Naperville woman’s cookie recipe inspires a holiday tradition: ‘Through all the stages of my life … I always had this’

For 27 years, Kathleen Carlson and Sandra Petrille have shared an unspoken bond.

Their paths never actually crossed, not really. But each impressed the other, whether they knew it or not.

All thanks to 4 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 cup of packed light brown sugar and 1 pound of butter, unsalted and softened.

Over the past two and half decades, Carlson has — without fail — baked the same brown-sugar shortbread cookies for the holidays. They’re simple, done in a few hours. Just heat the oven, mix the dough, divide onto baking sheets, decorate as desired.

Straight out of Petrille’s family cookbook.

Carlson’s run-in with the recipe, though, was a matter of chance.

It was December 1996. Carlson, a Chicago native, was 27 at the time, living on the city’s South Side, working in the office of then-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and going through a difficult breakup. Single and in need of some comfort, she did the natural thing and found solace in sweets.

She knew just where to go: her local paper.

Carlson grew up reading the Chicago Tribune. And she knew that, for some time, the Tribune had devoted one December spread every year to its Holiday Cookie Contest, a still-annual tradition in which the best Chicago-area bakers’ holiday recipes are shared with readers.

Jackpot.

Carlson flipped through the ‘96 results. First place went to a “chocolate shot” cookie recipe but Carlson wanted a change of pace, which she found in the brown-sugar shortbread offering from second-place winner Sandra Petrille, of Naperville.

“I cut it out,” Carlson recalled, and baked a batch with her brother. Then she tucked the clipping away, only to pull it out a year later. And again, the year after that. And again.

And again.

From apartment to apartment, city to city, marriage and kids, Carlson pulled out Petrille’s shortbread recipe every December. The clipping yellowed, wrinkled and ripped. At the top of the page, a small picture of Petrille faded.

“Through all the stages of my life … I always had this,” she said.

By 2021, Carlson had spent almost a quarter century making Petrille’s cookies. She and her family were well-rooted in Brooklyn, New York, and her two kids teenagers by then. After so many years, she started to wonder, where was Sandra now?

Call it a renewed appreciation for connection coming out of the COVID pandemic, but Carlson wanted to speak to her cookie inspiration and say thank you.

“I was just looking at Sandra’s picture on the recipe, and I thought to myself, I should find her online somehow and just write her a little card saying what a great recipe it was and how I’ve kept it all these years and how it has just how much joy it has brought my family and I.”

She took to Google and found Petrille still living in Naperville. She mailed out a letter, not expecting a response.

And for more than a year, there was no return letter. Until January 2023.

In her mailbox, she received a note addressed to “Kathleen Carlson & Family.” It was signed by Dennis Petrille, Sandra’s husband.

“Our family cannot fully express our gratitude for your heartfelt Christmas card” of December 2021, it read. He would have responded sooner, he said, but had lost Carlson’s address and had to track her down.

“That you took the time to mail Sandy a card was a beautiful gesture,” he went on. “It meant so much to our family that we framed it and it now hangs in our living room.”

Carlson’s note struck such a chord that it made an appearance at her funeral, Dennis wrote.

Sandra Petrille died in her sleep Aug. 6, 2022, two days before her 81st birthday, and 25 days shy of her 59th wedding anniversary to Dennis.

Sandra didn’t get a chance to respond to Carlson, but Dennis assured her in his note that “your card took a prominent place in (Sandra’s) memorial service, reminding us of one of her many talents and effect on other people.”

He told her the card offered “a poignant tribute to Sandy, who was a wonderfully loving person herself.” She would have enjoyed knowing his wife, he said.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Dennis, now 83, said Sandra was nothing short of a gourmet cook.

“We have a recipe book that’s probably 3 inches thick,” he said. One page is devoted to her famed shortbread cookies, a recipe she got from her mother.

Carlson cried at Dennis’ response, she said.

“To hear that she had just passed away and that this letter had meant so much to her and her family … it was emotional,” she said.

Dennis and Carlson have remained pen pals since. This holiday season, they exchanged Christmas cards. Carslon says she hopes they stay in contact.

“I feel like there’s beauty in writing a letter to somebody,” she said. “Just keeping them in your correspondence in that meaningful, actual paper or card way is a bright (light).”

All thanks to 4 cups of all-purpose flour. 1 cup of packed light brown sugar.

And one pound of butter, unsalted and softened.

tkenny@chicagotribune.com