chef for the recipe (see p. 128) so she could make them at home.
When my mom wanted to bake cookies that weren’t gluten-
free, she made the dough in the garage, where we kept the wheat
flour. Whether re-creating the chocolate delights she ate as a
kid or cracking the secret ingredient in a friend’s chocolate chip
cookie, she made batch after batch until she got them right.
When I was in high school, my mom stayed up so late baking
that it felt like she never slept. I’d annotate The Great Gatsby
to the tune of pots banging and spoons stirring. For homework
breaks I’d help crack eggs, but when I went to bed, well past
midnight, chocolate would still be bubbling on the stove. The
next day, I’d go to school with the previous night’s experiments:
Pop-Tarts for tennis practice, Mallomars for Model UN.
I started college as Matthew was being treated for his allergy,
which allowed my mom to bake freely with wheat flour inside
the house. She became obsessed with perfecting a new kind of
cookie. This one was thick, chunky, and decadent, crispy on the
outside, gooey on the inside. This was a Statement Cookie.
Oxford Street twinkled with Christmas lights when my
parents visited me in London, where I studied abroad in college.
When my mom handed me a raffia-wrapped brown box sealed
with a sticker that said “Big.Fat.Cookie.,” I’m pretty sure I
shrieked. Her hobby had blossomed into a business.
My mom now bakes out of a commercial kitchen, sells to
restaurants across Chicago, and ships nationwide. She has built
a local brand with a national following, and her team of eight
helps execute the cookie-making process. (For her Triple
Chocolate–Peppermint Cookie recipe, see p. 128.)
Though my mom’s baking has gone from nightly ritual to
daily task, it’s still about connection—a way to feed the people
she loves. For me, baking has increasingly become the opposite:
a way to disconnect, especially during the holidays. I live in
New York now, and trips home consist of quick, packed week-
ends. But in December, during that cushion of days made for
doing nothing, I can be in the kitchen with my mom, poking
holes for raspberry thumbprints, and I don’t have to think about
flight delays or deadlines. All that matters is that I don’t overbeat
the butter, that this batch doesn’t burn.