Cookies at the Cabin

The way my Dad remembered it, the cookies were the best he’d ever tasted. Crispy on the top and bottom, gooey with chocolate on the inside. Just the right size, too. Nothing like the gigantic, mass-produced ones sold at the grocery store bakery in town.

His Mom baked them in the cast iron wood stove. When the wind was right, you could smell the cookies baking all the way out on the dock. The kids would reel in, drop their fishing rods, and race up to the cabin door. Each of the children, there were five, got one after supper. They’d eat their cookie, lick the crumbs and chocolate off their hands, then swish them in the lake to clean up.

My Dad spent his entire career as a baker. Maybe his Mom was the inspiration.

I had the chance last summer to travel up to that cabin with my kids. It had then belonged to one of my uncles, who recently died. The place was for sale. It’s a lot older in some ways, and the original stove is gone, replaced by a gas version. A few of the windows don’t open all the way due to the settling of the structure. The place is a lot smaller than I remember, too.

My brother and I don’t remember getting cookies at the cabin. We might have come up here once, maybe twice. Maybe it was my Dad’s work hours, always at night. In at 11 pm, home at 8 am. Then he’d sleep in the one bedroom that had a window box air conditioner. Funny, it wasn’t until I was 10 years old that I figured out he worked nights. He was there at night when we went to bed, and there in the morning when we woke up.

Every Saturday morning, he brought home doughnuts. He’d still be in his flour-crusted bakery whites and let us sit in his lap to watch some cartoons. I wanted to create a moment like that for my kids, but up at the cabin.

So here I am, standing on the porch. Floorboards creaking, and I hear my kids playing out by the dock. I know I can’t let this one go. Or the cabin.

Time to bake some cookies.

Now, every summer after school’s out, my kids ask, “When do we get cookies at the cabin?!!!” Yes, just as soon as we can get there, and don’t forget to swish off your hands in the lake when you’re done.