"Do Not Make Again" Cookies

and why I do it every year

I never met my mother-in-law, who died before I ever encountered, let alone married, her child. I do make one of her recipes, though. It’s not that I couldn’t make more of them. In the pantry, there’s a whole box full of recipes for the things she made, once upon a time, before her younger child — who grew up to become the guy I married — turned 13. …