My mother liked to bake cookies. She had a wonderful recipe for the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I have ever tasted (see recipe below).
For as long as I remember, she would bake batches of cookies a couple of times per week. After she baked the cookies and they cooled, she would put them in Tupperware containers. She had a couple of rectangle containers and one round container that would fit a couple of dozen cookies in each.
Because we all loved to eat cookies, Mom had several hiding places for these cookie containers. She usually put one in the freezer side of the kitchen refrigerator. This one was the "easy access" one for all of us who loved to snack on cookies. I would come home from school and get four or five frozen cookies from this container and eat them with a large glass of milk as my after-school snack.
At different times in my life, I found cookie containers in each of the following locations on one or more occasions:
- in the cabinet behind the fold-out ironing board
- behind the canisters on the kitchen counter
- in the small triangle cupboard between the kitchen and the living room (my siblings will know what I mean by this description even in my kids do not!)
- in the cupboard above the fridge in the kitchen
- in the cupboard above the washer and dryer on the porch
- inside the dryer!
- in the round clothes basket, she kept in her bedroom that was usually filled with blankets
- in the game closet in the master bedroom
- behind the towels in the bathroom linen closet
- the freezer downstairs in Kris' bedroom
After I graduated from high school and moved out on my own, each time I returned to visit home, one of the things I would do during my stay was search for cookie containers. In retrospect, maybe it was a game for Mom to hide the cookies and rejoice in our joy at finding and eating the cookies. This is one of the things I miss the most about Mom.
Grandma Jasperson's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
| 1 cup butter 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder | 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp vanilla ½ tsp salt 1½ - 3 cups oatmeal ½ package chocolate chips |
Blend butter and sugars. Add eggs and mix well. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and salt. Mix. Add oatmeal. Mix. Add chocolate chips. Mix. Bake at 375° for 8 minutes.
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