As a teenager, my favorite after-school snack was a stack of my mom’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of milk. Mom loved to bake, and these cookies were her specialty. Chewy, hearty, and packed with just the right amount of chocolate, they were a fixture of our kitchen. She made massive batches, often when the house was quiet, and stored them in Tupperware containers tucked away in cupboards, closets, and even the laundry room. (See my Cookie Hiding Places post from 2022.)
We lived in the country, and Dad was the bus driver, so the school bus parked at our house. Once I got home from school, I would head to the kitchen and grab six or eight cookies along with a tall glass of cold milk to eat before going outside to do the evening chores.
Some days, I was lucky enough to find a stash of frozen cookies. Yes, I actually preferred them frozen.
Of course, biting into a frozen cookie was nearly impossible at first. So I came up with a few strategies. My favorite was holding the edge of the cookie in my mouth and blowing warm air through it, slowly softening it enough to take a bite. Other times, I would dunk the cookie into my milk. Even though the milk came straight from the fridge, it was still warmer than the frozen cookie. The cold cookie soaked up just enough milk to soften it, making for a perfect bite.
These after-school moments were small and simple, but they stick with me. Mom’s cookies were more than just snacks. They were a quiet reminder that I was loved, even when she was not yet home from work.
We still bake Grandma Jasperson’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in our home. But they rarely make it to the freezer. They vanish almost as soon as they come out of the oven, and those frozen after-school snack moments are now just memories.
And somehow, I miss them.
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