M&M Cookies (Soft Santa Cookies)

Break-up week. The streets full of slush. The dogs all muddy. Three twelve-hour shifts this week. The body holding.

Lourdes is 75. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one.

I made adobo Sunday. The recipe is the recipe. The recipe is the constant.

The blog post this week was about kitchen rituals at Anchorage latitudes. It got six hundred comments.

The week was ordinary. The ordinary is the point now. The ordinary is the keeping.

I made tea late at night. The tea was the small comfort. The comfort was the marker.

I took inventory of the freezer Sunday. The freezer had: twelve quarts of broth, eight pounds of adobo in vacuum bags, six pounds of sinigang base, fourteen lumpia trays at fifty rolls each, three pounds of marinated beef for caldereta, and a small bag of pandan leaves Tita Nening had sent me. The inventory was the proof of preparation. The preparation was the proof of love.

The light was good Saturday morning. I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched the inlet for forty minutes. The watching was the small therapy. The therapy was free.

A blog reader sent me a photograph of her grandmother's wooden mortar and pestle, used since 1962. The photograph was holy. I wrote her back. The writing back is the work.

The break room had cake Tuesday. Someone's birthday. We ate the cake. We did not ask whose birthday. The cake was the cake.

Pete and I had a long phone conversation Tuesday. We talked about the family — his and mine. The talking was the keeping.

I taught a Saturday morning Kain Na class on basic adobo proportions for new cooks. Eleven people in the kitchen. Half of them had never cooked Filipino food before. By eleven AM the kitchen smelled the way it should smell. By noon they were all eating. The eating was the lesson landing.

The grocery store had no calamansi. I substituted lime. The substitution was acceptable. The acceptable is the working version of perfect.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced a fundraiser for typhoon relief in Samar. I committed to making three hundred lumpia. The number is the number. The number has always been the number. Three hundred is what I make. The math has stopped surprising me.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

Auntie Norma called Sunday afternoon. She is now seventy-nine. She wanted a recipe. I gave it to her. She wanted to know how my week was. I told her, briefly. She told me about her week. The exchange took eighteen minutes. The eighteen minutes was the keeping.

Angela texted me a photo of the kids. I texted back a heart. The exchange took thirty seconds. The thirty seconds was the keeping.

I read a chapter of a novel before bed each night this week. The novel was about a Filipina nurse in California. The novel was good. The novel was, in some way, my own life adjacent.

The salmon in the freezer is from August. Joseph's catch. The bag is labeled in his handwriting — "for Grace." I will use it next week.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced the Saturday gathering. I will be on lumpia duty. I am always on lumpia duty.

I had a long phone call with Dr. Reeves on Wednesday. We talked about pacing and rest and the way the body keeps a log of what it has carried. Dr. Reeves said, "Grace. The body remembers. The mind forgets. The cooking is the bridge." I wrote the line down. The line is now on a sticky note above the kitchen sink.

The break room cake on Tuesday asked nothing of us — no name, no occasion, just sweetness in the middle of a long week, and we ate it. That moment stayed with me, the way ordinary comfort lands harder when the body is tired and the week has been full. These Soft Santa M&M Cookies carry that same energy: bright, undemanding, made to be set down in front of people without ceremony. I baked a batch Friday night after my shift, and I thought about Auntie Norma and Angela and the eleven people in the Saturday kitchen — how feeding people is always, underneath it all, the keeping.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 11 min | Total Time: 26 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups M&M candies, divided (reserve 1/2 cup for topping)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). 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 light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract until fully combined.
Combine wet and dry. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Fold in M&Ms. Using a rubber spatula, fold in 1 cup of the M&M candies evenly throughout the dough.
Portion the dough. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Press 4–5 of the reserved M&Ms onto the top of each dough ball.
Bake. Bake for 9–11 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool.
Cool. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Nutrition (per serving)

M&M Cookies (Soft Santa Cookies) — The Cake Was the Cake, and the Cookie Is the Cookie