Reason number 223 my ass is this way
I was talking to Mom last night about my plans for the weekend. Now that they are set, and I’m getting to leave even earlier than I’d planned (which means I get to see GTB’s band play Thursday night, hooray!) I’m really excited. I told Mom that. She said, “Don’t wish the time away though…” I thought she was being sage and expected a different follow up than the one I got: “I still have a ton to do. I have to make cookies.” And at that sentence, I’m suddenly excited for Christmas. She had me at “cookies.”
See, my mom makes the best cookies EVER. Her oatmeal raisin are to die for. And her sugar cookies are perfect for both eating and decorating. But my favorite mom-made cookie is one that was on hiatus for several years.
As far back as I can remember, so about late junior high, there was this one taste that I’d crave from time to time but could not pinpoint. It’s kind of coconutty, but subtly so. It’s got a tinge of vanilla, but it’s more complex than that. There was a cereal I can remember from high school (though I can’t remember now what it was called) that was close, but every time I ate it, it just made me more curious about that taste I was inexplicably longing for.
Then, a few Christmases ago, mom made the cookies. I took one bite and exclaimed, “OHMYGOD, this is it!” Mom said she used to make them all the time when we were young, but hadn’t in many years. It was like coming home. It was delicious and nostalgic and blissful and, no kidding, made me cry a little.
Two years ago, when Mom was preparing to make her Christmas cookies, I asked her if she would be making those ones I liked from the year before. She pulled out the recipe and when I looked at the card, I noticed they were called, lamely, “Graham Cracker Goodies.” Never in the history of language has there been a bigger understatement. I pointed this out to Mom. She agreed and we set forth on a renaming mission.
They were made mostly of graham crackers, so we decided that part of the name could stay. But “goodies” had to go. It just didn’t get at the sheer paradise of the cookie. We tried a few options that didn’t feel right either: Graham Cracker Perfection, Graham Cracker Heaven, Graham Cracker Holy Shit These are Fucking Amazing.
Finally, Mom, being the brilliant and wise wordsmith she is, said, “How about Graham Cracker Cunninlingus?” Actually, that might have been my idea. It doesn’t matter who thought of it, the reaction from my sister who was in the other room (“You guys are gross!) and the indecency of naming something as holy as a Christmas cookie after oral sex paled in comparison to the pithyness of it.
And so, in the last few days before I venture south for the holiday, I am daydreaming about Graham Cracker Cunninlingus. Finally, at long last, I’m happy it’s Christmas.
December 20th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Okay, I was really tired and Nicole had just explained to me what the current meaning of “goodie” is so it was an easy leap. We lauged till we creid at the outrageouslness of it but I have to admit that the name stuck.