Well, I come from families which are not always so great about saying what they mean and are better at doing, and in doing, they are saying how much they love you in their own love language. The most formative women in my life have valued feeding their families, either in by being careful about focusing on health, by putting effort into expanding their palates, or, in many cases, in baking their love into special occasion food with tired flour covered hands.

My Mamma’s Mamma, My Grandma , was her own expert cookie baker. In my earliest memories with this Grandma, of barbecues, of holidays, reunions, of vacations, of birthdays and even of funerals, big Tupperware containers of cookies featured prominently. A nurse for her entire working life, I am not sure exactly when she had time to make these mountains of. cookies but she did . She had an amazing collection of appliqué holiday sweatshirts and novelty earrings, and she was comfort personified. For the old people (I say old affectionately but I should more appropriately say elderly people) she cared for as nurse, I am sure she was the same. Some people can sit in a room with you and just by their presence, you suddenly feel flooded with a feeling everything might just be ok, after all. She accepted all people with a calm world weary understanding of people and she saw the best in everybody. She was this font of calm acceptance for me and on every holiday since she passed, I have missed her in way which some might deny because I don’t often speak of her. I miss her in a way I feel like other people might not necessarily deserve to know about because it seems like a deep pain I honor by keeping it private and celebrating her memory in how I live my life. Sometimes the losses we don’t speak about often are the losses we feel most deeply. My sibling, when she had her chance to ask for a piece of her jewelry asked for her holiday costume jewelry and since I don’t have the jewelry I chose, when I see Maura wear these earrings, on of course the appropriate holiday, it makes me smile in a private way because I feel like we might be, despite the mess, be doing her proud. My grandma was dignified and kind and hardworking and the best private parts of me, the parts of it were up to me I would share only with people who love me in an unselfish way and little children, are the best parts of her. She went to college, she had her own bank accounts, she knew very profound losses. but none of those things intefered with her sitting at her kitchen table coloring with her grandchildren in a way which, for most of my young childhood, made me believe she actually liked coloring books as much as she liked fishing and her dog. I made these cookies which I so profoundly associate with her because I miss her so much this year with all this ugliness and I made them because I think, in this, I am in such good company. We all miss people and we don’t always miss the people who are also missing the people we miss, but this holiday, I think many of us are digging deep into our roots to find meaning in what seems like senseless losses this year.

This recipe is my perfect marriage of two recipes - The NY Times Peanut Butter Blossom recipe and another recipe of another recipe blogger which adds some holiday whimsy to this crowd pleasing favorite. . The base is The NY Times recipe, and the vision is motivated by the other recipe. I decorated them in a few ways, in preparation for Thanksgiving and I did try chocolate chips as eyeballs, but making things this way seemed to make the cookies hard to transport. Traditional peanut butter blossoms have a Hershey kiss and the key to making them well is to slightly under cook them, and walking the perfect balance of timing, to know when you put your kisses in. I learned from The NY Times their recipe came from Pittsburgh with its tradition of cookie tables at weddings. This is fitting because I associate these cookies with my grandparents’ Pennsylvania, and if I had been married when my grandma was alive, she would have brought the traditional version as her contribution. In peanut butter blossoms and life, the key is to make your kisses count.. and to time them perfectly. This recipe uses Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (miniatures) and having made the original version before and having watched my Mamma make them so many times she could make them with her eyes closed, I have honed my ability to zero in on the perfect chocolate placing moment. Decorating is the fun part and it would be fun to do with children after the chocolate has set, which, fair warning, takes almost 6 hours at least. I want to publish this tonight and I injured my finger today cooking, so I am simplifying as much as I can by cutting and pasting from The NY Times and giving them credit for their copy. Complete disclosure, I will be editing later this week but I cannot publish a recipe with Turkey cookies, the day after it might actually be relevant…I mean, when else are Turkey Cookies relevant…except today?

INGREDIENTS

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 ounces (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
½ cup smooth peanut butter (or other creamy nut butter)
½ cup granulated sugar, plus more for rolling
½ cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon milk, half-and-half, oat milk or nut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Nonstick spray or vegetable oil for cookie sheet (optional)
5 dozen (one 11-ounce package) Hershey’s Kisses, foil removed
Can (or 2) of buttercream store-bought frosting
tsp (or 2) creamy peanut butter
either white chocolate chips or eyeball sprinkles…

Plan of Attack

“Sift together flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. Leave your butter out until it is room temperature. Cream together butter, peanut butter, 1/2 cup granulated sugar and light brown sugar. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat until well blended. “ NY Times, Peanut Butter Blossoms

Add flour mixture, mixing thoroughly. If the dough is very soft, refrigerate for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 373 Degrees