Something terrible happened at Camp Pendleton this week.
A training accident. A Marine killed. Ryan's best friend from boot camp. Torres.
TORRES. The man who helped Ryan pick out the proposal blazer. The man who sent messages through Ryan asking for my cookie recipe. The man who was at our wedding, who was Ryan's bunkmate in Okinawa, who once FaceTimed me at 2 AM to tell me a bad joke because he knew I was alone during the deployment and alone at 2 AM is the hardest kind of alone.
Torres. Dead. A training accident at Pendleton. Thursday morning.
Ryan came home Thursday night and didn't speak. He walked through the door and his eyes — his eyes looked like Dad's eyes after Kandahar. The same distance. The same unreachable place. The look that says: something has gone somewhere I can't follow.
I didn't push. I knew not to push. I knew from watching Mom. You don't push. You cook.
I made pot roast. Mom's pot roast. The heavy, warm, grounding food that Mom made when Dad came home from deployment with different eyes. The food that says: I'm here. You're home. Take your time.
I made cornbread. I made mashed potatoes. I put the food on the table and I sat with Ryan while he ate. He ate slowly. He ate the way Dad ate after Kandahar — mechanically, without tasting, because his body needed fuel even though his mind was somewhere else.
Caleb knew something was wrong. He was quiet at dinner — quiet the way he's quiet at Memorial Day ceremonies, the reverence gene activated. Hazel was oblivious, eating mashed potatoes with her hands, which was the only normal thing in the room.
Ryan didn't talk for two days. On Saturday, sitting on the couch at midnight, he said: 'Torres is dead.'
'I know.'
'He was right there. On the range. And then he wasn't.'
'I know.'
'I don't know what to do with this, Rachel.'
'You don't have to do anything with it right now. You just have to eat and sleep and let me be here.'
He looked at me. The Marine facade cracked. The boy was underneath — the boy from Ohio who met Torres at boot camp and loved him like a brother.
'Torres loved your cookies,' he said.
'I know. I'll make them. Tomorrow. For the memorial.'
I made the cookies Sunday. Mom's browned-butter chocolate chip. A batch for the memorial service. A batch for Torres's family. A batch for Ryan.
The cookies are not enough. Nothing is enough. But you put them on a plate and you show up and you feed the grieving because that's what you know how to do.
For Torres. For Ryan. For the look in his eyes that I recognized from my father's kitchen.
The pot roast. The cookies. The sitting.
Mom called. She knew before I told her — she heard it in my voice. 'Make the pot roast,' she said.
'I already did, Mom.'
'Good girl.'
The hardest week. The worst week. The week that the war came home without a deployment.
Dinner at 1800. Even this week. Especially this week.
I told Ryan I’d make the cookies Sunday, and I kept that promise. Torres had been asking for my cookie recipe for two years — always through Ryan, always with that grin Ryan described — so when I stood in my kitchen that morning with nowhere to put the grief, I baked. These Bananas Foster Cookies aren’t Mom’s exact recipe, but they’re warm and rich and they fill a house with the kind of smell that says someone here loves you, and that felt right. I made three batches: one for the memorial, one for Torres’s family, one for Ryan — because some things you do not because they’re enough, but because they’re what you know how to do.
Bananas Foster Cookies
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 36 cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon rum extract (or 1 tablespoon dark rum)
- 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
Instructions
- Brown the butter. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter, swirling occasionally, until it turns golden amber and smells nutty, about 5–6 minutes. Pour into a large mixing bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.
- Mix wet ingredients. Whisk both sugars into the browned butter until combined. Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and rum extract, whisking until smooth and slightly glossy. Fold in the mashed bananas.
- Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
- Form the dough. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts if using. The dough will be soft. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto prepared sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake 10–12 minutes, until edges are set and centers look just underdone. Do not overbake.
- Cool. Let cookies rest on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They firm up as they cool.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 118 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 72mg
About the cook who shared this
Rachel Abernathy
Week 358 of Rachel’s 30-year story
· San Diego, California
Rachel is a twenty-eight-year-old Marine wife and mom of two who has moved five times in six years and learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with half her cookware still in boxes. She married young, survived postpartum depression, and feeds her family of four on a junior Marine's salary with a freezer full of pre-made meals and a crockpot that has never let her down. She writes for the military spouses who are cooking dinner alone in base housing and wondering if they're enough. You are.
