Today I received my complimentary copy of the new book “We Feel Fine” in the mail.  The book is “An Almanac of Human Emotion” created by by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, and is a combination of photos and sentences that contain the words “I feel” or “I am feeling.”  Their basic summary of the project is “In 2005, we wrote a program that scans all blogs every few minutes for sentences that contain the words “I feel” or “I am feeling”. Four years and 12 million feelings later, we decided to write a book on what we’ve found.”

The reason that I received a complimentary copy is because stuff from my blog was featured.  They emailed me a while back asking for permission to use some stuff and I agreed.  Then they stayed in contact letting me know the status of the book and even invited me to the book launch in New York, which of course I was not able to attend, but still thought it was pretty cool to be invited.  Then today, my free copy of the book came in.  It is a pretty cool book, I would recommend checking it out!  You can check out the interactive online version of the book here.  And you can view the book here.

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I know I have not posted in a while, but so what.  I am here today and that is all that matters!  I thought that I would share the absolute best cookie recipe in the history of cookie recipes.  My mom has this little green recipe book, that is old as dirt and that she has hand-written some of our favorite recipes in.  She never shares the recipes in this book.  NEVER.  Last year, my friend Nadine FINALLY got her to bend and give her this cookie recipe, after repeated begging and pleading.  I made a batch Thanksgiving Day and took some photos while doing so and told my mom I was going to blog the recipe.  She said “NO!” - I laughed and said, “Seriously Mom, have I ever listened to you when you tell me no?”  So without further ado, I am going to give you the recipe for the best oatmeal/raisin cookie ever - and I can say that with 100% complete confidence that it is a true statement because I ABSOLUTELY HATE oatmeal cookies and I HATE raisins even more - BUT I LOVE THESE COOKIES… if that tells you ANYTHING!

BEHOLD… the recipe for Oatmeal Mac Cookies:

Preheat Oven to 350 Degrees.

2C Shortening
2C Brown Sugar
2C Granulated Sugar
1t Vanilla
4 Eggs
2-1/2 C Flour, Sifted
2t Baking Soda
1t Salt
1t Cinnamon
4C Quaker Oats (Quick 1 Minute Type)
Golden California Raisins (has to be the golden kind!!!!)

Okay - ready?  Get your ingredients together.

Combine shortening, sugars, vanilla and eggs and beat together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl combine flower, soda, salt and cinnamon.

Slowly beat the flour mixture into shortening/sugar mixture until all mixed.

Now it is time for the oats… before I go on, please note that when you open your container of oats, you will be immediately faced with a competing oatmeal cookie recipe.  IGNORE IT.  This recipe wants you to believe that the cookies will be “vanishing” because they are so delicious… that is a lie, they will only be vanishing because you are throwing them away for NOT tasting as good as this recipe.  Trust me!

Okay - back to the recipe… Fold in the oats (it will be thick and hard to stir… I mean it, Mr. T could not stir these oats in, so be prepared).  Add raisins to taste (about a cups worth or so).

Drop by heaping teaspoon onto un-greased cookie sheets.  You want these cookies kind of large.  You should plan on 2 across and 4 down on the cookie sheet, instead of the usual 3 across, 4 down that you are used to.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

And there you have it… Oatmeal Mac Cookies.  Good luck not gaining 30 pounds with them, because you will not be able to just eat one.  Here is the printable recipe if you want it: Oatmeal Mac Cookie Recipe (PDF)