Have a cookie (or How friendships are like chocolate chip cookies)

If I start with one, it’s at least five.  Maybe six.  Best dipped in milk.  I figure I’ll exercise in the morning.  I have lots of experience with cookies, mostly chocolate chip cookies.  I remember making some for a friend long ago as she and her family were pulling away in a moving van heading to their first job out of medical school.  We were all poor.  All I knew to do, and all I could afford to do, was bake and write.  So as I made her cookies, I thought about our friendship and how similar it was to the cookies in the oven.  I know, who thinks to write an ode to a friend over a cookie?  It’s weird when you have a passion for writing: anything becomes fodder for an essay or opinion piece.  But I sent my sentiments along with the bag of cookies.

I thought about how the bulk of a cookie is flour.  To me, this is simply the basis of a friendship: experiences, conversations, shared opinions, working together.  It is the foundation.  We had spent hours together on the playground with our kids, on walks, in each others’ homes over the years.  We had created a friendship simply by spending time together.

Butter is the indulgent ingredient in my recipe book.  I shy away from heavily buttered toast and avoid putting it in my oatmeal like my husband does.  But hide it in a cookie, and I don’t care how many cubes you’ve added.  These are the lunch get-togethers in the middle of the week, the times you talk and talk until you can’t believe you’ve ignored the kids this long or that school is already out or it’s past midnight.  You’re just in the moment, indulging in good conversation, completely losing track of time.  Just savoring the moment.  But you’ve tried the low-fat cookie versions.  They’re nasty.  What kind of friendship would it be without these indulgent times?  Dry.  Leaving you longing for something better.

Sugar can be thought of as the underlying sweetness of a friendship.  You wouldn’t be in a friendship without this ingredient.  You’d be acquaintances or co-workers or “a lady at school” or “someone I know.”  This is one of the key ingredients and differences between a cookie and a biscuit.  Your friendship is under-girded by common courtesies, give and take, at times providing service and other times being the recipient.  It’s just being nice, upbeat, a positive source of comfort and kindness for another.  A sweet confidant.

Eggs bind the whole thing together.  Usually friendships start because you have something in common; you meet somewhere where similar interests are expressed whether at a mom’s group, a game, a PTA meeting, church, a charitable event, whatever.  Maybe you just live in the same neighborhood or your kids go to the same school or you’re both new to the area.  These things bind you.  Some neighbors become close friends—you have a vested interest in where you live, you watch out for each other, your homes become your kids’ other homes, you become “aunts” of a sort to the other neighborhood kids.  These situations and common interests provide a backdrop for your friendship to flourish; you are in it together.

Salt symbolizes the off or harder times, the miscommunications and misunderstandings.  There aren’t many compared to the good times.  Just as salt enhances the sweet taste in a cookie, without conflict--those hard or awkward times inevitable in every relationship—you are likely to take the good or sweet for granted.  It seems counter-intuitive to add saltiness to a sweet item, but trust the recipe; those tiny stirrings of opposition help bring out the best in a cookie or friendship.

The nutty bits are just that: the nutty, silly times; the belly-ache-laugh-till-you-cry times.  I love nuts in my cookies.  Some shy away from them.  But a true friend welcomes the nuts, the inside jokes, the private laughs that provide just a little extra texture to your relationship or cookie.  Some friendships are just fine without them.  But I always feel the addition of a few nuts adds that little extra something.

The leavening agents like baking soda and powder are akin to the simple yet significant experiences that take your friendship to a higher level.  You might have comforted her through a loss, sat by her as she dealt with a miscarriage, listened to her deepest fears about one of her kids, any variety of challenges.  Or it might be that a secret dream has finally come true.  She triumphed against the odds.  You confided in her.  Whatever the case, these are shared moments and experiences aside from the everyday interactions.  These are special, different.  They heighten your level of commitment and closeness.

You know it’s all about the chocolate chips.  Some like more dough than chips.  I like to cram as many chips in as I can.  To me, they symbolize the sweet morsels that go above what’s really essential in a cookie.  It’s remembering her birthday, a note in the mail, an invitation to lunch with a small group of friends, an offer to take your kids for a couple of hours, a text just to say hi, a hug when you see each other at Target—just sweet expressions that totally make a cookie and a friendship worth indulging in.

The baking itself relates to the special instances when you really get to be together and connect—the times when you see and appreciate what you have, when you feel deeply how her friendship has warmed you.  You immediately melt into comfortable form, basking in the tenderness of your friendship.  Until it’s time to part for a bit, just like the cookies cooling on the counter.  But the inside is still a little soft, a nod to the lingering memory of warm times spent together.