S’Mores Chocolate Chip Cookies -- The Fire Pit That Comes Back Every Year

Five hundred weeks of the journal. I noticed Sunday morning when I sat down to write. Five hundred. The number is not a number I expected to mark. The journal started in March 2016 as a kind of practice that my therapist after Danny's death had recommended — write what happens, don't editorialize, let the act of recording do the work of metabolizing the year. Five hundred weeks later the practice has become its own life.

Two hundred was a marker. Three hundred was a marker. Four hundred. Five hundred. The numbers are kept by the same person, on the same land, with the same wife and the same sister and the same brother and the same kids — though the kids have grown — and the same mother, holding. The continuity is the lesson the numbers teach.

I read back through some of the early entries. The voice in 2016 is different. Younger. More raw. More angry — Danny was three years dead and the anger was still close. I was thirty-eight. I was a pipeline welder. I had no land. The dream of the land was a dream I had not yet started saving for, in any case not seriously. I had two kids. I had Hannah. The journal was practice.

The voice now is the voice of a man with land and a different relationship to time. The pace of writing has slowed. The narrative has accumulated. The same trees come up year after year. The same wild onion gathering. The same Christmas tamales. The same fire pit on the same nights. The repetition is the texture and the meaning is in the repetition. I do not know how many more weeks I have to write. I know I will write the next one and the one after that and as long as I am able.

This week was wild onions and morels and the spring garden going in and Macy bringing Henry and Caleb visiting Macy in Tulsa and the cohort at week nine. The week was a normal week. Normal is the gift. The normal week of week five hundred is the gift that the journal has shown me, week by week, for eleven years.

When I wrote “the same fire pit on the same nights,” I had to stop and sit with that for a moment —because that fire pit is where a lot of the real talking happens, the kind that never quite makes it into the journal but lives underneath it. This week, with Caleb back from Tulsa and the spring garden finally in the ground, I wanted something for the fire that felt like the occasion without making too much of it. S’mores Chocolate Chip Cookies are exactly that: they carry the memory of every fire pit night in one bite, and they’re good enough to deserve five hundred weeks.

S’Mores Chocolate Chip Cookies

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

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs (from about 8 full crackers)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp 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
• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini marshmallows
• 4 full graham crackers, broken into rough 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 Hershey’s milk chocolate bar (1.55 oz), broken into small pieces (optional, for topping)

Instructions

1. Preheat & prep. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Scrape down the sides as needed.
4. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract. Mix until fully combined.
5. 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.
6. Fold in mix-ins. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, gently fold in the chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and graham cracker pieces. The dough will be thick.
7. Scoop the dough. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough (about 1 1/2 inches) onto prepared baking sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart. If using, press a small piece of Hershey’s chocolate onto the top of each dough ball.
8. Bake. Bake one sheet at a time on the center rack for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just golden and the centers look slightly underdone. The marshmallows will puff and brown lightly.
9. Cool on pan. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. The marshmallow will firm back up as they cool.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 21g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 102mg