Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
By: Mary Sanborn
Food is the spice of life; it somehow makes everything better. It puts people in a good mood and brings them together. When you fall down and scrape your knee as a child, a homemade chocolate chip cookie wipes away the tears. When a first love breaks your heart, an ice cream sundae is the security blanket. When you and your best friend are in a quarrel, sausage pizza allows venting while savoring each bite. Food even makes childhood memories and oatmeal raisin cookies were my childhood goody.
There was a time, not too long ago, when the top of my head barely reached my mother's hip. Always by her side, as she baked in the kitchen, I always smelled the sweet scent of her perfume. Sweet and flowery, a fragrance I could distinguish her by. Every so often her perfume would mix with the sugary aroma of baked goods: banana bread, apple crisp or oatmeal raisin cookies. Wafting from her clothes, these were the scents I longed to smell. Oatmeal raisin cookie was the best perfume she wore.
First, she gathered all the ingredients for the cookies on the eggshell-colored countertop. Then with careful hands, fingernails perfectly shaped, she would measure the ingredients with assorted measuring cups and spoons.
"Mary Kate, always mix the dry ingredients first," she would say as I watched her bake.
"Why?" I always questioned her marvelous advice, although I never doubted it.
"That way the cookies turn out better."
This woman was the smartest woman I had ever met. I felt like she had all the answers to life's problems. Being able to recite the multiplication tables and correctly spell any word I asked her made her brilliant to me.
Her soft, brown-green eyes focused on the flour mixture in the silver bowl. I stood on my tiptoes to study the cookie dough. More ingredients were soon added with careful precision: eggs, butter, vanilla, salt, and a pinch of cinnamon. Just thinking of how good it would taste made me smile. Quickly the raisins were added and they looked like black ants as they decorated the brown mixture. The electric mixture spun around the raisins and they collided with the oatmeal. I laughed to myself realizing that they looked more like people on an amusement park ride who desperately wanted to get off; so helpless to the will of the kitchen appliance.
Every time my mother baked oatmeal raisin cookies it made everything better. My childish worries were gone once I bit into one of them. I remember how she would let me lick the bowl once everything was done. Oh how the delicious smell of cinnamon and raisins wafted in the air as the cookies baked. Unfortunately, they seemed to take forever in our electric oven. Reflecting back, I never really noticed our kitchen until I got older. I now realize that it did not even matter as long as she was there.