Lucille’s Cookies

Long term memory is a funny thing. I never know the exact moment one will appear, but I often become aware one has arrived, sitting on my shoulder, waiting for me to engage. This pandemic year has been one of baking for a lot of us, so I guess it’s a natural development that this long ago cookie would pop its memory up 60 years later and whisper to me to try to make a version I can eat now.

I was four years old when my sister was born. My mother had some kind of bleeding complication that involved the ambulance coming to take her to the hospital. I remember them rushing in to the bedroom to take her out and my grandmother or cousin closing the door quickly so I wouldn’t see the blood on the sheets. But I did see it. It was a scary time, but I was assured everything would be alright. When she came home, my mother must have had restrictions on what she could lift or move because suddenly there was a nurse in our house every day for a while. She was a very large (both tall and wide) gray haired white woman who wore a white nurses uniform, a cap and white nursing shoes. She was in charge of my sister, my mother and many household tasks. She came from some southern state, I think, and she talked differently than I was familiar with and seemed quite severe. I was terrified of her–until she made these cookies.

Perhaps someone came to call on my Mom. I remember sitting around in a room with the curtains drawn with other adults and Lucille passing around a plate of these cookies she had made. Everyone ooed and aahhed and asked her for the recipe. The thing that got me was the maraschino cherries. I absolutely loved them as a child. In an era when children were offered mocktails like a Shirley Temple (seven up mixed with maraschino cherry juice and stemmed maraschino cherry), they were a sugary delight I would come to love. But maybe this day I had not yet had one of those. Maybe this day was my first taste of a maraschino cherry, sticking out of a decadent mix of chocolate chips (another profound favorite of mine I got addicted to early when my Mom would give me a small cup of them to eat while I watched Mickey Mouse or Popeye), oatmeal, coconut, frosted flakes, all rolled into a batter filled with creamed sugar and butter. Well, you can imagine.

I don’t know what got me thinking about them again, but as I was picking out my grocery items online I found myself searching for maraschino cherries and cornflakes. I can’t tell you how it made me smile to see a tiny glass jar of what couldn’t have been more than twenty of them, sitting in that bright fuchsia colored sugar syrup. I had to put them in my cart.

Each time I even think of them I smile. There wasn’t a lot I was made to feel proud of as a little girl of 4 or 5. I had a brace on my leg I had to explain to everyone and I was chubby and slower than the other kids. That these cherries brightened my world and made a day special when they appeared in a cookie, a drink, or a box of candy at a hard time must have always stayed with me. Maybe that’s why they’ve appeared as we head into a somber winter waiting for a public health policy to help truly turn this pandemic around. They are little pops of sweet and color, however fanciful, that comfort chronic melancholy like a kiss on the cheek.

My recipe is nowhere near the decadent result of Lucille’s long ago 1960 style triumph. It’s gluten free and oil and butter free, and it contains just enough of a smattering of chocolate chips, cherries and coconut to make biting into one a special treat. The corn flakes are organic, gluten free, and fruit sweetened. But still, they carry me back. And maybe they’ll bring a smile to your face too.

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As my dear blogging friend Gena reminded me in her most recent Weekend Reading series, writing, like cookie making, has its own magic of connection when things are up in the air. I didn’t know until I started drafting this post what in the world might be the connection between my four year old self’s passionate love for maraschino cherries and my sixty four year old self wanting to taste one again. But now I understand it was literally a bright spot in the often somber world of the little girl I was so long ago. And seeing that bright sweet pop now gives me the same little lift. Nice to connect to that little version of me with a simple pleasure, beyond her uncomfortable shoes, her itchy coat and the mysteries the adults around her glossed over. I’m glad she brought me such a sweet taste from our past.