Mom's Cookies

My mom makes these cookies. They are hard to describe. They are homemade. Of that, there is no doubt. I'm pretty sure the ingredients vary batch to batch. They have oatmeal, raisins, chocolate chips, some sort of weird health-nut product like bone meal or lecithin, or both, sometimes shredded carrots, sunflower seeds, ummmmmm....there's lots of stuff. They are super healthy, super filling, and somewhat mysterious, in my opinion. They are well-loved. Personally, I'm a fan of the processed, teeth-rotting, artery clogging, simple chocolate chip cookie---but most of my family, and almost any friend who's had these cookies my mom makes, LOVES them.

When I was 14ish, I took piano lessons from a local concert pianist. My mom made a rookie mistake in assuming that a concert pianist would be a good piano teacher. He was not. But, it was still a good experience, and I still learned, so all was not lost. He was a little....off. Aside from sleeping through most of my lessons, and accusing me of being on drugs during one entire lesson, he was just different. One night he stopped at my parent's house and led himself into the kitchen and plopped down. There were bananas on the table and he voraciously ate two of them without pause. Then he spotted my mom's cookies in a bag on the table. An old bread bag, that's what she kept them in. She could freeze a batch to get us through Armageddon, if the need arose.

He sat upright suddenly and pointed at the bag, "are those your mom's bars, trail mix, cookies...is that what I think it is in that bag?"

I said that it was. He frantically reached in his pocket and threw four dollar bills on the table. Now, keep in mind, this was around 1990, so this was like he threw six dollars and forty cents on the table! "I'll give you all the money in my pocket for just one of those cookies!" I burst out laughing. Then quickly squelched it because he was my teacher and he wasn't trying to be funny. I thought it odd that the bananas didn't even get acknowledged as they were wolfed down, but the cookies were paid for, in cash.

That's how awesome my mom's cookies are.

Bo can't stop talking about them. He was introduced to them probably two years ago. Sometimes when we visit, Grandma gives Bo his own little cottage cheese container of cookies. He doesn't share, and he gobbles them up in no time. He canNOT stop talking about them. He knows they are good for him because even Grandma's "candy bars are actually just health bars" and she doesn't cook with white sugar and she would never give him that much of something that wasn't good for him. But it's "just so crazy, because they taste sooooo good too!"

I don't share Bo's sentiments. Or Mr. Piano Teacher's. But I hope my mom writes down "the" recipe before she kicks the cottage cheese container. Because some things need to live forever.