I Wish I Had A Penny

If I had a penny for every cookie I've baked in my lifetime, I'd be independently wealthy now.  This thought came to me as I was taking the umpteeth pan of oatmeal-cranberry cookies out of the oven yesterday.  Dave and Clay are coming up today to play lumberjack, cutting rounds from a huge fallen oak limb down in the front pasture, and I needed something to round out their lunch.  Planning ahead, I thought that if I baked enough cookies, that would work for the gang on Sunday, too; ergo, a double batch.

We didn't have a lot of money when the Kids were little and in school.  Lunches were not bought in the cafeteria but carried in lunch boxes or brown-paper bags: a sandwich, a piece of fruit, maybe some chips when we could afford them, and homemade cookies.  I never bothered with those recipes that made only a wimpy three dozen; they weren't worth the time and usually called for frou-frou, expensive ingredients like macadamia nuts.  I needed "working-man" cookie recipes; big, substantial, cheap, and make a lot.  The first pan went down waiting gullets and, because I never had a timer then, the last pan usually burned.  I'd be so tired of making cookies I'd throw the pan in the oven and think, "I'm done!"  A neighbor gave me a recipe for molasses cookies.  I will admit now what I wouldn't then:  they weren't very good.  They made me think of Gammy's cookies (from The Egg and I):  "...big and round and about half an inch thick.  They stuck to the roof of the mouth and had no taste."  No matter.  The recipe made about twelve dozen and that was reason enough to shove them at the Kids.  On a trip from California to Wisconsin, I had baked a double batch of those dreadful molasses cookies so I could pass them out in the car to whining children.  I can hear the Kids' dad even now, "Don't make me stop this car!"  After a few days, those cookies clumped together to the point I was breaking off chunks instead of handing out cookies.  I think that was the last time I used that recipe.  It may be that the Kids used their lunch cookies as bargaining chips, trading for store-bought Oreos or Nutter-Butters.  They've never said and I never asked.  I just kept baking cookies.

Every flat surface in the kitchen is covered with oatmeal cookies this morning.  If I know Dave and Clay, cutting firewood will leave them hungry enough to eat cardboard.  These cookies are pretty good.  I know; I had them for dinner last night.