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| My Grandmother’s Lost Cookie Recipe | My Grandmother’s Lost Cookie Recipe |
| (5 months later) | |
| My grandmother left her recipes in fragments. There’s her little black book, scribbles of ingredients in English, French and Ladino, the language once spoken by the Jews of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey. In one recipe, Savta, grandma in Hebrew, based measurements on a yogurt cup which she called un gobelet. According to my mom, they didn’t see a measuring cup until they moved from Israel to America in the early 1970s. | My grandmother left her recipes in fragments. There’s her little black book, scribbles of ingredients in English, French and Ladino, the language once spoken by the Jews of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey. In one recipe, Savta, grandma in Hebrew, based measurements on a yogurt cup which she called un gobelet. According to my mom, they didn’t see a measuring cup until they moved from Israel to America in the early 1970s. |
| There are also recipes my sister Celine jotted down as Savta cooked. And there were loose sheets of paper I tucked into plastic folders, oral histories with no oven temperatures. I’ve transported them among the cities I’ve lived in over the past several years, but until last week, I had never attempted to make a single dish. | There are also recipes my sister Celine jotted down as Savta cooked. And there were loose sheets of paper I tucked into plastic folders, oral histories with no oven temperatures. I’ve transported them among the cities I’ve lived in over the past several years, but until last week, I had never attempted to make a single dish. |
| Since coronavirus forced us all inside, people on the internet have been yearning for elsewhere. “Throwback to Tulum,” someone wrote on an Instagram, under a picture of a sunny beach. Create a virtual trip using Google Street View, suggests The Times. | Since coronavirus forced us all inside, people on the internet have been yearning for elsewhere. “Throwback to Tulum,” someone wrote on an Instagram, under a picture of a sunny beach. Create a virtual trip using Google Street View, suggests The Times. |
| I can’t do that for Savta’s cooking, though. Or for Savta. There are photos, of course. And the voice messages she left me. But what about the invisible memories? The tastes and smells, the olfactory soundtrack of my childhood, vivid but intangible. We asked for her recipes only sparingly. The whole thing seemed too morbid. Maybe we should have been more bold. | I can’t do that for Savta’s cooking, though. Or for Savta. There are photos, of course. And the voice messages she left me. But what about the invisible memories? The tastes and smells, the olfactory soundtrack of my childhood, vivid but intangible. We asked for her recipes only sparingly. The whole thing seemed too morbid. Maybe we should have been more bold. |
| Only one loose sheet made it through my last move, and it features a recipe for what Savta called cachkitas: savory, O-shaped cookies full of butter and cumin and topped with sesame seeds. They’re my absolute favorite. | Only one loose sheet made it through my last move, and it features a recipe for what Savta called cachkitas: savory, O-shaped cookies full of butter and cumin and topped with sesame seeds. They’re my absolute favorite. |
| On a recent socially distanced Sunday, I decided I’d try to make some. But when I consulted what I thought was a recipe, I realized it wasn’t a recipe at all. Ingredients, sure: flour, butter, salt, yeast, cumin, egg, water (“one cup or half a cup or one and a half cups”). Instructions, maybe: Something about mixing the dough with clean hands. (These days, my hands are very clean.) Another note about how the dough should have the texture of sand. But that’s all. | On a recent socially distanced Sunday, I decided I’d try to make some. But when I consulted what I thought was a recipe, I realized it wasn’t a recipe at all. Ingredients, sure: flour, butter, salt, yeast, cumin, egg, water (“one cup or half a cup or one and a half cups”). Instructions, maybe: Something about mixing the dough with clean hands. (These days, my hands are very clean.) Another note about how the dough should have the texture of sand. But that’s all. |
| I decided I needed to find a backup recipe. First, I turned to Google, which generated zero results for cachkitas. I searched for variations of “sesame cumin Turkish cookies” and “sesame cumin crackers.” There were plenty of results, but none seemed right. | I decided I needed to find a backup recipe. First, I turned to Google, which generated zero results for cachkitas. I searched for variations of “sesame cumin Turkish cookies” and “sesame cumin crackers.” There were plenty of results, but none seemed right. |
