A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg Page A

my skin has only two settings: pale and burnt. Though my parents gave it their best, constantly slathering me with SPF 45, I had my share of sunburns as a child, and most were incurred at beaches and pools where the scent of tanning oil hung heavy in the air. Needless to say, coconut had a long row to hoe with me. Twenty years long.
    But then along came Max’s Café. The summer after my sophomore year of college, I was working at a grocery store in Mill Valley, California, and living with my aunt Tina, whose house is only a few minutesfrom an outpost of Max’s Café, a California-based deli chain. Actually, the word deli isn’t really strong enough; Max’s is more like a deli-meets-pleasure dome. They serve cakes and pastrami sandwiches as big as your head. One night, after picking up a movie at the video store, we decided to stop by for something sweet. That was when I saw Max’s enormous chocolate-covered coconut macaroon. It was conical and imposing, the size of a beehive hairdo, covered from head to toe in a rippling sheath of chocolate. There was coconut under there somewhere, I knew, but it certainly was skillfully hidden. I felt myself starting to succumb. We bought one and brought it home, and that night, I was converted to coconut worship. A one-pound macaroon will stand for nothing less.
    There would be no turning back. That summer, I bought those macaroons more often than I’d like to admit, and I’m willing to admit to a lot. They were dense, toothachingly sweet, and rich enough to cause hot flashes. I’d usually cut one into quarters and savor it over a couple of days. Only once did I throw caution to the wind, tucking away three-quarters in a single evening. I barely lived to tell the tale, and with much, much regret.
    But the near overdose only dampened my enthusiasm for a few weeks. By my birthday in mid-September, I had recovered enough to request a cake-sized macaroon as one of my birthday cakes. There would be two that year: the macaroon and a four-layer lemon cake with lemon curd. It was my twenty-first birthday, so excess was in order.
    I called Max’s central bakery in the South Bay. They had never taken an order like mine, so I really had to spell it out, and they questioned my resolve more than once. But in the end, they pulled through admirably, creating the biggest and most horrifyingly beautiful macaroon I have ever seen. It was made from four layers of macaroon batter, thick and sticky and piped into a spiral, and after baking, each layer was dipped in chocolate. Then they were stacked one upon the other, with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on top, so that, together, they looked like a jumbo version of a more standard-sized macaroon. Then the whole thing was doused in chocolate again. For all that, theycharged me only thirty dollars, and they delivered it to the house. It was a coup. I haven’t seen anything quite that magnificent since.
    There’s a picture of me taken that night, with the macaroon cake. In the photograph, I’m blowing out the candles on my other birthday cake, the lemon one, and I’m wearing some very aggressive purple eye shadow and a streak of lemon curd on my cheek, the latter coming courtesy of my cousin Sarah, who, even at the age of twenty-three, had to put her hand in the cake and then smear it across my face. The macaroon is sitting next to me on a glass cake stand, unfazed.
    But then, a couple of years later, I would graduate from college and leave California. I would lose access to Max’s macaroons. But that’s okay, as it turned out, because I found a recipe that I like even better. (Max’s always were a little too sweet.) They’re incredibly easy to make—though I haven’t attempted a cake version yet, so I make no claims there—and they’re so moist and chewy that they’re almost closer to candy than they are to cookies. Which, though it may sound strange, is a good