Moby Cookies
Chasing a great white (buttery, sugary) whale while healing
The cookies were my Moby Dick.
My quest, grail, obsession, nemesis.
Almost the first thing I thought upon release from the hospital after my December bike crash—besides reveling in the bliss of a hot shower—was that I needed to bake cookies for the emergency department staff at Wilma Chan Highland Hospital.
Not right away. Even in my slightly blurred Oxycodone state, I knew that was impossible. But once I was feeling better, I would bake cookies. It seemed like the appropriate way to thank them.
The care they’d provided felt so personal that the thank-you needed to be personal, not just a box of See’s chocolates or a Trader Joe orchid. I suspect that most of their patients don’t send thank-yous —big-city ERs treat a lot of people living on the edge, financially and emotionally—so I felt especially motivated to express my gratitude.
I kept those cookies in mind as I started to heal, step by slow step. First I stopped taking the Oxycodone. I undertook short walks on my block with a hiking pole, after which I would retreat to bed. Then I walked around the whole block with my pole before retreating to bed. I had short visits from friends and then longer visits from friends….
A dozen cookies wouldn’t be sufficient: there should be enough for the nurses and physician assistants and janitors as well as the doctors.
I walked to Rockridge BART and rested on a bench in the sun like an Old Person. I stopped taking my other prescription pain med. I took deep breaths without my ribs hurting. I bent at my waist without feeling my torso was made of a thousand grinding pieces of Lego. I stopped taking extra strength acetaminophen three times a day….
There would have to be several kinds of cookies, something for everyone. Brownies for chocoholics, ginger cookies for those who like a little zing, my mom’s “moon” cookies with powdered sugar for those who want simple.
A month passed, five weeks passed. I felt well enough to travel with Sam to visit friends in Palm Springs although I had to (had to! what a sacrifice!) lie down by the pool every afternoon. I put away the hiking poles. I started doing physical therapy for the pain in my neck and shoulder. I could lie on my injured side for a minute or two. I could sleep on my injured side for an hour or two….
So I was making all this improvement but I COULD NOT bake those cookies.
Just thinking about it exhausted me. Hauling all the ingredients out of the cabinet. Mixing and pouring and placing on baking trays. Washing all the bowls. Then doing it again. Then doing it again. And doing it all in a short enough time that the first batch of cookies would still be fresh by the time the third batch was done.
I’m not a natural baker. Unlike our friend Jane, I don’t bake to relieve stress. Unlike Sam, I don’t watch every single episode of The Great British Baking Show and then Zoom with baker friends to analyze it. But I wanted to make those cookies.
Six weeks passed. I bought fresh ginger to make the ginger cookies. The ginger sat in the fridge and went bad. I bought more ginger.
It was daunting. My energy level was good for about one Big Thing per day and cookies were never that thing. Walks, working on my novel, meetings at our synagogue, going to theatre… but I couldn’t rouse myself to bake.
Last week, seven weeks after the accident, I felt ready to go back to my gym. I went to my usual Pilates/barre class and managed to do about 75 percent of the exercises. I went to my spin class and cycled for 45 minutes, though at a very mellow pace.
It was time to spear the white whale.
I decided to stage the baking. Make brownies during the week and freeze them. Mix the ginger cookie batter on Saturday and refrigerate it. Mix and bake the moon cookies on Sunday, bake the ginger batter on Monday morning, and deliver it all on Monday afternoon.
There was, of course, a catch. I had started wearing a splint on my right hand because of pain from the accident that had only become apparent after my ribs stopped hurting. I’m right-handed but currently can’t grip with that hand. I wasn’t sure I could shape cookies. I definitely couldn’t grate ginger.
But this weekend was my opportunity. Not much planned—not going anywhere—not watching the Super Bowl—
So I baked!
The brownies were easy, not too much hand-mixing. The moon cookies were manageable when I briefly removed the splint to shape them. The ginger grating was a problem but I asked Sam for help. He chopped it all up in our mini food processor, which was not optimal since it doesn’t remove the fibers but good enough for the circumstances.