| Then I typed “cachkitas” into my email, which unearthed a trove of conversations with my sister Celine. Apparently we talked about cachkitas a lot. They were always around; Savta would send me off with some every time I visited, stacked neatly in tins decorated with bears or ribbons or roses, campy and American. She was neither, but somehow they suited her. | Then I typed “cachkitas” into my email, which unearthed a trove of conversations with my sister Celine. Apparently we talked about cachkitas a lot. They were always around; Savta would send me off with some every time I visited, stacked neatly in tins decorated with bears or ribbons or roses, campy and American. She was neither, but somehow they suited her. |
| In one of many conversations about cachkitas, on Sept. 12, 2012, I was living in France and had just gotten home from a terrible date with a wiry, tobacco-breathing Parisian. He picked me up on his scooter, and we went to a bar, and then another, and by 10 I asked in bashful French if we planned to eat dinner. To make a long story short, we never did, and there was not a second date. When I got home, I wrote to Celine about the sorry evening. | In one of many conversations about cachkitas, on Sept. 12, 2012, I was living in France and had just gotten home from a terrible date with a wiry, tobacco-breathing Parisian. He picked me up on his scooter, and we went to a bar, and then another, and by 10 I asked in bashful French if we planned to eat dinner. To make a long story short, we never did, and there was not a second date. When I got home, I wrote to Celine about the sorry evening. |
| “Wait so you HAD NO DINNER?” she exclaimed. | “Wait so you HAD NO DINNER?” she exclaimed. |
| “I KNOW,” I said. It was almost 1 in the morning. | “I KNOW,” I said. It was almost 1 in the morning. |
| “I’m eating a cachkita,” I reassured her. I had taken a whole tin to Paris. Savta made sure I had it the night before I left. | “I’m eating a cachkita,” I reassured her. I had taken a whole tin to Paris. Savta made sure I had it the night before I left. |
| On Oct. 1, 2012, I sent an email to Savta, with the subject line “I love you.” | On Oct. 1, 2012, I sent an email to Savta, with the subject line “I love you.” |
| “I’m eating a cachkita right now,” I wrote. “I will call you tomorrow.” I hope I did. | “I’m eating a cachkita right now,” I wrote. “I will call you tomorrow.” I hope I did. |
| Five years later, I wrote to Celine to say that I had just one cachkita left in my tin. It was from the batch Savta had made before she went to the hospital. “I don’t want to eat it,” I wrote. | Five years later, I wrote to Celine to say that I had just one cachkita left in my tin. It was from the batch Savta had made before she went to the hospital. “I don’t want to eat it,” I wrote. |
| Two months later, I still had the lone cachkita. “I refuse to eat it,” I wrote to Celine. Savta was very sick in California. I was in New York. “Perhaps I will get it laminated,” I suggested, not necessarily joking. | Two months later, I still had the lone cachkita. “I refuse to eat it,” I wrote to Celine. Savta was very sick in California. I was in New York. “Perhaps I will get it laminated,” I suggested, not necessarily joking. |
| “Eat it!!” my sister wrote. | “Eat it!!” my sister wrote. |
| “It’s probably gone bad by now,” I replied. | “It’s probably gone bad by now,” I replied. |
| “Savta would be so upset if she knew you still had one left,” Celine said. | “Savta would be so upset if she knew you still had one left,” Celine said. |
| So I ate it, slowly, trying to memorize the texture on my tongue, morbidly, for future reference. It was barely stale. Those dollar-store tins sure keep things fresh. | So I ate it, slowly, trying to memorize the texture on my tongue, morbidly, for future reference. It was barely stale. Those dollar-store tins sure keep things fresh. |
| Six days later Savta died. | Six days later Savta died. |
| My deep dive into the annals of cachkita-chat made me cry and did little to clarify the crumpled-up non-recipe I’ve carried around for the past three years. I decided I should still make the cachkitas; Savta’s recipes were never much of a science anyway. She cooked from muscle memory, and most of all from love, each dish an extension of her. “Add this much water,” I can hear her say in her grainy voice, marking the crease on her finger. | My deep dive into the annals of cachkita-chat made me cry and did little to clarify the crumpled-up non-recipe I’ve carried around for the past three years. I decided I should still make the cachkitas; Savta’s recipes were never much of a science anyway. She cooked from muscle memory, and most of all from love, each dish an extension of her. “Add this much water,” I can hear her say in her grainy voice, marking the crease on her finger. |
| I followed her vague instructions, adding a bit of sugar to the yeast. I hoped it would rise; with bare shelves across Brooklyn, the only yeast I could find was expired. The guy at my bodega gave it to me for free. | I followed her vague instructions, adding a bit of sugar to the yeast. I hoped it would rise; with bare shelves across Brooklyn, the only yeast I could find was expired. The guy at my bodega gave it to me for free. |
