I ate a cookie today...a huge cookie, a cookie the size of my head. I eyed one up at Target when I was picking up my broken-knee cocktail from the pharmacy...and since then...I haven't been able to get cookies out of my mind.
So I stopped at Great Harvest with the soul purpose of finding a cookie that was the size of my head.
I succeeded.
I put my own life in my hands, hobbled across an ice-filled parking lot, dodged some kids, scanned my environment...and BAM! Cookies! 11:00. My eyes zeroed in...the drool started forming...and all that separated me from minutes of buttery, fatty cookie bliss was one small pane of glass (which is a good thing too, or else my drool would have pretty much ruined the cookies for all those other cookie connoisseurs out there).
I've decided God invented cookies for the soul purpose of making me happy. It was delicious. Much worth the dollar and some change I spent on it...much worth the Twister-esque mambo dance I do to get out of the car and onto my crutches...and much worth the battle with two doors (yes, TWO!) just to get inside.
And did I mention it was the size of my head?? SERIOUSLY. YUM-O!
I told myself I'd ration it off. This whole bum knee thing has pretty much destroyed my diet. I guess being forced to eat at the kitchen counter while balancing like a flamingo will cause you to devour anything within arm's reach. This massive, jumbo, larger-than-life cookie certainly wasn't going to set me back on the right track...but I couldn't resist. I broke off a chunk, wrapped up the rest, and told myself I'd save it for later.
Later was about 30 seconds.
Another chunk...then another...before you knew it, I was licking crumbs out of the flimsy paper envelope it came in.
Ahhhhh...what a moment of pride.
After I finished inhaling this cookie...I got to thinking...what (besides PMS) prompted this cookie-gasm? It didn't take me long to flip through my memory rolodex...and pinpoint the exact start of my cookie devotion.
Instantly memories of me as a teetering, unbalanced, piggy-tailed toddler came rushing back. Lazy Susans. Old Tins. Hugs and kisses and pockets full of cookies.
95% of my cookie happiness comes from my Dido (or grandpa for you non-Ukrainian people out there). He used to make cookies, tons of cookies, all kinds, all shapes, all tastes, all flavors. Cookies with jam in the middle, cookies with hershey kisses in the middle....cookies with mounds of chocolate...and crunchy nuts. It was cookie heaven. You don't normally think of a grandpa as being the baker in the family. I can't even imagine my dad's dad greasing a cookie sheet...let alone completing any other cookie cooking task...but my Dido? He loved it. My Baba (come on non-Ukies, you can figure this one out) used to be the chef...but my Dido? He was the baker (and the meat-carver. Ha. We all have our jobs).
Anyway, there were always cookies in his house. Always made from scratch...always with the best ingredients. He'd line one of my Baba's 10,000 tins with some wax paper, stack the cookies inside, and tuck it inside his lazy susan (lazy susan being the corner kitchen cabinet with the rotating shelves...not the table-top accessory).
Whenever you walk into my grandparents' house, the first question my Baba will ask is -- "Can I get you anything to eat?" You'll hardly have your shoes off, before she makes her way into and out of the kitchen with some heaping tray of food, insisting that you eat up (guess that's what surviving a war will do to you). When I was a kid, it was easy. "Something to eat" very easily equated with "Want lots and lots of heaping mounds of cookies?" And of course, I'd fill my little chipmunk cheeks with as many cookies as she'd let me take.
But I totally knew how to work the system. I knew if you asked Dido when Baba wasn't around, he'd always let you have another (as his little secret), and once you milked both those options...I knew that it took approximately one minute and thirty seconds to sneak into the kitchen in stealth mode, flip the lazy susan til you saw the glimmer of tin, pop it open, and fill every single pocket in your outfit with the good stuff. I'm sure they were on to my plan...but if they were, they never let me know.
I was a cunning cookie fox :P
My Dido doesn't make cookies anymore. Old age has taken away that joy. The tins are all in the basement. The lazy susan is empty. Every now and again, my Baba will whip up a batch for the holidays...but nothing beats my Dido's chocolate chip cookies. Nothing beats those golden brown, made with love, melt in your mouth, terribly fattening, lumpy, bumpy cookies. I miss them terribly. Miss standing next to him, adding the ingredients, sampling the batter, and getting flour all over my face and hair. I miss it all.
But for a brief moment today...all that came rushing back to me...
And it was all thanks to one jumbo cookie (the size of my head), that made my heart smile as much as my stomach.
And I'm thankful for that :)
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