You can't make Spite Cookies without the Love

There are these cookies that I love, and I don't mean the kind of love that I'd take these over an oreo. I mean the kind of love where I'd shank a baby with a rusy spork for the last crumbs in the bottom of the cookie jar kind of love! I remember sitting on the table as a toddler “helping” my grandma make these. After my grandma died, my mom would make them for me. I would ask her to make these cookies for me instead of a birthday cake. Mom always considered them “special occasion” cookies, and unless she tired of my endless begging, she would normally only make them at Christmas. She would also make them for our church's holiday bazaar and bake sale. When I got old enough I would stand in line before the church would open, so that I could be first in line, and I would buy all that she had made.

To be honest, these aren't really that special. They are a cashew cookie, made with brown sugar and sour cream, not very sweet, but they have a browned butter frosting on them, and if you put browned butter on a used tire I would probably ask for seconds. They are a little fussy, but not very hard to make. Sort of. Once you get the cosmic blessing.

Full disclosure: I'm a pretty good cook. Not much intimidates me in the kitchen. I learned to cook from women who didn't have recipe books, so if you ask me for a recipe, I am likely to tell you to come over, and I will show you how to make it. I do this because not a lot of my own recipes are written down. If I tried to give you a recipe it would likely be something like, “Cook until it just about boils, but doesn't.” “Add flour until it sticks together, but isn't sticky.” “Cook in a hot oven until it's done.” Really helpful, isn't it? Sorry. But, here's the thing; I couldn't make these cookies! Starting as a teenager, I tried countless times to make these. Mom wrote out, step by step, how to make them. When that didn't work, she stood right next to me, trying to walk me through it. Didn't help. All I got were nasty light brown hockey pucks, or one giant cookie that spread to cover the entire cookie sheet.

I gave up, and continued to beg mom to make them for me. She did, and eventually expanded to making them for several friends for their birthdays, too. Then 9 years ago, this Christmas, Mom died and couldn't make any more cashew cookies for me. I was talking to a friend the following spring, who had a birthday coming up, and she said, “I know this sounds horrible and selfish, but I can't help being really sad that I won't get any of your mom's cashew cookies this year.”

I tried one more time to make the cookies, and you know what? They turned out perfect! Seriously! I don't know what I did different, but every time I've tried to make them since, they have turned out exactly as they should. Until last week.

I had made these last year for someone, who I knew would love them, and she did. Then we had quite a falling out, and the nicest way I can think to put it is, if she were on fire, and I had a cup of water, I'd be sad it wasn't gasoline. Actually, I've pretty much refused to let her name cross my lips, and now just refer to her as the hosebeast. One of hosebeast's relatives emailed me and said hosebeast had been having a hard time, and the relative remembered how much she liked the cashew cookies, so asked if I would send her the recipe so she could make some to cheer her up. Umm... HELL NO! But, because I don't like confrontation, I emailed back and said I had lost the recipe. Then I went to the store and bought all the ingredients to make me a big old batch of spite cookies!

This is where it gets weird. In the 9 years since I have been able to make the cookies, they have never been anything less than cashewy, browned butter perfection. Last week I tried to make them on two different days. The first time I got the scaling wrong, and only used half the amount of flour that I should have. After buying another $10 in cashews, batch number 2 looked to be a success, until they came out of the oven looking like baking powder biscuits on steroids. I gave up.

Yesterday the fireman brought me a big can of cashews, and said I needed to make the cookies. I tried to tell him, that I couldn't, that apparently I had lost the cosmic cookie gift. He gave me that look, like he is about to ask where I've hidden my crack pipe, but then he said, “They'll turn out this time. It's almost your birthday. Now they are birthday cookies and not spite cookies.”

I just finished frosting them, and they turned out perfect. Apparently they can only be made with love, and not spite. Damn crazy cookie ghosts!



Just another quick note on the crazy way I learned to cook. I do have a recipe for these that mom wrote out for me (and if anyone wants it, as long as I don't also want to set you on fire, I'm happy to share). Where a normal recipe would say, make teaspoon size, or make 1 ½ inch cookies, mom's recipe says, make lady sized cookies. There were two sizes of cookies growing up, lady sized and man sized. Lady sized cookies were usually “fancy” and appropriate for a ladies lunch or serving at a funeral, about walnut sized. Man sized cookies are the non-fancy cookies that were always in the cookie jar. Think oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle and chocolate chip. The appropriate size for man-sized cookies were the size that perfectly matched dad or grandpa's shirt pocket.