By 2018 begins and I feel different. Not healed — grief doesn't heal, it just changes shape, like water finding new containers — but different. Lighter. More myself. Less the woman who cried on the bathroom floor and more the woman who made perfect rolls at Christmas. Both women are me. But the second one is winning.
Back to school, back to work, back to the rhythms that hold a life together. Marcus is thirteen in January — his birthday is the 15th, same week as MLK Day, and he thinks this is cosmically significant, which: maybe it is. Jasmine is deep into choir season, rehearsing for a spring concert that she talks about with the reverence usually reserved for presidential inaugurations. The house hums with their noise and I am grateful for every decibel.
Curtis is... adjusting. He's not good. He's not bad. He's a seventy-two-year-old man who lost his wife of forty-four years and planted tomatoes in her garden and comes to my house every Saturday and eats what I cook and goes home to a house that's too quiet. He called me Tuesday at 9 PM, which is unusual because Curtis communicates primarily between the hours of 6 AM and 7 PM, and he said, "The house is loud." I said, "Loud how?" He said, "The quiet is loud." I said, "I know, Daddy." He said, "Yeah." He said, "Goodnight, Tamika." He said, "Your mama would tell me to stop calling you this late." I said, "Mama would tell you to call me anytime." He said, "Yeah. She would." Click. I love that man. I love him the way he loves me — fiercely, silently, expressed in monosyllables and Saturday dinners.
Made a new recipe this week: a West African peanut stew that I found online and modified with my own instincts. Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peanut butter, ginger, cumin, served over rice. It was GOOD — deeply good, the kind of good that makes you close your eyes and think about where the flavors are coming from. Marcus closed his eyes. He opened them and said, "This tastes like somewhere else." I said, "It tastes like trying something new." He said, "I like it." New. Something new, in the kitchen where Brenda's can sits on the counter. Something new that doesn't replace the old but sits next to it, the way 2018 sits next to 2017, different but connected. I'm expanding the table. Mama's dishes and mine. Southern and West African. Grief and growth. It all fits. The table is big enough.
That peanut stew changed something in me — proved that peanut butter didn’t have to live only in jars by the toaster or in after-school snacks, that it could go somewhere deep and savory and surprising. So when dessert came around later that week, I stayed in that headspace: peanut butter, but pushed further, made into something warm and communal and impossible to eat alone. Marcus had already closed his eyes once at dinner. I wanted to give him a reason to do it again.
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Skillet Cookie
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
- Flaky sea salt, for topping (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet (or an oven-safe skillet of similar size) with butter or nonstick spray.
- Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes by hand or with a hand mixer.
- Add wet ingredients. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla extract until fully combined.
- Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Gradually fold the dry mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined — do not overmix.
- Fold in chocolate chips. Stir in 1 1/4 cups of the chocolate chips, reserving the remaining 1/4 cup for the top.
- Fill the skillet. Press the dough evenly into the prepared skillet. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips over the surface and press them gently into the top. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt if using.
- Bake. Bake for 22–26 minutes, until the edges are set and golden and the center looks just slightly underdone — it will continue to firm up as it cools. For a gooier center, pull it at 22 minutes; for a firmer slice, go the full 26.
- Rest and serve. Let the skillet cookie cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing into wedges. Serve warm, straight from the skillet, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if the occasion calls for it.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 520 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 28g | Carbs: 62g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 290mg