Mom’s Cookies, or Why I’ve Never Minded Losing Teams Much

When I was about six years old, we had just gotten cable so that we could get the premium-tier channel that many of our local baseball team’s games were on. When a game wasn’t going well for them, my mom would run from the room, saying she couldn’t take it anymore, into the kitchen, and shortly thereafter, these cookies would appear. We had a lot of cookies that summer..

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip (and Kitchen Sink) Cookies

Makes about 5 dozen

— ML Zelditch

1. Preheat oven to 325°; in a large bowl, combine:
   • 2 cups oatmeal
   • 1 cup chopped nuts
     (pecans are canonical; walnuts are also good, or a mix)
   • 1 cup dried fruit
     (raisins are canonical; dried cranberries, cherries, or other dried fruit, or a mix, are also good)
   • 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
   • 8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
   • 8 oz milk chocolate chips
2. Cream into bowl:
   • 2 sticks butter, or 1 stick butter plus 1/2 cup shortening
   • 1 cup white sugar
   • 1/2 cup brown sugar
   • 2 Tbsp vanilla
3. Add:
   • 2 eggs
   • 1/4 cup milk

   Whip 3 minutes.

4. Sift into the batter:
   • 2 1/4 cups flour
   • 1 tsp baking soda
   • 1 tsp salt

   Beat another minute.

5. Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake 12–15 minutes until set and dry on top but not yet brown around edges. Cool on plates or wire racks; whatever manages to survive can go into zipper bags and be put in the freezer. They’ll probably keep for a couple weeks, but, honestly, they’ll be gone before they go bad, or something’s wrong with your family.

I’m sure most every baking family has a “Kitchen Sink Cookie” recipe, but this one is ours. This one came to me from my mother; I don’t actually know where she might have gotten it from. (Of course, I suppose I could ask, but then where would the mystery be? Besides, aren’t recipes like this supposed to just spring forth from the imagination of your mother, without precedent, precursor, or equal…?)

Clearly, whether adapted from the classic Nestlé-bag Toll House Cookies or another source, they have… evolved — you could even say, into a higher species of cookie — over time.