The last time I ever saw my grandmother was on a hot, dry day in July. We filtered in and out of my aunt’s house, where she was tucked in a corner room. She looked healthy that day, watching a Red Sox game with a stuffed dog in her lap. Her feet poked through her thick quilt. A magnifying glass on her bedside table, next to a stale cup of water. I sat on the edge of her bed as we talked. I think of this day every time I make her old fashioned gingerbread cookies (bars) which are my dad’s favorite.
She named her dog after Mookie Betts, her favorite player. I listened and nodded patiently as she talked baseball. I glanced every now and then at the TV, a box on top of a dresser, but my focus was on her. Her spotted hands. Her thin grey hair. I can hear her voice still, vividly. I can see the way she nodded her head. We held hands for 20 minutes, calmly sitting with the white noise washing over us. Then, eventually I stood up slowly and told her I loved her. She said the same. When I walked down the hall, I started to follow my dad out the front door, and I glanced over my shoulder. At the end of the hallway, she turned her head and waved at me, smiling.
Memory and recipe cards
We’re at my aunt’s house. Her new house, with a huge back yard and a sliding door. She has leather chairs and a sleek silver kitchen. There’s a box of recipes, binders, and a few loose papers scattered across the dining table. So we take turns sifting through them.
“Do you remember her gingerbread bars? I don’t know what the secret was. It was lighter, or something.”
“Oh she had a bunch, so get looking” my aunt says with a wink. I flip through laminated cards, old sun-damaged paper, binders with half-empty pages. Scottish shortbread, old fashioned gingerbread cookies, whoopie pies. I take photos on my phone of her Lobster Stew, Apple Crumble, Italian Meat Sauce written in cursive blue. Biscuits. Missouri cookies. Baked beans. Donuts.
Then, I stop on a caramel-colored index card, etched with red and black pen. The ink is slightly water-stained, and the paper is spotted and yellowed with time. It says, “hard gingerbread bars.”
“Dad, does this look familiar?” I ask, holding the card up to him.
He studies it briefly, then his eyes begin to widen. He smirks and looks excitedly at me.
“Oh my god” he says, “that might be it”
Learning to be less hard on myself
It’s a lazy Sunday in summer. It’s been years since the pandemic started, but I’m on my childhood couch, mindlessly scrolling through social media. I’m dreaming of being an artist that people take seriously. I’m dreaming of moving out on my own again, cooking bolognese with expensive red wine at night with the lights dimmed. While Sinatra plays. Flying on planes and meeting fresh faces and walking cobblestone streets in Italy.
I come from a working class family. My grandparents raised 7 kids in the 60’s. They relied on SPAM, and pork scraps and potatoes to get by. My dad used to eat pilot crackers with milk for dinner. So, the biggest source of pride in my line of stubborn people has been working hard. You have to work hard for your money, because it doesn’t come easily. Because life is hard. Because have to do things you don’t enjoy.
The Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies Recipe
My goal in life is to break that cycle. I’m dreaming of a world in which I know the right people, or in which I get to be an overnight sensation. A first generation college student from a small little house in the middle of nowhere. A boy whose dad cut meat at the grocery store. But here I am, trying my damndest to force my success with unrealistic goals and exhausting expectations for myself. So, I just want to relax.
On good days I say to myself: “All in due time.” But have witnessed all my life how lacking money can hurt you. For a long time I’ve tried so hard that I wear myself out completely. So, I do what I do when I’m tired. I talk to my Dad. We talk about the future and regrets of the past. Old friends. Regrets about people we’ve let slip away. Family. I talk about the last time I saw Nana. We talk about food while he describes his childhood favorites. Papa’s biscuits. Shit on a shingle. Fried bologna.
“Wait, I just realized we never made her gingerbread bars.”
“Oh yeah” he says. “What’d you do with the recipe?”
I find it quickly and I read the ingredients to him. Then, I see him nodding his head excitedly.
“Was it more like a bar than a cake?” I ask.
“Yes!” he says, “Oh my god, I just remembered. She used to cook it in a glass baking dish, and she would sprinkle sugar on top. It would get all crunchy when it baked.”
“It says sprinkle sugar on top!” I nearly scream.
“Oh my god – that’s it. That’s the recipe.”
Reviving a family recipe
Within minutes we were in the kitchen, measuring and mixing. Normally he would stay far away, but he stood in front of the counter stoutly while I read the recipe to him.
“Pat out in pan 12 x 18. It doesn’t say what order.”
So, I did my best to guess. First, I worked the shortening into a giant bowl of flour and sugar and added the spice and baking soda and salt. Then, I mixed the molasses and the water, incorporating it into the flour until it became a thick cookie consistency. All while my dad eyed excitedly.
I pressed the dough into a greased glass pan and dimpled it like a pianist until it was like polka-dotted play dough.
Then, I sprinkled sugar over the top and then it goes into the oven. I set a kitchen timer and we sat in the living room impatiently while it baked.
“Oh my god, I can smell it” my dad says. “It’s perfect, that’s exactly what it should be.”
The Magic of Old Recipes
I study his face, a post heart enlarging grinch-like smugness I’ve never seen. Pure childlike joy.
After the timer goes off I pull the heavy-as-led baking dish from the oven and clunk it down on our old wooden cutting block. The smell fills the house and it feels like Christmas, even with the air conditioner humming. He nearly sprints into the kitchen, and I slice him a corner. Finally, we sit and look at the old fashioned gingerbread cookies like lions with a mouse. He stabs one with his fork and raises it up to his mouth as his eyes widen.
Then, his face contorts and melts into something unforgettable. It almost scares me at first, how my father in his 60’s can replace his maturity with a boyish spirt so quickly. There are more mutterings of amazement and disbelief, and I swear I can see tears forming in the corners of his eyes. After years, he finally got to taste his mom’s cooking again.
“That’s it” he says quietly, “that’s it.”
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Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 5 cups AP flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 3/4 cup molasses
- 3/4 cup water
- 2 tsp baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F . Measure out flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon into a large bowl.
- Add shortening and work in with a fork until it resembles coarse sand.
- In a separate heat-proof bowl, heat water until nearly boiling and add the molasses.
- Add baking soda to the molasses and stir as it bubbles.
- Pour wet ingredients into flour and mix to combine.
- Grease a 12 x 18” glass baking dish and press dough into pan.
- Mark the top of the dough with a fork, then sprinkle extra sugar over it.
- Bake for 30 – 35 minutes until cooked through in the middle.
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