Mounds Bar Chocolate Coconut Cookies

September 14th, 2017. One year since Jess Papalardo died at a gas station in Evergreen Park at twenty-one years old, of a fentanyl overdose, alone. I woke up at six AM without an alarm and lay in bed for a few minutes and then got up and put on my jeans and the NIU sweatshirt she used to borrow when she came to visit freshman year. I stopped at the Jewel on Lincoln Highway for sunflowers — nine of them, yellow, the kind she liked because she said roses were boring. Then I drove south on I-88 and then 294 toward Worth, Illinois, toward Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

I parked in the same spot I parked last year. I walked to the same place. The stone is simple — her name, the dates, a small engraved cross because her family is Catholic. The grass around it was damp from overnight rain. I put the sunflowers against the stone and sat down in the wet grass and did not care about my jeans. I talked to her for a long time. I talked about the kids I am going to teach and how I think she would have liked them. I talked about Babcia Rose's potato pancakes and how I am trying to learn the recipe. I talked about how angry I still am, not all the time, but sometimes, in the specific way that anger belongs to love when someone leaves before they should.

I said: I am going to be okay. Not because the grief is done — it is not — but because I have figured out how to carry it without it carrying me. I said: I will come back every year. She already knows this. I just wanted to say it out loud in the place where she is.

I drove back to DeKalb and went to Nar-Anon in Sycamore that evening. I did not share. I just needed to be in a room with other people who understood the specific shape of this kind of loss. Pat saved me a seat. He had made oatmeal raisin cookies. I ate three of them. On the way home I stopped at the Wendy's on Route 23 and got a Frosty, small chocolate, and ate it in the parking lot in the dark. Because some days end with a Frosty. Because Jess would have found that funny.

The Frosty that night wasn’t really about being hungry. It was about having something small and dark and chocolate to hold while the day finished settling. These Mounds Bar Chocolate Coconut Cookies live in that same place for me now — the kind of thing Jess would have eaten four of standing over the counter and called a perfectly reasonable dinner. I started making them on hard anniversaries, and then on ordinary Tuesdays too, because some rituals are worth keeping even when the day doesn’t ask them of you.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips, divided
1 tbsp coconut oil or vegetable shortening (for chocolate drizzle)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat softened butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time, then mix in vanilla extract until fully incorporated.
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the butter mixture, stirring just until no dry streaks remain — do not overmix.
Fold in coconut and chocolate. Stir in the shredded coconut and 1 cup of the dark chocolate chips by hand until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Portion and bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are set but the centers still look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool. Let rest on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Drizzle with chocolate. Once cookies are fully cooled, melt the remaining 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips with the coconut oil in a small microwave-safe bowl in 30-second intervals, stirring between each, until smooth. Use a fork or spoon to drizzle over the cooled cookies. Let the chocolate set at room temperature for about 15 minutes, or place in the refrigerator for 5 minutes to speed it up.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mounds Bar Chocolate Coconut Cookies — The Parking Lot Ritual