More To Life Than Being Happy Yknow Cooking Experiment: Nancy's Coconut Rum Balls

Adults love 'em. Not a cookie for children. At least not in 2023

Growing up, I always understood that my mom was a great cook. 

No, not a great cook.

An amazing cook.

Perhaps the very best cook in the world. 

It's conceivable that this belief partly stemmed from a rumor started by my mom herself, who had Olympic-level skills at controlling the narrative.

For example, my understanding growing up was that— regardless of what I felt and experienced– we were a very happy family because my mom said at least once a day, "We're such a happy family." 

I never considered another narrative until a family systems therapist asked, "Kelli, do you think happy families need to talk constantly about how happy they are?"

I was 27 and in an inpatient treatment program for trauma survivors. 

So, yeah, my mom was awe-inspiringly good at controlling the narrative, but I was also awe-inspiringly gullible for a really long time. 

A decade before she died, our mom made each kid a three-ring notebook with all her favorite recipes in it. It's a beautiful time capsule of the meals we loved as kids and the ardor, enthusiasm, and creativity she brought to feed her family. She seemed to love cooking for us, despite having highly ambivalent feelings about consuming any food herself lest she become OH MY GOD FAT. I was a fat kid; this was potentially harder on her self-esteem than mine. 

She was also quite persistent in making family meals an occasion, despite raising her five children in alternating chaos/military-style discipline, depending on the temperament of the man she was married to. 

Was my mom a good cook? Based on my recollection, yes. And also, maybe not always. 

One of the most annoying things about humans, even (or perhaps especially) the ones you really love, is their stubborn refusal to cooperate with fitting into the little boxes we want to assign them to. 

But I'm cooking my way through my mom's recipe book and embracing the mystery. 

RECIPE #1: NANCY’S COCONUT RUM BALLS

When I started doing stand-up, one of my favorite topics was My Mother's Cooking Has A Lot Of Alcohol In It. I'd adopt my mom's Midwest accent: "Anyone can teach you how to make rum cookies or rum cake, but I can share the recipe for rum meatloaf and rum mashed potatoes."

"Forget drinking and driving," I'd tell the rest of the comics at the open mic, "At my house, you couldn't eat and drive."

I thought the other comics didn't love the Hey, Let's Talk About Problematic Alcohol Consumption because they hated me for being a woman. Or queer. Or not thinking rape jokes were funny. I realize now they did hate me, probably for all three reasons I just named. But they couldn't laugh at the Alcohol Jokes because they hated themselves, and my Alcoholics R Us Sticht reflected a little too close to home. 

You'll undoubtedly see the Alcohol As Prominent Ingredient thread reappear in this series. But the relevance right now is that I checked with my siblings, and we all have clear memories of my mom's insistence that her Coconut Rum Balls were acceptable for consumption by children of any age because the alcohol totally cooked off. 

When I turned to the Coconut Rum Ball page on my mom's recipe book, I found that my mom's Coconut Rum Balls were, in fact, refrigerator cookies.

So, barring some wine-to-water type miracle, the alcohol definitely didn't cook off. 

The original recipe is as follows; my modifications and commentary start below. 

Here’s how I did it:

In a large bowl, combine:

• 12-ounce box of crushed vanilla wafers (I used the generic kind, Nilla wafers are great and all but they’re twice the price. WTF)

• 1 cup of chopped walnuts (I double-roasted mine first to tastify them*)

• 3.5-ounce can of whatever sweetened condensed milk they were selling at the bodega.

• A bunch of coconut from an actual coconut. I just shredded until I got annoyed and then stopped. My mom’s recipe calls for a can of coconut. A CAN! But Wisconsin in the 70s was pretty gastronomically provincial; I didn’t even see an avocado until I was in my mid-teens. So maybe coconut was only available in cans?

• 3/4 cup of rum. I used whatever PR rum the guy at the liquor store said would be good for cooking. It was $4.50.

Mix this all together and let it chill for a while. If you live in a shared apartment where everyone eats Factor meals, cover tightly with aluminum foil so that it doesn’t taste like Factor meals smell.

Shape the mixture into balls and then roll it in the coconut. I also rolled it in some leftover chopped/roasted walnuts. Also, I added cinnamon and a little bit of nutmeg to the coconut mixture because, again, taste.

Variation: Substitute Cremas or Coquito for the plain rum.

CONCLUSION:

I took these to a holiday pajama party with some friends who don’t bullshit me and also are acutely aware of the tendencies of the White Midwestern Palate. They liked them so much they asked for the recipe. Thanks Mom!

*All the recipes in Mom’s book are a little, shall we say, optimized for White Midwestern Tastes. Since I seldom cook for White Midwestern People, I usually take any opportunity to add depth of flavor and/or some spices beyond just salt/pepper.