Russian Tea Cakes -- The Cookies That Travel to Where He Needs to Be

Clay is at the VA. Inpatient. He checked in on Thursday, December 19th, five days after the garage. Sixty-day program for PTSD and substance abuse. He went voluntarily. He packed a bag and Connie drove him and I sat in the back seat because I couldn't drive and I couldn't sit in the front and I needed to be behind Clay where he couldn't see my face because my face was doing things I didn't want him to see.

At the VA, he checked in. Paperwork. Assessment. A room. A bed. A schedule that someone else controls. He's been in institutional care before — Basic Training, AIT, deployment — and the structure of it may help, the way the structure of the mines helped Earl: you do what the day demands and the demands fill the space where the thinking would go.

He hugged Connie at the door. He hugged me. He said "Sixty days." I said "Sixty days." He said "I'll be okay." I said "You already are." It's not true. He's not okay. He's alive, which is different from okay, and the difference between alive and okay is the sixty days that start now and the therapy that happens in those sixty days and the hope — the relentless, stupid, magnificent hope — that sixty days is enough time for a nineteen-year-old combat veteran to learn that the sound in his head is memory, not reality, and that the garage floor is a place and not a destination.

Christmas is in two days. The first Christmas without Clay since — well, last year he was deployed. The year before, he was home but about to leave. This year he's in the VA. Three Christmases. Three absences. The chair is empty again. The chair is always empty. The chair is the most permanent piece of furniture in this house.

I cooked. I cooked because the alternative is the dark kitchen and I chose light. I made soup beans on Monday because Monday is Monday. I made cornbread because cornbread takes fifteen minutes and fifteen minutes of doing is better than fifteen hours of nothing. I made Betty's sorghum cookies because Christmas demands sorghum cookies and because Clay isn't here to eat them and the cookies will go in a tin and the tin will go to the VA and the cookies will reach Clay because Betty's cookies travel — they traveled to Fort Benning, they traveled to Afghanistan, and they will damn sure travel across Lexington to a VA hospital where my son is learning to live without the rifle and with the help and the sorghum cookies will be there when he needs something that tastes like home.

I called Betty. I said "Clay is getting help." She said "Good." She said "The Lord has him." I said "The VA has him." She said "Same thing." Same thing. Same exchange we had when he deployed. Same faith from the same woman. The Lord and the VA and the sixty days and the sorghum cookies. That's the team. That's all we've got. It has to be enough.

Betty’s recipe is Betty’s, and I’m not giving that away. But the bones of what she makes — butter, flour, nuts, a snowdrift of powdered sugar — are the bones of a cookie that has been traveling to soldiers and sons and people who need a taste of home since long before Clay was born. Russian Tea Cakes are what you make when the point isn’t the eating right now; the point is the tin, and the tin getting somewhere, and the someone opening it and knowing that a kitchen was lit up for them on purpose. I made these because I chose light over the dark kitchen, and because a cookie that keeps for two weeks is a cookie that waits as long as it has to.

Russian Tea Cakes

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 48 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus more for rolling
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

Instructions

1. Heat the oven. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract.
3. Add dry ingredients. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour and salt, mixing just until combined. Fold in the finely chopped nuts with a spatula until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
4. Shape the cookies. Scoop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough and roll each portion between your palms into a smooth 1-inch ball. Place balls about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets.
5. Bake. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the bottoms are just barely golden and the tops look set but not browned. The cookies should remain pale.
6. First sugar coat. While the cookies are still warm (about 2 minutes out of the oven), roll them gently in powdered sugar. They will be delicate — handle with care. Set on a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Second sugar coat. Once fully cooled, roll each cookie in powdered sugar a second time for a thick, snowy coating that holds well and travels without sticking.
8. Pack for keeping. Layer cooled cookies in a tin between sheets of wax paper. Stored airtight at room temperature, they keep well for up to two weeks — long enough to get wherever they need to go.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 85 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 7g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 15mg