Cookies were a big part of my life back home. My mom lives in the kitchen, venturing out rarely to buy ingredients, exercise, and talk with her friends about food. For imageries sake, I will tell you that she is a nice looking lady with a strong body. She has made the same cookie recipe for all the years of my life here on earth. Today I bought some oats, a bar of chocolate, and some salted butter in an attempt to spread the joyous love of my mother’s cookies to my family here in Florianópolis. They didn’t have vanilla extract at the supermercado, but in it’s defense, if I had been looking for bread or rice, I would have had a cornucopia of options.
Back at the crib, I set to work in an excited intentional manner. My soft white sweater was pushed back from my wrists and my hair was carefully pulled away from my face, which made me feel like a women in control. The television was playing Sangue Bom (Good Blood) one of the many television shows that is broadcast every weekday. My host mother, Vera, likes Amor a Vida (To Love the Life) most of all. I was being very neat, but I didn’t want to have to bother with converting measurements so I just dumped everything in and gave it a good stir. The mixture was significantly more yellow in color than I was used to, but that was the only main difference. Vera turned on the oven to bake a wonderful eggplanty cheese glob casserole and I stuck the butter balls in down below. The temperature proved to be prime cookie weather, and minutes later Vera and I were munching and feeling a sugar-butter joy. “Hooray” was the word in my mind. During dinner we talked about gardens and her views on past Brazilian presidents. I was happy to share cookies with this little mother of mine.
