My Grandma Betts was one of the best cooks I’ve ever known. A country cook, she could whip up a meal for a dozen people as long as she had flour, eggs and a cellar packed with mason jars full of veggies from their garden.  She kept a jar of bacon grease on the stove and the freezer was well stocked with meat and basically anything you could possibly want. There was rarely a recipe in sight as she cooked from memory and from instinct. 

My mother likes to talk about how her kitchen was stocked like a grocery store and how easily I could manipulate that sweet lady into getting me whatever I wanted. Anything your heart desired was either available or could be made faster than you could say “Grandma, I want a peanut butter sandwich.”

She was known for her pies and for the Mandarin Orange Cake that I still make for Easter. She once taught me how to make berry pie after I spent the day out picking berries with Grandpa. I was about twelve and badly wish I could remember more of what she showed me. 

It was at her table everyone would gather for homemade noodles, mashed potatoes and pickles she canned herself. It was at this table that she would start talking about the next meal before the dishes were cleared from that meal. It was at this table my aunts and uncles would pass around old black and white photos, telling tall tales and laughing about days gone by. 

I wish I remembered more of that too. 

Grandma was a master pie and cake baker who made sure everyone’s favorite dessert was represented on the holidays. And when my Uncle Randy began bringing home the woman he would eventually marry, we suddenly had fish and macaroni and cheese on the table because Donna is pescatarian and Grandma wanted her to feel welcome. 

For all the oodles of noodles she cut and the dozens of desserts that cooled on her kitchen counter, there was one thing Garnet Betts could not do. She couldn’t make a decent cookie to save her life. 

My dad remembers her making great cookies when he was young but says her skills deteriorated over time.

For a long time I believed she probably could make a better cookie but chose to make them to suit my Grandpa. Her beloved Earl liked his cookies crispy so he could dunk them in his coffee or sometimes in milk. To this day, I remember him sitting at the head of the table with his Fire King mug, dipping those rock hard cookies and smiling. 

Now I wonder if he really liked them that way or if he learned to appreciate them so he wouldn’t hurt her feelings. 

This weekend saw the start of my annual cookie baking project, something I’m reasonably good at when time allows me to slow down and enjoy it. First up Saturday night was a batch of peanut butter cookies, one of the easier cookies you can possibly make. 

And I screwed up nearly all of them.  One sheet came out overbaked and another burned on the bottom. A few were good but it was kind of demoralizing. On Sunday, I made perfect batches of sugar cookies and Pennsylvania Dutch cookies along with a sad batch of chocolate chip. To be fair, one big cookie sheet came out charred beyond recognition because I had a politician knock on my door and I forgot I was even baking. A few turned out ok but most were overdone and are hard. Not burned, just crispy and hard. 

I always think of my grandparents when I bake but they have been prominent in my thoughts since Sunday when I told Adam, the guy I have been dating, about my disastrous adventures in baking that day. 

You know what he said about the chocolate chip cookies? “Save the burned cookies for me. They’re good with oat milk.” 

I immediately stopped feeling bad about my kitchen catastrophes, at least for that day. Friends, I have found a keeper. 

Don’t worry. He’ll get plenty of good cookies too!