^ A WEEK later? Piker! 
FIVE DOZEN, dude. Lol
It’s probably a general Central/Eastern European type of cookie. Given how close Czechia and Poland are and how much of their cuisines are similar to each other, it’s unsurprising that your Czech friend’s mom makes a similar cookie.
Wikipedia has an article about the various regional variations. Looks like it goes beyond Central/Eastern Europe a bit, but is most concentrated there.
The family recipe is a butter cookie with anise oil as a flavoring. They get better as they get older, so if you can keep them around, they are always great.
I’ve only made them once since moving out of my parents’ house. We don’t have a mixer, so creaming the butter and sugar is one roadblock. Trying to cut carbs and being perennially broke are others.
Mom cookies, of course. She had many but my two favorites were the Toll House chocolate chip from the original recipe published back in the 'forties and a thin crisp almond cookie somewhat like these but even lacier and with almond slivers instead of slices.
My first Christmas in the Navy was on Okinawa and she’d sent me a care package. She had the correct address but it got misdirected anyway and did not arrive until mid-January. The box had been a cube but now more closely resembled a sphere. The Toll House cookies were still intact but the almond were pretty much crumbs. Still tasty, though.
I make a really easy meringue cookie with chocolate chips. I’ll find the actual recipe later, but basically:
Separate 4-6 eggs. They must be reasonably fresh, and you need to whip them right away – this doesn’t work well with the leftover egg whites from yesterday’s yolky custard.
Whip up meringue (adding cream of tartar, sugar, maybe a tad of salt)
When you get stiff peaks, gently stir in chocolate chips, reserving a few for the end. Using two spoons, dollop the dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. When you get to the end of the batter, and find that the bit on the bottom has few chips, add the rest of the chips.
They will approximately double in every dimension, so leave room.
I like to use the spoon to pull up some “peaks” at the top of the cookies, to brown.
I usually cook them in a fairly hot oven to caramelize the peaks. Also, I like the centers to be chewy. My sister adds a higher ratio of sugar to egg white than I do, and cooks them gently in a cooler oven, so hers come out all white, but she also leaves them a little chewy in the center.
Oh – the parchment paper is key. It’s incredibly easy to pull the parchment away from the cookies, and you can save the parchment with the cookie trays and use it again next time. But if you bake the cookies directly on the tray it can be very hard to remove them without cracking them. They are fairly delicate and brittle. If you don’t have parchment paper, you can use aluminum foil or cut up a brown super-market bag.
My wife loves the aforementioned almond balls. The first batch disappeared quickly, so I gave into the puppy eyes and made a second double batch. A single batch calls for a half pound of butter. Somehow, in all the activity yesterday, I managed to conflate a double batch with two cubes of butter. Once mixed, I immediately realized my mistake, as the mixture was dry as a popcorn fart. No real biggie, as I had a brick of Irish butter at room temperature. Problem #2: my brain interpreted that brick as a one pounder, when in fact, they come as 8 ounces. I tossed in half the brick instead of the whole thing. The mix still looked a bit dry, but I figured maybe I had added a bit too much flour along the way.
These are some dry cookies. Edible, but dry. :smack: