The Family Table: A Different Kind of Richness

Readers share their treasured recipes

These simple, elegant shortbread cookies are made with four ingredients. vm2002/Shutterstock

Submitted by Judith E. Smith, Pennsylvania

This is my Aunt Mary Jane’s shortbread cookie recipe. It’s simple, yet elegant.

My Aunt Mary Jane wasn’t rich or famous; in fact, she was very poor. She lived in an old, tiny house in Dallas, Pennsylvania, that was always immaculate, a house I was taken to as a small child to visit her in the 1960s. The first thing you would notice when you walked into her living room was a small table in the corner with a pure-white lacy cover loaded with small plates filled with cookies and other desserts, something that would rival any dessert cart in a fancy hotel.

She taught me that you can live “cheaply but not poorly.” She was sweet and soft-spoken and never had a mean thing to say about anyone or anything. Even though she was poor, she never forgot my birthday, and a card with a small, handmade gift would always be waiting for me. She did this for me until the day she died.

I rarely saw her as I got older because I was so busy with my own life, something I regret. I didn’t tell her then just how much I appreciated her, but now every day I simply say, “Thank you for always remembering my birthday.”

She died in the ‘70s. She was buried with no tombstone, and I don’t even know where. I don’t even have a picture of her. She exists only in my memory now. I still have all the little handmade gifts she gave me for my birthday, and this recipe.

I loved her shortbread cookies and found the recipe in my mother’s cookbook after she died. Every year since then, I make her shortbread cookies as a tribute to her at Christmas time and give them as gifts to people I visit. She died poor, peacefully, and happy. She taught me that money is no guarantee of happiness and that only a life lived for others is worth living.

I know this is a sad story, but her shortbread cookies always make me happy and they will make you happy, too. She would like that. The moral of this story is that it’s the little things you do for someone in life that can last a lifetime.

Aunt Mary Jane’s Shortbread Cookies

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 3/4 cup softened butter, room temperature

Blend flour, cornstarch, and sugar with a whisk. Mix in butter. Chill dough.

Roll dough into small 1-inch balls. Flatten balls and place them on parchment on a cookie sheet 2 to 3 inches apart.

Bake at 300 degrees F for 15 to 25 minutes, until cookies spread but still look white.

Pull, and sift powdered sugar on top. Allow to cool on a flat surface. Enjoy.

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