Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies

Reynaldo's death anniversary. February. Fifteen years. The number is a decade and a half. The number is a significant fraction of my life — I've been fatherless for almost half my years now, the math approaching the crossing point where the years without him exceed the years with him. The crossing hasn't happened yet. The crossing is coming. The coming is a math I track with the precision of a nurse reading vitals: the trend, the trajectory, the inevitable meeting of the two lines on the graph of my life.

Lourdes and I at the Mountain View kitchen. The salmon sinigang. The ritual. Mia was there — one year old, walking now, the walking carrying her into the kitchen where the steam rose and the tamarind soured and the baby absorbed the smells and the sounds and the particular Santos atmosphere of memorial-through-cooking. She'll remember this. Not consciously — she's one — but the body remembers. The body stores the garlic and the tamarind in its cells, the cellular memory of a kitchen that holds the dead and the living with equal warmth.

Lourdes set three places: Reynaldo's (fork, spoon, water), mine, hers. And Mia's tiny bowl. The table: the ghost, the grandmother, the granddaughter, the mother. Four generations if you count the absent. I count the absent. The absent is always counted at this table. The counting is the memorial.

One more squeeze. Fifteen years. The squeeze hasn't weakened. The squeeze is the same. The man is gone but the tamarind remains and the squeezing remains and the love that is the squeezing remains. One more. For Papa. For fifteen. For the half-life that is approaching and that I will survive because Santos women survive everything, including the math that says: you are now closer to his absence than to his presence.

After the sinigang, after the three places set and the tamarind still fragrant in the kitchen, Lourdes brought out a tin of these — Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies her neighbor had left that week, and somehow they were exactly right: small, dark, warm with clove and cinnamon, the kind of thing you eat standing up at the counter while the baby pulls at your sleeve and the grief sits quietly in the corner where it lives. I’ve made them myself since, always in February, always after the sinigang, because the ritual needed one more thing — something sweet enough to say: we are still here, we are still feeding each other, and that is enough.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped dark chocolate or mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup powdered sugar, for rolling

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, black pepper, and salt until evenly combined.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add wet ingredients. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the milk and vanilla extract until fully incorporated.
Combine. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the dry ingredient mixture, mixing just until a soft dough forms. Fold in the chopped dark chocolate by hand.
Chill the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes to firm the dough slightly and make it easier to handle.
Shape and coat. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough and roll each portion into a ball. Roll each ball in powdered sugar to coat generously, then place on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
Bake. Bake for 11–13 minutes, until the cookies are set on the edges and crinkled on top. The centers will look slightly underdone — that is correct; they firm as they cool.
Cool. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Dust with additional powdered sugar if desired before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Italian Chocolate Spice Cookies — Something Sweet After the Sinigang