| It did rise, but the dough I made didn’t have the texture of sand, as she said it should. Oh well. I rolled it into long cords, cutting them into chunks, and making little loops, pinching them closed before dipping them in egg, then sesame, then placing them in rows on a baking sheet. | It did rise, but the dough I made didn’t have the texture of sand, as she said it should. Oh well. I rolled it into long cords, cutting them into chunks, and making little loops, pinching them closed before dipping them in egg, then sesame, then placing them in rows on a baking sheet. |
| About 13 cookies in, I started to lose patience. | About 13 cookies in, I started to lose patience. |
| “Can’t I just make them cookie-shaped?” I texted my mom. | “Can’t I just make them cookie-shaped?” I texted my mom. |
| “Why?” she asked. “They’re supposed to be circles.” | “Why?” she asked. “They’re supposed to be circles.” |
| “Too much work,” I complained. | “Too much work,” I complained. |
| “I know” my mom replied. “But in circles, they cook evenly.” | “I know” my mom replied. “But in circles, they cook evenly.” |
| Savta was all about labor-intensive; hard work and love and loss defined her entire life. She wore her scars well, even gracefully. All of her cachkitas were perfectly identical, same size, same shape, same number of sesame seeds. I remembered her telling me that when they lived in a transit camp in Marseille among thousands of Jews who fled North Africa in the late 1940s, her husband built her a kitchen, with an oven. | Savta was all about labor-intensive; hard work and love and loss defined her entire life. She wore her scars well, even gracefully. All of her cachkitas were perfectly identical, same size, same shape, same number of sesame seeds. I remembered her telling me that when they lived in a transit camp in Marseille among thousands of Jews who fled North Africa in the late 1940s, her husband built her a kitchen, with an oven. |
| “So I could make cachkitas, borekas, kunafa,” she explained. | “So I could make cachkitas, borekas, kunafa,” she explained. |
| “But why did you need to make all of those things, in those conditions?” | “But why did you need to make all of those things, in those conditions?” |
| She looked at me incredulously. “Because I had little kids,” she said, with a shrug. “Kids need to have good things to eat.” | She looked at me incredulously. “Because I had little kids,” she said, with a shrug. “Kids need to have good things to eat.” |
| In my kitchen, I imagined Savta, young and beautiful, bent over in a cramped space, pinching the loops into perfect circles, dipping them in egg wash and then in sesame seeds, placing them gingerly onto whatever baking surface she had. So the kids could have something good to eat. | In my kitchen, I imagined Savta, young and beautiful, bent over in a cramped space, pinching the loops into perfect circles, dipping them in egg wash and then in sesame seeds, placing them gingerly onto whatever baking surface she had. So the kids could have something good to eat. |
| After 15 minutes in the oven, the scent of spiced butter began wafting through my apartment. Usually on sunny days, I’m restless. I like to run or bike or take long walks or explore new neighborhoods or travel to new cities. But that day I couldn’t do any of those things, and it was fine. I stayed in my kitchen as the cachkitas baked, hoping that they’d come out right, and that, even for one second, I’d forget that I couldn’t call her to tell her how good they taste. The perfect crunch, just enough cumin, light and rich all at once. | After 15 minutes in the oven, the scent of spiced butter began wafting through my apartment. Usually on sunny days, I’m restless. I like to run or bike or take long walks or explore new neighborhoods or travel to new cities. But that day I couldn’t do any of those things, and it was fine. I stayed in my kitchen as the cachkitas baked, hoping that they’d come out right, and that, even for one second, I’d forget that I couldn’t call her to tell her how good they taste. The perfect crunch, just enough cumin, light and rich all at once. |
| When will we see our families next? Will they be OK? Right now I can’t go home and hug my parents, and it’s been years since I’ve been able to call Savta. But at least, when everything else is upside down and the future’s all fogged up, I have a pantry full of cachkitas. It’s almost as though they’re hers. | When will we see our families next? Will they be OK? Right now I can’t go home and hug my parents, and it’s been years since I’ve been able to call Savta. But at least, when everything else is upside down and the future’s all fogged up, I have a pantry full of cachkitas. It’s almost as though they’re hers. |
| Karina Piser (@karinadanielle6) is a journalist. | Karina Piser (@karinadanielle6) is a journalist. |
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