Chewy Sugar Sprinkles Cookies

The right knee is talking. Not screaming — not yet — but talking. The way the left knee talked before the surgery, the way knees talk when they've been carrying a seventy-three-year-old woman for seven decades and they're starting to file their complaints in a language that cannot be ignored. Stiffness in the morning. Ache on the stairs. A click when I kneel in the garden that sounds like a disapproval more than a medical issue, like the knee is saying, "Again? We're doing this again?"

Yes, knee. We're doing this again. Because the garden needs planting and the stove needs standing and the babies need holding and the Lowcountry boil needs attending and none of those things can be done from a chair. Not yet. Not while there are tomatoes to plant and shrimp to fry and a cast iron skillet that weighs four pounds and requires two hands and two working legs to manage properly.

I haven't told Kayla. Kayla will mobilize. Kayla will schedule appointments and create plans and deploy the nurse-granddaughter-general face that I taught her and that she has been using against me since the left knee. I will tell her. Just not yet. Let me have one more season. One more garden. One more summer of standing at the stove without the conversation about the second knee, which is a conversation I already know the answer to because I had the first knee done and I know what comes next: the surgery, the walker, the cane, the physical therapy, the months of sitting while other people cook in my kitchen. I know the script. I don't want to read it yet.

The watermelon seeds are in the drawer. Fourth generation saved. Fifth generation waiting for March. The garden is sleeping. The collard greens are wintering. And my right knee is talking. Everything in this life has a season, and the season of the right knee is approaching, and I will meet it the way I meet everything: grudgingly, stubbornly, with a pot of greens on the stove and a prayer that the titanium holds on the other side.

Made chicken soup tonight. The comfort soup. The thinking soup. The soup you make when your body is sending messages and your heart is pretending not to read them.

Now go on and feed somebody.

The soup simmered itself down while I stood at the counter, and somewhere in that quiet I pulled out the sprinkles — the jimmies, not the nonpareils, because the nonpareils bleed — and started on a batch of these. Kayla doesn’t know about the knee yet, but she’ll be here Sunday, and when she is, I want something colorful on the table before we have the conversation I’m still working up to. You can say hard things easier when there’s something sweet nearby. That’s not wisdom, exactly. It’s just what I’ve learned in seventy-three years of talking to people I love.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 28 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, plus 1/4 cup for rolling
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup rainbow jimmies (not nonpareils — they bleed)

Instructions

Heat the oven. Preheat to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes. Don’t rush this step — the air you build here is what makes them chewy.
Add the eggs and vanilla. Beat in the whole egg and egg yolk one at a time, then add the vanilla extract. Mix until fully combined and smooth.
Bring it together. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in two additions, mixing until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in the rainbow jimmies by hand with a spatula.
Roll and coat. Pour the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar into a shallow bowl. Scoop the dough into 1 1/2-inch balls (about 1 heaping tablespoon each), roll each ball in the sugar until coated, and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
Bake. Bake one sheet at a time on the center rack for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers still look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool — pull them before you think they’re ready.
Cool on the pan. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They need that time to set their chew.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chewy Sugar Sprinkles Cookies — Something Sweet to Make Before the Hard Conversations