THE STORY OF THE COOKIE STORY

A few years ago my mom started telling the cookie story. It is a story of a slightly humorous minor misunderstanding.  After the fourth or fifth time I asked her to stop telling it, because for one thing she remembered it differently from the way I did and every time I heard it I had to decide whether I ought to tell my side of it or just let it go, and for another thing a funny thing I did when I was a kid is kind of embarrassing for a greybearded old coot to have to keep having stuck in his face forty years later.  I record here for digital posterity the story of the cookie story as I remember it, which is probably considerably different from the way it really happened.  What we really need to do is have my mom and sister write up their versions and do a whole Rashomon thing on it.  So here goes:


My mom found a cookie recipe she wanted to try out and they turned out pretty well.  We liked them quite a bit.  The recipe makes a huge batch, about eight dozen cookies, and that can last a family of three a pretty long time.  We liked them enough that when we finished them, Mom made them again right away.  They are good cookies, really good, but weeks and weeks of the same cookie gets kind of wearing on a kid.  I thought once this batch was finished I could get her to make something different.  The problem was getting those cookies eaten up, so when my friend Robert would come over I would give him a whole lot of them, as many as he could carry in both hands, and soon they were gone.  Problem solved.  Except I came home that fine summer afternoon to find Mom had just finished baking another gigantic batch of those same cookies.  "They disappeared so quickly that I knew you really like them so I made you some more," is what I imagine her saying.  That is really all there is to that story except for my shocking confession.  


I made a version of those cookies today and they are really good.  I made minor substitutions, but here is the recipe as I got it from my mom:



Pioneer Home Cookies 
1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup margarine (cubes not tub) (1/2 pound)

1 cup salad oil

1 egg

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon sour milk or cream

1 teaspoon cream of tarter

3-1/2 cups flour

1 cup oatmeal

1 cup cornflakes

1 cup coconut

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Drop by teaspoon on greased cookie sheet then press flat with glass dipped in sugar.
Bake 350 degrees for 10 minutes until light brown.

I made a half recipe, using butter instead of margarine, and baking powder instead of the soda/tartar - it's the same thing. I added another tablespoon of flour to make up for the wetness of a whole egg in a half recipe.  I keep rolled whole barley, rye and oats in the house rather than oatmeal and used more of that instead of the coconut.  I crunched up some Rice Chex in place of the corn flakes, but you could use more oatmeal for that too if you like.  Using both oil and butter makes them very light and crisp, but it also stays in your mouth a bit, which may be why I got tired of them.  It says drop by teaspoon, and that is not a measuring teaspoon but a regular spoon. They are very soft when first out of the oven but they harden up after about a minute and they don't clamp onto the pan, so you can let them sit for a minute before taking them off.  When you try a new recipe for the first time always do one test cookie first just so you can see what they are going to do.  I use a little metal pie pan for that. Here is what four dozen Pioneer Home Cookies look like:

There is the story and there are the cookies.  Now my story is ended.