wacky wednesday - the recipe

Apparently traditions have been on other people's minds, too. (See my post - Traditions) The week before Christmas I received urgent messages from two of our nephews and their aunt asking me if I had a particular cookie recipe. But let me start at the beginning.

My sister-in-law, Karlene (the mother of the aforementioned nephews and sister of their aunt), was the first person in my husband's family, other than my husband, that I felt a connection with. I was a 16 year-old high school student and she was a 31 year-old wife and mother of two boys when I first met her. Most adults treated me like a kid but she engaged me as a friend. By the time my husband and I married six years later, Kar and I were good friends. We chatted on the phone, went shopping together, shared problems and triumphs. Our families did things together - went to movies, went on vacations together, got together for dinner and games.

She was diagnosed first with breast cancer and then colon cancer before she died in 1996 at the young age of 55. I think about her often. I miss her wise counsel, her sense of humor and her willingness to try new things. She was a great cook. In fact, she was the one who told me it was okay to improvise on Nona's spaghetti sauce recipe and from that permission my own recipe for a spicy Italian sausage and veggie sauce was born.

I have several of her recipes in my collection so I probably shouldn't have been surprised that her sons and sister asked me if I had her Sour Cream & Chocolate Chip cookie recipe. Unfortunately, that was one recipe I did not have. I asked my husband if he remembered these cookies because they weren't ringing any bells with me.

"I'm sure you've had them," he replied. "She made them at Christmas... they puff up..."

Nope. Still not ringing any bells. I messaged everyone back telling them that, unfortunately, I didn't have the recipe. And life went on.

A couple of weeks later my husband decided to paint a shelving unit in my office. As we were emptying the shelves, I came across a small green book with a tattered cover that belonged to Nona. More accurately, it is a 1969 calendar book from their insurance salesman at the time but rather than use it as an appointment book, Nona chose to keep her recipes in it. Some are written directly on the pages; others are on recipe cards that are taped to the page. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the order of the recipes.

As I flipped through the book, a familiar blue-edged recipe card jumped out at me. It was one of Kar's personalized recipe cards with the Sour Cream & Chocolate Chip cookie recipe written in Kar's handwriting!

After seeing Nona's recipe collection system I didn't feel quite so bad about my own jumbled mess of recipes. 

I decided to make the cookies. Perhaps if I saw them, I would remember them since my husband was so sure I had eaten them before. 

I sampled the cookie dough and while it tasted good, it did not taste familiar.

Oh. My. Goodness.

The first taste of a still-warm cookie brought back a memory so vivid I wonder how I could have forgotten it. We were sitting at the dining room table after a family dinner and Kar brought out a plate of cookies (THESE COOKIES!) to go with our coffee. We had brisket for dinner and the boys had left the table after becoming bored with "grown-up talk." 

I don't know why I didn't ask her for the recipe. I probably thought I could get it any time. Or that they were her "signature cookie" and I'd eat them when she made them. Thankfully, Nona did ask her for the recipe and it can now be passed down to the kids and grandkids. 

And I am thinking that making (and eating!) these cookies will become a new Christmas tradition in our home - and perhaps in the homes of our nephews and their aunt.