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I can’t wait to try this recipe- it’s a little different from the one I grew up with, but sounds very good.

Buckeyes are my favorite cookie. Being from an Italian family in Pittsburgh, our family celebrations always featured an enormous quantity and variety of cookies. (Ask Tom sometime about the cookie table at my cousin’s wedding.) I always head straight for the buckeyes. Grandma always made sure to set a few extra aside for me when I was in high school.

After I went off to college, Grandma must have confused buckeyes with chocolate balls, which are sort of a dry, crumbly cookie flavored with clove. When I came home for Christmas, she came over with a tin of them, and with a big grin on her face, opened the tin to offer me some. 

She obstinately refuses to use a computer, so I can tell you this: I HATE chocolate balls. But she had specifically made them for me, thinking they were my favorite and wouldn’t it be nice to have them for her granddaughter home from break after her first semester of college. 

So I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t like them. I took one, smiled really big, thanked her, and ate it. And later gave the rest of them to my mom, who really does enjoy them.

But 14 years later, I can’t set her straight now. Every year I came home from break, and she was all excited to offer me that first chocolate ball. She still makes them for me if she knows I’m coming home for the holidays. And I just can’t figure out how to tell her I really don’t like them. 

So whenever it happens, I choke one down, smile real big, and thank God I’ve still got a grandma who likes to bake me cookies.