it was Megan’s chocolate chocolate cookies with marshmallows that did us in.  They did not last a full 24 hours at anyone’s house.  Like good friendships, these cookies were made to be enjoyed in the moment. 

That night, I learned that friendships are funny things.  And so are cookies.  You can’t preordain their destinies.  All you can do is mix the ingredients and wait for them to bake.