First Contact

We all dread it, put it off, make excuses and weasel out of it. But in the end, we all endure it. Sooner or later we have to bite the bullet and meet...the family.

My first experience with hubby's family came five days into the marriage. It was Thanksgiving, and everyone had assembled for the traditional fare of turkey and all the trimmings. But before we could eat, the men had travel into the woods and shoot at things not wearing bright orange vests.

I found myself camped out with the women, gathered in the kitchen, mixing, stirring, tasting; but mostly talking. They questioned me intensely at first, but soon I was hearing stories about my groom. I now know things; things that have come in handy over the years.

Suddenly his grandmother commented there were no cookies. There were cakes and pies and puddings and rich desserts galore, but no cookies. "The children have to have cookies". She insisted.

"Do you have peanut butter?" I asked. "Give me that, some sugar and an egg." "No flour?" she couldn't believe it. "You can't make cookies without flour."

"They're called ESP cookies. 1 Egg, 1 cup Peanut Butter and 1 cup Sugar." I ticked off the ingredients.

"How do they stick together?" Grandma asked.

"The peanut butter, I guess." They were looking at me like I'd just grown three heads. But, his aunt began to pull the ingredients out of the cupboards. Another grabbed a bowl and began to mix them up. We worked together, getting the oven pre-heated to the right temperature, spraying non-stick cooking spray on the pans and rolling the batter into small balls.

The first batch came out of the oven 10 minutes later. I let them cool for a minute, pulled one off and handed it to his grandmother. She tentatively took a bite and then her eyes lit up as she put the entire cookie into her mouth. From that moment on, I was accepted.