Location: Never Never Land (aka my aunt’s living room in Las Vegas, NV)
The players: Me, as Wendy
Nate, as Captain Hook
Karlo (3 yr old cousin), as Peter Pan
Nate: Har har har I’m going to get you with my hook, Wendy! My big hook!
Me: Oh dear, not your big hook! (dude - that doesn’t even sound right). Save me Peter, save me!
Karlo: But I can’t! Wendy’s supposed to be skinny!
AND…CUT. End scene. Quickly, please.
He may have once deemed me an unfit Wendy due to our difference in size, he being about 3 feet tall at the time, me being 19 and outweighing him by a good 100 pounds (OR SO), but as I stood there looking down at this midget of a Peter Pan with a habit of quoting from the movie Independence Day – “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!” – I thought to myself, “This kid is going to be something special someday.” And he is. He is a remarkable young man who just started his first year at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the family couldn’t be more proud of him.
Friends who have requested my baked goods know my paranoia of mailing things across state lines...well, mailing things in general. I do not like broken cookies. I hate the idea of them not tasting fresh by the time they arrive at their destination. This makes me break into a cold sweat. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it. I have issues. But this weekend I put down the crazy juice for a minute and packaged 2 dozen oatmeal raisin chocolate chip pecan cookies for Karlo's parents to send in a care package this week. It’s the least I can do. I sealed the bags and tied them with the only ribbon I had. Pink (sorry, man). I’m praying that they end up intact and still taste good by the time they get there. Fingers crossed.
The rest of the cookies were taken out of my hands by a barrage of cousins before I even made it through the front door of my mom and dad's house. There were two different types: the first batch I made with raisins and no chocolate chips and the next batch was with chocolate chips and no raisins. You can interchange the two if you want. Hell - you don't even have to add nuts if you don't want to. Why? Because we live in a free country and every day is Independence Day. Thanks to all of those special individuals who make it so, especially to the grandpa I never met but love nonetheless, all my uncles, cousins, friends, in-laws, and Nate, who joined up as a reservist before he even started his senior year of high school. Freedom is so sweet.
Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies (with or without Choco Chips)
Adapted from: 2008, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, All Rights Reserved
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 cups pecans
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp of ground ginger (I added this just to see what would happen - I don't think I added enough to make much of a difference, really)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (I used regular salt)
• 3 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1 ½ cups raisins
• 1 ½ cups chocolate chips (I like chocolate)
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place the pecans on a sheet pan and bake for 5 minutes, until crisp. Set aside to cool. Chop very coarsely. (I didn’t do this since Trader Joe’s did all the work for me. Much easier to go this route.)
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt together into a medium bowl. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Add the oats, raisins, and pecans and mix just until combined. (You can add the chips to this too...or not. Whatever you want, my friends!)
5. Using a small ice-cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop 2-inch mounds of dough onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper. Flatten slightly with a damp hand. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned (I usually like to stay on the low side, but these took 14 minutes. I kept opening the oven door every minute to check. This is not usually recommended, but I am a nervous baker). Transfer the cookies to a baking rack and cool completely.
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