The Secret Ingredient
By Norma Smith

“Grammy, what is the secret ingredient in your cookies?”

This has been a question that my grandchildren have been asking me since their very first bite of my sugary delights. I cannot help but giggle each time they ask me to reveal my secret to them. After not getting a response from me, they start rattling off a list of things I possibly could have added more of to make my cookies taste extra special. But they never do guess correctly.

“Did you add extra vanilla?” my only granddaughter asked me, putting what had to be her seventh cookie in her mouth. “I could definitely taste–”

“Really, Hayley? Extra vanilla?” Tyler butted in, scoffing at her as if the secret ingredient was sitting right there in front of them. He rolled his eyes, giving off the attitude that what he had to say had to be right because he older and smarter than her. “She obviously put more Chocolate Frog chunks in them. Didn’t you, Grammy?”

Their assumptions didn’t stop Colton, the youngest by a number of years, from making a guess as well. He couldn’t help put spit out cookie crumbs as he excitedly shrieked, “SUGAH! SUGAH!”

I beamed down at them all, shaking my head at each of them. “No, my little darlings. I made those cookies just like I always do,” I responded honestly. “And we best put these away before you all ruin your appetites.” They might have done that actually (they devoured half of the batch I had made), but they were ready to eat again in a few hours anyway.

As I took the plate of cookies from them and placed them out of their reach, I couldn’t help but overhear them bickering over who was the closest to guessing the secret of my cookies. Hayley got frustrated with Tyler’s stubbornness; Tyler was offended that Hayley couldn’t see that his assumption was the most logical; and Colton continued repeating the one ingredient that every child was addicted to. So I decided to make a deal with them, if they promised not to tell a single soul what I was about to tell them.

“I promise that I will never tell anyone, Grammy. If I do, you can snap my wand in two!” declared Hayley right away.

“I bet you’ll run off and tell all of your friends,” Tyler taunted with a smirk. His eyes then met up with mine. “But I will make sure Hayley won’t blab. We all know she would die without her wand.”

“SUGAH!”

For the next hour, we all stayed in the kitchen to bake a fresh batch of my cookies. I couldn’t help but notice how alert my grandchildren were as I collected the ingredients, mixed them all together, and placed them in the oven. After closing the oven door, I turned around to three puzzled faces staring up at me.

“You didn’t tell us your secret ingredient,” Tyler explained disappointedly.

“I didn’t,” I admitted with a smile. “But you would have seen it, if you were paying very close attention.”

“What are you talking about, Grammy?” Hayley asked, looking around the kitchen for something that might have been overlooked. “We watched you the entire time. You got your ingredients, mixed them up, and put them in the oven. Was there something we missed?”

“HEART!”

The one word Colton shouted made me smile from ear to ear. Even though it wasn’t the exact word I was looking for, the toddler seemed to have gotten the point I was trying to make. I gave the small boy a pat on the head, a sign of agreement.

“Merlin’s beard! You put hearts in those cookies?!” Hayley immediately asked, staring at me as if she had just been petrified by a basilisk. The look on her face made me chuckle.

“No, Hayley, I did no such thing. But Colton is on the right track.” I paused for a moment, quickly glancing at the oven, before continuing. “Did any of you notice something that I didn’t use at all while baking?”

“Well … you didn’t use your wand,” Tyler answered. “You just used your hands and some cooking utensils.”

“Exactly. No magic whatsoever. I baked those cookies from scratch the Muggle way. Do you know why?”

There was a moment of silence. I could tell each of them was thinking hard about what I had asked them. But it was Colton that spoke first. “HEART!”

I nodded as the biggest of smiles grew on my face. “Yes! Heart! Or, as I like to phrase it, love. I could have baked those cookies in a matter of seconds if I had used my wand, but the outcome wouldn’t nearly have been as good. So I took my time, made everything by hand, and poured love into what I was baking. Love, my little darlings, has and always will be my secret ingredient.”