One of my favorite memories was spending time at my grandmother’s house during the holiday season and baking chocolate chip cookies with the rest of my family.

The trip from San Jose to Rocklin every year made me eager to indulge in the warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies we would soon bake with our family. The drive was long, but rewarding  because my mom, brother, and I all longed to get just a taste of my grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies.

When my grandmother lived in San Jose just ten minutes from us, we went to her house once a month to bake her delicious chocolate chip cookies, but when she moved to Rocklin we were only able to make them with her whenever we visited family in Lincoln over the holidays.

After the long drive our family stood outside and greeted us. We give each other hugs, the go inside and catch up since we hadn’t since each other for about a year. My brother and I and all our younger cousins couldn’t stand to wait for the adults to finish talking so we could start making baking cookies.

The recipe came from my great-grandmother, who passed it onto my grandmother, who then gave the recipe to my mom. Since my mom had the recipe, we are able to enjoy the taste of my grandmother’s cookies whenever we wanted, but I still prefer baking them with the whole family. Chocolate chip cookies may seem just like an ordinary treat, but making them with my family that I only got to see once a year made them that much better.

They fresh out of the oven cookies were warm, gooey, with just a hint of salt. They were golden brown with small clumps of slightly melted chocolate chips scattered throughout each cookie. Each cookie approximately 3-4 inches in diameter, and about 12 per batch.

Everyone tried to get as many cookies as they could as each batch came out of the oven so they didn’t have to wait for another batch to finish. We rushed to fill a gallon ziploc bag with as many cookies as they could so that after we left our family, we could enjoyed the taste of my grandmother’s cookies as long as possible before we would go and visit our family again next year.

by MICHAEL WICKS