A Godmother's Favorite Cookies.

John Michael had the greatest book in the world called The Cookie Bible given to him by his godmother who had passed away awhile ago. It was chock full of the most amazing dessert recipes, hundreds of them, pages of them, every colorful photo depicting what the masterpiece product should expect to look like once the recipe was executed perfectly. We've both gone through the entire book several times, bookmarking our favorite ones in red post-its or bookmarking "gotta try this one" in blue post-its. We've been baking regularly since December and we aren't even close to being a quarter of the way done. John Michael is my close gay friend up here in Santa Cruz (as my gay best friend is in Orange County) and this is how we bond...over baking cookies.

His favorite thing to make were peanut butter sugar cookies with Hershey Kisses in the middle. I've documented the recipe up here quite a few times, the first time when I made them with JM and the second time me trying it all on my own during Christmas. Whenever I make them at home now, they remind me of John Michael.

The Peanut butter blossoms were his favorite to make simply because it was his dying godmother's favorite thing to bake as well. She left us such an amazing gift, and the baking talent in her godson. He baked these any time he felt nostalgic and sentimental for his godmother. He told me any time he missed her, he'd bake 3 dozen or so of these, and it was his way of coping with such a terrible loss. It was his therapy. These Peanut Butter Blossoms were his therapy sessions. Whenever he told me to come over to bake cookies and he went straight for this recipe, I knew that he missed his godmother the most.

John Michael came over to our house yesterday afternoon to relax, have some fun, and celebrate the end of finals and the beginning of spring break. I asked him if he wanted to bake again because we haven't during finals week (we were both up in our necks studying so much.) He replied with the affirmative and we decided to go to his house at 6PM to bake. While we were relaxing and watching the Office on TV, his phone abruptly rang loudly. He grabbed his phone and went outside on the balcony for about half an hour. I'd forgotten that he had left (because he was gone for so long) to the point where I thought he went home to his house on Seaborg Ave.

Half an hour later, he came back into the house. He looked troubled.

"Hey Gina, are you ready to go? We can get started on the baking now."
"Sure," I told JM. "Let me grab my jacket and keys, then we can go."
"Okay sweet."

When we were driving to his house, he was telling me how he at the last minute decided to go home in Oakland for Spring Break rather than staying here in Santa Cruz as he was planning before.

"Why?! Why JM?" I asked.
"I just have to go home. I have a lot of things I need to do," he replied.

We got to his house and JM wasted no time getting all the dry ingredients, measuring cups/spoons, mixers, and bowls ready. He no longer looked sad, but had a rather determined look in his face. He asked me to grab the Cookie Bible from his room. I ran and got it.

As I handed it to him, he flipped it open to the exact page of the Peanut Butter Sugar Cookies with Kisses on top. He didn't even need a bookmark anymore; the familiar page was already set in his mind. He didn't need to rifle through the book to find it. He began quietly prepping the batter.

"JM?" I asked timidly. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's fine," he answered. "I really want to make these right now, and some brownies."
"Okay," I said, as I got the other batter ready for the brownies.

We worked for a few minutes in silence. Feverishly, quickly.

"My godmother's sister has cancer," JM finally said, breaking the silence.

So that's why he wanted to go home.

"I'm sorry, JM," I said. I didn't know what else to say. I felt awful but I finally understood why he was so set on baking again. His mother had called him while he was at our house to break the bad news. That was when he decided to go home for spring break, to see his godmother's sister and to spend time with his family.

"It's okay," he replied. "I just want to thank you for coming over. I really needed this."


The cookies turned out amazing...probably the best that they ever turned out.