Maltese Sesame Cookies

I'm 50% Maltese. When I tell people this, they usually ask "Maltese? Isn't that a type of dog?" Yes, Maltese is a breed of dog, but it has a much different meaning for me. Malta is a small island nation just south of Sicily in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the smallest countries on earth with a total size of 122 square miles. The national population is only around 400,000 people. My grandma and my grandpa both grew up in Malta. My grandma went deaf from meningitis at the age of 18. Two years later she decided to leave Malta and emmigrate to the United States. On the ship to America she met her future husband and they fell in love.

My Maltese heritage has always played a big part in my life, mainly because nobody has ever heard of Malta, which makes it very unique. My mom and her family grew up in San Francisco, and that is where my grandma lived until her death two years ago. When I was very young my mom would drive my brother and I from our home in San Jose to my grandma's house in San Francisco. When we finally finished the hour long drive which seemed like five hours when I was young, we ran in the door and gave my grandma a big hug. When we talked to her we would have to look her in the eyes and speak slowly so she could read our lips. Sign language was much easier for her, but my brother and I hadn't learned it. After we gave her a hug and talked for a little while we would go in my grandma's kitchen and put on aprons. She'd have all the ingredients laid out for us to make her famous Maltes sesame cookies. I remember how excited I used to be to bake with my grandma. She would always tell us exactly how to mold the dough in our hands. I could never do it as perfect as she did. She used to tell us that out of all the ingredients that went into her famous sesame cookies, the most important ingredient was love. She used to say "If they're not made with love, then they're not Maltese sesame cookies."

Her sesame cookies were basically shortbread cookies with sesame seeds sprinkled in the batter. When the cookies were baking in the oven, her whole house would be filled with the delicious smell. I remember being so excited to hear that bell ring which told us that it was time to take the cookies out of the oven. When we finally pulled them out of the oven and set each cookie on the serving dish, I was in heaven. Each bite would melt in your mouth. We always had to drink a glass of milk with the cookies or it just wasn't right. To this day I've never had a cookie as delicious as my grandma's cookies. I've tried to bake them by myself, now that she's gone, but there was definitely something missing. It wasn't until the third time I baked a batch of those cookies on my own that I realized what it was. When we baked those cookies with my grandma and when we finally sat down together and ate them, the cookies were only half of the experience. The reason the cookies tasted so good was because I baked them with my grandma and I was able to see how happy she was to see us eating them. I miss my grandma very much, but now, every time I bake her famous Maltese sesame cookies, I'm suddenly transported back to her kitchen, and to one of the happiest times in my life.