As I write this, it’s December 13th, the day after the glorious last full moon of the decade (1990 was THIRTY YEARS AGO), and I am listening to a potent combination of rain, sleet, and drizzly snow hitting the new skylight on my new roof that, up until two weeks ago, had developed a leak.

There is a spice cake in the oven for Sarah, owner of Yoga Tree Baltimore, and I am not quite sure what to do with myself while I wait for the cake to cool. I have been thinking about the year that is coming to an end, and it’s taking up a lot of mental space (as you can tell by this sentence, which is less than stellar, if I am being honest. Which I always try to be.).

I have been, as is my wont and millions of others’s, too, as the clock winds down the calendar, reflective. I am not one of the people who shun resolutions, but I don’t also have a lot of faith in them either. Case in point: last year’s (2019) New Year’s resolutions. Other than using my time more effectively and exploring Baltimore a little more (very little more, as it turns out), I accomplished exactly zero of these resolutions.

In fact, 2019 was precisely nothing like I thought it would be. The summer was chaotic and sad, money was tight, a good friend died, and my house started falling apart (a lintel fell off, then the roof leaked).

In 2019, between housing issues and taxes, I spent $30,000 on unexpected expenses. Which is enough to make it impossible to travel or go on retreat or any of the things I had planned.

On the other hand, I published two poems and was accepted into my first juried art show (won second place!), and I am going on retreat to The Woods with Writers & Words and Ink Press Productions in January. I submitted a ton of work, got some good acceptances (and some terrible rejections), but also constructive, positive feedback on a few of my pieces.

Khristian and I built a camping platform on our land in Canada, and we have found an ally in one of the other homeowners there, kindred Canadian spirits who I met accidentally on a walk and am so glad that I did.

I am not here to tell you how to set resolutions or change your life. I am no expert, no self-help guru, and I would not presume to tell you how to live your life. I have had years when things went closely to plan, and others when nothing I planned worked out but other things rushed in to fill the void. Turns out, sometimes when a plan goes awry, it makes space for new discoveries and serendipitous occurrences.

These cookies, or the name at least, is one of those. They are your standard lace cookie, and I made them one night when I needed something sweet but was too lazy to hit the store and the cupboards were mostly bare. So I whipped these up in 30 minutes and had to remove myself physically so as not to eat them all.

Sicily tried them, and said, “Oh, these are Daim cookies.”

You may or may not be a visitor to IKEA, but they have these candies in their shop, Daim, that are bits of toffee covered in chocolate. We used to buy them all the time until they changed the recipe and they tasted off so we stopped.

These cookies taste exactly like the original Daim, a happy accident that nevertheless takes me exactly where I want to go when I want a delicious sweet thing with a bare minimum of ingredients and effort.

Enjoy.

Daim Cookies

(makes between 18 and 24 cookies)

Ingredients

1 stick butter

2/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup almond flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar, flour, salt, and corn syrup, cooking and whisking constantly until sugar has dissolved and ingredients are combined. Turn off heat and whisk in vanilla extract. This may make the mixture appear grainy, but that’s ok.

Let mixture rest ten minutes (it will become thicker as it cools down). Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line baking sheets with parchment (I used three baking sheets). You could also use silicone baking sheets.

Spoon teaspoons of mixture onto sheets (leave 3” on all sides) Bake for six to eight minutes until golden brown around the edges. Cookies are done when they are no longer bubbling.

Do not walk away. Burning happens very quickly. #askmehowIknow

Allow cookies to cool for five minutes on the baking sheets. If you don’t have more to bake, you can leave them to cool on the baking sheet, or you can transfer to a wire rack.

You can eat these as they are, or you can melt chocolate chips in a saucepan and either paint to bottoms of the cookies with a thin coat of chocolate, drizzle it over top, or sandwich two cookies together (use a little more chocolate for this than if you were just painting a single layer).

Cover and keep on the counter for three days or in the ‘fridge for up to a week.