Dad's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Still in Bayamón, the second half of the trip, the days that are harder because they contain the cemetery and the leaving. On Monday I went to the Cementerio Municipal and stood at Papi's grave — Miguel Delgado, 1942-2010, a man who loved his children with theatrical intensity and drank rum until his liver surrendered and who I loved and saw clearly, both things true, both things permanent. I stood there and said, Papi, Rosa got married. Your granddaughter married a good man. A social worker from the Bronx. He eats my food. You would have liked him. You would have told everyone at the bar about Rosa's wedding. I miss your loudness, Papi. I got my loudness from you.

Abuela Consuelo is next to him — Consuelo Rosa Ortiz, the woman who taught Mami who taught me, the original kitchen, the source code. I said, Abuela, I am still making the pasteles. I am still making the sofrito. I am still making the arroz con dulce, the three-hour recipe, the one that requires constant stirring. I told her about David — about James — and I said, Abuela, your great-grandson is in love with a man from Queens who eats everything and whose name is James and you would have fed him three plates and called him mijo and that would have been that, because love is love and food is food and you knew both.

The flight home was Wednesday evening. I sat in the window seat and watched Puerto Rico shrink below me — the green, the coastline, the reef, the clouds — and felt the homesickness reassemble itself in my chest, piece by piece, the way it does every time I leave, every year, the compression of distance that turns the island from a place into a memory and the memory into an ache. Hartford was eight degrees when I landed. Eduardo was at the airport. The car was warm. He had made coffee. He said, How was it? I said, It was home. He said, This is home too. I said, I know. Both things are true.

Mami was worse when I got back. Sofía said she had asked for me every day — Carmen, where is Carmen — and Sofía said, She's in Puerto Rico, Abuela, and Mami said, Why didn't she take me. Why didn't she take me. I heard this and sat in my kitchen and wept into a dishtowel because the answer is: because you are eighty-two and in a wheelchair and the trip would break you. And the other answer is: I should have taken you. And the third answer is: there is no right answer when your mother is leaving and the island is leaving and everything is leaving except the food.

I came home from Bayamón on a Wednesday night into eight-degree Hartford, and by Thursday morning I was standing in my kitchen with flour on the counter because that is what I do when the grief is too large to sit with quietly. The story I told at Papi’s grave is not a recipe, but the feeling after — the need to make something with your hands, to leave something warm on a plate for the people who are still here — that is exactly a recipe. These are called Dad’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, and that name alone was enough. Papi would have eaten four in a row and told everyone at the bar about them.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat. Heat your oven to 375°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, and salt. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract. Mix until fully combined and smooth.
Incorporate the flour. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in two additions, mixing just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Fold in the chocolate chips. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Portion the dough. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. You should get roughly 12 cookies per sheet.
Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are set and golden but the centers still look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool.
Cool. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Eat one warm. Leave a plate out.

Nutrition (per serving)

Dad's Chocolate Chip Cookies — Because Everything Is Leaving Except the Food