Cherry Bars —rsquo; A Simple Sweet for the Week Charlie Turned 27

September 2019. The cold has settled into Memphis the way grief settles into a family — not violently, but persistently, a presence that changes the texture of every day. I am 60 and still walking my mail route through Midtown Memphis, and the week was a winter week, which means the cooking was warmer, the house was smaller, and the people I love were closer.

The week\'s main current was charlie turns 27. Charlie called from Nashville, and David was there — I could hear him in the background, his voice now as familiar as the other voices that fill my phone calls. They are becoming something permanent, the two of them, and the permanence is visible in the casual way they mention each other, the way \'Charlie and David\' has become a single phrase in the family vocabulary, the way \'Rosetta and Earl\' is a single phrase in mine.

I didn\'t cook this week. Not a real cook, not a smoker cook, just the basic sustenance of leftovers and Rosetta\'s weeknight meals — the baked fish, the grilled chicken, the vegetables that she serves with the quiet insistence of a nurse who has spent her career telling people to eat better and who applies the same prescription at home. Some weeks the smoker rests. Some weeks the pitmaster rests. The resting is part of the rhythm, the way a rest in music is part of the song — silent, but present, holding space for what comes next.

The evening settled over Memphis the way evenings do — slowly, with the particular gentleness of a Southern dusk that takes its time, that doesn\'t rush the light out of the sky but lets it linger, lets it say goodbye properly, the way a man should say goodbye to a day that was good to him. I was on the porch with Rosetta, and we weren\'t talking, and the not-talking was the truest conversation we had all week, because after all these years, the silence between us is not empty — it\'s full of everything we\'ve already said, and everything we don\'t need to say, and the love that exists beyond words, in the space between two chairs on a porch in Orange Mound.

Charlie turning 27 deserved something sweet, even if the week didn’t call for a full cook. Rosetta handles the sustenance — the fish, the chicken, the vegetables — and I’ll handle something small and celebratory, something I can slide into the oven without a production. Cherry bars are exactly that: unfussy, cheerful, the kind of thing you’d cut into squares and set on the counter for no reason other than that someone you love had a birthday and the least you can do is put something sweet in the house to mark it.

Cherry Bars

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 24 bars

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (for glaze)
• 2–3 tablespoons milk

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 15x10x1-inch baking pan (a jelly roll pan) with butter or nonstick spray.
2. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3–4 minutes.
3. Add eggs and extracts. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract until combined.
4. Mix in dry ingredients. Stir in flour and salt until a soft dough forms. It will be thick — that’s right.
5. Spread the base. Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of the dough. Spread the remaining dough evenly across the prepared pan, pressing it to the edges.
6. Add the filling. Spread the cherry pie filling evenly over the dough layer.
7. Top with reserved dough. Drop the reserved dough by small spoonfuls over the cherry filling. It won’t cover everything completely — that’s the look.
8. Bake. Bake 30–35 minutes, until the top is lightly golden and the edges are set. Let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
9. Make the glaze. Whisk together powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and enough milk to reach a drizzling consistency.
10. Glaze and cut. Drizzle glaze over the cooled bars, let it set for 10 minutes, then cut into 24 bars and serve.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 230 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 35g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 110mg