Cookie Detritus

Even though I know my students are probably happier with Chewy Chips-a-Hoy or Munchkins from Dunkin’ Donuts (which remind me too much of Boston), I decided to bake cookies to congratulate them for getting through two intense days of state testing. The idea was very un-me to start with. Spurts of mother-instinct are few and far between.

Maybe in an attempt to push my upper-middle class upbringing or maybe just because I felt bad for doing some minor yelling lately (violating Lemov's rule of emotional constancy in the classroom), I wanted to do something nice. Mostly, I’m a nice person. I got my roommate and fellow middle school teacher Abby on board for Operation Cookie Bake. In a bold move, we opted for M&M’s instead of chocolate chips, knowing the kids would be easily fooled into thinking these colorful cookies were fancier than your average Tollhouse. Perhaps, the substitution was mistake number one. And here’s clichéd phrase number one: hindsight is 20/20.

I’ve made a lot of cookies. Borderline thousands. One summer in high school—in between barista shifts and pool dates—I perfected my oatmeal-chocolate chip recipe until my mom reminded me that even your own cookieswill make you fat when eaten in excess. Right. I’ve baked cookies in Lake Tahoe, where the high altitude demands careful recalibration of recipes. Some might call it chemistry. Until tonight, I had no reason to question my cookie-baking abilities. In fact, I reveled in them. Unlike teaching itself—which is frustrating and unpredictable—cookie-baking is an endeavor that takes little time and yields instant, delicious results. There is a specific process and an attainable finish line. Making cookies is fruitful and relaxing. Done and done.

We assembled the ingredients, including 16 bags of M&M’s (dark, milk and PRETZEL to spice things up). While jamming to Bob Marley (duh), we quickly whipped up a triple batch of Abby’s mom’s favorite recipe. Together, we have over 100 students, and even the ones we can’t stand deserve an M&M cookie (at least a small one).

Everything was going according to plan until we started putting the dough onto the greased cookie sheets. It was sticky. Too sticky. All-over-my-fingers-sticky. Stuck-to-the-roof-of-my-mouth-sticky. Not-good-at-all-sticky. Throwing caution to the wind, we baked anyway. When I flipped on the oven light, I noticed after about two minutes that our carefully formed balls had melted into a flat, thin sheet of cookie dough with bright M&Ms protruding freakishly like the zits on my students’ faces. Appetizing was not the first adjective that came to mind. Clearly, we’d skimped on flour during the tripling process. Without the vital thickening-agent, cookies are more liquid than solid. Oops.

We waited it out for about two more minutes until the burning smell started in earnest. Taking the "cookies" out of the oven, we let them cook for a few minutes on top of the oven, hoping the residual heat would bake away the salmonella and magically form the paper-thin sheet back into melty upper-middle class morsels.

Starting skeptically at the huge amount of quickly liquefying batter, I knew we had to persevere. I’m nothing if not stubborn. I was going the extra mile for my students, god damnit. They were going to eat my cookies tomorrow, and they were going to like them. And if they didn’t, they will simply have to fail reading class.

Things turned from bad to worse quickly. After about 10 minutes, with 30 more “cookies” tucked safely in the oven, we cautiously extricated the cookies from their sheets to the cooling racks. They crumbled and smushed and fell. They were not cooked, not even close. They were full of holes like delicate--hideous--lace doilies. They were little mounds of salmonella waiting to poison 100 middle schoolers on the day of the state exams. I could see the New York Post headline now: “Charter School Shut Down After 70 Students Contract Salmonella from Teacher’s Killer Cookies.”

Even the best laid plans.

After trying to salvage as many as we could, we finally started flinging the sloppy cookies onto a plate, watching the mound of greasy cookie mush grow bigger and more disgusting with each new bit of colorful detritus. It was reminiscent of something the college dining hall might invent and serve for “late night” during final exams, topped with vanilla frozen yogurt. Freshmen (stoned, stressed or both) would dig in and wonder only later why their jeans stopped fitting.

College rocks, man.

The bottom line was clear: neither of us could take these cookies to school. Aside from the salmonella factor (which is big), the kids would be unimpressed (they might mutiny) and there would be half-baked cookie crumbles all over the classrooms, squished M&M's under hours of foot traffic. It would be ugly. No one would call me a super teacher; the kids would not worship at my feet and beg me to bake my famous M&M cookies once more before the end of the year. No, that would not happen.

“Well, that was a pretty big failure,” Abby stated flatly as “Easy Skanking” came on over the iPod speakers. God bless Bob for trying to get me to chill.

“Yup,” I agreed.

Defeated, we scooped the cookie mush into the trash and started to wash pans in an attempt to hide all evidence of our failed endeavor from our third, more homemaker-ish roommate. We'd ruined cookies. Cookies ain't hard.

Not only did I have nothing to show for the last two hours of my life and nothing to bring to class, I had failed at a task that should be simple. Fun, even. I worried about my future potential as a baker. Then as a teacher. Then as a wife, mother, grandmother. I focused on Marley and took a deep breath. I calmly reminded myself while spooning dough covered M&M’s into my mouth that the Duane Reed by the Jay Street stop opens at 6am, and I happen to know there’s a sale on Easter candy.