Saying Goodbye to Mother's

I read the news over someone's shoulder on my ride home from work: Mother's Cookies is going out of business. I slumped over in my seat, dejected, as through this cookie company were a real member of my family and I had just read an obituary. In a way, Mother's has been a part of our lives.

Mother's was there with us on every picnic, every camping trip, and many evenings after dinner. Dad would shift around in his chair, looking over to see if we had "the good" cookies in stock, as though he could stretch his vision beyond the pantry door to spy them.

Checkerboard Wafers

The checkerboard wafers were not eaten but more inhaled - the package would be there, daintily unwrapped at the end, and then moments later there would be a handful of wafers left. Our parents would nudge them towards us, saying, "You go ahead, honey. Have the last ones," like we were some starving paupers who would never be able to afford those magical wafers again. "No, I'm full," we'd both reply, putting our hands on our bellies. These leftovers would be carefully repackaged in saran wrap or an excessively large Tupperware container, and would remain abandoned on the shelf until they were stale and chewy. It was our unspoken ritual - some cookies must be sacrificed to ensure the arrival of fresh ones in coming weeks. Strangely, this never happened with the animal cookies...

We also had a long standing disagreement over the checkerboard cookies, and one time did a blindfolded taste test to see if, indeed, they do taste like the Neapolitan flavors they were presumably modeled after. I insisted that they taste like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but failed the blindfolded test and proved myself wrong. Damnit!

Circus Animal

The circus animals came on a lot of hiking and picnic-related trips. They'd be warm by lunchtime but by some stroke of engineering genius, the frosting would be fully intact, never melting off of the cookies. I spent a lot of time chasing after the sprinkles at the bottom of the bag and would have sprinkle-colored marks on my fingers for the rest of the afternoon.

English Tea

I'm honestly not sure how my dad is going to live without these. I mean, there are other cookies, but these seem to be his staple after-dinner treat. The cookies will bruise your mouth as you bite into them - they're thick and unyielding and probably meant for adults instead of a small child's jaws. They've got this funny imprinted texture that I've only come to appreciate over time, but the smell of the vanilla centers has always been comforting. These are better dipping cookies than any dark-colored counterpart you might see advertised. You can forget about them as they float around in your milk and instead of totally disintegrating and tainting your drink, they'll come out perfect every time.

Mother's Cookies used to be manufactured here in Oakland, and the founder worked in San Francisco. I know they changed hands a lot in the last decade, but I still feel like they're a part of the Bay Area's history and community. I see the trucks on the highway in traffic, with their not-to-scale images shading my tiny car and taking me back to every place we went with those cookies. I think of the best times of my life - being in nature, with loved ones, eating brightly colored sugary foods. What could be more hyggelig?