Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Fall – Chewy, Sticky, and Sweet

Apple Pie Jam Filled Cookies

   With a mischievous grin accentuating his dimples, my son Charlie arrived for breakfast one October morning and set a jar of golden-red jam on the kitchen table.

    A twinge of guilt for all the questions I’d asked about the store owned by the mother of his UPS coworker Tanner—

*Does she sell gifts?

*Are there tables in the deli?

*Is there anything I could eat?

—lasted as long as it took me to read the label on the jar.

Farmers Daughters

Country Market

Deli & Bakery

Old Fashioned

Apple Pie Jam

    The jam jar served as a centerpiece for a month while I debated consumption options. The obvious, toast and jam, I associated with recovering from an illness. My second choice, almond butter and jam sandwiches, didn’t stick to my ribs long enough for swimming five sixths of a mile or an afternoon sewing the Mansfield Park quilt. I delayed opening the jar until I could think of a special use for the jam.

    Morning after morning, the color of the centerpiece jam sparked a memory of biting into my mother-in-law’s apricot filled cookies while logs burned in her fireplace and fragrance of pine drifted off her home grown Christmas tree. One November morning I wondered aloud, “Could I substitute the apple pie jam for the apricot filling in Mom’s cookies?”

    Spence, who empowered me in many crazy projects and who had consumed nearly as many of his mom’s cookies as me, answered, “Why not?” He lifted his computer onto his lap, clicked some keys, and sent me an email.

cookie of interest

https://www.tasteofhome.com/

    Two weeks later, Todd, a supportive and kind Pennwriters coordinator I pester with questions about running a writing group, sent an announcement about the next Erie Pennwriters meeting.

“Our Area 1 Christmas Party will be Saturday, December 9^th . . . .Bring some of your holiday goodies so we can “taste test” for you . . .”

    Perfect.

    I’d try Charlie’s special jam in Spence’s found recipe for Todd’s “taste test.”

    So this Friday, after stuffing the first load of laundry into the washing machine, I mixed ingredients, substituting olive oil for shortening, and shoved the bowl of dough into the refrigerator to chill.

    While Spence and the cats snoozed after supper, I fetched the dough, formed some into an ovoid, and rolled the clump on the flour-sprinkled table top. The dough wrapped around the rolling pin. Right. With olive oil for shortening, I needed to substitute wax paper for flour. Dough rolled, I cut circles with a plastic juice glass. Rather then buy a doughnut cutter, I used a pill bottle to cut a hole half of the circle centers. But I didn’t substitute for the oven temperature or cooking time.

    After the cookies cooled, I spread the apple pie jam on the solid circles with a table knife. Jam dripped making my hands sticky. Oops. Not great for writing, but the Pennwriters would be munching and talking most of the meeting. No worries. I set circles with the holes on top of the jam spread cookies.

    When I finished the last cookie, Spence called from the sofa. “I must have fallen asleep.”

    “My cookies look great. Do you want to look?”

    He yawned. “Now?”

    “You can see them later.” I bit into a cookie. “Yikes. They’re hard.”

    Spence picked up a book and patted the side of the sofa to signal he welcomed cat company. “They’re just crunchy.”

    “Crunchy?! They’re hard enough to break a dental filling.” I took another bite. The apple pie jam tasted super sweet.

    Emma jumped onto the sofa and curled beside Spence.

    “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he said opening his book. “Just relax.”

    Maybe, like an olive oil pie crust, the cookie texture would be better the second day.

    Just in case, I pulled a loaf of zucchini bread out of the freezer and set it on the table near the wood stove.

    Saturday, I jumped out of bed, rushed to the kitchen, and bit into a cookie. Chewy–no danger to anyone’s teeth. Perfect.

    Mid day, I left the defrosted zucchini bread and walked to the garage with a note for my boxed treat.

Apple Pie Jam Filled Cookies

Warning: Chewy, Sticky, and Sweet

    “People will eat them, or they won’t,” Spence said carrying a bag with copies of my story-in-progress and a present for the gift exchange. “You don’t need to explain.”

    I stuck the note in the box at the meeting anyway.

    When people piled treats onto plates at the counter of the meeting room’s corner kitchen, plate after plate included my apple pie jam cookies. Writers took more than one bite so I walked to the counter for a cookie. A woman stood in front of my box and read, “Chewy, sticky, sweet.” She picked up a cookie. “That works for me.”

Perfect.

    At Wells Wood this morning, I woke to the clank of the porch gate latch followed by the thud of the front door closing. Charlie had arrived for breakfast. I jumped out of bed, threw on my robe, and rushed to greet him.

    With his hoodie pulled over his head, he slumped into a chair and flashed me a sad smile. Pain and exhaustion etched his face.

I didn’t need to ask about his week at UPS with the holidays approaching, but I did.

    “I worked fifty-three hours.” He sipped tea. “That’s six days with over eight hours on Monday.”

    Hoping my cookies would gave him as much comfort as my mother-in-law’s apricot cookie had given me on many Christmases, I handed him two apple pie jam cookies.

    He nodded and silently munched one after the other while Spence banged pans cooking breakfast in the kitchen.