Homemade Fortune Cookies

The solar eclipse happened this week. Oregon was in the path of totality and Portland went to about ninety-eight percent, which meant the sky went eerie and dim and the birds went quiet and the temperature dropped ten degrees in five minutes and I stood on the apartment balcony with eclipse glasses and Miya in my arms and watched the moon eat the sun. Miya, being seventeen months old, was unimpressed. She tried to eat the eclipse glasses. But I watched, and the darkness at midday felt like something — a reminder that the universe is vast and strange and operates on a scale that has nothing to do with my anxiety about Brian's beer consumption or my essay submissions or whether Miya is eating enough vegetables. The eclipse said: you are very small. Your problems are very small. This felt liberating rather than diminishing.

I made tsukimi dango after the eclipse — moon-viewing rice dumplings, the traditional sweet for tsukimi, the Japanese autumn moon-viewing festival. It is not autumn yet, and this was a solar eclipse, not a moon viewing, but the dumplings felt appropriate — small round mochi balls stacked in a pyramid, plain white, meant to be eaten while looking at the sky. I offered them to the neighborhood children who had gathered on the sidewalk to watch the eclipse, and they ate them with the uncritical enthusiasm of children who will eat anything round and slightly sweet. The mochi bridged cultures without effort, the way food always does, the way my cooking always tries to.

Brian watched the eclipse with a beer in his hand. This is not a metaphor. It is a fact. He watches everything with a beer in his hand. I am noting. I am noting the way an inspector notes — with precision, without judgment, with the growing certainty that the data tells a story and the story is not the one I want.

A rejection letter arrived from one of the magazines. Expected, absorbed, filed. Two still pending. The eclipse taught me scale. A rejection letter is not the moon eating the sun. It is a piece of paper. It is the smallest possible event in the smallest possible universe. I am putting it in perspective. I am failing at putting it in perspective. But I am trying, and trying counts. Trying always counts.

The tsukimi dango disappeared fast — children are efficient that way — and I found myself wanting to keep the ritual going a little longer, to stay in that strange, sky-watching mood the eclipse had opened up in me. Homemade fortune cookies felt like the right continuation: small, handmade, folded around a message, the whole premise built on the idea that meaning can arrive in the smallest packages. After a day that reordered my sense of scale, writing out little paper fortunes and tucking them into warm, fragile shells felt like exactly the right kind of quiet, careful work.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 14 cookies

Ingredients

2 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons water
14 small paper fortune strips, written in advance

Instructions

Prepare fortunes and oven. Write your fortunes on small strips of paper (about 3 1/2 inches long, 1/2 inch wide) and set aside. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper lightly greased with cooking spray.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg whites, vanilla extract, almond extract, and vegetable oil until frothy but not stiff — about 30 seconds by hand.
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and sugar. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture along with the water. Stir until you have a smooth, thin batter with no lumps.
Spread the circles. Drop 1 tablespoon of batter onto your prepared baking sheet and use the back of a spoon to spread it into a thin circle about 3 inches in diameter. Bake only 2 to 3 cookies at a time so you have enough time to shape them before they cool. Repeat with remaining batter, leaving 2 inches between circles.
Bake until golden. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes, until the edges are light golden brown and the centers look set. Watch closely — they go from done to overdone quickly.
Shape immediately. Working very quickly while the cookies are still hot and pliable, use a spatula to lift one cookie off the pan. Place a fortune strip across the center. Fold the cookie in half over the fortune to form a half-moon shape, pressing gently at the top. Then bend the folded edge down over the rim of a small bowl or mug to create the classic fortune cookie curve. Hold for 10 seconds until it sets.
Cool in a muffin tin. Nestle each shaped cookie into the cup of a muffin tin to hold its shape while it hardens, about 5 minutes. Repeat with remaining cookies, working one or two at a time. Cookies harden fast — if one becomes too stiff to fold, return it to the oven for 30 seconds to soften.
Store. Once fully cooled and crisp, store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Homemade Fortune Cookies — Small Signs in a Vast Universe