Divide your cookie dough in half (or thirds if you used three 8-inch pie pans.) Form each half into a large ball. Place the balls in the center of your pie pans and smush them down with your impeccably clean hands. Continue to flatten the dough balls until they’re spread all the way out to the sides of the pan, and the tops are fairly smooth.

Bake the “mega” cookies at 350 degrees F. for 40 minutes (35 minutes if you made three cookies instead of two.) Test for doneness by using a time-honored method devised by Hannah’s Grandma Swensen. Press the back of a spoon down on the center of the cookie. If it sinks in and comes out gooey and squishy, the cookies need more baking. Try them again after 5 minutes. If it leaves only a slight indentation, your cookies are done.

Remove your cookies from the oven and cool them in their pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then grasp two diagonal corners, lift the cookies out of their pans and continue to cool them on the wire racks until they reach room temperature.

When the cookies are thoroughly cool, carefully peel off the foil. They’re wonderful just as they are, but you can add to the enjoyment by decorating them if you wish.

Lisa uses a pastry bag to make little stars around the edge of her cookies, and then she personalizes them with a name written across the center. If you’re like me and you prefer not to use a pastry bag, you can buy little tubes of frosting in the grocery store and write a message and a name with them in your choice of frosting color.

Chapter Four

Hannah was in the kitchen refilling the large cookie jars they kept behind the counter in the coffee shop to display the day’s wares. She’d just put the lid back on the Raisin Drops when Lisa pushed open the swinging door that separated the coffee shop from the kitchen. “Mike’s here,” she announced. “Do you want me to send him back here?”

“Sure.” Hannah watched as Lisa crossed the floor and picked up two of the full cookie jars to take to the coffee shop. From day one, Lisa saw what needed to be done, and she did it without being asked. It was only one of the many characteristics that made her such a perfect partner.

Once Lisa was gone, Hannah took off the food service gloves she wore to handle cookies and reached up to smooth her hair. She knew it wouldn’t do much good. She could feel her unruly curls popping back up again the moment she removed her hand.