These oatmeal cookies were delicious, and my mother’s rogue post that follows ain’t half bad either. It reminds me of the letters she used to write to me when I was at summer camp. I used to always get homesick, especially at camp, and her letters never helped much.
“The kitchen is silent as I write this,” she would say. “I made blueberry muffins this morning but there is no one here to eat them.”
Lines like this were enough to send me into a fit of snotty tears, and since I was embarrassed to be caught crying over letters from home, I got into the habit of stuffing them into my pockets and then trudging up the hill to the “latrines” where I could read them in one of the toilet stalls and weep privately .
What a baby!
I now hand you over to my mother and her delicious oatmeal cookie recipe. I recommend eating them for breakfast, because they are sort of like a jacked up granola bar.
*You may also like to note my mother's photography- and the fact that the lense to her camera apparently has a smudge on it. Greasy cookie dough fingers will do that!
This is a ROGUE BLOG posted by Simon and I, who, for the past few days, have been left home alone in the hot, humid, Rhode Island heat. We have been missing Sophie, her blogging, and her cooking because she has been ‘otherwise occupied ‘with her travels and is now consumed by her summer tutoring job at URI.
When will life return to normal? When will Sophie sit again on the sofa paging through volumes of poetry and cookbooks releasing little sighs of delight and ‘hmmms’ of anticipation?
Last night, after the wild and sudden downpour that created flash flooding along Wakefield’s Main Street, Sophie drove off to her class. Abandoned once more in the 90 degree heat and in a fit of desperation, Simon and I decided to further crank up the BTU’s in the kitchen and bake.…. oatmeal cookies. Specifically, the comforting oatmeal cookies from Simon’s childhood memory. It was wicked hot in the kitchen but the cookies did not disappoint. Here’s our version of the original recipe taken from The Bakery Lane Soup Bowl Cookbook by Marge Mitchell and Joan Sedgwick which makes no apologies for butter and cream. We played with it a little by eliminating the white sugar and cinnamon, adding raw sugar, coconut, peanut butter chips, vanilla and peanuts.
Oatmeal Cookies
3 cups regular oats
2 cups raw and brown sugars
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup sunflower oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
Assorted chocolate and peanut butter chips, raisins, shredded coconut, slightly salted peanuts and walnuts.
In a big bowl mix dry ingredients, in a big measuring cup( 4 cups) mix the liquid ingredients and the baking soda. Mix liquid in to the dry. Stir in the assorted chips and nuts. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet . Bake about 10 minutes or until they smell wonderful at 350 degrees. Makes about 3 dozen healthy sized cookies.