This morning I finished everything, boxed the cookies up in pretty white cardboard boxes, and wrote a note to the ER staff. After lunch Sam drove me to Highland and waited at the curb while I dropped them off.
Done! Unlike Ahab, I got my whale and returned safely to port.
Now, looking at this project in retrospect, I wonder why I didn’t ask friends for help. Certainly some people would have been tickled to contribute their favorite cookies. But there I was, Ahab alone on the open sea, determined to kill the beast myself with my minimal whaling crew of Sam and a Kitchen-Aid.
What was that all about? Certainly I have a strong—probably too strong— individualist streak. I’d rather do something myself than deal with a team or committee. I’m uncomfortable asking for help and already felt indebted to the many friends who’d made dinners for us.
But it was more than individualism. There was also my desire to provide a personal thank-you—one created by me, not by See’s Candy Co. or Trader Joe or my friends. There was perhaps an unconscious impulse to live up to one nurse’s description of me in my hospital chart as “kind.”
And, too, there was an urge for closure.
Since December, piles of plastic containers had been sitting in our living room near the front door, waiting to be returned to the friends who brought us dinners. They nagged at me—a reminder that this was a house of illness, that I’d suffered injuries and was not yet healed. Finally about ten days ago I packed the containers into my car and drove around dropping them off. It gave me a sense of closure: our living room was now a living room again, not a food drop-off site for someone who could barely get out of bed.
The cookies do the same thing. They conclude my emergency room experience. They say “I had an accident, I healed, I’m done with that.”
Of course that’s not true. I still have the splint on my hand, my neck and shoulders still hurt, and my ribs still ache if I do a big walk. And a “big walk” is still less than an average stroll, pre-accident.
But that’s all relatively minor stuff that will get better with time. Meanwhile, I am eager to be done with this crash and its aftermath. So maybe the cookies are a magical talisman: if I act as if this episode is over, it will be over.
Maybe the cookies are magical thinking.
But really, those folks working in the Highland ER are the ones doing magic—true magic. They deserve a special kind of thanks.
And there is something special about homemade cookies.
Especially my mom’s moon cookies.
Nancy DeBare’s Moon Cookies
These are some of the easiest cookies in the world to make, even if you’re someone who feels “I can’t bake.” They’re a version of Viennese Crescents without the nuts. No fancy ingredients or fancy techniques but they are delicious. My mom Nancy made them at family gatherings, and then my late cousin Amy Solomon Levey made them, and my sister Deb is known for them throughout the great state of Rhode Island.
Ingredients
½ pound (two sticks) of butter at room temperature
2 cups of flour
¼ cup of sugar
Vanilla (1 teaspoon or more)
About 2 cups of powdered) confectioner’s sugar for coating, in a bowl or rimmed dish
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Cream the butter. Add the flour to the butter. Add sugar. Add vanilla. Mix well, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl if needed. It will become a kind of pliable dough like soft Play-doh.
Roll into balls, shape the balls into crescents, and place on an ungreased baking tray. To prevent breakage, keep them small and not too skinny.
Bake 35 minutes or slightly less if your oven runs hot. Cool for a minute and roll them in the powdered sugar. Place on rack to fully cool.
Notes:
Recipe makes about 36 cookies, which can fit on two sheets.
I use salted butter since the recipe doesn’t specify and that is probably what my mom used back in the 1960s.
1. Cookies are magical thinking. And a lovely, very personal, expression of thanks.
2. Welcome to the world of wrist splints. (I've had to use a wrist/thumb splint for about 10 years now, although mainly on my left hand, and I'm right-handed, so not so bad.)
3. Despite ongoing aches and pains, your recovery pace sounds excellent. (You write about it as though nothing much happened, but in reality you had significant injuries.) 45 minutes of spin, even if slower than before, is GREAT.
4. As always, thanks for your wonderful writing.
Ilana, sweet and kind. Yet another meaningful story. I love them. Here’s to getting through the last bits of recovery. And being free from all discomfort from the accident.