Mile Posts and the World's Best Cookies

So, this is reporting-in time.  We are very close to achieving

our first 1,000 hits. (986)  We’ve had people from Russia,  Germany,

Latvia, Columbia, South Korea, Canada, Australia,  New Zealand,

the Ukraine, The Netherlands, Belgium, and India. 

Most of our readers are from the US, an obvious thing, I’m thinking,

but our foreign hits were a complete and pleasant surprise to me. 

Maybe we are one big, family, certainly genetics would suggest such a thing. 

If we could just deal with  the dysfunctional parts. . .

I have loved every post and every comment and every reader.  

Those stories tell us there is such good news, such love in the small, quiet moments,

and my sensibility of family has gotten bigger, there are delicious things to make for the people we love, and hope is bad times is not over-rated.

If I could, I’d do tea and cookies for everybody, listen for your stories and

share a laugh or two.  Here’s my favorite cookie recipe, via Martha, at the moment.

It has a modification or two.  Heat your oven to 350 degrees and line a

cookie sheet with parchment.

11/2 flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Give those a quick whisk. Reserve.

In another bowl,

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter.  

 ¾ cup white sugar

¾ cup brown  sugar

1 egg

1-2 tablespoons vanilla, the best you can buy

Whip those together, until the whole thing is

fluffy.  Then add the flour mixture and beat that.

Then add:

1 ½ cup oatmeal

1 cup dried cherries (use the tartest ones you

can find.  The contrast between the tart cherries

and the sweetness of the dough is magical.)

1 cup chopped pecans ( optional)

1 cup toffee pieces

You might need your hands to incorporate everything.

I made large walnut sized pieces with my hands,

and then flattened them until they are no more

than ¼  inch thick..  Put six on a cookie

sheet.

Bake them four minutes.  Rotate the cookie sheet.

Bake another four minutes.  You can let them

bake another 2-3 minutes, depending on the

level of doneness you wish.  Or you can

take them out after they’ve baked 8 minutes.

Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before

you remove them from the sheet.

The toffee melt into the cookies dough and

create an extraordinary, crispy, thin cookie.

They are so good.